Conflict surrounds us every day. Stories of disagreements between individuals, political parties, and even nations fill our news channels and might cultivate uncertainty and fear. Thankfully, one of God’s greatest and most powerful promises is the promise of peace.
God has always promised peace to His people. In the Old Testament, God promised a time when the people would “hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). The time would come when weapons would neither be needed nor hold value.
God’s peace is spiritual. Even while His promise in the Old Testament referred to repurposing physical weapons, the peace God was ultimately pointing to is spiritual. In Ephesians, we read of “enmity” or hostility finally being “put to death” by the events of the cross (Ephesians 2:15-16). Christ’s blood, shed on the cross, can remove the sin that spiritually separates us from God.
God is the source of this peace. Paul wrote of Christ, “He Himself is our peace” and of “the peace of God” or the peace that comes from God (Ephesians 2:14; Philippians 4:7). Without God there is no peace and hostility would always remain. With and because of God, we can trust in a peace that “surpasses all comprehension” (Philippians 4:7).
We are fortunate to stand on God’s eternal and spiritual promise of peace.
Matt Langfield