p. 1 | The Peace of God

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 51.

The Peace of God.

"The fruit of the Spirit is . . . peace." Peace is not a feeling, or an emotion. It has its emotions; but it is itself a condition of being or existence, a cessation of strife. The original word from which it comes in the Hebrew Scriptures—shalom—is defined as "completeness, to be safe, to be well, or perfect." The word in the Greek Scriptures—eirēnē—comes from a root meaning to join, and is defined as "oneness, peace."

Man Has Not This Peace in himself.

It is well expressed by the prophet, "The way of peace they know not," and, "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." This is not because God does not desire that he shall have peace, but man loves sin better than he does peace, and there is no peace in the way of sin. And yet the greater part of man's efforts in this life are put forth to bring peace. The strivings after riches, power, fame, love; the penances, the scourgings, the pilgrimages; the various systems and theories of false religions, of inward meditations, theosophy, Christian Science, false Christianity,—all are human efforts, or human perversions of divine effort, to obtain a peace which never comes.

The Existing Strife

among churches, societies, nations, and the constant preparations for war, are evidences of what is within the individual human heart. And the ceaseless strife is no nearer ceasing now by human effort than it was a hundred years ago. True, there are truces called; there are patched-up unions, confederations on a half basis or wrong basis, because truth is compromised in the union, but there is no real peace, no genuine "completeness," "oneness," "wholeness." It is sad that it is so, but the best in church, society, and state recognize and deplore the condition. There is the longing, unutterable longing, for peace and rest, but it comes not. The great sea of human life is as turbulent and uneasy as ever, and its ceaseless storms and wails and moans are forever ascending.

The Cause of Human Unrest Is Sin.

It is the sinful, the wicked, who know not the way of peace, who are like the troubled sea. Man has perverted God's way of righteousness; he has transgressed God's holy law. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." All are afflicted with the humanly incurable leprosy of sin. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick; who can know it?" (R. V.) "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; they have not been closed [by human effort or skill], neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." The universal disease pervades the world, and even "the health of the daughter of My [God's] people" is affected. There is no completeness, no wholeness, no rest. Politics can never heal the wounds. Philanthropy is helpless. Human knowledge stands abashed before the awful condition. Is there no healing Balm? Is there no Physician who can cure?

The Great Human Longing

and need are met, ay, more than met, in God. He is "the Lord of peace," "the very God of peace," "the God of love and peace." When he gave his only-begotten Son in the beginning, even as at his birth, he proclaimed, "Peace on earth, good-will toward men." In all ages has he declared, "Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him." There is perfectness, wholeness, completeness in God, and he declares it all for man. He gave Christ Jesus, his eternal Son, that we might be made whole. There is Balm in

Gilead; there is an all-sufficient Physician there for all who will come to him, and who will heed his prescriptions and counsel.

The Divine Diagnosis

of our disease determines it to be sin incarnate, and by any or all human means absolutely incurable. The Physician declares: "Without me ye can do nothing." "None of these can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." It is like the leper seeking to heal himself; or the soldier in battle seeking to restore his right arm, which had been shot away, by grafting upon the stump his left arm, cut off for that purpose. Man can not heal himself. In obtaining peace, he can not bring God to his terms; for "as for God, his way is perfect;" "the law of the Lord is perfect;" "the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." And man's wretchedness, unrest, sickness, come because he has rebelled against God, and allowed sin to rule in his being. Man has yielded himself, his mind, his strength, to the control of sinful flesh, its multiform passions and lusts. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh," and "the mind of the flesh is death;" furthermore, "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be; and they that are in the flesh can not please God." (R. V.) It is a terrible truth, God's diagnosis of sinful man, but it is told in love.

The Remedy of the Fearful Disease Is in Jesus Christ.

"Him [Christ] who knew no sin He [God] made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness [completeness, wholeness] of God in Him." (R. V.) "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him." And this completeness brings peace between us and God; nay, it is peace. "For He is our Peace, who hath made both one," uniting us with God, who before were at enmity. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." "As for God, his way is perfect. . . . It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect." O, there is peace; there is healing Balm; there is a Physician!

The Prescription, the Counsel of the Great Physician,

must be followed to make his remedy efficacious. His way is perfect; his counsel could not be otherwise. His directions may seem to be as foolish to our human wisdom as they were to the leper Naaman, when he was told to dip himself in Jordan for the cure of his leprosy, but it behooves the dying to leave all in the hands of the One "mighty to save." It behooves the rebel, starving, sick, hopeless, and helpless, to lay down his arms of rebellion and surrender to Him who has purchased a most honorable and infinitely valuable peace at immeasurable cost. True, he finds us helpless; but he asks only that which we can do. He simply asks us of our own free will to "choose life," that we may live. With infinite condescension, he says, "Come now, and let us reason together;" the leopard can not change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin; nor can you wash away your indelible sins; but I will make the scarlet sins as white as snow, and the crimson iniquities like the whitest of wool. All that God asks is that we yield all to him—the carnal heart, the carnal ways, the sin, the selfishness, the all in all of our lives, and accept of Jesus Christ, his ways, his life. Let Jesus Christ live his life in us. He would make us entirely at one with him; but he must have our all, or he can not do it. If there is any reserve on our part, there is unrest, and perfect peace is not yet. Accept of his prescription, believe his counsel, give all. "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." And pardon means peace. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we have surrendered, there is no more war. If we have accepted Jesus Christ as revealed in his word,—and we have not surrendered unless we have,—peace is ours. He is our peace. We have peace in him, for "ye are complete in him." It matters not what Satan may whisper, what sins of the past he may recall to your mind, there is peace in Jesus Christ. Accept it, rejoice in it, and rest; poor, weary, sin-sick soul, rest in Jesus Christ.

This Is the Lesson of Many Miracles.

The Israelites in the desert of Edom were bitten with the fiery serpent representing sin. The message was, Look and live. Jesus Christ was lifted in symbol. Looking was faith, faith was surrender, and surrender was peace and life in God. Said Jesus again and again to the disease-laden, sin-burdened souls, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace;"; "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." O soul, there is healing in Jesus Christ; there is blessed peace in surrendering to walk in his paths of peace. Following him, in him, "thy peace shall be as a river," flowing on, never ceasing, bearing blessings all the way. But tho the peace is like a river, yet there will be the peace and the rest of peace, as calm as the placid lake, as firm as the Rock of Ages; for has his Spirit not said of him, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is the Rock of Ages"? (Margin.) Church of the living God, called-out-ones to his service, trust him. Storms may arise and will arise in the sea of this world's life; the boat may seem frail and certain to go down, but Christ is in the ship. At the right time he will say to the turbulent, angry waves, "Peace, be still," and the storm will become a calm. In the meantime no ship, no soul in which Christ is, which is in Christ, can be destroyed. His message to us is Peace. Our message to the world is Peace in Jesus Christ, peace that the world can neither give nor take away; but that the world needs. Our work here is to be heralds of "peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." There is no lasting peace in the compromise of truth or righteousness. Seek the peace of God. "Let him take hold of my strength," saith the Lord, "and make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me." The peace of God is that of "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." "Great peace have they that love Thy law; and they have no stumbling block." Through all the strifes of earth, all its sadness, its crimes, its miseries, its woes, blessed indeed is the abiding peace of God. Beyond, in the presence of our Lord, is "the abundance of peace." To our readers, yea to all others, for the year 1897 do we wish that "the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."