Why are fear and love incompatibles? Is God afraid of anything? Certainly, no! Well, it is so because He is almighty... And what of us? Here is John the Evangelist speaks about it: God Himself indwells in the one who loves, because God is love. And we thus have to be afraid of nothing. But if ever there is fear in us there (it is identified by the "torment"), then it is evident that love, God's presence in us is imperfect, insufficient.

There is another important moment here. The apostle John writes that love is manifested in the fulfillment of the commandments. Fear was the main motive for the fulfillment of the commandments in the Old Testament, and this fear paralyzed man. Indeed, commandments indicated what shouldn’t be done, and by longing to fulfill them, man was afraid of doing, in order not to do what is wrong. The new commandment, of which John writes, is formulated differently: do, love one another. The aspiration to fulfill this commandment frees man, manifests in him activity, initiative.

Every evangelist without exception bears witness to the manifestations of the Kingdom that accompanied Jesus' earthly ministry. But only in John do we find a testimony to it connected with the person of the risen Saviour. And perhaps the most remarkable thing about this testimony is precisely the fact that it is astonishingly similar, like two drops of water, to what the Gospels relate when describing the Messiah's earthly journey. Here again we have an account of a miraculous catch of fish, like the one that accompanied Peter's first encounter with Jesus (vv. 1–6). Of course, Jesus also acts in this way to make it easier for the apostles to recognize Him, and they apparently do understand at once Who is standing on the shore (v. 7). But this is probably not the only point. The laws of the Kingdom are still the same, and its effect on the world remains unchanged, just as the apostles had seen it even before their Teacher's resurrection.

And yet something changed after the Resurrection. It is no accident that Peter rushes towards Jesus (vv. 7–8) and that He asks him the same question three times: “Do you love Me?” (vv. 15–17). Peter had always been the first in the apostolic community. He was the first to call Jesus the Messiah; he swore that he would die for his Teacher, and he was also the one who denied Him three times after His arrest, in the courtyard of the high priest's house. Of course, this denial can hardly be regarded as deliberate, and it cannot in any way be compared with Judas' long-premeditated and carefully planned betrayal. Here one can speak rather of a kind of spiritual breakdown which, unfortunately, can happen to anyone in our fallen world. In our fallen world, but not in the Kingdom, where there is no place for such breakdowns.

And now, in entrusting His Church to Peter, it is no accident that Jesus requires him three times to confirm his love for Him. Relationships form the foundation of the Kingdom: relationships with God, with Jesus, and between people. The Lord requires Peter to confirm the relationship that already exists, and having received that confirmation, He testifies to the apostle that the day will come when Peter will have to confirm his love for Him not only by his life, but also by his death (vv. 18–19).

Here we probably see one of the most important laws of the Kingdom, where there are no irreparable mistakes, but where every mistake is corrected by the very person who made it. Testimony is important not only for those around the witness; it is no less important for the witness himself, who becomes part of the Kingdom through bearing witness. That is why every voluntary or involuntary refusal to bear witness becomes an obstacle to life in the Kingdom, an obstacle that must be overcome. Not only for the sake of the fullness of the Kingdom, but also for the sake of the fullness of the spiritual life of the person whom it hinders.

In John's account of the crucifixion, the Saviour's solitude on the cross is striking. The evangelist does not mention the apostles standing at a distance; indeed, he describes nothing except the cross itself and what happens at its foot, perhaps because he himself was standing there at the time (vv. 25–27; many commentators believe that when John mentions the unnamed disciple, he is speaking of himself). But the apostle also says nothing about the conversion of one of the robbers crucified with Jesus or about the Saviour's words mentioned by the other evangelists. Judging by John's testimony, Jesus uttered only two words on the cross: “I thirst!” (v. 28) and “It is finished!” (v. 30). Before that, in two short phrases, He entrusted His Mother and the disciple standing by the cross, probably John himself, to each other (vv. 26–27). Apparently, John singles out in the Saviour's words only what concerns him personally and what seems to him most important. It appears that in these two words of Jesus the evangelist sees the meaning of everything that is happening.

The picture described by John was probably not merely a memory of the events at the cross, but the fruit of many years of reflection upon them. For the evangelist, it seems, “It is finished!” meant more than the mere fact that the Saviour had completed His earthly mission, although when standing at the cross the apostle probably had to understand His words in precisely that way. But later, after encountering the Risen One and receiving the revelation he described in the Book of the same name, John apparently understood that Jesus was also speaking of the end of history, of that end of time for which many were waiting and which very few noticed. John does not mention the signs described by the other evangelists: the storm that turned day into night, the earthquake, or the torn veil of the Temple. For him everything was contained in one word, “It is finished!”, spoken by Jesus at the moment of His death on the cross.

But there was something else that struck the apostle. Jesus was dying on the cross like the most ordinary human being. The One Who, during His earthly ministry, could feed thousands with a few loaves suffered from thirst, from the same ordinary thirst that anyone in His place would have experienced, and could do nothing about it. He could do nothing not because He had ceased to be the One He was born among people to be, but because an ordinary human death was also part of His earthly ministry, just as much as the miracles and manifestations of the Kingdom that were impossible for anyone else in the world.

John does not mention the mocking calls addressed to Jesus to come down from the cross, of which the other evangelists testify. Perhaps he did not hear them, for of all the apostles only he was so close to the crucified Teacher, and it is quite possible that he had no attention to spare for the crowd standing at some distance. But he undoubtedly understood the main thing: everything that was happening became possible only through the free will of the Saviour of the world, Who consented to it all for the sake of those He wished to save. Such was the price of salvation and the price of the Kingdom.