Look it up in the dictionary and you will find two prevailing definitions.

1.   Freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility

2.  Freedom from or the cessations of war or violence

It is interesting to me that our world’s best description of peace is having the noise stop and people to quit shooting at one another. Though, I suppose it makes sense when your existence is ultimately summed up by the few years of time you have on this earth. When that is all you have, the most you can hope for is for life to just simply be quiet and uneventful.

For the Christian, peace has an entirely different meaning. To us, peace is not simply the cessation of hostilities, but it is full reconciliation with our Creator. Paul reveals that before Christ we were weak, ungodly, sinners, deserving of wrath, and enemies of God (see Romans 5:6-11). No matter what we did, no matter how “good” we were, once sin entered the picture we were doomed to be on the wrong side of God. Believe me, that is no kind of existence to relish in.

Thankfully, we worship a God who is not content to just simply let us feel His wrath without giving us a means to avoid it. That is why Jesus came. To pay the ransom, to fulfill justice’s demands, to satisfy the wrath of God for all who will trust in Him alone with all of their being. The result? Reconciliation…being brought back into friendship with God again. Note, we are not talking about a situation in which everyone stops shooting, but is still taking aim just in case. We are talking about putting the guns away and working together side-by-side. This is why Paul can say in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Without Jesus you can never understand what this peace is. Without Jesus, the most you will ever be able to hope for is the noise to stop and guns to quit firing. Indeed, that is why the Christian’s peace is a “peace which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).

Cory Waddell