In a world that longs for peace, for multitudes of people daily life is an unremitting round of violence and hostility.
It is seen at its most intense in the apparently insoluble conflicts which continue to engulf Syria and threaten the whole Middle East. But it is also played out in the myriad daily battles from the board room to the playground, and all stations in between, which mar and dominate so many relationships. It is precisely in this sort of world that the Bible tells us, \u2018the fruit of the Spirit is ... peace\u2019 (Galatians 5.22).
God\u2019s nature
Peace is the expression of the very nature of God himself, revealed supremely in Jesus Christ, \u2018for he himself is our peace\u2019 (Ephesians 2.14). So, if our lives are dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, living within us, to make us more and more like him, peace will be an essential and visible fruit. But what will that look like, in practice?
God\u2019s peace is not just the absence of war, or of personal conflict, although that is an important part of it and the place at which it begins. We have first to experience peace with God if ever our lives are to be channels of the peace of God. But these two dimensions of peace are closely linked together. At the cross, the Lord Jesus turned away God\u2019s righteous wrath against us sinners, by carrying our guilt and suffering our punishment, through his atoning death. \u2018Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus\u2019 (Romans 8.1). The war is over; God has no contention against us. \u2018Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ\u2019 (Roman 5.1). This means both that our greatest broken relationship has been restored and also that all our other relationships should reflect this reality, through multiplied reconciliations and ongoing peace among Christ\u2019s redeemed people.
Made one
This is one of Paul\u2019s major points in his majestic letter to the Ephesians. He is keen to point out that the existence of the church, made up of Jews and Gentiles, who have each and all been reconciled to God by the work of Christ on the cross, is the living demonstration, in time and space, of the truths and effectiveness of the gospel. There was no greater division in the first-century world than that between Jews and Gentiles, so that if there can be peace between those two ethnic backgrounds, there can be no hostility or antagonism too entrenched for the gospel to overcome. God\u2019s purpose, Paul tells us, \u2018was to create in himself (Christ) one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility\u2019 (Ephesians 2.15-16).
This peace, which is the Spirit\u2019s fruit, is not then primarily a quiet, restful heart for the Christian believer, but the ability for each of us to live at peace with one another, since we are all one in Christ Jesus. Internal squabbling in our churches, bearing grievances and resentments against our fellow Christians, going to war against brothers and sisters over personal preferences and predilections, \u2018these are a denial of the gospel and demonstrate a woeful lack of the Spirit\u2019s fruit. Indeed, they must grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4.30), whose fruit is peace. That is why we are exhorted to \u2018make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit, through the bond of peace\u2019 (Ephesians 4. 3).
Be pro-active about it. Because we are at peace with God, we, like our heavenly Father, are to be peacemakers. Of course that can be costly. Someone parodied the beatitude, \u2018Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be shot at by both sides\u2019, and there is a truth in that! That is why it is only the Spirit who can produce peace and keep us persevering for its creation and continuance.
Wherever Christians live in genuine peace with one another, there is a sign to the warring world of broken trust and violent retaliation, that God\u2019s new creation has already begun. And when the Prince of Peace returns, in power and glory, to usher in the fulness of his eternal rule, that eternal peace, of which we have a small taster now, will be fully realised. Cultivate the fruit now; it is the promise of a \u2018harvest of righteousness\u2019 (James 3.18).
David Jackman is the past President of the Proclamation Trust.
