Speaking to His disciples about His path and ministry, Jesus mentions a “Comforter” whom the Father will send them and whom, Jesus Himself says, the world can neither see nor know (vv. 16-17). This “Comforter,” whom Jesus also calls the “Holy Spirit” (v. 26) and the “Spirit of truth” (v. 17), will in due course remind the apostles of everything they are now hearing from their Teacher (vv. 25-26). The mention of God's spirit, or breath—the corresponding Greek word, like its Hebrew equivalent, can mean either—in the context of an account of the Kingdom is, of course, no accident. The Old Testament prophets were the first to speak of God's spirit, or breath. For them the spirit was not an abstract theological or philosophical concept but part of a living experience of communion with God; they truly felt God breathing in their hearts.

But Jesus apparently means something more. He speaks of the spirit as a reality on a universal, cosmic scale that nevertheless remains hidden from the world, for this reality belongs to a different order than our still untransformed world. The breath of God unites everyone who abides in the Kingdom, making them one whole: the Father, Jesus Himself, the apostles, and all who will enter the Kingdom through their prayers and under the influence of their preaching. In the past, only certain people felt God's breath at special, exceptional moments in their lives; now it is revealed to everyone who abides in the Kingdom. And no wonder: God's breath permeates the Kingdom, gives it life, and gives it the power to affect the world by transforming it. Because of this breath there are no distances in the Kingdom; here only the quality of relationships and the intensity of love determine mutual closeness.

Until now, the apostles had seen the Kingdom only because of Jesus: they looked at Him, and through Him God's power was revealed to them. Now they were to enter and see from within what they had previously seen only from outside. The time was coming when Jesus would become invisible to a world capable of seeing only what had not yet been transformed. The apostles themselves would therefore no longer see Him with physical sight; but after entering the Kingdom, they would find Him there, seeing Him no longer with their eyes but with their hearts (vv. 19-20). It is no accident that Jesus speaks of a peace unknown to the untransformed world (v. 27): true peace and harmony are possible only in the Kingdom, permeated by God's breath and joined by bonds of love. Again and again Jesus calls the apostles into this Kingdom so that, having become part of it, they may carry it into the world that so greatly needs transformation and sanctification.

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.

When telling His disciples about the Kingdom, Jesus describes it by the example of the relations between Himself and His Father, and also between Himself and His disciples. He says to the disciples: if you ask anything of the Father in My name, then I will do what you ask, and if you ask Me anything, I will do it. Thus, as we see, Jesus illustrates His own words that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In His presentation, the Kingdom turns out to be, first of all, a spiritual space, the space of the relations that unite Him with the Father and with all His disciples, uniting them in such a way that He becomes the Mediator between His disciples and the Father.

Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when He says that His Kingdom is "not of this world." Indeed, the only thing in us that does not depend in any way on the laws of our untransfigured world is our relation to someone or something, for it is determined exclusively by our will, which, unlike the body or the soul, remains free under any circumstances. And if the space of the Kingdom is precisely the space of our relations, then it truly can be completely independent of the laws of the world in which we live.

The only thing that can hinder this is our own fallen nature. After all, the fall became, first of all, the result of a wrong choice, an erroneous decision, and the consequence of such errors is above all the weakening of the will, which in a fallen person tends to submit to the very nature that, in a normal state, it should have governed. The only way out of this situation is the intervention of another will: also human, but not subject to original sin. For the spiritual space of the Kingdom, the will of the Messiah becomes just such a will. That is why He becomes the Mediator between God and His disciples and followers: without His will the Kingdom is impossible; it simply will not be the Kingdom of God in the true sense of the word.

Once the space of relations has been created, it is filled with the breath of God, thanks to which this space can spread wider and wider, including more and more hearts and saving more and more souls, right up to the moment when the Savior's return marks the completion of this process and the full triumph of the Kingdom that transfigures the world.