For He is our Peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition.
Christ our Peace
1. Christ Jesus is the author of all our peace.
(1) In restoring the amity and friendship which we had in creation, but lost by the Fall.
(2) In vanquishing those enemies which had taken us captive, and wrongfully detained us.
2. There was a separation between Jew and Gentile, before they came to be in Christ.
3. The way to obtain peace is to take away that which bars it. To make two rooms into one, you must beat down the wall which forms the partition. (Paul Bayne.)
Peace from Christ alone
Christ is the author of all our peace; but He applies it successively by degrees. Like Master, like man; like Prince, like people. Christ for a while endured great troubles, and so must His members.
1. In all terror of conscience we must look to Christ. We keep the fire from our faces and eyes with screens; but they are wise who put between their souls and God’s wrath the screen of Christ’s reconciliation, lest this fire burn to the pit of destruction. This stills the conscience, and fills it with good hope.
2. This must make us cleave unto Christ, even to let our tenderest bowels love Him who has done this for us.
3. Seeing Christ alone is the author of all true peace, this should cause us to seek to be under His kingdom, yea, to give our eyelids no rest till we have enlisted in the army of Christ. Look how you would do, if the enemy had entered your gates, taken your wives and children, spoiled you of your goods. If there were a town near you, where you might prevent such danger, and find safe protection, and live peaceably and securely, who would not with all expedition betake himself thither?
4. Seek to be, like Christ, a peace maker.
5. How miserable the condition of all out of Christ. (Paul Bayne.)
Christ the Peace of His people
I. The substitution.
1. This substitution of Christ in behalf of His mystical body is primary, original. It runs as far back as the council of peace. He became our Peace then, when He entered into the covenant of peace, met the stipulation for peace, undertook to satisfy all the demands of law and justice for peace, and pledged Himself to be that peace.
2. It is permanent--it runs through every dispensation of the Church of the living God. There was not one sort of gospel to preach to Abraham, and another to preach to the present race of sinners. The doctrine of substitution runs through the whole of the Mosaic economy, and hence it is permanent, and comes down to the present moment of the existence of the Church upon earth.
II. The union. The smallest finger in my hand can move, can grasp, can unite with the other, in any effort that is put forth, because it is one with the hand, one with the body, and derives its life and strength and blood from thence; but sever my little finger from my hand, and it has no more strength--it is utterly useless. “Apart from Me,” says Christ, “ye can do nothing.” But in vital union with Jesus, the strength which is His flows to the feeblest and weakest member, and is put forth in the mighty actings of faith, and the holy energies of the new man. Moreover, this union is so experimental as always to produce communion. It is close, it is grasping, it is uniting, it is abiding, it is mutual in interest. Moreover, it is evident and manifest, because the world must see that the union which grace has effected between our souls and Christ, has cut asunder the tie which once existed between us and them, has cut asunder the union which made us once very fond of their fooleries.
III. The participation. His justice is perfectly satisfied on my behalf, that I may look upon the bleeding Christ, the rising Christ, the exalted Christ, and the interceding Christ, and say with Paul, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” What serenity! A satisfactory, solid, sacred, holy, serenity of soul; a heavenly calm, a believing acquiescence in the love, and power, and grace, and goodness, of my God, not only in matters relating to Providence around me, but in matters relating to my soul’s everlasting salvation. (J. Irons.)
The Prince of Peace
I. He is “our Peace,” in that He makes peace. Peace between God and man--“reconciling both (Jew and Gentile) unto God--by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby” (Ephesians 2:16).
II. He is “our Peace,” in that He gives peace. “My peace I give unto you--let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:27). Or, as it is put here, “came and preached peace to you who were afar off” (Ephesians 2:17).
III. He is “our Peace,” in that He promotes peace. “Who hath made both (Jews and Gentiles) one” (Ephesians 2:14). This is ever the practical outcome of the rule of “The Prince of Peace.” He promotes peace.
1. In the family, subduing the elements of strife and discord.
2. In the neighbourhood, as every successful missionary at home and abroad can testify.
3. In the Church.
4. Among nations.
Note: These senses in which Christ is “our Peace” are progressive. He has made peace for us, for all men, by His atoning work. He may be our peace, speaking peace within, quieting the tumult of doubt and fear (Matthew 11:28-30). And, if we are His, He will promote peace through, and by means of us in every circle in which we move and in every place in which we have influence. (Joseph Ogle.)
Peace already made
When a poor bricklayer who had fallen from a great height was lying fatally injured he was visited by a minister in the neighbourhood. On entering the cottage he said, “My dear man, I am afraid you are dying. I exhort you to make your peace with God.” “Make my peace with God, sir! Why, that was made eighteen hundred years ago, when my great and glorious Lord paid all my debt upon the cruel tree. Christ is my Peace, and I am saved.”
Peace and comfort through the Atonement
There is no chance whatever of our finding a pillow for a head which the Holy Ghost has made to ache save in the atonement and the finished work of Christ. When Mr. Robert Hall first went to Cambridge to preach, the Cambridge folks were nearly Unitarians. So he preached upon the doctrine of the finished work of Christ, and some of them came to him in the vestry and said, “Mr. Hall, this will never do.” “Why not?” said he. “Why, your sermon was only fit for old women.” “And why only fit for old women?” said Mr. Hall. “Because,” said they, “they are tottering on the borders of the grave, and they want comfort, and, therefore, it will suit them, but it will not do for us.” “Very well,” said Mr. Hall, “you have unconsciously paid me all the compliment that I can ask for; if this is good for old women on the, borders of the grave, it must be good for you if you are in your right senses, for the borders of the grave is where we all stand.” Here, indeed, is a choice feature of the Atonement, it is comforting to us in the thought of death. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace in Jesus only
As the needle in a compass trembles till it settles in the north point, so the heart of a sinner can get no rest but in Christ.
Peace through Christ
In the Pitti Palace, at Florence, there are two pictures which hang side by side. One represents a stormy sea with its wild waves, and black clouds and fierce lightnings flashing across the sky. In the waters a human face is seen, wearing an expression of the utmost agony and despair. The other picture also represents a sea, tossed by as fierce a storm, with as dark clouds; but out of the midst of the waves a rock rises, against which the waters dash in vain. In a cleft of a rock are some tufts of grass and green herbage, with sweet flowers, and amid these a dove is seen sitting on her nest, quiet and undisturbed by the wild fury of the storm. The first picture fitly represents the sorrow of the world when all is helpless and despairing; and the other, the sorrow of the Christian, no less severe,. but in which he is kept in perfect peace, because he nestles in the bosom of God’s unchanging love. (American.)
The partition wall removed
1. Every man by nature, in himself, and without Christ, is at war and enmity with God, with His Church, and chiefly those in the Church who are truly regenerate.
2. This enmity could only be removed by Christ’s bloodshed and death.
3. The uniting of both Jew and Gentile in one Church is a branch of the peace which Christ has purchased.
4. From the apostle’s designing the ceremonial law by a metaphor taken from houses divided by a mid-wall, or from an orchard, garden, or inclosure, separated from the outfield by a dyke or wall of rough stones, we learn several things relating to the nature, use, and duration of the ceremonial law, which are the grounds of the similitude. And first, as a wall is built by the owner of the enclosure, so the ceremonial law was by God’s own appointment (Deuteronomy 32:8; Exodus 25:40). Secondly, as a rough wall is made up of so many hard, unpolished stones, not covered over with lime or plaster; so the ceremonial law consisted of many ordinances (Hebrews 9:10), and those very difficult to be obeyed, and an intolerable yoke (Acts 15:10). Thirdly, as a wall or hedge encloseth a piece of ground for the owner’s special use (which therefore is more painfully manured), and separateth that enclosure from the outfield which lieth about it; so the ceremonial law did serve to enclose the people of Israel, as the Lord’s own garden and vineyard, for bringing forth fruit unto Himself (Isaiah 5:7), and to separate them from all the world besides (Deuteronomy 4:7-8), as being a worship wholly different from and contrary unto the superstitious rites and worship used among the Gentiles (Deuteronomy 12:2), and containing strict injunctions unto the Jews to avoid all conformity with the Gentiles in their garments (Numbers 15:38), cutting of their hair (Leviticus 19:27), and such like. Fourthly, as a rough wall is but weak and ruinous, as not being built with cement or mortar to make it strong, and therefore but to endure for a season, until the owner think fit to enlarge his enclosure and take in more of the open field; so the ceremonial law was not to last forever, but only for a time, until Christ should come in the flesh, and take in the Gentiles within the enclosure of His Church, who were before an open field, not possessed nor manured by Him; after which there was no further use of the mid-wall.
5. So long as the ceremonial law did stand in force and vigour, the Jews and Gentiles could not be united into one Church: for seeing by that law the chief parts of God’s worship were restricted to the Temple at Jerusalem; therefore, though scattered proselytes of the neighbouring nations did join themselves to the Church of the Jews, and in some measure observed the way of worship then enjoined (Acts 8:27), yet there was a physical impossibility for the generality of many nations far remote from Jerusalem to have served God according to the prescript of worship which then was: besides, there was such an habituate and as it were a natural antipathy transmitted from one generation unto another among the Gentiles against the ceremonial worship, that there was little less than a moral impossibility of bringing up the body of the Gentiles unto a cordial joining with the Jews in it: for the apostle showeth the ceremonial law behoved to be abrogated, in order to a union betwixt these two, while he saith, “Who hath made both one, and broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”
6. Whoever would make peace betwixt God and himself, or betwixt himself and others, he ought seriously to think upon those things which stand in the way of peace, and set about the removal of them, if it be in his power, and chiefly those evils in himself, of pride, vain-glory, self-seeking, and a contentious disposition, which are great obstructions in the way of peace (Philippians 2:3-4); else, whatever, be his pretenses for peace, he is no real follower of it: for, Christ intending to make peace betwixt Jew and Gentile, did take away whatever might have impeded it; He even “broke down the middle wall of partition between them.” (James Fergusson.)
Reconciliation through Christ
Themistocles having offended King Philip, and not knowing how to regain his favour, took his young son, Alexander, in his arms, and so presented himself before the king; and when he saw the boy smile on him, it very soon appeased the wrath within him. So the sinner should approach God with His Son Jesus Christ within him.
The need of reconciliation
Certainly a soul, sensible as to what the loss of communion with God is, counts it hath not fulfilled all its errand, when it hath bare peace given it. Should God say, “Soul, I am friends with thee, I have ordered that thou shalt never go to hell, here is a discharge under My hand that thou shalt never be arrested for any debt more: but as for any fellowship with Me, thou canst expect none: I have done with thee forever, never to be acquainted with thee more.” Certainly the soul would find little joy with such peace. Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of God’s presence. A wicked heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after fellowship with God. Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at Court; ‘tis his own life, not the king’s favour, he desires. (W. Gurnall.)