The various reading "peace of Christ," for "peace of God," is not only
recommended by manuscript authority, but has the advantage of bringing
the expression into connection with the great words of the Lord, "Peace
I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." A strange legacy to leave,
and a strange moment at which to speak of His peace! It was but an hour
or so since He had been "troubled in spirit," as He thought of the
betrayer--and in an hour more He would be beneath the olives of
Gethsemane; and yet, even at such a time, He bestows on His friends some
share in His own deep repose of spirit. Surely "the peace of Christ"
must mean what "My peace" meant; not only the peace which He gives, but
the peace which lay, like a great calm on the sea, on His own deep
heart; and surely we cannot restrict so solemn an expression to the
meaning of mutual concord among brethren. That, no doubt, is included in
it, but there is much more than that. Whatever made the strange calm
which leaves such unmistakable traces in the picture of Christ drawn in
the Gospels, may be ours. When He gave us His peace, He gave us some
share in that meek submission of will to His Father's will, and in that
stainless purity, which were its chief elements. The hearts and lives of
men are made troubled, not by circumstances, but by themselves. Whoever
can keep his own will in harmony with God's enters into rest, though
many trials and sorrows may be his. Even if within and without are
fightings, there may be a central "peace subsisting at the heart of
endless agitation." We are our own disturbers. The eager swift motions
of our own wills keep us restless. Forsake these, and quiet comes.
Christ's peace was the result of the perfect harmony of all His nature.
All was co-operant to one great purpose; desires and passions did not
war with conscience and reason, nor did the flesh lust against the
Spirit. Though that complete uniting of all our inner selves in the
sweet concord of perfect obedience is not attained on earth, yet its
beginnings are given to us by Christ, and in Him we may be at peace with
ourselves, and have one great ruling power binding all our conflicting
desires in one, as the moon draws after her the heaped waters of the
sea.
We are summoned to improve that gift--to "_let_ the peace of Christ"
have its way in our hearts. The surest way to increase our possession of
it is to decrease our separation from Him. The fulness of our possession
of His gift of peace depends altogether on our proximity to the Giver.
It evaporates in carrying. It "diminishes as the square of the distance"
from the source. So the exhortation to let it rule in us will be best
fulfilled by keeping thought and affection in close union with our Lord.
This peace is to "rule" in our hearts. The figure contained in the word
here translated _rule_ is that of the umpire or arbitrator at the games,
who, looking down on the arena, watches that the combatants strive
lawfully, and adjudges the prize. Possibly the force of the figure may
have been washed out of the word by use, and the "rule" of our rendering
may be all that it means. But there seems no reason against keeping the
full force of the expression, which adds picturesqueness and point to
the precept. The peace of Christ, then, is to sit enthroned as umpire
in the heart; or, if we might give a mediaeval instead of a classical
shape to the figure, that fair sovereign, Peace, is to be Queen of the
Tournament, and her "eyes rain influence and adjudge the prize." When
contending impulses and reasons distract and seem to pull us in opposite
directions, let her settle which is to prevail. How can the peace of
Christ do that for us? We may make a rude test of good and evil by their
effects on our inward repose. Whatever mars our tranquillity, ruffling
the surface so that Christ's image is no longer visible, is to be
avoided. That stillness of spirit is very sensitive and shrinks away at
the presence of an evil thing. Let it be for us what the barometer is to
a sailor, and if it sinks, let us be sure a storm is at hand. If we find
that a given course of action tends to break our peace, we may be
certain that there is poison in the draught which as in the old stories,
has been detected by the shivered cup, and we should not drink any more.
There is nothing so precious that it is worth while to lose the peace of
Christ for the sake of it. Whenever we find it in peril, we must retrace
our steps.
Then follows appended a reason for cultivating the peace of Christ "to
which also ye were called in one body." The very purpose of God's
merciful summons and invitation to them in the gospel was that they
might share in this peace. There are many ways of putting God's design
in His call by the gospel--it may be represented under many angles and
from many points of view, and is glorious from all and each. No one word
can state all the fulness to which we are called by His wonderful love,
but none can be tenderer and more blessed than this thought, that God's
great voice has summoned us to a share in Christ's peace. Being so
called, all who share in it of course find themselves knit to each other
by possession of a common gift. What a contradiction then, to be
summoned in order to so blessed a possession, and not to allow it
sovereign sway in moulding heart and life! What a contradiction,
further, to have been gathered into one body by the common possession of
the peace of Christ, and yet not to allow it to bind all the members in
its sweet fetters with cords of love! The sway of the "peace of Christ"
in our hearts will ensure the perfect exercise of all the other graces
of which we have been hearing, and therefore this precept fitly closes
the series of exhortations to brotherly affections, and seals all with
the thought of the "one body" of which all these "new men" are members.
The very abruptness of the introduction of the next precept gives it
force, "and be ye thankful," or, as we might translate with an accuracy
which perhaps is not too minute, "become thankful," striving towards
deeper gratitude than you have yet attained. Paul is ever apt to catch
fire as often as his thought brings him in sight of God's great love in
drawing men to Himself, and in giving them such rich gifts. It is quite
a feature of his style to break into sudden bursts of praise as often as
his path leads him to a summit from which he catches a glimpse of that
great miracle of love. This interjected precept is precisely like these
sudden jets of praise. It is as if he had broken off for a moment from
the line of his thought, and had said to his hearers--Think of that
wonderful love of your Father God. He has called you from the midst of
your heathenism, He has called you from a world of tumult and a life of
troubled unrest to possess the peace which brooded ever, like the mystic
dove, over Christ's head; He has called you in one body, having knit in
a grand unity us, Jews and Gentiles, so widely parted before. Let us
pause and lift up our voices in praise to Him. True thankfulness will
well up at all moments, and will underlie and blend with all duties.
There are frequent injunctions to thankfulness in this letter, and we
have it again enjoined in the closing words of the verses which we are
now considering, so that we may defer any further remarks till we come
to deal with these.