It 'shall keep your hearts and minds.' The Apostle here blends together,
in a very remarkable manner, the conceptions of peace and of war, for he
employs a purely military word to express the office of this Divine
peace. That word, 'shall keep,' is the same as is translated in another
of his letters _kept with a garrison_--and, though, perhaps, it might be
going too far to insist that the military idea is prominent in his mind,
it will certainly not be unsafe to recognise its presence.
So, then, this Divine peace takes upon itself warlike functions, and
garrisons the heart and mind. What does he mean by 'the heart and mind'?
Not, as the English reader might suppose, two different faculties, the
emotional and the intellectual--which is what we usually roughly mean by
our distinction between heart and mind--but, as is always the case in
the Bible, the 'heart' means the whole inner man, whether considered as
thinking, willing, purposing, or doing any other inward act; and the
word rendered 'mind' does not mean another part of human nature, but
the whole products of the operations of the heart. The Revised Version
renders it by 'thoughts,' and that is correct if it be given a wide
enough application, so as to include emotions, affections, purposes, as
well as 'thoughts' in the narrower sense. The whole inner man, in all
the extent of its manifold operations, that indwelling peace of God will
garrison and guard.
So note, however profound and real that Divine peace is, it is to be
enjoyed in the midst of warfare. Quiet is not quiescence. God's peace is
not torpor. The man that has it has still to wage continual conflict,
and day by day to brace himself anew for the fight. The highest energy
of action is the result of the deepest calm of heart; just as the motion
of this solid, and, as we feel it to be, immovable world, is far more
rapid through the abysses of space, and on its own axis, than any of the
motions of the things on its surface. So the quiet heart, 'which moveth
altogether if it move at all,' rests whilst it moves, and moves the more
swiftly because of its unbroken repose. That peace of God, which is
peace militant, is unbroken amidst all conflicts. The wise old Greeks
chose for the protectress of Athens the goddess of Wisdom, and whilst
they consecrated to her the olive branch, which is the symbol of peace,
they set her image on the Parthenon, helmed and spear-bearing, to defend
the peace, which she brought to earth. So this heavenly Virgin, whom the
Apostle personifies here, is the 'winged sentry, all skilful in the
wars,' who enters into our hearts and fights for us to keep us in
unbroken peace.
It is possible day by day to go out to toil and care and anxiety and
change and suffering and conflict, and yet to bear within our hearts
the unalterable rest of God. Deep in the bosom of the ocean, beneath the
region where winds howl and billows break, there is calm, but the calm
is not stagnation. Each drop from these fathomless abysses may be raised
to the surface by the power of the sunbeams, expanded there by their
heat, and sent on some beneficent message across the world. So, deep in
our hearts, beneath the storm, beneath the raving winds and the curling
waves, there may be a central repose, as unlike stagnation as it is
unlike tumult; and the peace of God may, as a warrior, keep our hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus.
What is the plain English of that metaphor? Just this, that a man who
has that peace as his conscious possession is lifted above the
temptations that otherwise would drag him away. The full cup, filled
with precious wine, has no room in it for the poison that otherwise
might be poured in. As Jesus Christ has taught us, there is such a thing
as cleansing a heart in some measure, and yet because it is 'empty,'
though it is 'swept and garnished,' the demons come back again. The best
way to be made strong to resist temptation, is to be lifted above
feeling it to be a temptation, by reason of the sweetness of the peace
possessed. Oh! if our hearts were filled, as they might be filled, with
that divine repose, do you think that the vulgar, coarse-tasting baits
which make our mouths water now would have any power over us? Will a man
who bears in his hands jewels of priceless value, and knows them to be
such, find much temptation when some imitation stone, made of coloured
glass and a tinfoil backing, is presented to him? Will the world draw us
away if we are rooted and grounded in the peace of God? Geologists tell
us that climates are changed and creatures are killed by the slow
variation of level in the earth. If you and I can only heave our lives
up high enough, the foul things that live down below will find the air
too pure and keen for them, and will die and disappear; and all the
vermin that stung and nestled down in the flats will be gone when we get
up to the heights. The peace of God will keep our hearts and thoughts.