V. The New Testament Concept Of Reconciliation
d. Making peace
The actual expression ‘making peace’ does not occur very often in the New Testament, but it is a common idea that believers have peace with God. Since this is not thought of as applying to natural man (cf. Eph. 2: 3, ‘by nature children of wrath’), it may fairly be held to imply the thought of making peace.
It will be worth our while to notice a little of the content of the term εἰρήνη (peace). Among the Greeks it was used primarily to denote that state of rest which results from cessation of hostilities, peace in opposition to war. But in the LXX the term receives an extension of meaning. This is due to its being used as the regular translation of the Hebrew shālôm,442 a word of wider meaning than εἰρήνη in profane Greek writings. shālôm can be used to denote the state of rest when there is no war, and it is used in this way in about thirty-eight of its 236 occurrences in the Old Testament. But this cannot be regarded as the word’s essential meaning. It is better regarded as part of a wider conception of general well-being. Because such well-being is promoted in times when there is no war, and because indeed such times may be regarded as an integral part of the general well-being, the term shālôm was felt to be not inappropriately used to describe the condition of absence of strife. But that should not blind us to the fact that the essential meaning of the word is to be sought elsewhere. BDB find it in the thought of ‘completeness, soundness, welfare’ and so ‘peace’. G. von Rad thinks that ‘The groundmeaning of the word is “well-being” and indeed with a manifest emphasis on the material side’.443 E. de W. Burton says shālôm ‘has as its fundamental idea “soundness,” “prosperity,” “well-being” ’.444 There can be no doubt that the word conveyed to the Hebrews the thought of well-being in the widest of senses.
A full examination of such a rich and many-sided concept would take up more space than we have at our disposal, and we content ourselves with noticing one or two of the more important points. shālôm is often used in connection with material prosperity (e.g. Lv. 26: 5ff.). But sometimes we detect a more spiritual note, as when the psalmist says, ‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other’ (Ps. 85: 10). So too the prophet writes, ‘the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever’ (Is. 32: 17).445 In such passages we must feel that more than material prosperity is in mind, and that shālôm has an ethical content. This we might also deduce from the fact that sometimes shālôm is ascribed to the Lord, as in Job 25: 2, ‘He maketh peace in his high places’, or in 1 Kings 2: 33 where it is said that unto David and his house ‘shall there be peace for ever from the Lord’. In line with this is the name ‘Jehovah-shalom’, ‘the Lord is peace’ (Jdg. 6: 24). There are implications also in the expression ‘covenant of peace’ which we meet in a number of passages and where it is clear that the peace in question comes from the Lord (Nu. 25: 12; Is. 54: 10; Ezk. 34: 25; 37: 26; Mal. 2: 5). Thus, while we may not say that the New Testament conception of peace with God is already to be discerned in the Old Testament, yet we can say that the way was being prepared especially in the concept of a peace which includes an ethical content, and which takes its origin from God.
As εἰρήνη was used so regularly to translate, shālôm, it was inevitable that it should pick up some of the wide meaning associated with the Hebrew term. The reader of the LXX must have come to see, from the variety of contexts in which the word was used, that εἰρήνη denoted more than a cessation of hostility. In particular he was bound to see that the word often denotes a blessing which comes from God (Nu. 6: 26; Is.45: 7; Zc. 8: 12), and that it frequently has an ethical content (Ps. 33: 14; Is. 32: 17; Zc. 8: 12; Mal. 2: 6; etc.).
During the period between the two Testaments this usage continues, and other elements are imported into it. We have already noted that the Rabbis think of an enmity between God and man and of various ways in which reconciliation is effected.446 The Zadokite fragment speaks of the Lord as striving with all flesh (1 : 2), but not much can be made of this, for the words are ‘Based almost verbally on Jer. xxv. 31’.447 The Old Testament often speaks of the Lord as having a controversy with men, and of reconciliation, inasmuch as punishment does not always come upon them. But the point is that this reconciliation is not indicated by the use of shālôm (or εἰρήνη), and in this respect the Zadokite fragment continues the Old Testament usage. In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs εἰρήνη is used in connection with the judgment of God, as whenjudgment is executed for a period (Test. Lev. 18 : 2), but later ‘there shall be peace in all the earth’ (verse 4). Peace comes from God, and there is an interesting passage where ‘the angel of peace’ makes his appearance. The patriarch Dan says, ‘Draw near unto God and unto the angel that intercedeth for you, for he is a mediator between God and man, and for the peace of Israel he shall stand up against the kingdom of the enemy’ (Test. Dan 6: 2). Here there is a conflict between God and man, or at any rate between God and Satan, with evil in man very much the point at issue. But, although peace is used of the successful outcome, it seems rather in the sense of ‘well-being, prosperity’ than of a state of peace between God and man.
Somewhat similar, though closer to the thought of a state of peace between God and man, is the usage in the Ethiopic Enoch. Here we find the thoughts of peace and judgment connected: ’And the earth shall be wholly rent in sunder, and all that is upon the earth shall perish, and there shall be a judgment upon all (men). But with the righteous He will make peace, and will protect the elect, and mercy shall be upon them’ (En. 17: 8). Similarly peace seems closely allied to forgiveness: ‘And ye shall have no peace nor forgiveness of sin’ (En. 12: 5), ‘And there shall be forgiveness of >sins, and every mercy and peace and forbearance’ (En. 5 : 6 and cf. En. 5: 4; 16: 4).
In Josephus there seems little to help us. He uses εἰρήνη of Abraham’s returning in peace after recapturing Lot and the Sodomites, 448 which is quite a common usage. There is probably an ethical content when he refers to the Essenes as ‘ministers of peace’.449 There is also an interesting passage in which he refers to Saul’s having peace of soul,450 but as this peace is rest from demons probably not much can be made of the reference. Philo once says that God is peace: ‘Know then, good friend, that God alone is the real veritable peace’,451 and again, he thinks of God as the only source of peace, speaking of God, ‘Whose voice granted to Phinehas the highest of blessings, peace - a gift which no human being can bestow’.452 When he says that ‘the results of continence are stability and peace‘453 he seems to be giving εἰρήνη an ethical content.
Thus in these various Jewish writings there seems to be a tendency to retain something of the wider meaning given to εἰρήνη in the LXX. In particular peace is often regarded as coming from God, and the ethical note is not seldom struck. Those writers who use it in connection with the judgment of God upon sin are getting near to the New Testament idea of peace following upon God’s dealing with sin.
A striking feature of the New Testament use of εἰρήνη is the frequency with which it is associated, directly or indirectly, with God. It is a difficult word to classify, as one group of meanings shades off into another, and there must always be a large subjective element in any classification adopted. But it may be said that of the ninety-two times the word occurs, fifteen refer to peace as opposed to war, personal strife, or confusion, while in all the others it is possible to see implied the thought that God is the giver. Peace is specifically connected with the Father or the Son about forty times, including the salutations in the Epistles.
Particularly important from our present point of view are those passages which directly associate peace with God. First there are those which indicate a tranquillity in the believer. This is not the possession of all men; it is a specifically Christian peace. As Burton says, it is a ‘Tranquillity of mind, which comes from the assurance of being reconciled with God and under his loving care’.454 A good example of this usage is John 14: 27 where Jesus says, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you’. Here peace is expressly associated with the speaker - it is ‘His’ peace - and it is also expressly differentiated from the peace which the world gives. Similar is the Lord’s statement a little later, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (Jn. 16: 33). Here again peace is associated with Christ, and it is contrasted with the tribulation that is the world’s gift. The peace in question seems to rest on the fact that Christ has overcome the world. So again St. Paul says: ‘For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and >peace’ (Rom. 8: 6). His subsequent reference to the mind of the flesh as enmity with God enables us to say with confidence that the peace he is thinking of is one in which that enmity has been overcome. It is a peace which results from the work of Christ for man.455
So completely is the idea accepted that peace comes from God that He can be referred to as ‘the God of peace’, an expression which implies that the bringing about of peace is a characteristic feature of His activity. A particularly instructive example is Romans 16: 20, ‘And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly’. In the very sentence in which He is designated ‘God of peace’ that same God is pictured in the warlike activity of bruising Satan. Nothing could more graphically illustrate the fact that peace in the New Testament is not simply the absence of war. It is a much more positive concept, and one which, as here, may be compatible with struggle. It stands for spiritual well-being at the highest level, a prosperity of soul resulting from being in right relationship with God.456 God brings about this relationship by His victory over Satan. The thought that God is the God of peace and the connection with the atoning work of Christ are to be discerned also in the great benediction at the end of the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus’ (Heb. 13: 20). From such passages it is clear that the giving of peace is a distinctive divine activity, and that it is associated with the atoning death of Christ. The passages in question do not say in so many words that we have peace because Christ died, but it is hard to see how this inference can be avoided. (Cf. the references to ‘the God of peace’ in Rom. 15: 33; 2 Cor. 13: 11; Phil. 4: 9; 1 Thes. 5: 23; and ‘the Lord of peace’ in 2 Thes. 3: 16.)
There are a few passages wherein peace seems to be nearly identical with salvation. Thus in his speech in the house of Cornelius Peter refers to ‘the word which he sent unto the children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (εὐαγγελιζόμενoς εἰρήνην διὰ ’Ιησοῦ Χριστῦ )’ (Acts 10: 36). It is very difficult to distinguish here between εἰρήνη) and εὐαγγέλιον, and the content of the ) in question must be that the enmity caused by sin has been done away with in Christ. It is not otherwise with Romans 5: 1, where ‘peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ is mentioned in the closest of connections with justification by faith, and where εἰρήνη seems to include more than simply tranquillity of mind. So also we find a reference to ‘the gospel of peace’ (Eph. 6:15), where the meaning seems to be that the tidings are to be proclaimed that peace in the fullest sense is the result of God’s activity in Christ. But in this connection the most important passage is Ephesians 2: 14f. in which Christ is designated as ‘our peace’, He is referred to as ‘making peace’, and as preaching ‘peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh’. The passage is not without its difficulties, for the writer begins with the enmity between Jew and Gentile, and this does not drop entirely out of his thought. But at the same time the thought of the deeper enmity between sinful man and God comes in.457 Christ, by His atoning death, has done away with the enmity. He has brought about a comprehensive peace, one which includes complete wholeness spiritually, and right relations with God issuing in right relations with man. So completely is Christ identified with this process of making peace that He can be said to be ‘our peace’. Nothing could convey more definitely the thought that peace is not of man’s devising, but a divine gift (cf. also Gal. 6: 16; Phil. 4: 7; Col. 3: 15).
This thought of a broadly-conceived peace coming from God is important. The New Testament does not regard man in his natural condition as at peace with God. Rather, so long as he is outside Christ, he is at enmity with God ‘because 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 cannot please God’ (Rom. 8: 7f.). It is unnecessary to labour the point, for it is the common New Testament view of man untouched by the gospel. But it is also the characteristic New Testament teaching that God did not allow matters to rest there. In the Person of Jesus Christ He intervened and brought about a new state of affairs and it is this which is called ‘peace’. It includes a great deal more than a cessation of hostility, as we have seen; but it does include this. Indeed, this is the basis of the other blessings included in the conception. It is because a state of peace exists between God and His creation that His will to bless operates unhindered.
We have seen that there are some passages in which this thought of peace is connected explicitly with the atonement wrought by Christ, and such a connection must be postulated of the passages where it is not expressed. For, on the one hand, nothing that man can do can effect this result. And, on the other, something must be done if a state of peace is to come about. Scripture insists upon the seriousness of sin as separating man from God, and never gives countenance to any such thought as that man will one day simply drift into the kingdom of God, forgiven because God is like that. It is only because God in Christ took the initiative that peace could possibly come into existence.