Peacemakers

Meditation May 11, 2020

Matthew 5:9

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”

This is one of those lesson where our gut reaction is that the preacher has left off teaching and has begun to meddle. I think of some of my own utterances and cringe. I have been caught guilty. And many, if they will look honestly at their own utterances (Faceebook posts, will have to come to the same conclusion.  That is why we come to the Bible, is it not; i.e. to be corrected, to have I guide us, to be “a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”? (Psa. 119:105) Without that light we are stumbling in the dark, banging into things. A blind bull in a china shop is chaos; not peace.

God, the book of Hebrews, exhorts us to “Pursue peace with all and holiness without which no man will see God.” (Heb. 12:14) Many English translation read “follow” peace or follow after peace but the English follow in its common usage is to ambiguous and weak. Matthew Poole writes that the Greek word translated peace “imports such a fierce, unwearied, unsatisfied pursuit…and so sets out the real, earnest, biolent, unwearied, constant pursuit and labor after peace.” Diokete (translated pursue) is a present active imperative indicating a continual activity.

This is that of which Jesus speaks when he says “blessed are the peacmakers….” He does not say blessed are the peaceful, the pacific, but blessed are those who make peace, those who strive to be the founders of peace; those who labor to establish peace.

James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us that “righteousness is sown in peace by those who are peacemakers.” (James 3:18) It is worth noting we find that verse in the chapter that begins with the exhortation to tame our tongues. The sowing of righteousness is not abandoned for the sake of peace. Those who have been very long in any denomination of the church of God can point to a time in the history of that church that purity of doctrine was compromised allow the acceptance of a doctrine different from the established. That is fair in matters of indifference but regarding cardinal doctrines it goes to the contrary of establishing peace.  Peace is never bought at the expense of purity. But neither should we think purity at all costs is peace.

One has said, “If you are not a peacemaker, at least do not be a troublemaker.” When I was a boy, my mom would tell me, “if you can’t say something nice; don’t say anything at all.” Both these bits of advice miss the point of being a peacemaker which is not to be silent but to say that if you can’t say anything nice, think about it until you find a way to do so. The truth of God will divide, do not doubt that, but by the grace of God labor to see that it is the truth and not you that divides.

What is it we are to seek with such vehement diligence to establish? What is peace? The root meaning of peace in the Greek is to join together something that is divided or broken, to make it whole or a single peace again. We have the greatest example of this in God’s reconciling the world to himself in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:19) Peace was not established by winking at the sin and rebellion of man, by shrugging of his error as though it was of no real matter. Peace was established by God sacrificing Himself, if you will, in the Person of God the Son. We, of course, cannot make sacrifices of that sort but may well be called upon to sacrifice winning the argument in order to make a peace that saves a relationship and allows us to be heard again at another time.

Some years ago, I was working in California with some young men who had grown up together and who had over the years been in more than their fair share of mischief. Johnny came to the Lord and like all newly redeemed was excited to tell it (it is a shame that wears off) to his friends. Well, he was urging Christ on Kevin who was having none of it and began to get a wee more than just disagreeable. At that point Johnny ended the disagreement by saying, “I’m sorry for you that you can’t believe it. I will pray for you.” The wisdom of this kid, so he was to me, at only three days in the kingdom, impressed me enough that I can still recall the conversation and the scene. That is, I think, what Jesus had in mind when he talked of peacemakers. We do not compromise the truth but we speak the truth in love. Gill, when commenting on this verse, rightly notes that it refers to peacemakers “not between God and man, for no man can make his own peace with God…God, in this sense, is the only peacemaker but between men and men….”

Those who thus labor to establish peace, Christ says, will be called the sons of God. Some take this a God’s call and say “the idea in this passage…is synonymous with ‘to become’. To become a son of God is tantamount to entering God’s family as being saved.” I cannot agree with this understanding. To understand it in that way, it seems to me, leaves one in a position that he cannot escape having said that being saved, at least in this instance, is the reward for having been a peacemaker. The Bible is explicitly clear that it is not by works of righteousness that we have done that we are saved and become the children of God. (Titus 3:5)

The reward of being peacemakers is not that thereby we become the sons of God but that thereby we are recognized as being the children of God. John Trapp explains the verse this way: “Now therefore, although it be for the most part, a thankless office (with men) to interpose, and to seek to take up strife, to piece those again that are gone aside and asunder … yet do it for God’s sake, and that ye may (as ye shall be after awhile) be called and counted, not meddler and busybodies, but sons of God.” Men are not by nature the sons of God…Men become sons of God in the regenerative and adoptive sense by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour – and may judge of themselves as others judge of them such has indeed transpired because they are peace-makers. In short, do not become blessed, have enviable relationship with God established because they are peacemakers but because they have been blessed they are peacemakers and thus are recognized and may recognize of themselves God has indeed adopted.”

The point of Jesus teaching is that we, as believers, are go through the world among men, carrying peace in our hearts, on our lips and in our deed. If we do so, so rare will we be among men we will be like a city set on a hill or a lamp set on a stand in a dark night. Men do not much believe in our talk or our claims to belong to Christ but if we go about our daily living in a quiet but unrelenting pursuit of peace, men will say of us, “There is a child of God.”

May God grant us the grace to so walk before a wicked and perverse generation.