The Peace of God by Bonar

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 20, 1866

The Peace of God.

By Bonar

The world is not at rest, is not at peace. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,” and this world, lying as it does in the wicked one, has no peace. It craves for peace, but the peace comes not. It multiplies its appliances to produce the peace, but it comes not. It multiplies its lusts, but peace comes not. It multiplies its manifold amusements—balls, theatres, operas, and the like—but the peace comes not. And in the hearts of the millions there is this craving for a peace which has never yet been known by them—a peace for which they were made (were we not made for peace!). Yet these hearts are filled with everything except peace. There is no peace for the world, and the wars and rumors of war which we hear on every side tell us that just as the world is without pardon, so it is without peace.

And yet there is such a thing as pardon, and there is such a thing as peace, and there is such a thing as being peaceful in a stormy world, peaceful in the midst of a warring world. There is such a thing as peace, and it is this peace which we, as followers of the Prince of Peace, profess to have received. We have received peace; the world has not. We have received peace in receiving the foundation on which the peace is built.

The first announcement of this peace in Scripture seems to us a strange one. It seems not like peace, but war. It is, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” etc. That is the first announcement of this peace. It is the announcement of the foundation of it, and it seems strange to us. For it is the announcement of peace, and yet it speaks of war. It is the announcement of war, of war between God and man’s enemy, and that is peace. It is the announcement of war between man and man’s enemy; and that is peace, for it is peace upon the foundation of Him who is the woman’s seed, the Man with the bruised heel; and this is peace. So while this first announcement seems like a proclamation of war, it is in reality the foundation of peace—peace to us, and peace ultimately to the world, when he who is the Prince of Peace shall come to establish his reign of peace.

But in this twofold proclamation of war and peace we have three things. There is enmity, there is conflict, and there is victory. There is enmity between Christ and the serpent, or the serpent’s seed; conflict between Him and the serpent and the serpent’s seed; victory—his victory—a partial victory at first, apparently a being overcome by the bruising of his heel, but a final victory, a victory of which we have the commencement at his first coming, of which the consummation shall be at his second coming, and of which we have an earnest now, in that prophecy of the Apostle, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” The message which came from heaven when the Seed of the woman was announced on earth, was, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace;” and you remember how the multitude which formed that wonderful retinue of Jesus on his entrance into Jerusalem, gave utterance to the shout, “Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.” The first announcement is heaven speaking to earth: the second is earth speaking up to heaven, as if the whole circle of the universe were taken in; as if the fountain opened in Paradise, and more fully opened at Bethlehem, was pouring out its full waters on heaven and earth; as if it were not earth only which was to drink in the peace and be reconciled, but as though heaven itself was to drink in a new joy from Him who is the Prince of Peace.

We find some remarkable expressions concerning this peace in the New as well as in the Old Testament. We have God’s character as the God of peace. Is that the God we worship, or is it an unknown God in whom we have no peace at all? He is called “the very God of peace.” If we have approached Him at all, we must have found something of this peace, for by coming in contact with this God of peace, through the reconciliation of Calvary, we have peace with God. This is what we come preaching—“preaching peace by Jesus Christ.” Peace, “peace to him that is afar off, and

to them that are nigh.” If there is one far-off sinner here, one unreconciled man or woman here, we preach peace to you now, that you may enter into it, and that it may enter into you.

But there is something more about this peace. It is not merely peace from God, but the peace of God. Not the peace of the world, nor the peace of the flesh, nor the peace of man, but the “peace of God.” And lest any should suppose it is but in a small measure, it is added, “which passeth all understanding.” To this full peace we are called, on this full peace we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. It is as gathering around this standard of peace we meet today. It is around this footstool of peace we have already knelt; around this peace we rejoice as common partakers of the grace and of the peace of our God and Father. Brethren, that peace which was first announced to our first parents in Paradise, the peace which was accomplished on Golgotha, that peace is a divine peace, an eternal peace, a holy peace, too holy to be tampered with, or turned to unholy uses. So, he who says, “I have peace,” and lives a worldly life, is a liar. There is no peace in him. He who says, “I have peace,” and yet conforms to the world, is a liar, for he knows not the foundations of peace which lie far back in what I have already mentioned—the enmity, the conflict, and the victory; and, if he knows not these, he should give up the name altogether. This peace separates us entirely from the world. It not only gives us no relish for the things of the world, but an abhorrence of them; nay, it brings in enmity between us, and daily conflict, though, in the end, daily victory. And it is this victory which is described in that promise to the church at Ephesus, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” That promise carries us back to Eden, and to the tree of life in the midst of the garden. Take all the seven promises to the churches, but take them in connection with the enmity, and the conflict, and the victory. Remember, whilst there is the glory unspeakable; the kingdom which cannot be moved, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and which fadeth not away—whilst there is the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God—whilst there is the Morning Star—the seat on the Father’s throne—yet there is the enmity, the conflict, and the victory; and the promise is “to him that overcometh.”—Bonar.