What does the Bible say about the foundation of peace in a world without peace?
Sep 27th, 2009 / Salt and Light
Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1–2—NKJV
What a blessed state real peace is and yet how little peace we really know! We live in a world which seems to know how to talk about peace but rarely has the luxury of it. Someone once counted the number of years in the last two millennia in which there were no known wars. The years of peace were strikingly few.
In our own experience we learn the value of peace as we age. We seem to have less of it as our life gets more complicated and we wistfully think upon spotty moments in our past as times of blissful peace in ignorance. Complications arise from busyness, consequences of sin, troubles of life, relationships, career challenges, financial reversals and the like. What person doesn’t cry out for a little peace from time to time?
The striking thing is that neither world peace nor comfortable peace, as described above, are achieved merely through the absence of war or personal struggles. No peace is lasting without some positive relationship underlying it. As enviable as peaceful times are in life there is actually biblical instruction that provides (both for the world and for every individual) a real foundation for lasting peace and for the feelings of peace which come from it. To get peace right we must first clear the deck in our thinking.
Genuine peace has eluded you if your peace does not arise from a right relationship with Jehovah God. There must be a positive foundation. Peace is not a neutral sort of peace, like cessation of strife (as in calling a truce or the children are put to bed). Genuine peace is a positive peace (fellowship reigns).
Because sin separates us from God from birth and we are perpetrators of ongoing offense to God by being sinners by birth and by choice, we are in a rebellious state of war against God. Isaiah 57:20–21 says, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’” By God’s own account there can be no real, lasting, positive peace in human terms without a sure foundation.
Our text identifies the one sure foundation for any lasting peace among men. When a person is born again through faith in the redemptive work of the shed blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary, God deals with the state of war which exists in a man’s heart. He declares the believing sinner justified. God removes his sin and guilt from him based on the merits of His sinless Son Jesus, gives His new creation a new nature, and places upon His child the positive righteousness of Jesus.
The scope of what this really means is more evident in the original language than in our English text. “We have peace with God” should be translated something like “peace we have with God face to face!” This parallels the relationship of peace Jesus has with His Father, as John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (in living communion, face to face), and the Word was God.” This kind of dynamic peace enables the saint to be at peace even in the most trying of circumstances.
Those who are at peace with God know what real peace is and are the most likely candidates to actively work at genuine peace. The best way to work for world peace is to evangelize and introduce someone to the only savior of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 6:15).
Do you have peace with God face to face? Are you actively pursuing biblical peace among the saints? Do you make it your aim to work for world peace witnessing to one soul at a time? Trust and obey.