As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
23May
He, the God of peace, sanctify you [to be] complete, and may [the] whole of you
– the spirit and the soul and the body – be kept blamelessly in the Coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The One calling you [is] faithful, who will
also accomplish it.
As soon as I started studying these two verses I was
intrigued by Paul’s reference to the Lord specifically as “the God of peace.”
This is probably a place where we really see the Jewish concept of peace shine
out. At least for us Americans, we think of “peace” only as the absence of
conflict. We think, for instance, in a war, there is “peace” when no one is
shooting. In our lives, “peace” is when everyone else “leaves us alone.” But
the Jewish concept of peace is much, much larger than that. It is more the idea
of “completion,” of everything being in its place, everything being as it
should – our family healthy, the crops growing, the house solid and watertight.
That is the concept of the Hebrew word “shalom,” which is translated as “eirene”
in Greek (as here) and “peace” in English. (Yes, in Greek it is “eirene,” which
becomes our girl’s name Eirene in English).
I haven’t studied enough to know for sure exactly what was the
Greek concept of “peace”, but I note in Greek:English dictionaries they define
it about the way we would. What’s important here though is that even if Paul is
writing in Greek, he has a Jewish mind. As is the case with all the Biblical
writers, we have Jewish men writing whether they express their thoughts in
Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. No matter which language they’re writing in, they’re
thinking like a Jew. I would suggest that is specifically why Paul calls Him “the
God of peace” when he wants to express this prayer that we should be sanctified
“completely” and that “the whole of us” be kept blamelessly. The One who
provides completeness is “the God of peace.”
I want to pause and ponder on this name “the God of peace.”
Even a cursory perusal of the Bible would tell us the
concept of peace is enormously important to God. Scanning a concordance, it is
almost surprising how often the Bible refers to peace. In many of the NT
epistles, He is called “the God of peace” as in II Cor 13:11, “the God of love and peace will be with you,” or as in Heb
13:20, “Now may the God of peace …” There are many, many such references.
Of course we have Jesus’ words, “Peace I leave
with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid … I have told you these
things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have
trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 14:27 & 16:33).
Of course we also have the glorious passage
of Phil 4:4-9, “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 your
minds in Christ Jesus ... think on these things, and the God of peace
will be with you.” We can add to this many, many OT references to peace. In
Psalm 4:8, David says confidently, “I will both lay me down in peace and
sleep, for Thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety,” and in 119:165 he assures
us “Great peace have them that love Thy Law.” The book of Proverbs would
have us know of wisdom that “Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her
paths are peace” (3:17).
Isaiah is, of course full of very familiar
and comforting references to peace:
“You will keep him
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts
in You” (26:3).
“The work of
righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness,
quietness and confidence forever” (32:17).
“All your children
shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be your children’s peace”
(54:13).
“‘Peace, peace
to him who is far and him who is near,’ says the Lord, ‘And I will heal him.’ But
the wicked are not so. They are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose
waters cast up mire and dirt. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the
wicked’” (57:19-21).
When Jesus was coming into the world, the
angels’ message was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men” (Luke 2:14), and when the risen Jesus appeared to His
disciples He greeted them, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19).
Of course, we all know “the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, and peace …” (Gal 5:22).
Even in the Old Testament and under the Law,
the Aaronic Benediction was:
“The Lord bless
you and keep you.
The Lord make His
face shine upon you
and
be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up
His countenance upon you
and
give you peace”
(Numbers 6:24-26).
The true and the living God is “the God of peace.”
Whether we wish to admit it or not, we humans live troubled
lives. We attempt every sort of scheme and imagination trying to somehow find
peace for our lives, but what we need is the
God of peace. Jesus wants to step into the raging storm of our lives and
say, “Peace, be still.” If we’ll let Him, He brings with Him a “great calm.” He
is the Prince of Peace and He and He alone can bring real peace to our lives
and to our world. And, as we noted above, this peace is not just the absence of
conflict; it is the comfort of a completed world, a world where the parts and
pieces are all there and in their proper place. To know that peace, we need in
the very center of our hearts and lives the
God of peace.
And isn’t it sad that the whole world, it would seem, sees
Him not as the God of peace? They see Him as many things – the Great Rule-Giver,
the Cosmic Kill-Joy, the capricious God who expects too much and throws lightning
bolts at everyone who fails. In American churches, He is the God whose service
means you have to live a frantic life of endless busy-ness. And yet through it
all, His voice is calling, “Peace, peace, to him that is far and him that is near.”
Oh, that we would all stop listening to all the other voices screaming in our
ears and whispering, whispering, whispering in our hearts; that we would pause
and listen to Him, that we would
pause and let Him speak peace to us,
that we would welcome Him into our lives and let Him bring His peace.
He is “the God of peace.”
“Peace be unto you.”
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