“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:8)
The past two newsletters have focused on man’s enmity with God and then the Gospel as being the only way to have true peace with God and other human beings. There will never be peace with God apart from the Gospel. There will never be true peace between human beings apart from the true Gospel. In our day there are many running around teaching things that are different than the Gospel of the Bible and the Gospel that thundered forth in Europe during the time of the Reformation and then in the formation of the United States. But there is another aspect of the beatitude that we are dealing with. The text says “blessed are the peacemakers.” There is the brilliant and shining point that human beings are to be peacemakers.
We live in a world where it seems as if the vast majority of people hate God and His people. We live in a world where we see people hating each other by being part of each other’s sin and leading others to sin. We live in a world where it seems as if people that want change are focused on laws to carry out that change. Without arguing against good laws, we can simply note that a law does not change a person’s heart and put that person at peace with God. The Gospel is the only way that there will be peace in the world with or without new laws. But how is that Gospel to go out to the world? How is that Gospel to be proclaimed? It is to go out and be proclaimed by human beings. In one sense those who love the Gospel are living letters of Christ and of the Gospel as they go out into the world (II Corinthians 3:3). But believers are to go out and proclaim the Gospel as agents of peace. No one else is going to proclaim the Gospel in the world but those who believe the message of the Gospel of peace.
Surely we can see the point already. The whole world is at war with God and has enmity with Him. The world’s enmity with each other is because it is at enmity with God. Since enmity with God is based on self-love and selfishness, each person that does not love God is at war with each person that does not love him as he loves himself. Without the central idea of God as the only source of love and the only true object of love, humanity is locked into a war of the gods and there are six billion or so on earth. This is one reason why Jesus tells us (in several places) that a person must deny self in order to follow Him. He also tells us that a person must be turned and be humble as a child to enter the kingdom (Matthew 18:1-4). The peacemaker is one that goes into a world that is at enmity with God and each other and brings the proclamation of peace with God. That peace with God is seen when the person loves God and those made in His image out of love for Him (Greatest Commandments).
It is also true that when we try to get people to see that they are at war with God that they realize that they don’t like us very much either. In other words, their enmity toward God comes out toward the peacemakers. It is in recognition of this that believers and false believers start with things in a backward way. Believers will at times begin to try to make peace with people in order to get them to hear the Gospel. However, that is simply impossible. There will never be true peace without the Gospel. Romans 12:18 is still true: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” However, we are never called to make peace with the profane or professing believers in any way that will compromise the Gospel. While many want peace and unity before or at the expense of the Gospel, the Gospel alone brings peace. A true peacemaker is one that will not strive for peace in any way other than the Gospel allows and which is consistent with the Gospel.
If the people of the earth are at war with God, then what sense does the message that is common today (God loves you) make to people? They need to know that the denial that they are at war with God is part of the war. What does it mean to go out with the message that people may have peace with God in the Gospel if they believe that there is no war between them and God to begin with? If they believe that God’s love for them is the same as it is for believers, then they will never recognize the enmity they have toward God and others. Jesus tells us that “even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32). If we go out with a message that starts with how God loves people, they will believe that they love God simply because they hear that He loves them. It is vital to the message of the Gospel of peace to have people understand that they are at war with God from the beginning. Part of being at war with God is that people deny that they need peace with Him because He loves them and therefore they love Him. They are suppressing the knowledge of God and so they suppress the war with God as well. The message of true peace must always begin with the message of war. If the true nature of the war is not seen, the true nature of peace will not be understood as needed.
There is also the problem of people not listening to or understanding the nature of their enmity to God and their being at war with Him. If they think of the war as just being the outward actions, then they think that they can simply stop certain actions and start other ones and that will be enough. Psalm 81:15 points out this danger: “Those who hate the LORD would pretend obedience to Him, And their time of punishment would be forever.” The world will cease apparent hostility from self-interest, but they do not have real peace with love and goodness. People can run around trying to get hostilities to cease and still not care about true peace. There is no peace until we love & are concerned about the peace of the other with God.
We simply must understand this issue or we will not be true peacemakers. People are deceived and people love to be deceived. If they do not understand that it is not just their actions that are at war with God but that they are by nature at enmity with God, they will not understand the true nature of sin and therefore miss the Gospel too. If we do not understand that people will pray a prayer and make an outward reformation of life in an effort to convince themselves and others that they are at peace with God, we have yet to understand the deceptive nature of the human heart. Human beings are able to talk themselves into just about any belief that they want if it will deny something they utterly hate and even fear. A true peacemaker desires true peace and so goes to the heart of the person which is the location of the true enmity. It is only there that the peacemaker is able to show the person the nature of true enmity with God and of how the person is deceiving him or herself in the matter.
Romans 5:1 sets out one connection between justification and peace: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” As peacemakers we must notice some important parts of this text. It is only when a person has been justified that a person has peace with God. It is not a justification that is obtained in various ways, but it is a justification that is obtained by faith. We know from Romans 3:23-4:25 what this means. A person is only justified when he gives up on his own works and righteousness and so trusts in Christ alone. A person is only justified when he gives up all efforts to pay God back in any way and believes in the propitiation accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ. It is by the life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ alone that a person can have peace with God. It is by faith alone in order that this salvation may be by grace alone (Romans 4:16). A person that has been justified by faith is justified on the basis of Christ alone and of grace alone (Romans 3:24-26). This justification that grants peace with God is only through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is an absolute dictum that we must never, never, never give up (shades of Churchill) the Gospel of Jesus Christ for any reason. It matters not how much there is an outward call for peace with human beings, churches, denominations, political parties or anything else, there is no real peace apart from the Gospel and a true peacemaker knows that true peace will never happen apart from the Gospel. A true peacemaker will never try to proclaim or negotiate a peace apart from the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in order that it may be by Christ alone to the glory of God alone. God is sovereign with perfect rights over each and every person. He declares the terms of surrender and the terms of peace. There is no other way.
Romans 5:10 points us to the truth of what we were saved from and yet the truth of the life of the believer: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” A saved person is one that has been saved from being the enemy of God and is now reconciled to God through the death of His Son (Christ Jesus). If we have truly been delivered from enmity with God and now have peace with God in this way, how can we try to make peace in another way? This is not just stubbornness or pride on the part of the believer; this is revelation from Scripture and a reality of the heart. Another way to put it would be to say that the believer knows it is true from Scripture and the application of the Scripture to the heart by the Spirit.
There are requirements for being a true peacemaker. It requires that one has peace with God first and foremost. It requires that the peacemaker fear God more than man and because the peacemaker loves God s/he will love others even when s/he is being treated with hatred. A peacemaker must have humility and be willing to be treated as a sheep to be slaughtered in order that others would have peace with God to the glory of God. A peacemaker must be one that has enough love to be considered and called stubborn and various other names as s/he stands firmly on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The peacemaker is called to suffer for the Gospel in order that other people may hear the Gospel of peace to the glory of God. A peacemaker will not compromise the Gospel as it is the message of peace.
God Loves... Himself 
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