True peace is a product of righteousness. “The fruit of righteousness shall be peace” (Isa. 32:17). God’s discipline of His sons has in view a harvest in them of “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11). Our Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated by Melchizedek, is “King of righteousness, and after that…King of peace” (Heb. 7:2). James tells us that “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace” (3:18).
Gospel peace is based on righteousness: the sinner enters into peace with God only when justified on the ground of Christ’s redemption (Rom. 5:1). Thenceforward the believer is called unto peace (Col. 3:15), called to enjoy it, to pursue it, to be a “son of peace,” marked more and more by it as a gracious disposition of the soul formed in Him by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22).
Peace is a relative state: that is, it is a matter of our relation to God in the first place; then to other persons, and finally to our circumstances. Once the fundamental question of peace with God is solved, by obedience to the gospel of Christ, there follows the duty to radiate peace in our personal, domestic, business, social, church, and civic life among our fellows.
Prominent among peace problems is that of relations with our fellow-Christians. The variety of our measures of faith, differing apprehensions of truth, temperamental vagaries, the traditional deposit of our upbringing, our tendency to insist on particular and favorite points of view, provide plentiful occasion to endanger peace among believers. The proud, natural heart, the wily and unsleeping enemy without, the world full of clamor around us, make peace difficult practically to achieve, difficult to maintain, and, when broken, most difficult to restore. Hence the exhortation of our title phrase, found in Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore follow the things which make for peace.”
The apostle is giving directions to Christians of diverse spiritual outlook on how to get on with one another, and in the course of his writing points out the importance of a right spirit.
A Pacific Spirit
“As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Rom. 12:18). We are to love and seek peace (1 Pet. 3:11), earnestly to pursue it as a treasure to be won and kept. In some there is a natural quarrelsomeness which has never been tamed by Divine grace. They are always ready to strive; an occasion for tumult is to them as a spark to tinder. “Woe is me,” cried the distracted Psalmist, “that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war” (Ps. 120:5-7). He was among Ishmaelites whose hand was against every man, and his soul was vexed by their truculent disposition.
The Ishmael nature is in us all–its every outbreak is a threat against peace. Want of control of it in one person may chase every vestige of peace from home, office, or church. “One sinner destroyeth much good” (Eccl. 9:18). We are therefore sedulously to cultivate the quiet spirit so precious to God, following not the natural Ishmael, but the Isaac of promise in his gentle and peace-loving disposition.
A Sense of Proportion
Here is a second thing which makes for peace. 1 Timothy 6:4 speaks of “strifes of words.” A strangely distorted spiritual perspective is sometimes a cause of disquiet among God’s children. Folks take sides and wage war about matters so trivial that were the effects not so disastrous, the stupidity of it would be humorous to contemplate.
By a curious inverted kind of vision, tiny causes are magnified into matters of the first importance. The same inward eye can reverse the process and see a brother’s grievance reduced to a mere speck.
The devil’s telescope is pride, and we apply the small end to our mental eye in looking at our own cause, and the large end when regarding that of our brother. Let us see big matters in true proportion, trivial ones in their real littleness, and pray daily for the magnanimous temper which ignores the microscopic matters which some magnify into occasions of bitter quarrel.
Is it simply a stab at our personal dignity? Let it pass. Is it a jibe meanly intended to hurt? Let it glance off harmlessly. Is it a tiny misunderstanding due to some omission? Forget it. Of this sort are “strifes of words” (literally ‘word-battles,’ or as we speak, ‘quibbles’), whereof cometh envy, strifes, railings, evil surmisings” (1 Tim. 6:4) .
Let us ask God for a spiritual sense of proportion. Its absence accounts for the costly folly of many cranks whose hobby-horses ride down our peace, and whose trivial clatter chases the calm atmosphere of brotherly love from the assembly of God.
Patience
“Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame” (Prov. 25:8). Where patience grows, there peace also takes root and flourishes. Patience is one of the fruit of the Spirit which is of slow growth.
Some of us feel that years come and go without any apparent advance in patience being discernible. Yet it is one of the graces which every one who would be an example to the believers must earnestly desire and pursue: “Thou, O man of God…follow…patience” (1 Tim. 6:11).
Patience refuses the two most tempting ways of gaining the desired end–violence and haste. It both avoids conflagrations and abhors shortcuts. It will win through to peace when all smart turns of policy have failed. Patience is full sister to longsuffering, and where they abide peace is sure to dwell also; if not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then next month, or perhaps not till next year. “Therefore be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” “The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be…patient” (2 Tim. 2:24). “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. 16:32).
Gracious Speech
“A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Prov. 15:1). Perhaps nothing is comparable to an uncontrolled tongue as a provoking cause of strife. There is a dreadful potential for evil in a bitter, rancorous tongue. Wounds whose scars remain through life are made in a moment by the sharp stab of a too-ready tongue. Mischief which years of labor will not repair may be wrought in a moment’s spiteful outburst. Friendships break, fellowships end, and sympathies wither before the words that pour in a passionate moment from unguarded lips. “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health” (Prov. 12:18).
Rankling in memory, stinging and humiliating as the lash of a whip across the cheek, rekindling resentment at every persisting recollection, so are acid words and phrases not only a cause of strife’s beginnings, but a hindrance to its cessation. Therefore, “let your speech be alway with grace”–alway, and watch most to this when most provoked, remembering Him who reviled not again, who endured contradiction, who left His cause to God, His Righteous Defender, and was gloriously vindicated after He had endured to the utmost. “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt” (not with pepper, nor with sugar, someone has remarked). Let there be no intentional sting; let there be no sickly sentimentality, but let there be the true savor of sincerity, truth, and faithfulness, mingled with the graciousness of our words when we feel ourselves wrongfully opposed.
Submission to Godly Rule
“Know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and esteem them very highly in love for their works’ sake. And be at peace among yourselves” (1 Thess. 5:12-13).
The age is full of the spirit of disregard of constituted authority. The one authority in the Church is that of the Lord Himself: all other is by His delegation, and those to whom underrule is committed by Him are directly responsible to Him (Heb. 13:17). They are readily recognizable by those over whom they are set by the following:
1. Their spiritual character and experience of God (1 Tim. 3:1-7).
2. Their unceasing labors among the flock, feeding (1 Pet. 5:2), guiding (Heb. 13:17, marg.), guarding (Acts 20:29-31), admonishing (1 Thess. 5:12), and teaching (Titus 1:9).
3. Their non-assumption of any lordship over the saints (1 Pet. 5:3).
Government in God’s assembly depends for its true effectiveness on spirituality–spirituality in the overseer for the right exercise of his appointed work, spirituality in the flock for recognition of the authority given to the overseer by the Lord. So that carnality is a menace to government, and therefore to peace. In those ruled it will reveal itself in a challenging and unsubmissive spirit. The lawless spirit of the outside world will edge its way within the Church in proportion as its members are carnal and worldly-minded. The Church is the sphere on earth where Divine authority is owned–its members call Jesus Lord. It follows that it should be the sphere pervaded by the peace of a happily regulated realm because the well-being of all is provided for by the sovereign Lord.
Let us beware of disturbing that peace, but seek a careful circumspection of behavior, “endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility” (1 Pet. 5:5).
A Forgiving Spirit
“I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord” (Phil. 4:2).
One of our Lord’s most terrible parables draws a vivid picture of a man, himself greatly forgiven, whose tongue hisses harsh demands and whose hands are at the throat of an unfortunate fellowman slightly in his debt. The Lord’s application of that parable forces the conclusion that one who is a stranger to the spirit of forgiveness, may well doubt whether he be God’s child. “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”
Yet how retentive memory can be concerning some trifling wrong done to us. How long the natural man in us can bide his time to strike back, and how long gleefully twist and turn the dagger of reproach in a wound that should long ago have been healed.
Even among Christians, how petty quarrels are perpetuated, till years come and go without peace, and till the undercurrent of a vendetta-spirit hinders all progress and reduces those among whom it flows to spiritual deadness and decline.
There is nothing more hateful to God than this implacable spirit of unforgiveness. Nothing worse in His sight than the pride which will not suffer us to make the first move toward reconciliation. Almost equally detestable is the spirit that tardily offers qualified forgiveness, ready at any moment to resurrect the old issue.
The failure to show a forgiving spirit is the negation of Christianity itself, the worst ingratitude to the forgiving God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord, a deep disgrace to every one who claims to have tasted of Divine grace, and, when persistent in any professed Christian, a ground for grave doubts of his title to that name.
With this before us, let us pay heed to the words which beseech us thus: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Col. 3:13).
Christian Love
“And above all these things put on charity (love) which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Col. 3:14-15).
Love is the one chief and inclusive grace which above all else makes for peace. In a hundred places in the New Testament it is set before us in both precept and example. It is the distinguishing mark by which the soul that is born of God is known; he who manifests it towards his brethren is thereby known to be Christ’s disciple. It is the soul’s “more excellent way,” the fulfillment of the whole law. By it we dwell in God, and He in us. It is the unifying quality which makes a present verity of the mystic oneness of the Lord’s people, and is the crowning glory of Christian character.
The most glorious inspired ode in all language is written in its praise. It is more to be desired than the good gifts of eloquence, prophecy, or faith, and is better than the noblest philanthropy. As a beautiful face is the assemblage of noble features, and yet is more than their mere sum, so this grace combines in itself patience, kindness, forbearance, endurance, and hope, and yet is more than all of them together.
It is an expulsive power, casting out of the soul the dark passions of envy, vainglory, pride, selfishness, lewdness, and suspicion. It is of God, will abide when earth is gone, and will then be the glory of heaven itself. Where this grace abounds, it brings days of heaven upon earth. And when the fellowship of Christians is under its sway and suffused by its influence, then do beholders fall down and own that God is among them of a truth. “And now abideth faith, hope, love–these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
When believers keep in touch with the Lord, and His love abides in them, there is little opportunity for the sower of discord. There the Lord commands the blessing, and when He gives quiet, who then can make trouble? “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7).
As Dr. Maclaren says: “Men will weary of antagonism which is met only by the imperturbable calm of a heart at peace with God, and seeking peace with all men. The hot fires die down like burning coals scattered on a glacier, when laid against the crystal coolness of a patient, peaceful spirit.”
Thus he who dwells in love dwells in peace, and is himself best qualified of all men to wield such influence for peace that the Lord’s promise shall become his portion: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Mt. 5:9).