For years people in this part of the world wanted peace. Living through a long period of terrorist activity, with all the attendant pain and suffering, stirred deep longings for peace. To some degree those longings were met, at least as far as terrorist activity was concerned, yet still many have no real peace in their lives. The past year, with its totally unforeseen trials due to Covid-19, has been a time when many lost any sense of peace they had. The resources we rely on in hard times were tested to the limit, and often found wanting. Even Christians have struggled and have found their faith tested. Peace is the longing of many hearts. Can it be satisfied?
According to Galatians 5:22 one aspect of ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ is peace. How are we to understand this term? Peace is often thought of as the absence of strife, but the word Paul uses, especially given its background in the Old Testament, is richly positive. The Hebrew word ‘shalom’ on which Paul draws here suggests health, soundness of body and mind, security, harmony in the family and the community, and peace with God when sin is removed. It really is life in all its fulness, as the Creator made it to be lived.
It is abundantly clear in the Bible that true peace flows from a right relationship with God, and so there cannot be peace without righteousness. That is the factor often lacking in attempts to produce peace among individuals and between communities. As we are told in Isaiah 57:21 ‘There is no peace…for the wicked’. Sin and peace cannot coexist.
Sinners like us must therefore first find peace with God and the Scriptures leave us in no doubt how that comes about. Acts 10:36 refers to the preaching of ‘peace through Jesus Christ’. The violence and the horror of the cross are the means of dealing with sin, hence establishing peace. Thus ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Corinthians 5:19). This salvation must be appropriated by sinners through faith: ‘Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 5:1).
From ‘peace with God’ flows ‘the peace of God’, comprehensive harmony in the believer’s life. It entails a trusting in the Lord for the present and the future that can set us free from the anxieties and the ambitions of the unbelieving world. Paul thus writes in Philippians 4:7 that ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’.
This can and should lead to peace among Christians, not least since merely human divisions, so important to others, have been removed ‘in Christ’. An outstanding example is the division between Jew and Gentile (as expounded in Ephesians 2:11ff). This peace should characterise the life of the Church of Jesus Christ: ‘let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body’ (Colossians 3:15). On this basis Christians may then become agents of peace in the world, proclaiming the Good News that brings peace.
Such peace can be experienced in the midst of trials, since the Lord never promised his people a life free of hardship and testing. ‘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). These words were spoken by a Saviour who a few hours later would hang in agony on a cross, laying down his life for the salvation of others. He could truly say, ‘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’ (John 14:27).
Our experience of peace is never perfect in this life, not least because we often take our eyes of the Lord. The perfection od peace will come, however. In the joys and wonders of the new creation, under the reign of Christ, peace will be perfectly realised in the heart of every one of his people. The Old Testament prophets often anticipated such a time, as for example when Zechariah writes that ‘he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth’ (Zechariah 9:10). Nothing will mar the peace of the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21-22. The very presence of sin, that so often robs us of peace, will be abolished and the people of God will delight in his glorious presence for ever. All praise and glory will be to ‘the prince of peace’ (Isaiah 9:6).
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