Peace: What Is It?

Scripture speaks of the Son of God as “having made peace through the blood of His cross.” Peace, then, has been made, and the One who did it “has been raised from among the dead, and glorified in consequence.
Founded on this great work is “peace with God,” of which we read in Rom. 5:1. We understand by this “peace with God” the removal forever of everything which could make the believer uneasy in His holy presence, because He justifies us from all things through our Lord Jesus Christ, and reckons us righteous on the principle of faith without works, What love! Peace with God, then, we repeat it, is founded on the blood of the cross, therefore, when Jesus was risen from among the dead, He said to His disciples, “Peace be unto you”; and “He showed unto them His hands and His side.” He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification,” therefore we who believe have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God is now known — we have it, but only in believing God’s testimony concerning Christ’s finished work. It is to God {that} the Holy Spirit brings us. We have “joy and peace in believing,” not in feelings, or experience, or ordinances, or religious works of any kind, but in believing. About this we cannot be too simple, for, as the apostle says, “It is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure.” There is no other ground of assurance in Scripture as to our eternal salvation than God’s testimony to the abiding efficacy of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Will the reader turn to Rom. 4:3, 5, 18-25; 5:1; 15:13; Heb. 10:9-22, and believe what God says? But some may say,
WHO ARE BELIEVERS?
When you speak of believers, what do you mean? What is a believer according to Scripture? The question is of all importance; for we read of the believer having everlasting life, of his being justified from all things, and having joy and peace in believing, so it surely is a matter about which we should have divine certainty.
There are not a few who try to persuade themselves that they are believers, because, as they say, they believe the whole Bible, by which they mean they believe it to be a true book. But where has God said He will save a sinner because he assents to the Bible being true There are others who say they are believers because of what they have felt, while many more take the place of believers because they believe they are believers. But where, we ask, does God say that a man shall be saved if he feels this or that, or because he believes he is a believer? There are also many sincere souls who are looking at the work of the Spirit in them, instead of the work of Christ for them; and if they can trace what they suppose to be the Spirit’s work in them they conclude they must be believers. But perhaps the commonest deception in our day consists in persons taking the place of believers because they believe some things about Christ, instead of believing on the Son to the saving of the soul.
Now these and similar wanderings of the human mind do not agree with what Scripture teaches about believing. Such ideas (alas! how common) not only damage souls, but bewilder those who desire to be right with God. They give shelter to empty professors, and hold fast in carnal security those who care only for the present, and are not exercised before God about their eternal future.
In turning to such Scriptures as set forth the grace of God, we find the Lord Jesus Christ presented as the object of faith, while the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, is given as the sole authority for faith. The believing soul receive God’s testimony, and knows it to be the truth. “He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal, that God is true” (John 3:33). He is certain that God means what He says, that His word is forever settled in heaven, and will never pass away, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Nothing can be more simple or profoundly grand, for all the glory is thus secured to God, and the blessing to us; and assuredly so, because it is given, not on the principle of law, but on the principle of faith, and flows from the loving heart of the God of all grace through the sacrifice of His own Son.
As to the Lord Jesus Christ being the object of faith, the gospels and epistles abound with instruction and examples. Jesus Himself said,
This is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40).
Observe, it is not believing something about Jesus, but believing on Him — making the Son of God the object, the blessed Person to whom our hearts look, and His precious blood our only way of approach to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Did not our Lord explain to Nicodemus, by the illustration of the brazen serpent, that He, when “lifted up,” would be the only object of saving faith?
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14, 15).
Thus, as the Israelite who was dying from the serpent’s bite looked to the object presented to him and “lived,” so the sinner now who looks away from himself to the Lord Jesus Christ has eternal life; for “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life” (John 3:36). It is not said, if you try, or if you feel, or if you turn over a new leaf, or if you reform and strive to get better first; no, nothing of the kind; but “whosoever believeth in Him”; or whoever puts his heart’s trust in Him, knowing that He died for sinners, that He bids us come, and would have us drop into His open arms that He might have the joy of saving us. Oh yes, He delights to save every sinner that thus looks to Him. His word is, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.”
“He makes no hard condition,
Tis only, Look and live.”
But perhaps the reader will say, “I look only to the Lord Jesus as a sinner to a Savior, and approach God only by His precious blood, and yet I cannot say I am sure that I am saved.” Now why is this? Is it not because you do not make the written word of God your sole authority as to salvation? It may be you are trying to determine by your own thoughts and feelings whether or not your sins are forgiven. You reason about it and say, Could a true believer have such thoughts and feelings as I have? Should I not be happier than I am if I were truly a believer? Such reasonings however are not of faith but are the activities of unbelief, and should be treated as false and delusive. The whole question is, What does God say in His Word of one who truly looks away from himself to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner to a Savior? Does He say such an one will perish? Nay; He declares they “shall never perish.” Does God say that the sinner must do good works before he can be justified? Certainly not. Quite the contrary. He declares he is justified on the principle of faith without the deeds of the law; that he is saved by grace without religious works of any kind. And further, as he looked out of himself to Christ, and received eternal life, so now he knows that he has it on God’s testimony in His Word. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1John 5:13). When he hearkens only to God’s testimony, he will say, like another —
“I dare not work my soul to save,
That work my Lord has done;
But I will work like any slave
From love to God’s dear Son.”
Again. Perhaps the soul is perturbed as to whether he has the right kind of faith. But Scripture speaks of the faith of God’s people as that which worketh by love. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This love, when believed — not merely known, but “known and believed” — causes confidence to spring up in our hearts; so that we love God who has so loved us, and we trust Him, and take Him, according to the word of His grace, as “a just God and Savior.” The point, then, of all importance is not the quality and measure of our faith, but whether we are looking to the right person. Is the Lord Jesus Christ the One we trust in as having saved us by His work of eternal redemption? If so, God declares that “by Him all that believe are justified from all things” justified by His blood, justified on the principle of faith, and have life eternal in Him. Yes, it is God that justifieth; “for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified”; and says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” All this, and much more, we know on the authority of God’s unerring word.
Every one who believes on the only-begotten Son of God is then entitled to say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me; all my sins are forgiven; I am cleansed from all sin, and I am before God whiter than snow; I have passed from death unto life, shall not come into judgment; I know that I have eternal life, and am a child of God.” Sure he is now that if death takes place he will at once be present with the Lord; or should the Lord come, he would be caught up to meet Him in the air. He knows, too, that every step of his earthly pilgrimage God has provided for in the present offices of Christ in heaven on his behalf.” He is able also to save them to the uttermost” (or for evermore) “that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). Let the reader, if not quite sure of eternal salvation, ponder and mix faith with such Scriptures as are here referred to, and give glory to God: Gal. 1:4, 2:20, 3:26 Acts 10:43; 1 John 2:12; Rev. 1:5; 1 John 5:13; John 5:24; 1 John 3:1, 2, 14; 2 Cor. 5:1; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; 1 John 2:1, 2. When these words are believed to be God’s truth, and to have been written for our present comfort and hope, how can there be either question or fear left? As we sometimes sing –-
“Our doubts and fears for ever gone,
For Christ is on the Father’s throne.”
We may be certain that God will be as good as His word, and that the Spirit leads us to rely upon it, for He is faithful that promised. “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” How then can He possibly act contrary to His own word, or deny the eternal value of the work of His own Son?
It is generally the sinner’s guilt and burden of his sins which compel him to take refuge in the Savior’s open arms. Thankful indeed, and often joyous too, is he when he finds, through the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son, that his sins are for ever blotted out, that God is the Justifier and has justified him from all things, given him eternal life, and made him His child for ever. His burden is gone, and he is a happy soul. He delights now in prayer and praise, and in knowing and serving the Lord. He loves the brethren. He finds increasing interest in the written Word, and his heart goes out in ways which are according to the truth. He knows he is an object of divine grace, and flatters himself that he will never be unhappy again. But he knows little of the state of the world as it is in God’s sight, or of Satan, who goeth about like a roaring lion, or of the desperate wickedness and deceitfullness of his heart. If, however, he tarry on earth, he will learn in some measure, by the Spirit’s teaching, according to the truth of God, what he really is after the flesh, as well as the character of his surroundings. He will find out, to his inexpressible joy, that peace with God is never founded on experience, but on Christ’s finished work.