Peter, as we saw last week, is seeking to provide credibility to what he has been saying. Last week we saw that Peter appealed to his own,

I.) First-hand testimony to sustain the credibility of his message

We demonstrated last week how this kind of appeal is not unique to Peter. We find St. John doing so. We find St. Paul doing so.

“The narration of the facts is history; the narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. “Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried”–that is history. “He loved me and gave Himself for me”–that is doctrine. Such was the Christianity of the primitive Church.”

― J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism

Christianity cannot survive as Christianity if the empirical historical facts that are bound up with Christianity are found to be not true.  If Peter was lying about the History of the Transfiguration then the Transfiguration cannot be mysticized and so rescued. If St. John was lying about the History of the Resurrection the Resurrection cannot be rescued as having any meaning by somehow transcendentalizing it so that it is religiously true but not historically true.

People, seeking to avoid the hard work of studying Christian Doctrine and Christian History might appeal to the idea that it is the Christian life that is what is really important but if these historical facts are not true then any idea of a “Christian life” is just so much wish-mongering, personal preference, and poppycock.

All of this is why Peter insisted that “We had not followed cleverly invented tales.”

II.) Appeal to Scripture to Sustain Credibility

“The Prophetic word confirmed.”

You see what Peter is saying here is that their experience confirmed that which they had owned as “prophetic.”

What we labored at last week in demonstrating on this point is that their understanding of the Prophetic Word was the lens through which they understood and interpreted their eyewitness experience.

Imagine if Peter had been on the Mount of Transfiguration and had not been conditioned by Scripture as to what could and could not be possible. Peter believed in a coming Messiah. Peter believed that this Messiah would be extraordinary in every capacity and so Peter’s Scripturally informed Worldview allowed Peter to see that Transfiguration as being what it was — the inbreaking of the age to come on this present evil age.

But people who do not interpret their experienced reality through the prism of Scripture can’t see reality for what it is even if they eyewitness it.

I appeal to Luke 16. You know this account,

²⁷ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— ²⁸ for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ ²⁹ But Abraham *said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ ³⁰ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ ³¹ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

You see what is going on here? Abraham is saying that even if they were eyewitnesses of someone rising from the dead they would not be eyewitnesses of someone rising from the dead because they have not listened to Moses and the prophets. Their capacity to be eyewitnesses of the supernatural unto believing it was anchored in what they first believed about the verity of Scripture.

1.) Experience is pre-interpreted through a grid that informs what is and is not possible. A warning from the dead would not matter to those who disbelieve an even more credible witness (Moses and the prophets) to begin with.

2.) In order for experience to be valid as a source of credible information that experience must be reckoned through the prism of Scripture. It is not only the case that Scripture must interpret Scripture but it is also the case that Scripture must interpret experience. That the Brothers of Dives would not believe the testimony of the Moses and the Prophets means that they would even interpret wrongly the testimony of the Dead come back to life to warn.

3.) Scripture then is our epistemological foundation. Not experience. Not reason. Not tradition. Not mystic revelations. Only Scripture can give us the capacity to know the times and what should be done.

In his letter Peter anchors his credibility in his eyewitness account and then he anchors the credibility of his eyewitness account in the “prophetic word confirmed.”

The prophetic word confirmed.  God has given us epistemological tools. History, reason, tradition, experience, but each of those tools is only as good as the foundation upon which they are anchored. The prophetic word confirmed is what inform all our other epistemological tools.

So, that was by way of review of last week. In the few minutes we have left we want to take up one more point here and that is how Peter,

III.) Appeals to God to Sustain Credibility of Scripture

^19 [k]So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. ²⁰ But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹ for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

So, Peter starts out with his eye-witness account. He then places that eye-witness account on the foundation of the “prophetic word confirmed.” Lastly, Peter places that “prophetic word confirmed” on the foundation of God’s sovereign working.

Peter spoke about the prophetic word confirmed and now he speaks to the origin of that prophet word.

Negatively — never made by an act of the human will
Positively — Men move by the Holy Spirit spoke from God

This is intended to provide a stark antithetical contrast that doesn’t demonstrate itself as well in the English.

Prophecy was not brought in by men;
but men were brought to utter it by the Spirit.

Remember, Peter is dealing with people who are being inundated with false teachers. He is trying to shepherd and protect them. He is providing an apologetic for his truthfulness… that he can be trusted.  He has appealed to his own eye-witness experience. He has based that appeal on an appeal to the “prophetic word confirmed,” and now Peter is saying “and that prophetic word it trustworthy because it comes from God.”

The words and idea of men being moved by the Holy Spirit is a picture of the wind carrying a sailboat along.  The men speak but the Spirit impelled.

Of course, this is one passage we look to for our doctrine of Inspiration. It teaches that the Scriptures, like the Incarnation, have a human and divine nature. Indeed, we might say that the Scriptures are 100% Divine and 100% human.  While we do not hold that God used men as human dictation machines we would say that God so ordained the ordering of these men’s lives, their personality, their character, their experiences, their socio-linguistic background that they were the perfect instruments to bring what they were to what God had to say.

Now we would say here that as it is clear from the passage that God is ultimately responsible for Scripture, therefore we do no believe that it is possible for Scripture to be errant or fallible. I hope we can see the contradiction between believing in a God that cannot fail while holding that the Scripture which was “God-breathed,” is fallible.  If it is the case that God breathed out the Scripture (II Tim. 3:16) then it would be an impugning of God’s character to suggest that there are errors in God’s Word.

Now let’s take a brief moment to talk about this idea of infallibility. Many are the men both within and without the Church who mock Biblical Christians for believing that God’s word is infallible and in doing so they suggest that they themselves are more enlightened inasmuch as they don’t believe in infallibility.

But allow me to suggest that when men give up on the infallibility of Scripture they always relocate that same infallibility someplace else. They may deny infallibility as belonging to Scripture but they affirm, knowingly or not, infallibility in some other knowledge source. In short, infallibility is a concept that cannot be escaped.

Many Evolutionists act as if their evolutionary theories are infallible. And of course, if God is ruled out, a-priori, then where are we to find truth except in infallible evolution? The infallibility of God’s Word traded in for blind time plus chance plus circumstance infallibility.

In the political realm, we have the phrase,  “vox populi, vox dei.” The voice of the people is the voice of God.” Telling phrase that. In Democracy the people taken as God now speak infallibly in their majority voice. The voice of the people as the voice of God gives us an infallible truth and if we don’t like a new infallible truth we can soon enough replace it with a different one.

In the philosophy of existentialism it is the meaningful experience the individual has wherein infallibility is discovered.

For the Nihlist it is the sovereign ubermensch self who is infallible.

The Roman Catholic Church posits infallibility in the Pope as he speaks from the chair.

Infallibility is an inescapable concept because people have to have someplace certain and authoritative to stand upon. If they will not stand on the Scripture as certain and authoritative — infallible — then they will find something else that is infallible to try and stand upon.

It might be Rousseau’s theory of the “General Will”
It might be his idea of “the Noble Savage.”

— That the man who is uncorrupted by the trappings of civilization is the one who is to be most listened to and who will have the most inherent wisdom.

For Hegel it was the State which was the incarnation of the Universal Spirit and so infallible

“Every creed, every philosophy has either openly or implicitly a doctrine of infallibility. Because man has to live by an authority of certainty. He has to have something as his ultimate standing ground. A man cannot stand on nothingness, on thin air. I am standing on a platform here…it is this platform that supports me as I speak to you. And intellectually the platform that supports me and gives me the foundation for my speaking is the infallible word. Now every man has a platform on which he stands. And he must believe, he cannot escape believing, it is an inescapable requirement of human thought, that he affirm that platform without qualification, whatever it may be. That he hold to its infallibility, its certainty, its authority. And so there are a variety of infallibility concepts current among us.”

RJR

And so back to Peter. Peter says but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

And we believe therefore that Peter’s testimony and all of Scripture is infallible.

Context

II Peter is written to Saints who are threatened with being overcome by False teachers and false teaching. As you consider the New Testament this is a theme that is played out relentlessly. Peter’s concern is to protect the little flock while at the same time articulate the truth.

Because that is the context in which the book is set it has an apologetical feel about it. Peter is concerned for God’s people and he is seeking to lay a foundation for them that they can always return to in terms of the truth. In every age among every people, the Christian faith has to make its way against all competitors and detractors and so it must defend itself by explaining why it is true and the other is false.

This means in a Christian Church, you are going to get heavy doses of dogma and apologetics. This is the truth and why. This isn’t the truth and this is why it isn’t. This is what Peter is doing here. He is giving them the truth.

“The childish mind that hates the discipline of dogma is usually, at the same time, addicted to entertainment. Dogma is ‘boring’, but finger-painting your own creed is fun.”

— David Wells

The particular error that Peter is fighting here is the Church’s oldest heresy and one that we still contend with today in one form or another. It is the error of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a faith system that wore the outer garments of Christianity. However, what those garments covered was a mixture of Greek platonic philosophy which denied the importance of the corporeal, embraced a kind of Zen – everything is ONE Oriental philosophy as well as emphasizing esoteric “incantational like” knowledge rather than faith in Christ.

That this is the case can be seen in the Epistle. In this Epistle, Peter fights against a Gnostic-inspired immorality. Believing the body to be inherently unimportant and so insignificant to our real selves Gnosticism encouraged and excused the pursuit of the immoral excess (2:13-19).  There was also in Gnosticism a dismissal of authority as we see here (2:10).

So, in light of all this Peter is seeking to burnish his bonafides – credentials in terms of what he is communicating to them. He starts off here by saying,

For WE did not follow cunningly devised fables (myths)

By starting with the Pronoun “We” Peter demonstrates that he see’s himself as part of an Apostolic company communicating reliable truths. Peter does not hold a private opinion.

There also may be an implicit charge here against the Gnostic leaders who did indeed follow cunningly devised fables.

(Read with emphasis on WE)

Gnosticism was characterized by the manure of secret knowledge piled high in terms of its legends, incantations, different levels of spiritual authorities, etc.

The word itself, “Muthos” may have developed from “mueo,” which means to be “initiated or instructed” in the mystery religions of Greece or Rome. The noun “musterion” is related also, “a secretive hidden bit of information.”

These ancient myths or fables may have had reference to the appearances of the gods upon earth, or to those of the Gnostics as to the emanation of the aeons, or to the Gnostic myth of the Sophia.

In our own context, such cunningly devised fables would include hermeneutics that presuppose the supernatural isn’t true. Fables that would reinterpret Christianity through the lens of some kind of humanism.  An embrace of the idea that all is one. The necessity to embrace an unqualified and ill-defined concept of love. The Brotherhood of all men and the Fatherhood of God over all men. Cunningly devised fables remain with us today just as much of a threat as they were in the 1st century.

In our own context here is a concrete cunningly devised fable related to creation,

“Once upon a time in an act of extravagant expansive love overflowing from that divine community there appeared from nothing a pinpoint of probability smaller than a proton and this was the egg of the universe. In this egg God packed all the potential for the universe He planned, all matter, all energy, all life, all being, and the laws by which it would unfold. The egg exploded. Only God knows how. And the universe expanded a trillion trillion times and it gradually cooled into what we call matter.”

Well, it is this type of thing that Peter is contesting.

The issue quickly becomes one of credibility and authority and Peter spends some time on those issues. He insists that he has not deceived them regarding his teaching of the coming and power of Christ (16). This is something that is denied by the myth-makers.

So, Peter spends a wee bit of time seeking to lay a foundation for his credibility.

I.) Appeal to First Hand Testimony to Sustain Credibility

II Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

Here we find an appeal to the facts.  Peter was a first-hand witness and he appeals to what he saw.

Most commentators believe that when Peter refers to the “making known to you the power and coming of our Lord Christ,” that he is referring to the second coming of Christ. It is true that the word there used (parousia) for coming typically points to the second coming in the NT. Also there is the fact that this second coming was an issue (I Peter 3:3-4) However, I’m going to agree instead with the few scholars who see this as a reference of Christ’s first coming. It fits the context better in my estimation.

Here are these saints. They have been stirred up and troubled as to the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ was. Many of these Gnostics redefined or deleted the divinity of Christ. Peter parries that thrust by saying, “Don’t you believe it. We were eyewitnesses of the divinity of Christ.

This appeal to their own first-hand testimony to sustain credibility in their witness was not uncommon in the New Testament. Indeed, one of the requirements for being an Apostle is that one had witnessed Christ.

This appeal to first hand testimony is consistently used in the NT to undergird the authority of the Apostles. Peter uses it Acts 10 also

³⁹ We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the ^[ad]land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a ^[ae]cross.⁴⁰ God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, ⁴¹ not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.

The Apostle John appeals to the same thing in his Epistle,

I John 1:1

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands,

Paul makes this appeal,

^{I Cor. 15:5} and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; ⁷ then He appeared to ^[c]James, then to all the apostles; ⁸ and last of all, as ^[d]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

In all these cases credibility is added to the teaching by an appeal to their first-hand witness testimony. Peter and the Apostles can write to their people that they saw… they touched … they heard. All of that was intended to lend credibility to their case.

And 2000 years later it adds credibility to our faith still. Enemies realize the credibility that is bound up with these first hand Aposotlic accounts and so they seek to deconstruct them. The enemies say things like

“The Apostles had a mass hallucination brought on by their inability to cope with the destruction of their expectation.”

Or

“The early Church created a faith and dogma out of what believed to be true even though we know that it couldn’t be true.”

Peter makes his appeal to the Transfiguration event which he witnessed the age to come slip over into this present age.

From this, he relates the highlights of the Transfiguration account. However Peter uses a phrase here that is not found in the Transfiguration accounts,

“When we were with Him on the Holy Mountain.”

This may simply be the case where the Mountain is seen as Holy because that is where the Transfiguration occurred. However, the phrasing as OT legs.

In the OT “The Holy Mountain,” is the phrase used to describe Mt. Zion. Mt. Zion was the locale which God has chose for His own dwelling and as we learn in Psalm 2 it is the place from which God’s Messiah rules,

“But as for Me, I have ^[d]installed My King
Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”

So, Peter gives us here the Transfiguration account with the addition of the phrase “holy Mountain,” and in doing so he may be subtly drawing our attention to Jesus as the One who rules in God’s name. As such we find a combination of both the Divinity of Christ in Peter’s reference but also an emphasis on Jesus as God’s great King assigned to rule in the affairs of men.

Jesus is not whom the false teachers, then or now, say he is. He is very God of very God who has been placed on God’s Holy Mountain for the purpose of ruling the Nations according to His Law word. And false teachers, both then and now, would be wise to cease with their disrespect and kiss the son lest they perish in the way.

But behind this appeal to experience to sustain credibility there is a prior appeal and that is the,

II.) Appeal to Scripture to Sustain Credibility

“The Prophetic word confirmed.”

You see what Peter is saying here is that their experience confirmed that which they had owned as “prophetic.”

This prophetic message or word referred to here is probably a broad generalization that inclusive of all of God’s inscripturated Revelation.

And so the appeal to Peter’s audience is that their teaching is rooted in Scripture and not primarily their own experience although not surprisingly their experience confirms Scripture’s testimony.

The Scriptures had spoken of God’s coming Messiah. Jesus Himself read Scripture as pointing to Himself on the Road to Emmaus and by that work altered the Disciples interpretation of their experience so that they moved from downcast to those whose hearts burned within them.

Scripture is what made sense of the Life of Christ and Scripture is the means by which we are to interpret our experience. Yes, Peter had these eye witness experiences but those eye witness experiences were informed by what Scripture taught.

This combination of experience being interpreted by Scripture is uniformly seen not only here and in the Emmaus account but elsewhere in Scripture as well,

³ For I delivered to you ^[b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;

There is a principle here that we have mentioned before and that is our understanding of reality is not based primarily upon our experience of reality but rather our understanding and experiencing of reality is absed upon God’s Word. Our experiences of reality must be regulated and reinterpreted through God’s Word. In short I will believe Scripture above what my lying eyes might want to tell me.

This entails a high view of the authority of the OT Scriptures because when Peter speaks of the Prophetic word it is the OT Scripture to which he is appealing.

To the contrary some might insist that the text’s movement from recalling the Transfiguration to claiming that the Scripture is now “more fully confirmed” could be taken as a basis for seeking certain experiences or historical events which would “prove” the truth of Scripture. That would be a misunderstanding of 2 Peter’s argument.

Instead, Scripture as a whole points us not to proofs and signs, but to Jesus himself as God’s coming King, as God’s promise for the world.  claims that this way of hearing Scripture coheres with the apostles’ own experience, but its truth does not depend on that experience. We ourselves probably won’t hear voices booming from heaven, but our proclamation too is rooted in the conjunction between Scripture’s witness and what we have experienced: in the Word proclaimed, and in mercy received, and in God’s glory glimpsed in the midst of community and service to our neighbors.

God’s speech is the focus in the first part of this passage. At the end, the author returns to consider again how God has spoken, this time as the Spirit moved the writers of Scripture. From beginning to end, then, this is a text centered on the claim that God addresses us, first in Jesus, and then in Scripture read and proclaimed as pointing to Jesus. Isn’t that what we still hope, and in our more courageous moments even believe? In preaching the gospel, in speaking for justice, in words of comfort and love and shared pain, we too are being carried along by the Spirit, not into our own private, idiosyncratic viewpoints, but into the dawning light of God for the world.

In part that is because of the issue that drives them — it’s about authority, credibility, and trust. “We were not following cleverly reasoned myths…” (2 Peter 1:16).

“And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
And each of them will sit under his
Vine and under his Fig Tree
With no one to make them afraid.”
Micah 4:3-4

Introduction

Part of what we have been doing in this Avent series is trying to emphasize that what was to Micah “the latter days,” were fulfilled in what we refer to as the 1st Advent of Christ. Micah’s future latter days have been fulfilled and in being fulfilled are promissory of going from fulfillment unto fulfillment.

Because Christian time is thought of as a progressing line moving from promise to fulfillment when dealing with prophecy,  it is possible for these promises to be fulfilled. In the words of theologian Oscar Cullman,

“a divine plan can move forward to complete execution; the goal which beckons at the end of the line can give to the entire process which is taking place all along the line the impulse to strive further; finally the decisive midpoint, the Christ-deed, can be the firm hold that serves as the guidepost for all the process that lies behind and for all that lies ahead.”

Micah 4:1 And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be established ^[a]as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
And the peoples will stream to it.

² Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

³ And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, ^[b]distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they ^[c]train for war.

So, we enter again into this text in Micah 4 and Isaiah 2. Part of what we have been laboring to demonstrate is that with the first advent of Christ the things spoken of here have come to pass. With the advent of Christ, we arrived in Micah and Isaiah’s latter days.

We have labored to demonstrate that the Lord Christ is the Mountain of the house of the Lord that the Prophet’s speak. We have sought to show that the Kingdom of Christ is indeed now and has been since the coming of Jehovah’s Mountain Kingdom the chief of all Mountains.

We have leveraged history to illustrate how it is that with the first Advent of Christ the nations streamed into the Kingdom of Christ. Likewise, we have introduced the Emporer Justinian and his consort Theodora as well as Alfred the Great and then later English common law to put meat on the truth that it has been the case that the nations have desired to be taught God’s law that they may walk in God’s paths.

We have done this because we are convinced that the Church is asleep on the already-ness of the Kingdom. The modern Church, too often, acts like it is living in the times of Micah and Isaiah — as if we only have this to look forward toward. The Church is stuck in the “not yet.” The modern Church has an OT eschatological vision. While it is true that we expect a further blossoming of these Messianic promises, (The Kingdom being seen chief among all competitors, the Nations streaming in, the petition to be taught God’s law, the presence of peace) we have neglected to emphasize the immediacy and presence of these truths as already true.

True it is, that the full existential / experiential impact of the “not yet” still lies beyond us in the future for our children and grandchildren to know and experience, yet it is the driving home of the “now”/ the “already” of these truths that Micah and Isaiah could only anticipate — as preached to the saints now living — that serves the ends of breaking the enslaving bonds upon the people of God’s thinking that the “this present evil age” status quo seeks so earnestly to keep them in thralldom to.

The “coming age” that Micah, Isaiah, and the prophets spoke of has come!

And this Definitively so!

Now its realization continues to be worked out progressively. BUT, you see, if there is NO definitive reality of these things as grasped firmly by faith in the here and now, there cannot and will not be the progressive out-working of these truths. The intensification of these truths over time depend on the reality of these truths being true NOW.

If the embrace of these anticipated prophetic realities is neglected the Church will remain enslaved mentally in the sin and death of “this present wicked age” as it lies in Adam.  But the fact remains, definitively, that all the saints are presently “in Christ”, NOT “in Adam,” and what is true for Christ is true for His people who are united to Him.

(Note — Gratitude to Kim Burgess for a conversation that crystallized the above 6 paragraphs. The language is mostly mine but I could not have gotten there without my conversation with Kim.)

This morning we turn to the issue of war and peace and how with the arrival of Christ, swords have been hammered into plowshares and spears for pruning hooks, which is to say that Christ brought peace.

This promise of peace as connected with the Messiah is found everywhere in the Scriptures. But before we turn to those passages do keep in mind that the Hebrew “shalom” (peace) is a word that is of much richer and fuller significance than the English word “peace.” Whereas we sometimes limit the idea of peace to the absence of conflict, shalom includes far more. It comprises notions of wholeness, completeness, soundness, as well as the presence of righteousness, justice, and prosperity.

It is that kind of Peace that is sung in Handel’s Messiah, every year from Isaiah 9:6

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;  And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Zechariah also envisioned the Messianic ear as an era of Peace,

10I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.

Upon the Birth of Christ, we hear the singing of the Angelic hosts

Luke 2:14“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests!”

Jesus said to His troubled disciples on the cusp of His Exodus,

²⁷ Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you;

Paul in Ephesians 2 could speak of Christ as Himself being our peace and as His finished work on the Cross establishing peace. We learn that Christ preached peace to those gentiles who were far away, covenantally speaking, and peace to those Jews who were near covenantallty speaking.

Peace thus becomes a major theme throughout Scripture. Micah and Isaiah join that chorus to speak of the latter days… what we call the first advent … would find one consequence as the bringing in of peace.

Of course as we begin to examine this peace we say as we have noted before that nation cannot have peace with nation until nations have peace with Christ. Nations which are at war with Christ will war with one another. This is so because nations (and men) who are at war with Christ inevitably take themselves as God. As gods tend to demand that everyone bow to them, the consequence is that varying nations who have taken themselves as god will insist that all other nations who have taken themselves as god bow to their godhood. If everyone is a deity who expects all to bow, conflict is going to arise, conflict of interest will be the norm, and so peace will not be present.

Men who are at war with God will invariably have no peace within themselves, nor as among others.

But the latter days have arrived and Christ has come. And the consequence of that is to have witnessed how it is that nations who have come under the authority of the Gospel have themselves exchanged war for peace so that so far as it depended upon Christian people, they were at peace with all men.

That this text was understood has having a fulfilled import to it is something that the early Church Fathers taught. Here are only three,

Tertullian (155 – 240)

“Even from this, you may know that Christ was promised, not as one mighty in war, but as a peace-bringer. Either deny that these things were prophesied, since they are plain to see; or, since they are written, deny that they are fulfilled. But if thou mayest deny neither, thou must own that they are fulfilled in Him, of whom they are prophesied.”

Athansius (296-373) could write,

“Of old Greeks and Barbarians, being idolaters, warred with one another, and were fierce toward those akin. For through their implacable warfare no one might pass land or sea, unarmed. Their whole life was passed in arms; the sword was to them for staff and stay. They worshiped idols, sacrificed to demons, and yet from their reverence for idols they could gain no help to correct their minds. But when they passed into the school of Christ, then, of a truth, pricked in mind, they wondrously laid aside their savage slaughters, and now think no more of things of war; for now all peace and friendship are alone their mind’s delight. who then did this, who blended in peace those who hated one another, save the Beloved Son of the Father, the common Saviour of all, Christ Jesus, who, through His love, endured all things for our salvation?

Chrysostom (349 – 407) could chime in saying,

“Before the Coming of Christ, all men armed themselves and no one was exempt from this service, and cities fought with cities, and everywhere were men trained to war. But now most of the world is in peace; all engage in mechanical art or agriculture or commerce, and few are employed in military service for all. And of this too the occasion would cease, if we acted as we ought and did not need to be reminded by afflictions.” : “After the Sun of righteousness dawned, so far are all cities and nations from living in such perils, that they know not even how to take in hand any affairs of war. – Or if there be still any war, it is far off at the extremity of the Roman Empire, not in each city and country, as heretofore. For then, in any one nation, there were countless seditions and multiform wars. But now the whole earth which the sun surveys from the Tigris to the British isles, and therewith Lybia too and Egypt and Palestine, yea, all beneath the Roman rule, – ye know how all enjoy complete security, and learn of war only by hearsay.”

See, the point here, is that many of the Church Fathers could speak of this prophecy being fulfilled. Of course, not perfectly or completely, but fulfilled in principle so that the impact of Messianic age was being seen. Those early Church Fathers in their evangelism could urge against the Jews — those whom they were often engaged with — that the fulfillment of these Old Testament prophecies had come to pass.

But instead what we get today is that these prophecies are only future as tied to the 2nd advent of Christ, which means in turn, that we can not expect this peace to be characteristic of this world until Christ returns, which serves a pessimistic eschatology. Or failing that, what we get is that these prophesies are only fulfilled spiritually…. whatever that means.

But the prophecy is fulfilled, in that the Gospel is a Gospel of peace and makes peace for those who come under its sway and authority. And being fulfilled we anticipate it going from fulfillment unto fulfillment.

Yes, we who are familiar with the 20th century find this preaching hard sledding. We have seen untold bloodshed this century. But remember our illustration on the way that the Kingdom comes in.

Ill. — Tide coming in and out. / Not steady linear progress.

So, we can say that this is fulfilled when men, as far as they united to Christ, are at peace both in themselves and with one another.  The Gospel brings peace. The Gospel stills the selfish passions that make for war. The Gospel quells disputes arising from pride.  Where overcome with the Gospel there we find a banishing of contentions, a removing of errors, and a soothing and repressing of pagan anger, both in individuals, and nations.

Again, I appeal to History,

There is the account of John Williams missionary to the South Island seas in the early 19th century.  Williams work for Christ went forward. Eventually, God was pleased to convert a Samoan chief named Malietoa. Prior to Malietoa’s conversion, he was a feared warrior. Upon embracing Christ Malietoa used his warrior ability to be a force for peace among the tribes.

There is the Don Richardson account in the 20th century among the Sawi tribe in Papua New Guinea. God was pleased to use Richardson and his wife to see conversion among the Sawi tribe and the consequence was Peace among formerly cannibalistic tribes. Indeed the book that Richardson wrote, which I highly recommend, is titled “Peace Child.” The book tells the story of how the Father’s giving of the Son brought reconciliation and Peace to warring tribes throughout the world. This message was highly effective given that the Sawi and area tribes retained a “Peace child” concept in their culture, as a means to make and ensure peace among warring tribes.

Because of Christianity, even the pursuit of war was about bringing peace. Augustine taught that for a war to be a “Just war” the war must be waged under the authority of the prince, and it must have as its object the punishment of injustice and the restoration of peace. Where there was gross injustice there could be no peace. Christianity created a doctrine of war that was about the restoration of peace.

Obviously, then, the kind of peace that is characteristic of the Messianic age is not the peace of the pacifists and the anabaptists. The Messiah does not seek peace at any cost. The cost of peace in the Messianic age is kissing the Son, lest He be angry, resulting in perishing.  Men and Nations who will not have the Messiah’s peace will know that the Prince of Peace is also a warrior Prince.

The Messiah’s peace is a peace that will wage war for peace against those who would wage war against the Messiah’s peace.

Because this is true, we have to say, that the anabaptist and the pacifist are working against the Peace of the Messiah when they prattle on about peace at any cost.

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New Sermon — 25 December 2016

Christ is the Prince of Peace.

Last week we sought to build the case that the consequence of the arrival of Christ with the first advent was the ushering in of a Peace.  It really has been the case that swords have been beaten into plowshares and spears turned into pruning hooks.

We have noted that Peace has been characteristic where the Gospel has been successfully planted. Christ remains, in the words of Isaiah 9, “the Prince of Peace.”

Yet we must briefly deal with these words of Christ and ask whether or not in them we find contradiction.

 ^{Matthew 10:34} Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. ³⁶ And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

This gives us insight into the kind of Peace that Scripture has in mind when it speaks of Christ as the one who brings peace. It is most certainly a peace that intends to triumph through conflict.

Usually, the kind of Peace that you hear “Christians” talk about is the kind of peace that means that Christians surrender their convictions in order to have the cessation of hostility. This is not the kind of Peace that Christianity offers when it talks about swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. The kind of Peace that Christianity is talking about is a Peace that arrives via total conquest against those enemies which rise up against Christ as the Prince of peace.

The reason that Christ, who is the Prince of Peace can talk about bringing a sword is that Peace is not gained except through vanguishing all Kingdoms which would rise up against Christ and His Kingdom. This is why Christ can talk about friction within a household. Until the whole household surrenders to Christ there will be variance in that household.

Ill. — Illustration — War against Japan

During the war against Japan, most Americans undoubtedly wanted peace. Peace was the thought that comforted mothers whose sons were in danger on distant battlefields; peace was the word which sustained wives, lonely and anxious without their husbands; peace was the goal that motivated servicemen who knew the boredom, the loneliness, and the danger of war. Had they been asked to define peace, they would doubtless have described it as the termination of hostilities in the defeat of the enemy by the allies. Not under any circumstances would victory by Japan have been termed peace. To the American people, peace meant only one thing– American victory.

The Christian believes they are at war. They desire “peace” with all their hearts. But to us, peace is that great hope for the time when the Kingdom of Christ totally overwhelms all enemies and climaxes in conquest of the world by Christ. By definition , “peace” is Christian world conquest.

As we saw last week where Christ has conquered there you find peace. Where those who yet resist Christ remain there you will find it to be true that there is no Peace, as Christ words from Matthew 10 indicate.

So Christianity brings Peace but it is Peace on its terms and its terms mean that people bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And as we discussed that is what you find in this passage when it talks about the Nations desiring to learn God’s ways so as to walk in His paths. This is what the passage means when it talks about God’s Mountain being larger than every other Mountain.

This is the kind of peace that we, as Christ’s vassal-subjects are committed to. We are not committed to some peace that would leave those who hate Christ and His Kingdom in the ascendancy. We are for the kind of peace that has removed all pretenders to the throne, via conversion.

So Christ has come and brought peace to those who have bowed the knee to Him as the Prince of Peace. Where those remain who are in revolt against the authority of Christ there the absence of Peace is characteristic.

Because we are committed to the Peace of God, as God’s people, we are a people who take up our Cross and follow Christ. One of the ironies of the Christian life is that because we pursue the Peace of Christ as we have spoken of we are a people most pilloried and so must cling to the Cross.

Remember Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan’s Character’s “Christian” and “Faithful” enter into Vanity Fair, which is for Bunyan a metaphor for the wickednes of this world as it lies outside of Christ. “Christian” and “Faithful” refuse to enter into the lusts, adulteries, and vanities of the antichrist culture whereupon (paraphrasing Bunyan now)

“a crowd gathers to taunt and revile them, “some calling upon others to smite them,” which leads to a great hubbub and the arrest of the Pilgrims for disturbing the peace. After being questioned, they are severely beaten and locked up in an iron cage to be made a spectacle to the multitude, being for some time “the objects of any man’s sport, or malice, or revenge.”

By being lovers of Peace “Christian” and “Faithful” are accused of disturbing the Peace and so it must be until Christ’s enemies are converted and so defeated.

One of the ironies of the Christian life is that Christians who are so committed to the Peace of Christ will, like Bunyan’ “Faithful” and
“Christian” routinely be accused of being disturbers of the Peace.

We see that in our culture today. Christians are the homophobes. Christians are the sexists. Christians are the racists. Christians are the ones who are disturbers of the Peace.

And yet, we as Christians remain confident that as Christ has triumphed those who are enemies of God will be converted so that the Peace of God that is present among those who know Christ will cover the globe as the waters cover the sea.

Before we move on to round off we must note here that as Children of God and so lovers of Peace that for the modern state War is the health of the state. We note this because the modern state, in order to feather its nest, wants Christians to hate those who they propagandize us to hate. The modern state would have us replace the Pax Christi (Peace of Christ) with the Pax Lamech, Pax Nimrod, Pax Pharaoh, Pax Babylonia, Pax Romana, and Pax Americana.

As Christians, our enemies are not necessarily who the State tells us. Our enemies are those who are haters of Christ and His Kingdom.  As Christian we must keep in mind that The Chief End of Man is the Glory of God, not the Glory of the “Fatherland.”

II.) What is the basis of this Peace promised?

So, here is this promise of Peace among the Nations and we must pause to ask ourselves, “On what basis is this peace achieved.”

And the answer to that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ holds that God is at warfare with man because of man’s rebellion against God. Because of man’s defiance of God, there is and can be no peace between God and man. God is implacably opposed to rebel man.

For those outside of Christ, God hates. That hatred is reciprocal as those outside of Christ are at war with God.

Peace can only be sued for on God’s terms and God’s terms are the demand that those who want to be free of God’s hostility towards them and have forgiveness for their rebelliousness against God is the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Christ came to be the peace child between God and man. By His work on the Cross Christ quenched the anger of God and so, as a substitute, became the appeasement of God as sent by God for those who would sue for peace.

God could not offer peace to rebellious man except on His terms. And His law terms required that His violated law be satisfied and so Christ came in His first advent to be God’s sacrifice for the sins of His people.

And so God Himself makes the peace. We do not have peace because of our repentance though certainly, repentance is a necessary consequence of our having peace with God. We do not gain peace by our obedience to God’s law though obedience is a necessary consequence of having peace with God. The only sufficient and necessary means to having Peace with God … the only way we can be delivered from God’s active warfare against us … the only way that a nation will ever beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks is by placing themselves under the protection of the Lord Christ who gave Himself up as the substitute for warmongering rebels like us.

Then having Peace with God we can wage peace for God with our fellow man.

But having this kind of peace will be incredibly threatening to those who are outside of this peace. Those outside of this peace still desire to be their own God and so will be at war both with THE God and those who champion His peace.

But we fear not, for Christ has overcome the world.