Peace the Work of Righteousness.
xxxii. 17. The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
A large part of the book of Isaiah is taken up in setting forth the glories and the blessedness of Christ’s kingdom. Sometimes this is done by grand images drawn from all that is brightest in the outward world (xxx. 26). Sometimes the great change to be wrought in mankind is spoken of under the figure of a like change in the beasts of the field (xi. 6–9). Again, in other places, as in the text and the adjoining verses, the description puts on more of a moral and spiritual character, and declares how God will be glorified in the hearts and lives of men (vers. 15–17). On reading these descriptions of a time when the world is to be full of peace and blessedness, we can hardly help wishing we were in such a world. But that time is not yet come. Many places may we find, where all seem to be bent on hurting and destroying one another. But the sun himself, with his all-piercing eye, though he beholds every dwelling of man, cannot see a single village which is the abode of peace and quietness and assurance for ever. Nor has he in all his journeys ever seen such a state of things. Did the prophet, then, see falsely? Was the vision which he saw a lying vision? Not so. If the “work,” the effect, is wanting, it is that the cause is wanting. Did righteousness prevail upon the earth, there peace would also prevail. Wherever we find anything like true righteousness, and according to the degree of the likeness, we also find peace. Whatsoever is done to promote righteousness will also promote peace.
“The work of righteousness shall be peace.” The words have a sweet sound; but when we think of the whole meaning that lies wrapt up in them, they may well strike us with awe. For while they declare that righteousness shall produce peace, they at the same time imply that nothing but righteousness shall or can. How, then, can peace ever abide upon earth, or dwell in the heart of man?
Another disturbing recollection is, that when it has pleased the all-righteous God to show forth His righteousness, as in the days of Noah, the work of that righteousness was not peace, but horror, and desolation, and destruction. Even when the ministers and executors of earthly righteousness pass through a land, they do not bring peace to the culprits who they visit. How, then, can the perfect righteousness of God bring peace to the sinful race of man? There is but one way, a way purposed by God in the counsels of His unfathomable wisdom, the way whereby He vouchsafes to bestow His own righteousness upon man, to the end that He may make man partaker of His peace.
Here some may object, that righteousness, with its sternness and terrors, does not seem to be, of all virtues and graces, the one best fitted to be the parent of peace. Rather, they may say, is peace the work of mercy; for that mercy alone can produce peace, at least in sinners; wherefore we are wont to pray God to grant us pardon and peace. This is true. Unless mercy be shown to sinners, they can never enjoy peace. Yet, unless mercy go along with righteousness, mercy cannot produce peace. If mercy allowed the sinners to abide in their sins, they would still be under the sentence which declares that there is no peace to the wicked.[1] Christ will never give peace alone. He will only give it along with righteousness,—first righteousness and then peace. Unless He had been the Lord our Righteousness, He could not have been the Prince of Peace. Therefore they who will not receive His righteousness, cannot receive His peace. To them He brings no peace, but a sword.
But although the course of this world has never been answerable to the magnificent visions of ancient prophecy, still in some measure the prophecies have been fulfilled. To the godly, to all who believe in Christ and love Him, to all who desire to serve and obey Him, He has indeed brought peace; and even amid the endless tumults and troubles and jarrings of the world, they feel that He has done so. They feel that He has set them at peace with God, by making them partakers of that righteousness, of which peace is the work. Moreover, there is hardly one of our Lord’s commandments which does not tend, in proportion as we obey it, to fill our hearts with peace, which does not dry up one source or another of disquieting, harassing care.[2]
We may now perceive why there is so little peace in the world. It is because there is so little righteousness. The effect cannot exist without the cause. The one simple commandment, “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” were it followed through all the branching duties into which it spreads, would turn the earth into a garden of peace.
“For the wicked,” God has said, “there is no peace.” But light is sown for the righteous, the light of joy and peace. The true disciple of Christ, he who has sought to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness, will always enjoy peace, even here on earth. He will enjoy it in every condition of life. In riches, in poverty, in health, in sickness, in every outward circumstance of life, in the hour of death, the godly, and they alone, enjoy peace: in the day of judgment they, and they alone, will enjoy peace. And the peace they will have enjoyed till then will only have been a poor faint foretaste of the peace into which they will then enter, of the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, and in the full enjoyment of which they will live thenceforward through eternity.—Julius Charles Hare, M.A.: Sermons Preacht in Herstmonceux Church, pp. 325–346.
The Bible is the revelation of a gracious remedy for evil. Points out rightful claims of the Divine government. Charges the human race with disregard of these claims. Man is guilty of unrighteousness. There is universal sin. It is in man’s nature. It constitutes a moral disqualification for return. God’s remedial plan comprehends the provision of pardoning mercy, and of regenerating mercy. The former is found in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, which constitutes a righteous ground on which the penal consequences of sin may be remitted. The latter, in this no less wonderful work of the Holy Spirit by which the sinner’s disposition undergoes a change that makes him a new creature in Christ Jesus. Let it be supposed that this is the universal experience: instead of unrighteousness, the righteousness that springs from such contact with Christ by His Spirit universally prevails. It is a change of which we do not despair. We are taught to expect it. Thus the text will be universally fulfilled.