Covenanter Witness Vol. 86 - Rparchives.org

The Peace of GodPeace in the home, peace in the world of business,peace in the world of education. We want peace. One ofthe greatest cries of our society is the cry for peace.Recently we heard the veterans of the Viet Nam wardemonstrating in Washington, D.C. for peace.Peace, where does it come from? How do we havepeace? There are many theories today about peace. Manypeople are naive enough to think that we can print theword peace on a sign, march down the street, call out forpeace, and that will bring peace. We may say how stupidand ignorant can they be.But let's look at a few of the more sophisticatedtheories for peace. Some tell us the way to peace is for theUnited States to be so strong, to have such a large supplyof weapons, that everyone will be afraid to wage war onus. This is not the peace of God, but rather it is theconclusion of evolutionary thinking that the fittest shallsurvive. As we read through Scripture and as we look athistory, we see that this is not the route to peace. WhenIsrael was destroyed she was in one of her stronger periodsmilitarily. This didn't insure her peace.There are those also who would have us deny thatthere is absolute truth. The thinking is that if there is noabsolute truth, then we won't fight over what's right andwhat's wrong. In our modern way of thinking we havethrown the thesis and antithesis out the window and wehave drawn our synthesis in which something might betrue today and gone tomorrow. We have no way, no basis,for determining what's right and what's wrong. And thehope is that people will assume "that everything isbeautiful in its own way." Scripture teaches that this leadsto everyone doing his own thing, to chaos and anarchy.Others say that the way to peace is for us all to bealike. We have got to dress alike, to think alike, to actalike. The white people tell the black community, "If youwill just wear the kind of clothes we wear, if you will dothings the way we do them, and say what we want you tosay, then we'll accept you." See what's happened here?The white people have made their own humanisticconditions for peace and said, "You must accept ourconditions for peace."We find this true in the area of labor andmanagement problems, and in the area of education—teachers and students, teachers and administrators—andeven in the church. Suppose a dozen young men came toyour church. Instead of the traditional suit and tie, theywere wearing faded bluejeans and T-shirts; instead ofwearing shoes, they were barefoot; instead of thetraditional close shave and haircut, they were wearingRev. Paul M. MartinPastor of Allegheny R. P. Church, Pittsburghlong hair and beards. How would we accept them? Butsuppose next week they came back and they had shaved,cut their hair, put on a suit and shoes. How would weaccept them? Probably now we would be happy to havethem in our homes. But the first week we might have saidwe were glad to have them, but we might have gone homeand said, "I wish they'd cut their hair; I wish they'd wear asuit; and I wish they'd wear a tie." See what we have done.We have based our peace and fellowship on what a personwears, not on the Word of God. All of these plans forpeace and any others that are proposed by our society arebased on humanism, on our own ideas of the way to obtainpeace. The Scripture teaches that these lead only toalienation and war; they do not lead to peace.In these days of alienation and war, the Christiancommunity must have and practice a radically differentform of peace. Scripture calls this peace, the peace ofGod. This is the only way of peace, whether it's in VietNam, in the Middle East, in our homes, in our communities,or wherever. The peace of God is the only peacethat leads to peace, rather than to chaos.We can take neither position—the position of theWashington establishment or of the protesting demonstrators—becausethey are both humanistic. They bothdeny the sovereignty of God. Let us look at the peace ofGod.The Principle of PeacePeace as mentioned in Scripture is not necessarilythat nice quiet feeling we have sometimes, but peace inScripture applies to a community, a group of people. Suchpeace is a gift of God that is sealed in that covenantrelationship that He has made with the Covenant community.It describes the relationship between God and HisCovenant people and creation, when the Covenant peopleare submitted to God and not in rebellion against Him. InGenesis 1 and 2 we have demonstrated the basic principleof peace. We might state the principle in this way: "Peaceis that state in which everything functions in its orderaccording to the law of God." God's creation is a creationof peace and order, not of chaos. In the first chapter wesee God calling the light and earth into existence, the sun,moon, and stars. He doesn't just throw them out there—alittle air, water, and sun all mixed together chaotically; butthey are all in order. In verse 11 He creates the earth for apurpose: "The herb yielding seed, and the fruit treevielding fruit after its kind." In verse 14 we see Himcreating the sun, moon, and stars, and for what reasons:"for seasons and for days and years. . . ." The peace ofMAY 26, 1971 5