The Peacemaker of all Peacemakers
Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
What does it mean to be a peacemaker? If the beatitudes describe the Christian’s character, then in what way is the Christian meant to be a peacemaker? More than this, why bother being a peacemaker? What are the grounds for being a peacemaker? To answer these questions it is imperative that we first look to Jesus.
The Christian is never asked to be something that Christ was not. If we are called to be merciful then we can and should expect to find Christ being merciful. If we are called to be loving then we should expect to see Christ being loving. The reason for this is rather simple. The Christian religion is not built upon the religious teachings of a flawed human being, but it is built upon the person of Jesus Christ. Christ, the God-man, is the fullest revelation of what it means to be human. As a result of this a part of what it means to walk the Christian life is to walk like Jesus did. This is why the Apostle Paul can say, “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” because we are meant to grow in the same character qualities that Jesus exemplified (1 Corinthians 11:1). This same principle applies to that character quality of peacemaking. So how is Jesus a peacemaker?
1) Jesus is a Peacemaker Through the Forgiveness of Sins.
The first way that Jesus is a peacemaker is that he forgives sins. Forgiveness is the ultimate act of peacemaking. Think about it in this way. Someone that you love dearly betrays you significantly. You now have two options before you. You can seek revenge, whether that is through hurting them in return or even through an abused use of the concept of justice. Or you can forgive them, absorbing the cost of what they did to you in yourself, and, thus, make peace with them. This is what Jesus did for us and this is what makes him the peacemaker par excellence.
Before we were saved by Jesus Christ we were enemies of God (Romans 5:10). God could have demanded justice and we would have had to bear the penalty for our enmity with the God of the universe. However, God did not do this. He came in the person of Jesus Christ, bore the cost of human sin in himself on the cross, and through this forgives us. This is what we read of in Colossians 1:20 when Paul writes that Christ made “peace by the blood of the cross.” In the cross, Jesus Christ, ate the cost of our sin. He took it upon himself and through this made peace with us. Therefore, Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker.
2) Jesus is a Peacemaker by Bringing People In.
Yet, Jesus does not only make peace by restoring our relationship to God. He also makes peace by restoring our relationships with one another. When we look at the world around us it is clear that many things divide us. Wealth divides, culture divides, nationality divides. As much as we in the West love to talk about destroying these divisions it cannot be done. There will always be something to divide humanity. It is an inevitable result of our sinful nature. However, in Jesus Christ these divisions are finally dealt with. Christ by saving people from the whole of the world, by making us brothers and sisters in Christ, has broken down the things that divide.
We see this explicitly in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. There Paul is writing to a primarily Gentile audience. Gentile meaning someone who is not a Jew. Here he reminds these Gentiles that before they knew Jesus, they were in fact separated from God and “strangers to the covenants of the promise” of the Jewish people (Ephesians 2:12). However, Christ has made Gentile and Jew “one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” between them (2:14). This is why in another letter Paul can say that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28). Paul is not saying that these distinctions no longer exist, they obviously do. Rather, he is emphasizing the oneness that people now have in Christ. Jesus, through the cross, has created a new humanity made up of brothers and sisters in Christ. This unification in Christ overshadows all other distinctions and, thus, Christ makes peace by bringing people into his family.
So Jesus is the peacemaker of all peacemakers. Through him we are brought back into relationship with God and we are made to be at peace with him. Through him we are brought back into relationship with each other—no matter what worldly things would normally divide us—and we have peace with one another. But what does all of this mean for us? What does this mean for those of us trying to follow Jesus now? How do we be peacemakers like Jesus was a peacemaker?
3) We Are to Forgive Others Their Sins.
Jesus, after he teaches his disciples how to pray, says to them, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14–15). What is going on here? Is Jesus really saying that our salvation is dependent upon our forgiving others their sins? Doesn’t this challenge the notion that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone? Are we to believe that we are saved by our work of forgiving others?
It depends on how you read it and, thankfully, we can see Jesus’s meaning from one of his parables later in the Gospel of Matthew. In this story of Jesus’s a servant owes his master an outstanding debt, a debt he could never pay off in his lifetime. His master comes to collect and the servant begs the master to give him more time to pay it off. As a result the master mercifully forgives the debt completely. However, immediately after this the servant sees another servant who owes him a very small amount. He demands that the servant pay him back and he even has the other servant thrown in jail over this. The master hearing this condemns the servant he forgave for the large debt and has him thrown in jail (18:23–35). The point of this story is rather simple. Our debt before God is enormous, the just condemnation that we deserve for our sins is eternal hellfire, but God forgave us in Christ. This forgiveness of our massive debt, this grace of God towards us, should so change our hearts that the sins of others against us seem trivial in comparison to what we were forgiven. The true Christian is someone who understands this, has their heart so transformed by the good news of the gospel, that they willingly forgive those who sin against them because they know the weight of what God has forgiven them.
Life Pointe, have our hearts been so transformed by the grace shown us in Jesus Christ that we willingly forgive others for their sins? Do you easily forgive the business partner who was stealing from you because no matter what he stole it’s a pittance in comparison to your debt before God? Do you forgive from your heart the friend who betrays you because no matter what they have done it is nothing in comparison to how you betrayed God before you knew Christ? If not, the only antidote to this predicament, is to take a long and serious look at your own sinfulness. Ponder and meditate upon the depths of your sin. Sink into the inner recesses of your heart and see how deep your rebellion goes. Then remind yourself that God forgave it all and paid for it with the blood of his Son. People’s sin against us will only seem small in comparison to our sin against God once we understand the true depths of our sin and the true depths of God’s forgiving love. To be a peacemaker means to, like Jesus, forgive others from the heart.
4) We Are to Accept Everyone into Christ’s Body.
If in Christ we have been made one body, if we truly are now brothers and sisters in Christ, then there can no longer be any division amongst us. The outward qualities that once divided us have been torn down by Jesus Christ’s death. Paul highlights this oneness that we now have in the book of Ephesians. He writes, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (4:4–5). How many bodies are there? One! How many Spirits? One! How many Lords? One! Do you see what Paul is saying? There is not a gospel for the poor and a gospel for the rich, there is not a “good news” for those of one cultural background that is different than the good news for someone in a different culture background. No! We are one in Christ.
The things that divide the world are done away with in Christ’s body the church. We are one family under one Father. We are one body under one head. What this means for us practically is that we should never, ever, become the type of church that looks at someone’s outward markings as something that precludes them from being a part of Christ’s body. Rich or poor, black or white, male or female all who call upon the name of Christ are a part of the body of Christ and members of God’s holy family. We are peacemakers by breaking down the divisions of our world through the union that we have in Christ to one another.
Conclusion
So who is the peacemaker? No surprise it is the Christian. It is the person whose heart has been so transformed by the gospel of God’s grace that they willingly forgive and the person who has been made one with Christ who breaks down the division of the world by uniting us together as one body. Therefore, the beatitude ends by saying that it is these people who will “be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9). In other words the Christian is someone who forgives and someone who unites.