NOTES for Joh 14:26

The Russian translation of the Greek word "Parakletos" emphasizes only one meaning of this many-sided word. And we sometimes expect from the Holy Spirit first of all comfort in our sorrows. But let us notice that Jesus speaks of quite different works of the Spirit, related rather to other translations of His Name. A parakletos was an advocate in a court session who could suggest to the accused the right behavior and the right words. The fact that the Holy Spirit gives strength and words for witness to Christ is said in other places of the New Testament as well (see Matt. 10:19-20; John 15:26; Acts 1:8). But the Spirit not only puts words into the mouth; He brings love and truth into the heart, and precisely love and truth become the source of all our relationships and the driving force of all our actions. This happened with the apostles at Pentecost, and this will happen with us too if only we ask for it, because "the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13).

The Holy Spirit will teach you all things, but He will also bring to your remembrance all things that Christ said. These words contain the answer to a frequently asked question: by what principle were the canonical Gospels selected, given that there were many more Gospel narratives? The words and episodes recorded by the four Evangelists were preserved precisely because the Holy Spirit did not allow them to be forgotten. Meanwhile, anyone even slightly familiar with the “apocryphal gospels” will agree that, although they use certain Gospel motifs, they belong to a different kind of literature.

As He departs, He leaves peace to the disciples, but emphasizes that His peace is unlike the peace familiar to people. Unfortunately, the peace usually established in human relationships can be defined only negatively, as a temporary absence of war and hostility, and therein lie its weakness and fragility. But the peace brought by Christ is equivalent to the authenticity of life. Beside it, every hostility looks like a dark crevice that the light has not yet reached.

The simplest things are the hardest to accept. The hardest question to answer is one that permits only two answers, “yes” or “no.” Nothing could be easier: one must decide who Jesus is. If the answer is, “He is the Messiah,” then, according to His words, everything that follows is simple. You love Him, you keep His word, and life becomes something literally unearthly. God the Creator, the Almighty, will make His dwelling within the one who loves the Son. The most uncomfortable thing here is the simplicity of the choice. You love or you do not love. You believe or you do not believe. You obey or you do not obey. It seems that I believe, yet I do not obey. What, then, does this mean? The one who loves necessarily obeys, so I do not love. And I cannot become a dwelling place? One could go on walking around this vicious circle, from which there appears to be only one human way out: since everything is so terrible and I can never fulfill the words of Jesus by my own strength, there is no point in trying. And immediately the answer comes. By our own human strength, of course, nothing will succeed. But the One who goes to the Cross for the salvation of every person will send the Comforter, who will bring to mind everything forgotten amid the bustle and raise everyone who keeps falling, even on level ground.

Someone somewhere said: "Love is an instrument of knowledge." And in fact, what can we know about someone we do not love? Having turned away from a person, one cannot come into contact with him, cannot become closer to him, cannot understand him. The same is true when the matter concerns the knowledge of God. What can be known about Him without loving Him, without striving toward Him, is only dry and relative "scholasticism" about the fact that He is, supposedly, so great and strong and wise.

But truly to know Him, ("to know," in the language of Scripture, to be united with Him, to "abide in Him") is given only to the one who is ready to love. That is why Jesus says that He will reveal Himself not to the whole world, but only to the disciples, who will receive the Spirit of truth, revealing the Father to those who can understand Him, that is, love Him.

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.