Religion of the Heart:
Your Peace-Making Is a Family Trait
Greg L. Price
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” Matthew 5:9.
There is nothing more needed today than peacemakers—biblical peacemakers. When we consider the hostilities and consequent disruptions that exist in families, in the church, in the work place, in the nation, and in the world at large, it is evident that the highway of life is strewn with the wreckage of countless numbers of lives. Jesus Christ, whom the Holy Scripture calls the Prince of Peace, made it abundantly clear that Christians will bear the family trait of being peacemakers if they are truly the children of God. It is not optional, nor is it a suggestion. It is part and parcel of the Spirit’s work in the life of everyone who is born again and who is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. But dear ones, we need to understand from God’s Word what a peacemaker is before we can be one.
In seeking to understand what a peacemaker is, let’s begin by considering what a peacemaker is not.
First, a peacemaker is not one who loves peace at any price. One who loves peace at any price is willing to sacrifice the truth of Jesus Christ on the altar of compromise in order to gain a counterfeit peace—the mere outward absence of hostilities. When we see the union of churches who forsake the doctrine, worship, and church government revealed in Scripture in order to forge some semblance of outward unity, there may be a temporary cessation of conflict or a tabling of differences for the time being, but there cannot be a biblical peace that is not built upon agreement in the doctrine, worship, and church government revealed in the Bible (and summarized in faithful Confessions, Creeds, Catechisms, and Covenants). We are not a peacemaker when we allow biblical landmarks of truth erected by faithful forefathers to be removed while we silently sit by and watch it happen. Keeping the peace at any price has plunged many an individual Christian and many a Christian church into a tailspin of backsliding from Him who is the way, the truth, and the life.
Second, a peacemaker is not one who stirs up dissension and discord among brethren. A peacemaker is not divisive, contentious, quarrelsome, argumentative, or slanderous. Here we must be ever so careful that in our zeal to be a peacemaker that we do not become a troublemaker who starts fires (like a spiritual arson) wherever he goes. Just as we can go to one extreme in compromising the truth for the sake of peace (a pseudo-peace), so we can go to the opposite extreme in making every perceived infraction of God’s Word a call to arms to do battle in the name of peace and unity. Such a one will find himself at war almost all his waking hours. There are malicious troublemakers who thrive upon slander, gossip, and misrepresenting the truth in order to divide and conquer, and there are also unintentional troublemakers who are simply ignorant of the way of wisdom in where to draw battle lines when it comes to defending the truth. The first group of troublemakers needs to be severely rebuked and disciplined by a faithful church if they resist correction. However, the second group of troublemakers needs to be instructed to make biblical and prudent distinctions between what sins to correct in others and what sins to pass over in others (“The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression” Proverbs 19:11). We will list some biblical principles at the end of the newsletter that will help guide one in knowing what to cover in love and what to correct in love.
Next, let’s continue by considering what a peacemaker is.
First, let’s seek to understand accurately the meaning of “peace” in the biblical sense of the word. Peace is not merely negative in its meaning: the absence of outward war, conflict, hostility, or contention. Peace is also positive in its meaning: the presence of life, wholeness, and fellowship. The biblical concept of peace is best represented by the word “reconciliation”, which emphasizes negatively the removal of enmity which separated the parties, and positively the restoration of life and fellowship between parties. In other words, the Lord Jesus blesses those in this Beatitude who are “reconciliation-makers” who act as agents of Christ in seeking to remove the walls of sin and error that exist between parties rather than those who either pretend a wall doesn’t even exist or those who periodically wave a white flag of temporary truce from behind their walls of sin and error. Christ, the Prince of Peace, did not come to merely bring an outward absence of hostility while the walls of sin and error remain in the lives of sinners; He came to destroy the walls of sin and error as the very source of enmity between a holy God and sinful man (“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself” Colossians 1:20). Thus, a biblical peace-maker strives by God’s grace to remove the enmity between parties that is the result of sin and error, so that a biblical reconciliation which begins within the heart may also provide a lasting outward transformation that is squarely built of upon the graces of faith, repentance, and forgiveness.
Second, the only hope of a biblical peace is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Only in the Gospel do we find the amazing account of God’s redemptive love for sinners in offering His only begotten Son as the “peace offering” that would reconcile Him to sinners by removing the enmity of sin through Christ bearing the sin of God’s elect and suffering the punishment of God’s holy wrath in the place of undeserving sinners chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. A biblical peacemaker is first and foremost reconciled to God, and then seeks to be reconciled with those around him; for just as peace with God cannot avoid matters of sin and error in the heart of man, so likewise peace with one’s neighbor cannot avoid matters of sin and error in one’s own heart and in the hearts of others. The question is not whether the wall of sin and error must be removed in order to enjoy a blessed peace with others—yes it must. The question is how to move forward as a peacemaker in removing the wall of sin and error that separates us from others.
To that end, let us consider the following biblical checklist that will guide us in becoming more effective peacemakers to the glory of Christ.
1. Do you weep and mourn over the division that exists between you and others?
2. Do you first deal with your own sin before going to others about their sin?
3. Are you sure there has been an actual, flagrant violation of God’s Law before correcting others?
4. Is the sin or error that has led to the division one that must be confronted because it will lead others to backslide as well?
5. Do you desire to cover your brother’s or sister’s sin in the presence of others while you seek biblical reconciliation?
6. Have you put the best construction on the words and actions of others?
7. Do you desire reconciliation more than personal vindication over wrong suffered?
8. Are you listening more than you are talking and drawing premature conclusions?
9. Are you gentle with the weak and ignorant, even if you must be strong with the obstinate and willful?
9. Has your attempt to be a peacemaker led you to tolerate that which is clearly contrary to the truth of Christ?
10. Is reconciliation “in Christ” your ultimate goal in pursuing peace with others?
“Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God” Matthew 5:9.