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(1)
Peace I leave with you:
(2)
My peace I give unto you:
(3)
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
It was customary in New Testament times at meeting or at parting, to wish one's
friends "peace", and we find that the Apostles often included it in the salutations and
concluding words of their epistles. There are only three epistles, out of the twenty-one in
the New Testament, where this form of salutation does not occur at the beginning. Our
Lord also uses the same greeting, but with deeper and fuller significance. He follows the
greeting of "peace" which He "leaves" with them as His legacy, by giving it another and
greater commendation--He calls it "My peace". In this section of the gospel the Lord
speaks of other things that were His. In John 14: 11 and 16: 13 we read of "My joy";
in 15: 9 "My love"; in 17: 24 "My glory"; and in 14: 15 "My commandments". It
was the special work of the Comforter to "receive of Mine, and to show it unto you"
(John 16: 14). Who can hope to fathom the depths of peace enjoyed by the Son of God,
even while suffering and persecution were His daily lot? A glimpse, perhaps, is given in
Matt. 11:, when His rejection begins to become manifest, and He looks up to the Father
and says: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight" (Matt. 11: 26).
Just as the Lord was at perfect peace, though hated by the world around Him, so the
believer, being in the will of God ("My commandments"), may know the steady
assurance of the Divine approval ("My peace"), and exult in the consciousness of this
living union ("My joy"), and all this in spite of external conditions, which, if unmatched
by grace, would inspire fear and overwhelm with tribulation and hatred.
In our first article we looked at some of the contrastive words that are used with peace.
One of these was the word "offend":
"Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them"
(Psa. 119: 165).
This blessedness, the blessedness of an unoffended spirit, is found in the peace that the
Lord gives, for in John 16: we read:
"These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put
you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think
that he doeth God service" (John 16: 1, 2).
If the world hate and persecute, the believer who is taught of God "marvels not"
(I John 3: 13), but it does tend to shake one's confidence and disturb one's peace, when
fellow-believers follow the same methods, and apparently feel that they "do God service"
thereby. It is a strength to realize that the Saviour Himself walked that path, and that
when He said, "My peace I give unto you", it was a peace which He Himself enjoyed
when surrounded by a hostile world. While He was with the disciples He could shield
them Himself; now that He is at the right hand of God, he helps them through the
ministry of the "other Comforter".