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PEACE

“Go away and give me peace!”

“Let’s have some peace around here!”

Familiar cries of frustration in the hurly-burly of life! There is not much peace for many of us, it seems. There are demanding families to manage, or stresses and pressures at work to endure. There are strained relationships to cope with, or perhaps even abusive ones. There are anxieties about life—in the immediate or long-term future. And all the time, the bustle and busyness of life swirls around, multiplied for many people by the seemingly inescapable invasion of the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

Peace? If only . . .

Yet peace is one of those huge words in the Bible. In the Old Testament it is that beautiful and complex word shalom—all-round well-being, freedom from fear and want, and contentment in relationship with God, others, and creation. Peace in the storm is God’s gift to his people (Ps 29:11). Peace is God’s promise—when love, justice, truth, and peace have a group hug, and heaven and earth are in harmony (Ps 85:8-10). Jesus and Paul would have used the word peace many times every day in their customary greetings to other Jews (“Peace be with you”), as is still the case among Jews and Arabs today. It is a rich, resonant, and profoundly meaningful word.

But when Paul gives peace third place in the fruit of the Spirit, what does he have in mind? Well, he talks about peace a lot in his letters, and we can distinguish several ways in which he uses the word. Not all of them are quite what he includes in the fruit of the Spirit, but it is still useful to see the different dimensions of the word and then zoom in on those dimensions that Paul expects to see growing like fruit in our lives.

The Peace That God Made

At times Paul talks about peace as something that God, and only God, has accomplished. That means the peace that is the result of the great work of atonement that God accomplished through Jesus Christ in his cross and resurrection. One of the clearest explanations of this is in Ephesians 2. I have put the peace phrases in italics.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (Eph 2:11-18, emphasis mine)

Notice how Paul uses peace three times. First, Christ “is our peace”—that is, whatever peace we have as reconciled enemies, we have in Christ. And that can only be true because, second, he “made peace” by abolishing, through the cross, the barrier of enmity that divided Gentiles and Jews. And then, third, through the preaching of the apostles, Christ came and “preached peace” to those who had once been far away.

So in this context, Paul is talking about the “once-for-all” peace achieved by God’s work though Christ at the cross. It’s something that God did for us. It’s not the peace that is the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Peace as the fruit of the Spirit has to do with our character here and now, rather than God’s action back then. So, although this aspect of peace—the peace that God made—is absolutely fundamental to the gospel, it is probably not what Paul means by peace as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

The Peace That God Gives

Perhaps, then, Paul had in mind the peace that God gives. And that comes in two dimensions. There is peace with God, and there is the peace of God.

Peace with God. This is the much-loved statement of Paul at the start of Romans 5: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Rom 5:1-2, emphasis mine).

When we put our trust in Jesus, who died for our sins, then we know that we come into a right relationship with God, which gives us peace. Peace with God means peace of heart and conscience, the absence of guilt and fear. We no longer need to be anxious about God’s verdict on the last day. In Christ we are declared to be among the righteous, those who belong to God’s family. And it is all because of God’s grace. That is a wonderful thing and is perhaps a bit closer to the meaning of peace as the fruit of the Spirit. For unless we are at peace with God through faith, the Spirit of God is not at work in our lives. But once our relationship with God is settled, then the Spirit of God pours his new life into our lives and that life of God begins to bear fruit.

The peace of God. But the peace that God gives is not only peace with God, but also the peace of God. That means peace of mind, freedom from anxiety and panic. Jesus told us not to be worried but to trust our Heavenly Father. His words describe a quality of peace that reflects the presence of God’s Spirit:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Mt 6:25-34)

Paul echoes Jesus’ teaching, and explicitly links it to the peace that God gives: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7).

This is not just a blasé, “happy-go-lucky” attitude. Rather it is a settled trust in God’s Fatherly care and a steady refusal to give in to anxieties. It is an act of will, in which we choose not to worry, but to pray and trust God. And the whole Bible assures us that God can be trusted. Be at peace.

But, back in the so-called real world—the world of daily work and busyness—can we have peace there? Can we have peace in the midst of all the stresses of life here and now, in the workplace or home? Not only would Paul answer, “Yes we can,” but also I think he would add that that is exactly where it matters most. For a life that is filled with this kind of peace is a powerful witness to the gospel. It is in the non-Christian home or workplace that the people who live with the peace of God in their hearts, and who work to create or restore peace among others, stand out and get noticed.

Joy and peace go together, as we mentioned in the last chapter. Christians will be noticed (and often asked questions) if they have the kind of joy that is not affected by the moods of cynical despair and negativity that can easily dominate groups of people thrown together by their work. But equally, their joy doesn’t come from getting swept up in occasional crazy bouts of drinking and gluttony. Rather they have a quality of inner joy that can be sensed even in times of pain, or loss, or suffering; an underlying joy that is not dependent on alcohol, sex, or money.

Similarly, Christians with peace, who are not racked by anxiety or driven by ruthless ambition, who are not devastated by failing to get promoted, or in despair because of the threat or reality of losing their job, but who rather have an inner peace that flows from trusting God—such people are bearing silent witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are being like Christ in trusting their heavenly Father in the midst of whatever life brings—even the tough things.

Cultivating the fruit of the Spirit, you see, is not about polishing your own halo, or keeping up a good image. That sort of thing is stupid and false, and everybody (including God) can see through it. It’s about making Christ visible and making the gospel attractive.

The peace that God calls for. We have thought about the peace God made (through the cross of Christ) and the peace God gives (peace of mind and conscience). But there is a third kind of peace, and that is the peace that God calls us to work at in the way we live. God calls us to live at peace with others, and to work for peace among Christians—and indeed in the wider world. This is by far the most frequent way that Paul uses the word, and it’s almost certainly the kind of peace he particularly has in mind in his list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.

Since God has made peace between himself and us (at his own great cost through the death of Jesus on the cross), God now calls us to live in peace with one another, as a way of “living out” the transforming power of the cross in our own practical lives. But that does not come naturally to us in our fallen sinfulness and dividedness. It is something that has to be cultivated like fruit—the fruit of God’s Spirit at work within us and between us. That’s why Paul can both describe it as fruit and also tell us to “make every effort” to live in that way.

One of the best places to think through what this means would be to go back to that text where we found joy and peace closely linked—Romans 14:1–15:13. Paul was writing to the Christians in the great cosmopolitan city of Rome. Many of them had come to faith from a completely pagan, Gentile background. They had no qualms about any kind of food or particular holy days. But some of the Christians in Rome were Jews who had now come to faith in Jesus as Messiah. There were enormous differences between these groups, even though they were all now believers in Jesus and together in the church. They came from very different cultures and religious backgrounds. Some thought they could eat any meat from the butcher’s shop, as they had always done. Others were horrified because they thought that kind of meat was unclean and idolatrous. Some wanted to observe the Sabbath day as they had always done. Others didn’t care what day it was; they had to work every day anyway (especially if they were slaves), so what difference would a Sabbath make?

It seems that those from a Gentile background were thinking of themselves as “the strong” (i.e. they had a strong faith and knew that things like food and days didn’t affect their salvation and relationship with Christ). And maybe they were calling the Jewish believers “the weak” because they were still attached to their Jewish customs and scruples, only eating vegetables, for example, to avoid any contamination from meat that was ritually unclean or sacrificed to idols.

Now these were not minor things. We might think, “What a fuss about meat or vegetables! Why did it matter?” But it did matter a lot to them—especially the Jewish believers. These differences of cultural and religious background were causing a lot of disagreement and dispute, theologically and practically. But Paul spends a chapter and a half urging both sides to “accept one another” and to avoid quarrelling over “disputable matters.” Notice that Paul takes it for granted that there are always going to be “disputable matters” in any group of Christians. We will not always agree about everything. Such is life. But the key thing is not that we should agree with one another all the time, but that we should accept one another—even those who see things very differently—when we know that the other person is a believer and loves the Lord Jesus Christ as we do. Here’s how Paul begins:

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. (Rom 14:1-3)

Paul starts by telling them categorically that they must avoid two opposite attitudes that can very easily poison any Christian church. So he tells them in verse 3, no contempt! That is, Gentile Christians must not mock Jewish believers for what seemed to be out-of-date rules and scruples about food and days; and No condemnation! That is, Jewish believers must not denounce Gentiles for what seemed (to Jews) to be much too free and easy behavior.

Rather, Paul commands them to “make every effort to do what leads to peace” (Rom 14:19). That is his fundamental instruction in this whole section. And he reinforces it with a whole range of arguments that we should take very seriously.

We are subject to the same Lord (Rom 14:1-12). This is the main thrust of the first part of Paul’s case, and it has several aspects:

We are constrained by love (Rom 14:13-23). What Paul writes here is very similar to his teaching in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 about meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Paul says that Christians have freedom in what they eat or drink, because all food ultimately comes from God and can be received with thanksgiving. But to flaunt your freedom over other Christians, without any sensitivity for their conscientious feelings in the matter, is to fail to exercise Christian love—and that is a serious sin. For in fact, when you sin against another believer, you sin against Christ (1 Cor 8:12).

Paul is not saying that everybody must just conform to the person with the most scruples. That can become very manipulative in a Christian fellowship. Everybody defers to the weakest, and the weakest thus paradoxically exercises huge power! What Paul says in Romans 14:14 assumes that there is a place for helping people to come to a more mature understanding of what being a Christian means, and what it doesn’t mean. All of us need to educate our consciences through ongoing study of the Scriptures, prayer, and fellowship. That will help us get a better balance between where we can act with maturity and freedom, and where we need to exercise loving restraint and sensitivity. And that is never easy! We often think or say, “Where should I draw the line?” There is no easy answer to that. But let us not be so obsessed with drawing lines that we end up dividing the body of Christ and forgetting the mission we should be doing for him. The love we live by is more important than the lines we draw.

We are to be shaped by the example of Christ (Rom 15:1-8). Paul comes to the climax of his argument by focusing our eyes again on Jesus Christ himself. What he says in Romans 15:2 is very similar to Philippians 2:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. (Phil 2:3-5)

And in both places, he makes Jesus the example of what he instructs us to do: “For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me’” (Rom 15:3).

That quotation comes from Psalm 69, which is a picture of unjust suffering. But whereas the psalmist there called out for God’s judgment on those who were tormenting him (Ps 69:7-8), Jesus prayed that his Father would forgive those who were crucifying him. And Paul tells us to follow his example—as Stephen, the first martyr for Jesus, did (Acts 7:59-60). So in Romans 15 verses 4 and 13, Paul connects the example of Jesus to the Scriptures, and makes that part of the recipe for being filled with hope, peace, and joy.

But Paul goes even further and turns his teaching into a very powerful prayer: “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 15:5-6).

Paul shows us what true peace among believers means (when they accept one another and work hard to live at peace with others, even when they disagree). It means that they have the mind of Christ. It means they can truly sing together with one voice in their worship. And it means that they will bring glory to God the Father. That all sounds wonderful. But when you think of the opposite in each case, it is a strong warning.

When we fight and condemn one another, denounce other Christians and divide from them, fostering all kinds of divisions within the church, then we do not have the mind of Christ. We make a mockery of singing “with one voice” in our worship and deprive God of his glory.

Peace, as Paul describes it, is a serious business. It is not just a nice happy feeling. It is at the heart of the gospel of Christ and the glory of God. Surely Paul would say all this just as sternly to churches today, where we find seemingly endless condemnation of other Christians who see things differently from ourselves. Would he not add, as he did to the Galatians, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal 5:15)?

For Paul, seeking peace and living at peace is a very important part of living together as Christians. And in case you think I have spent too much time on that section in Romans 14–15, it is only because that is where Paul expands and explains it so thoroughly. But just look at how many other times he says the same thing more briefly:

What does it mean to practice peace like that—to cultivate that fruit of the Spirit in our lives?

Well, at the very least it should mean that we do the following:

Perhaps the best way to end this chapter would be with the prayer commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi (though strictly speaking the author is unknown).

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Questions

  1. What Bible stories illustrate the power of reconciliation and peacemaking?
  2. What examples can you think of within your own church or culture where Christians have been instrumental in bringing peace and reconciliation?
  3. Are there conflicts and divisions at present within your church or wider Christian community? Consider studying Romans 14–15 together as a way of working toward building peace and reconciliation.
  4. In what ways do you think your own life displays peace as the fruit of the Spirit, and in what ways do you need to pray for this to be more true than it is now?

Watch a video from Chris about peace at ivpress.com/cultivating-peace.