Was the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world, or did Jesus go to prepare a place later?

The two sayings describe one preparation from two sides: God’s purpose, and the carrying out of that purpose. Matthew 25:34 speaks of God’s plan. The kingdom was prepared “from the foundation of the world” in the sense that God had appointed it, and the people for it, from the beginning, as Paul says that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). Barnes puts it this way: God has no new plan; what he gives at the end, he always meant to give.

John 14:2 speaks of how that purpose would be fulfilled. Jesus does not say that heaven did not yet exist. He says the opposite, in the present tense: “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (Greek monai, ‘dwelling places’). What he goes to do is prepare a place there for his disciples. He was going by way of the cross, the resurrection and the ascension, and Hebrews describes what that achieved: Christ entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24), as the forerunner who has gone in on our behalf (6:20). His sacrifice and his presence before the Father secure his people’s place, as a builder carries out a plan drawn long before.

Hebrews 11:16 shows that both ideas belong together. It says of Abraham and the patriarchs, long before Jesus spoke, that God “hath prepared for them a city”; yet they would enter it only through what Christ was about to do. A kingdom planned from the beginning and made ready by Christ’s work are the plan and its fulfilment, not two rival dates.

Preparing the people as well as the place

Some add that Jesus prepares his people for the place as well as the place for them: by going to the Father he would send the Spirit, who makes believers ready for heaven. Gill writes that while Christ is fitting up the mansions, his people are being fitted for them by his Spirit and grace.

The New Testament does not say what the preparing involved beyond Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension and intercession, and most commentators are careful not to go further.