'Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.'--Eph.
vi. 15.
Paul drew the first draft of this picture of the Christian armour in his
first letter. It is a finished picture here. One can fancy that the
Roman soldier to whom he was chained in his captivity, whilst this
letter was being written, unconsciously sat for his likeness, and that
each piece of his accoutrements was seized in succession by the
Apostle's imagination and turned to a Christian use. It is worth
noticing that there is only one offensive weapon mentioned--'the sword
of the Spirit.' All the rest are defensive--helmet, breastplate, shield,
girdle, and shoes. That is to say, the main part of our warfare consists
in defence, in resistance, and in keeping what we have, in spite of
everybody, men and devils, who attempt to take it from us. 'Hold fast
that thou hast; let no man take thy crown.'
Now, it seems to me that the ordinary reader does not quite grasp the
meaning of our text, and that it would be more intelligible if, instead
of 'preparation,' which means the process of getting a thing ready, we
read 'preparedness,' which means the state of mind of the man who is
ready. Then we have to notice that the little word 'of' does duty to
express two different relations, in the two instances of its use here.
In the first case--'the preparedness of the Gospel'--it states the
origin of the thing in question. That condition of being ready comes
from the good news of Christ. In the second case--'the Gospel of
peace'--it states the result of the thing in question. The good news of
Christ gives peace. So, taking the whole clause, we may paraphrase it by
saying that the preparedness of spirit, the alacrity which comes from
the possession of a Gospel that sheds a calm over the heart and brings a
man into peace with God, is what the Apostle thinks is like the heavy
hob-nailed boots that the legionaries wore, by which they could stand
firm, whatever came against them.
I. The first thing that I would notice here is that the Gospel brings
peace.
I suppose that there was ringing in Paul's head some echoes of the music
of Isaiah's words, 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him
that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good
tidings of good!' But there is a great deal more than an unconscious
quotation of ancient words here; for in Paul's thought, the one power
which brings a man into harmony with the universe and to peace with
himself, is the power which proclaims that God is at peace with him. And
Jesus Christ is our peace, because He has swept away the root and bitter
fountain of all the disquiet of men's hearts, and all their chafing at
providences--the consciousness that there is discord between themselves
and God. The Gospel brings peace in the deepest sense of that word, and,
primarily, peace with God, from out of which all other kinds of
tranquillity and heart-repose do come--and they come from nothing
besides.
But what strikes me most here is not so much the allusion to the blessed
truth that was believed and experienced by these Ephesian Christians,
that the Gospel brought peace, and was the only thing that did, as the
singular emergence of that idea that the Gospel was a peace-bringing
power, in the midst of this picture of fighting. Yes, it brings both. It
brings us peace first, and then it says to us, 'Now, having got peace in
your heart, because peace with God, go out and fight to keep it.' For,
if we are warring with the devil we are at peace with God; and if we are
at peace with the devil we are warring with God. So the two states of
peace and war go together. There is no real peace which has not conflict
in it, and the Gospel _is_ 'the Gospel of peace,' precisely because it
enlists us in Christ's army and sends us out to fight Christ's battles.
So, then, dear brother, the only way to realise and preserve 'the peace
of God which passes understanding' is to fling ourselves manfully into
the fight to which all Christ's soldiers are pledged and bound. The two
conditions, though they seem to be opposite, will unite; for this is the
paradox of the Christian life, that in all regions it makes compatible
apparently incompatible and contradictory emotions. 'As sorrowful'--and
Paul might have said 'therefore' instead of 'yet'--'as sorrowful yet
always rejoicing; as having nothing yet'--therefore--'possessing all
things'; as in the thick of the fight, and yet kept in perfect peace,
because the soul is stayed on God. The peace that comes from friendship
with Him, the peace that fills a heart tranquil because satisfied, the
peace that soothes a conscience emptied of all poison and robbed of all
its sting, the peace that abides because, on all the horizon in front of
us nothing can be seen that we need to be afraid of--that peace is the
peace which the Gospel brings, and it is realised in warfare and is
consistent with it. All the armies of the world may camp round the
fortress, and the hurtling noise of battle may be loud in the plains,
but up upon the impregnable cliff crowned by its battlements there is a
central citadel, with a chapel in the heart of it; and to the
worshippers there none of the noise ever penetrates. The Gospel which
laps us in peace and puts it in our hearts makes us soldiers.