The apostles’ preaching touched the hearts not only of Jews but also of Gentiles, since the Kingdom from the very beginning was open to everyone who was ready to entrust himself to the Savior. Something else is interesting: these recent Gentiles who come into the Church are perceived by the sacred writer as an integral part of the new people of God, as those who were “appointed beforehand” to eternal life, to the life of the Kingdom. In principle, of course, there is nothing especially unusual in such a vision of the Church as the new people of God. According to the ideas generally accepted in the synagogue milieu of that time, the people of God had been conceived by God before the creation of the world, just as the Messiah had been. And already during the lifetime of the first Christian generation the Church transferred this understanding to itself as the new people of God.

But with regard to the Gentiles the situation was not so unambiguous. Of course, the prophets said more than once that with the coming of the Messiah the Gentiles would turn to the God of Israel and enter the people of God as an integral part of it. But such entry evidently did not mean that God’s plan for His people included the Gentiles too from the very beginning. It was a manifestation of God’s mercy: though He had promised the Gentiles nothing in advance, through the Messiah He nevertheless gives them the possibility of becoming participants in His plan for the salvation of the world. And the Church, as can be seen, extended this idea of God’s providence to all its members, regardless of origin.

Such a rethinking of the boundaries of the people of God was extremely important. Under the traditional Jewish definition of those boundaries, no Gentile, even one who believed in the God of Israel, fell within them unless he accepted Judaism in its fullness and became a Jew. The Church, however, from the very beginning linked the boundaries of the people of God not with the Jewish people as an ethnic group and not with the Synagogue, but with the person of the Messiah. The people’s boundaries were expanded by such an approach, but the former covenants that God had made with His people were not thereby devalued: relationship with God is a single and spiritually whole process, in which every stage is important, beginning with Abraham and ending with Christ. And there was also the covenant with Noah, that collective image of all the righteous of the Gentile world, to whom the new view of the people of God opened a path into the Church without passing through the Synagogue. Thus the Kingdom united the former people of God with every righteous person who sought true life in all its fullness.

Jesus' words about His unity with the Father, spoken during the Last Supper, take on a new meaning compared with what they conveyed before. Now Jesus speaks of this unity as the way, the truth, and the life. His life itself proves to be not only the fullness of living truth but also the living embodiment of the path everyone must travel—the path of the Kingdom. In those days, the ideas of way, truth, and life were traditionally associated with the Torah. The Torah was regarded as the way, the way of truth and the way of life, leading the one who walked it to God and to the threshold of the messianic Kingdom. The ideal was a living Torah, which a person could become if his life conformed to it completely.

By calling Himself the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus speaks of Himself as the living Torah. But His way becomes the way of the Kingdom. His relationship with the Father contains a dynamic that is revealed to the world as the dynamic of the Kingdom entering it. He goes to the Father—and the Kingdom enters the world. Such is the path of the Man who revealed the Torah to the world in all its fullness, the living Torah. But it is also the path of every Christian, everyone who wants to follow Christ into His Kingdom and travel that path to the end.

The Savior goes so that there may be a place in His Kingdom for each of His disciples and followers. But to become His disciple in truth, to reach those dwelling places in the Kingdom that He promises to prepare for them, one must repeat His journey. Not imitate it outwardly, but repeat it in essence, travel it oneself—and oneself become a living Torah.

Of course, a person does not remain alone on this path. Otherwise no one could become a living Torah, for without help from above this is impossible for a sinful human being. Yet everyone must still walk for himself. A person can be helped to walk, but only if he is walking rather than sitting on the sidelines. This is the path to which Jesus calls His disciples. He is confident that they know the way, for He Himself is before their eyes as a living example. They do not yet see or understand everything, of course, but what they do not yet see or understand can be understood only through their own experience, which each of them will gain in due course. Words are useless here. Jesus has already told His disciples the essential thing; the rest will become clear once they set out on the path.

That the word of God must sound to the ends of the earth was already known from the preaching of the prophets. They were the first to speak of the calling, in the days of the Messiah, of Gentiles who would join the remnant of the Jewish people in order to form with it the new people of God. Only no one expected that the formation of this new people would begin with recent pagans. Logic suggested that the Jews, of course, would be the first to recognize and accept their Messiah, especially since in Gospel times there were many messianic movements among the people, and the question of exactly which of the religious brotherhoods then existing was the true messianic remnant aroused the fiercest disputes. And nevertheless it turned out that it was precisely the Gentiles, those who sought truth in the Synagogue and worshiped the God of Israel, who accepted Him first.

A paradox of spiritual history? Yes, of course, though it had its reasons: unfortunately, religiosity itself turned out to be the heavy burden that made it hard for many Jews to come into the Kingdom. For recent Gentiles who were free from this burden, it was easier, and they overtook many of those who were sure that the Messiah would come to them and for their sake.

But the apostles had no reason to maintain the sequence expected by many of their fellow tribesmen and coreligionists. Of course, in preaching they addressed first of all the Jews, those who should have listened and heard first. But their refusal could not and must not stop the witness to Christ and the Kingdom entrusted to the apostles. For this was not a human matter but God's, and it was not for people to determine the order in which Jews or Gentiles would enter the Kingdom. The apostles' task was to bear witness to what the Savior Himself had already testified: the Kingdom has drawn near, and the way into it is now open to every seeker, whether a Jew or a representative of any other people. And who would go first depended both on God and on the people to whom the Kingdom was offered.

And the apostles were glad to see everyone entering the Kingdom, regardless of nationality or religion. For they were above all people of the Kingdom, and only afterward representatives of their people and their religious community, as witnesses of the Kingdom should be.