Peace with Others
Jesus Christ not only brings us peace with God and peace within our hearts, he also brings us peace with others because by his death he tears down all walls that divide and separate. God shows no partiality and removes all grounds of boasting before him so that we all stand before him on the same footing. Jesus brings peace between people.1
This is most clearly demonstrated in Ephesians 2. Paul is speaking of Jews and Gentiles, who have been separated by Jewish law since the time of Abraham. But by the blood of the cross Jesus brings them together so that they are no longer two separate peoples, but one new people of God.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph 2:11-14).
The Gentiles were separate from Christ and alienated to Israel. They were outsiders and were actually hated by Jewish people. A common insult among Israelites was to call someone a Gentile. When Jesus spoke of church discipline he said that if someone refuses to listen to the church in order to be reconciled then he should be cast out of the church and be to them “as a Gentile and tax-collector” (Matt 18:17). Their alienation was complete alienation. Jews sought to keep them as far away as possible.
Jesus changed all that, for he has taken the Gentiles and brought them near by his blood (Eph 2:13). Why did Christ do this? “For he himself is our peace” (v. 14). It was Christ’s nature to reconcile hostile peoples. And it was his purpose. By his death and resurrection he has brought them together into one person.
He makes peace by removing all possibility of boasting. The Jew cannot say his law-keeping or his race has made him acceptable to God. The Gentile cannot say his wisdom brought him near to God. Both are brought to God by the same means – the cross of Jesus Christ. Both stand before God accepted because of what someone else did. Both have peace purely by grace alone.2
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1 Matthew 10:34-36 must also be acknowledged. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” This text is talking primarily about the cost of following Jesus and the inevitable conflict that will arise as different people in the same family hold different allegiances. Therefore it does not contradict Jesus’ purpose as a peacemaker. Jesus specifically ties it to loving him more than we love our families and the need to take up our cross to follow him (see vv. 37-38). Following Jesus does not keep us from hostility, it actually puts us in the path of hostility. It is this reality that makes the command to love our enemy all the more important.
“The way to peace is not the way of avoidance of conflict, and Jesus will be continuously engaged in robust controversy…his whole experience will be the opposite of a ‘peaceful’ way of life. His followers can expect no less, and their mission to establish God’s peaceful rule can be accomplished only by sharing his experience of conflict” (R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007], 408).
2 John Frame also sees peacemaking between peoples implied in Paul’s blessing of grace and peace at the beginning of each of his letters. “Grace (charis) resembles a Greek greeting; peace (eirēnē) is the equivalent of the Hebrew shalom. So these terms summarize the benefits of salvation and also welcome both Greeks and Jews who believe in Jesus” (Frame, The Doctrine of God, 650).
Posts in this Series:
Introduction
Peace (shalom) in the Old Testament
Created in Peace and the Consequence of Sin
The Gospel of Peace and the Death of Jesus Christ
Peace with God
Peace Within
Peace with Others
Peace in Creation and the Cosmos
Excursus – Is Peace an Attribute of God?
Called to Be Peacemakers
