HIS PEACE UPON US

Called to Be Peacemakers

Contrary to the popular conception of the Messiah among Jews in the 1st century, Jesus did not come to take up his sword in order to defeat his enemies. He came in order to serve and ultimately die for his enemies. “Unlike the other kingdom-announcers of his time . . . Jesus declared that the way to the kingdom was the way of peace, the way of love, the way of the cross. Fighting the battle of the kingdom with the enemy’s weapons meant that one had already lost it in principle, and would soon lose it, and lose it terribly, in practice.”1

Peacemaking was central to Jesus’ ministry. He was often crossing boundaries and barriers in order to bring reconciliation and peace to those others thought should be left on the outside. In John 4 Jesus crossed boundaries of race, sex, and “morality” in order to bring reconciliation to an immoral woman and her village.

Jews and Samaritans did not having dealings with each other (John 4:9) and holy men did not engage strange women in conversation, especially if it was known that the woman had had five husbands and was currently with another man. But none of that stopped Jesus. He overcame all these barriers in order to show her who the Messiah was, in order to show her who he was. His simple act of ignoring the man-made barriers brought salvation to this immoral Samaritan woman as well as to many in her village. He reached out in love to those others considered an enemy.

“Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt 5:9). Having seen God’s work to bring peace in Jesus Christ to his people it is no surprise that he would call us to be like him in working to make peace with others. The peacemakers are blessed because “they shall be called sons of God (Matt 5:9). They will be called sons of God because they will be seen to be children who bear his likeness.

One of the most difficult commands of he Sermon on the Mount is the call to love our enemies.

⁴³ You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:43-48).

Just as peacemakers are called sons of God, so also those who love their enemies are “sons of your Father who is in heaven” (v. 45). This helps us better understand what it means to be a peacemaker. We do not just seek peace with those we are close to (family and friends); we must also seek peace with those who hate us and do evil to us. Ultimately this command is rooted in the nature of God. We must love our enemies and be perfect just as God loves his enemies (us!) and is perfect.

We are called to seek the peace of our enemies just as God seeks the peace of his enemies. We value all life just as God values all life. In his sermon to the Athenians Paul reminds us that in a sense we are all children of God. He emphasized the commonality between all people, which is rooted in creation, when he said, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place… he is actually not far from each one of us… we are indeed his offspring” (Acts 17:26, 27, 28).

God shows he values all life by sending Jesus to be “the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 4:4). To be a peacemaker as God is we too must value all life. “All life is valued, even the lives of our enemies, because God has valued them. The risk of so valuing life can only be taken on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus as God’s decisive eschatological act. For through Jesus’ resurrection we see God’s peace as a present reality. . . Through this crucified but resurrected savior we see that God offers to all the possibility of living in peace by the power of forgiveness.”2 We are able to seek peace, even with enemies, because we have peace.

God is a peacemaker and he calls us to be peacemakers as well. Our theology of God as peacemaker carries with it the explicit ethical call to be peacemakers. As Stanley Hauerwas argues, ethics is not just something we do after we have figured out theology, but it is part of theology. “I think in many ways the separation of ethics from theology has had unfortunate consequences. Ethics is but one aspect of the theological task… If theological convictions are meant to construe the world – that is, if they have the character of practical discourse – then ethics is involved at the beginning, not the end, of theology.”3 Our theologizing about peacemaking should always be connected with actually making peace. And of course, our actual peacemaking must always be connected with our theology of God as peacemaker.

The New Testament is full of commands to be at peace with others. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom 12:18). “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Rom 14:19). “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another,  agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Cor 13:11). It is one of the clearest commands of the New Testament and yet one of the most avoided. How often do Christians have conflict in the church and then rather than make peace they just find a new church? How often does someone offend another and rather than make peace he ignores the offense only for it to resurface later in the forms of anger and bitterness? Or to put the question another way, how many times have we seen someone walk out of a worship service in order to be reconciled to his brother before he offers his gifts to God (Matt 5:23-24)?

Jesus prayed that his disciples would live in unity so that the world would know that he was sent from God (John 17:21). Yet we often fail to live out this unity because we are unwilling to humble ourselves in order to seek peace with each other. Lack of humility is our greatest problem. We do not like to confront our own hearts to see the sin that remains. We are much more fixated on the sins of others. But Jesus made clear that until we have dealt with our sins (the log in our eye) we are unable to deal with the sins of another (the speck in his eye) (Matt 7:1-5).

Peacemaking requires humility and it must be rooted in the gospel. We can only be peacemakers when we live in the freedom given by God when we are ourselves at peace. We are able to love our enemies because God first loved us. “Love of our enemies is not recompensing love, that returns what it has received. It is creative love. Anyone who repays evil with good has stopped just reacting. He is creating something new. Love of an enemy presupposes the sovereignty which springs from one’s own liberation from enmity.”4

When speaking of our spiritual armor Paul says, “as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace . . .” (Eph 6:15). It is the gospel of peace that enables us to run. We must be experiencing ourselves the peace of the gospel if we want to be effective in proclaiming the kingdom of God through the gospel of peace to others.

Because we have experienced the gospel of peace in our own lives we are able to reach out to others, even those different than us, in order to preach peace to them. We are able to follow Christ in making peace with those of other communities (i.e. the Samaritan woman in John 4). Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus was sent as a peacemaker. So are we.

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1. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 595.

2. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 88-89.

3. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 54.

4. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions. (trans. Margaret Kohl; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 132, emphasis his.

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

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Excursus – Is Peace an Attribute of God?

God is referred to as the “God of peace” six times in the New Testament (Rom 15:33; 16:20; Phil 4:9; 1 Thess 5:23; 2 Thess 3:16 [“Lord of Peace”]; and Heb 13:20). All of them are in benedictions.

God is the God of peace because he gives peace. This is seen in Philippians 4. In verses 6-7 Paul exhorts the Philippians to not be anxious and then promises that the peace of God will guard their hearts. Just two verses later he promises “the God of peace will be with you” (4:9). We see this same idea in 2 Thessalonians 3:16, “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”

This name, “God of peace,” has its roots in the Old Testament. When the Lord called Gideon, he appeared to him as “the angel of the Lord” (Judg 6:11ff). Gideon presented a young goat and unleavened cakes and gave them to him, placing them on a rock. Then fire came from the rock and consumed them. This was when Gideon knew that this was the angel of the Lord and he was frightened, “‘Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.’ Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace” (Judg 6:22-24).

Gideon understood who was before him. Like Isaiah (see Isa 6:1-8) he knew that this was the Holy One and that he was a sinner. But God did not consume him. Instead, he spoke peace to him. Extending peace was a gift of mercy. So Gideon built an altar to commemorate this and rightly called it The Lord is Peace. The Lord showed mercy by giving peace, but Gideon did not merely say that YHWH is a God of peace; he said that YHWH is peace.

In Isaiah we read that the messiah will be the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). The New Testament clearly teaches that Jesus brings peace, but it teaches more as well. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:13-14, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far of have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace…”

God is not the God of peace simply because he is the giver of peace. He is the God of peace because he is peace. He is always peaceful. Because he is God he is all wise and all knowing. Therefore he has no anxiety about whether he is doing the right thing. He is all powerful and therefore there is no fear of what another might do to him. There is no internal conflict in him. He is at peace with every decision and every action.

Even more, as a trinity—Father, Son and Spirit—each person is at peace with the others. Jesus is always in complete and willing submission to the Father. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19). So also the Spirit is always in complete and willing submission, “When the Spirt of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13).

Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in harmonious agreement with the plan of redemption. Each is overjoyed to play his part and to bring honor to others. The Father sent the Son and seeks to exalt him (John 8:50, 54). The Son dwelt among us, died for us and and in all he does he glorifies the Father (John 14:13). The Spirit works in the hearts of God’s people to fill them with faith, he discloses to us the person of the Son and brings him glory (John 16:14).

Peace in the Godhead is certainly much more than just absence of conflict. It is a total and complete state of well-being. It is a blessedness of relationship, a wholeness of fellowship and a delight in one another.

God is love (1 John 4:8). He is not dependent on creation in order to show love, for there is perfect love between each person of the Godhead. God is peace (Judg 6:24). Again he is not dependent on creation in order to be at peace, for peace reigns between each person of the Godhead.

Like all blessings of salvation and Christian virtues, peace among men is a reflection of God’s own nature; it is a divine attribute. God is completely at peace with himself. We often experience struggles between contradictory impulses within us. God, on the contrary, is completely in harmony with himself. His three persons glorify and serve one another willingly and cheerfully. He is whole, well, and prosperous-blessed and happy.1

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1. John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002), 444.

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

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Peace in Creation and the Cosmos

Christ’s peacemaking work also has cosmic purposes. By his death on the cross he began the process of reconciling all creation to himself. This will ultimately be fulfilled when God brings about the new heavens and the new earth, when the creation obtains the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom 8:21). It will be a time as described in Isaiah 11:6-9:

⁶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. ⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. ⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. ⁹ They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This vision of peace in God’s creation is explicitly connected to the coming of the “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isa 11:1). It is the Messiah who brings peace.

Christ’s mission was to reconcile all things. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:19-20). This reconciliation will end all rebellion against God so that the creation and the cosmos will be at peace.

But this reconciliation of all things requires the pacification with those things that are set against him, namely the powers and authorities that have been warring against God. By the cross God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col 2:15). The way he has disarmed them is seen in the preceding verses. Speaking of the Colossians Paul writes, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:13-14).

The powers are disarmed through the forgiveness of our sins. Because our sins are forgiven “these forces no longer have any grounds to accuse the Colossians and us who believe (cf. Col. 2:15). In such accusation lay their power. Christ dying in our place robs them of their power (Rom. 8:31-34). Christus Victor needs the explanatory power of substitutionary atonement.”1

God’s defeat of Satan and his minions was always a theme of Christ’s ministry. He was engaging them before the cross, but it was at the cross that he makes the decisive victory. Not all enemies can be reconciled and brought back into right relationship. Those who will not lay down their weapons must be pacified. Jesus makes clear that these enemies are not people (i.e the religious authorities who put them to death). His enemy is the god of this world who has sought to take his throne.

He had confronted the religious leaders his entire life, but his heart for them at the end was still for their salvation. “And when he drew near and saw the city [Jerusalem], he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes’” (Luke 19:41-42). This is clear from his attitude on the cross. In the midst of being put to death he cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

The Jews of his day wanted to usher in the kingdom of God through warfare. They wanted to rise up and throw off the oppressive regime of the Romans. They were looking for a Messiah that would take the sword and cut off the head of their oppressors. The believed God had promised them victory. Jesus, on the other hand, knew that this kind of battle could never bring the kingdom of God. He understood that their greatest enemy was not the Romans. “He believed . . . that the way to peace, blocked by zealotry all around, could only come by his fighting the real battle against the real enemy.”2

Being the God of peace required him to crush the enemy that will stop at nothing to destroy all peace. It is not incongruous for Paul to write, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20), for there is “no peace without disarmament.”3

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1 Graham A. Cole, God the Peacemaker: How Atonement Brings Shalom (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 184.

2 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 447.

3 Cole, God the Peacemaker, 184.

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

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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

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Peace Within

There is much turmoil in the world and believers are certainly not immune to the trials and temptations that come. Yet, many have testified to a remarkable calm and peace in their hearts in the midst of the most horrific trials. We experience a lack of inner peace when we are afraid, anxious, angry, covetous, etc. The gospel brings peace when we might feel any of those because it points us to the promises of God that overcome these sins.

The inner peace of the gospel comes from the gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives to all who are in him. In John 14:27 Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” The peace that Jesus gives overcomes trouble and fear. Jesus knew that he would shortly be leaving the world and this could cause his disciples to be afraid. So he promised them peace. And in this context the peace he gives is explicitly connected to the Holy Spirit. In the immediately preceding verse Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

Jesus knew his disciples would be scattered. He told them as much before it happened. “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (John 16:32). He knew that they would abandon him because of fear. Rather than reproving them for their upcoming abandonment, he sought to encourage them. He said, “I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). After they had scattered they would be able to recall that Jesus knew this would happen and he had not rejected them. What would at first appear as defeat they would eventually see as Christ’s triumph. He has overcome the world through his death and resurrection and that is reason to take heart. His overcoming brings peace.

It happened just as Jesus had said. After Jesus was arrested and killed the disciples were so afraid that they locked themselves into a room. It was in this locked room that Jesus found them. His first words to his frightened disciples were, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19). He was reminding them that in him they would have peace.

The peace Jesus wants to give his disciples is the kind of peace that frees us from fear and worry. It is a peace that comes through the Holy Spirit, for Paul tells us in Galatians that peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22). It is a peace that surpasses understanding, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7).

This peace of God that Christ gives is exemplified in the death of Stephen (see Acts 7). When he was questioned before the high priest and the Jewish council he was given the words to say just as Jesus had promised (Luke 12:11-12). After he preached to them they were enraged. Stephen had lots of reason to be frightened, but instead he was calm. He was at peace because he was “full of the Holy Spirit” and “saw the glory of God” (Acts 7:55). They stoned him, but even the pain of being bludgeoned could not steal his peace. “And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59-60).

The question, then, is how does Jesus give us peace that dispels fear and anxiety even in the midst of death? The most fundamental answer is that because of Christ we have peace with God and if we understand what it means to be at peace with the Judge of the universe we can have peace in any circumstance.

We get anxious about all kinds of things in our lives. We can be anxious about our jobs, paying the bills, our family, how others think of us, etc. Peter wrote that we are to cast our anxieties upon the Lord because he cares for us (1 Pet 5:7). How is that we know his care for us? We know that he cares for us because Jesus Christ died. In Christ’s death, God provided for our greatest need: salvation from sin and freedom from the wrath of God. Our greatest need was to be reconciled to God. This God has done in Christ and if he has already provided for our greatest need he will surely provide for any lesser need. This is the message of Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” When Jesus told his disciple not to be anxious for their lives, he grounded it in God’s pleasure to provide for his people (Luke 12:22-34). We are his people because of Christ’s work on the cross.

What about fear? God repeatedly grounds his command to not fear with his promise to be with us (i.e. Isa 41:10). Stephen knew that the ones throwing stones were not the ones to fear, for all they could do was kill him. They could not, however, separate him from God or create enmity in God towards him. He knew that while death is still an enemy, it is an enemy that unwittingly takes us to the presence of God. It is also an enemy that was overcome by Christ’s resurrection and will be ultimately defeated at our own resurrections. Stephen was not afraid because he saw his Lord and knew that his Lord was pleased with him.

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

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Peace with God

Humans are by nature enemies of God. We are rebel subjects who refuse to submit to our rightful king. Therefore we are traitors committing cosmic treason by seeking to overthrow the king and take his throne.

Paul makes clear that apart from Jesus Christ we are “dead in our trespasses” (Eph 2:1, 5) and thus “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). We suppress the truth in unrighteousness and thus the wrath of God is against us (Rom 1:18). We are not neutral. We are God’s enemies (Rom 5:10) who are “alienated and hostile in mind” (Col 1:21). Because of our sin we are estranged from God. We do not submit to him. We do not know him. We do not love him. He is not our God and we are not his people.

But God. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5). “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). God has taken the initiative through Jesus Christ to reconcile us to himself. He has come to us in order to establish peace.

Jesus Christ makes peace between us and God because by his death and resurrection he takes away all that stood between us. He takes our sin and enmity and dies in our place so that God pours out the wrath reserved for us upon his own son. Jesus propitiates God’s wrath so that God will look with favor upon us even though we are sinners. All who are united to Jesus Christ by faith are justified – declared holy and righteous in the sight of God. And this justification brings peace. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). We were enemies of God, but by Christ’s blood we have been reconciled (Rom 5:10). Our relationship has been restored.

Even more, we have been adopted as sons and daughters. God does not merely turn us from enemies to faithful subjects through Christ’s death. He actually makes us members of his family. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). Before Christ we did not know God, but now we not only know him, we are known by him (Gal 4:9). This is reconciliation language. We did not know God because we were estranged from him. But Jesus Christ has brought us near. He has made peace so that we have become sons and daughters.

In Luke 7:36-50 Jesus went and dined with one of the Pharisees. While he was there a woman, who was a sinner, came in and wept before him, wetting his feet with her tears. She wiped his feet with her hair and anointed him with expensive ointment. The Pharisee was indignant and personally scorned Jesus for not knowing what kind of sinful woman she was. Jesus challenged him, “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more” (Luke 7:41-42)? The Pharisee answered rightly, saying it was the one who was forgiven the larger debt.

Jesus then shamed the Pharisee by pointing out how the woman cared for him in ways that the Pharisee, as the host, should have but did not. He went so far to say to her, “Your sins are forgiven” (v. 48). Then he said, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (v. 50).

Saying “go in peace” was a common farewell greeting, but in this text it means much more. This woman had come and showered her love on Jesus even though she was a sinner. She believed and so her faith saved her. Her sins were forgiven. Now that she was saved and forgiven she could truly go in peace. She was at peace with Jesus and with God.

Peace with God is contingent on the forgiveness of our sins. Without forgiveness there is no peace. In the Old Testament we see that forgiveness of sins is costly. The people offered sacrifices, killing animals in their place, in order to have relationship with God. In Isaiah 53 the suffering servant will himself bear our transgressions. “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa 53:5). Only blood could bring forgiveness and thus only death could bring peace.

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

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The Gospel of Peace and the Death of Jesus Christ

It is into the milieu of a destruction of peace (see Part 3) that Jesus Christ was born. His birth was a declaration of peace to the world, God’s very own peace initiative. After the angel had declared to the shepherds that the Messiah was born, he who is Christ the Lord, there appeared a multitude of heavenly hosts saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14). Glory and peace are the twin declarations at the Messiah’s birth.

His coming marked the coming of God among men. He who is the radiance of God’s glory (Heb 1:3) walked among men so that they would see the glory of God (John 11:40). He who is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6; Eph 2:14) came to give peace (John 14:27). Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. His work of salvation accomplishes both glory and peace. We see the glory of God as the Son of God dies on our behalf to prove his Father’s righteousness and to save us from sin and shame. We see the peace of God as the Lord of all dies in place of his Father’s enemies (Romans 5:8) in order that he might reconcile us to the Father. Glory and peace are inseparably connected to God’s king, the Messiah.

The arrival of Jesus the Christ also meant the arrival of the kingdom of God. Christ’s first words in the gospel of Mark are, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Jesus came announcing the kingdom of God, declaring that in him it had arrived. He also connected the kingdom of God to the gospel. They are inseparable. To proclaim the kingdom is to proclaim the gospel of the king, the good news that the king has arrived and has provided access to God. Likewise, to proclaim the gospel is to proclaim the kingdom because one cannot proclaim Jesus and ignore his rightful reign as King of kings.

Peace is a central aspect of the gospel of the kingdom.1 It is also central to God’s kingdom. As noted above, when the king was born the angels announced peace to the world. This peace on earth can only come when the king is reigning. This was clearly the expectation of all who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.2 They cried out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Luke 19:38). The king brings peace. Unfortunately they rejected the king because they did not understand the path of suffering that Jesus had to endure. This rejection of the king meant that they would also lose their chance at true peace. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42)!

The peace that Jesus brings is salvation. It is salvation from all that would seek to destroy our peace – sin, death, and Satan. To seek to be saved on any other road other than the road to Calvary, the road of a suffering messiah, is to miss salvation completely. And without salvation there is no peace.

The coming together of gospel, peace, salvation and kingdom are seen beautifully in Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” There are five actions in this text: 1) bringing good news (preaching the gospel), 2) publishing peace, 3) bringing good news of happiness, 4) publishing salvation and 5) saying that God reigns (announcing his kingdom).

All of these come together in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is about peace, happiness (or good), salvation and the kingdom of God. These are the ideas that shaped Jesus’ ministry.

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1. This will be seen more clearly in future posts, but we do note that Paul even uses the phrase, “gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15).

2. Believing the Messiah would overthrow the Romans, they were dead wrong on how the king would bring peace, but their association of the king with peace was exactly right.

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

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