The Lord Our Peace

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"He is our peace."--Eph. 2:14

There is a beautiful gradation in the development of the graces of the Spirit in the believing soul--first peace, then joy. This is a merciful and gracious provision of our God. There are, alas! but few rejoicing Christians; and yet, in the absence of joy-(the subject of our next meditation,) what a comfort that we may arrive at a state of peace, this being a fruit of the Spirit growing lower down on the tree, 'bearing all manner of fruit,' and therefore more accessible than the higher grace of joy, a fruit found on loftier boughs, and growing in a sunnier region. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Thus we often hear in the dying experience of God's saints the expression--"I am not joyful, but I am peaceful. I have no great ecstacy or transport of feeling, but my soul believingly, sweetly rests on Jesus, and I am kept in perfect peace." Well, this is no small Christian attainment and divine blessing; and if our peace is a genuine fruit of the Spirit, springing from simple faith in Jesus, the effect of His peace-speaking blood upon the conscience, it is worth countless worlds, and "passes all understanding." A few reflections may aid us in the fuller realization of this blessed state.

In the first place, we must keep the great essential truth ever in view that, not only can Christ make peace, give us peace, and bequeath His peace as a precious legacy, but, Jesus himself is our peace. "Christ is our peace." This thought raises us above a mere dogma, to a Person--above the truth of Christ, to Christ himself. God says of the sinner at variance with Him--"Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me" (Isa. 27:5). Now "Christ is the Power of God," or, the Strength of God, taking hold of whom in faith we are at "peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Thus the expression so general, "he made his peace with God," as applied to many who pass out of this world into eternity without any scriptural evidence of conversion, involves a fearful delusion and a fatal error. The sinner cannot of himself make his peace with God. Christ has already made peace, or rather, Christ is Himself our peace; and until we believe in Christ, and have received Christ, our boasted peace is false--it is the peace, not of life, but of death--the peace of Satan, easily understood; not the "peace of God, which passes all understanding."

Yes, Jesus is our Peace. He stood in the breach, bore the sin, endured the curse, and suffered the condemnation. Upon Him fell the stroke that bowed His holy soul in sorrow to the earth, and so secured our reconciliation with God. "There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," even Jesus, "the Prince of Peace."

And now the atoning work of Jesus in its two distinct branches--the blood that pardons, and the righteousness that justifies--is the channel through which peace flows into our soul. The one is termed, "peace-speaking blood," the other is represented as placing us in a state of free and full justification, and so bringing us into the experience of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, then, O my soul, the channel through which your true peace flows--the blood of Christ applied to the conscience, and the righteousness of Christ put upon you by the Spirit.

The Lord can give you peace in trouble. When the tempest rages and the waters are dark and billowy, beneath the surface your peace from God, through Christ, may flow like a river. You are firmly anchored in faith on God. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Guard against that which would compromise your peace, O my soul. Toy not with temptation, trifle not with conscience, walk not at a distance from Jesus. Wash daily in the Fountain, and your peace shall be as an ever-springing well. "When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" "Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always, by all means."