For the blog I’ve broken the New Testament section into several parts, but the entire New Testament section is also available to listen to at The Fourth Way Podcast. For more in the Shalom series click here.
In the last post we discussed what peace, or shalom, means in the Hebrew Bible. It is a very rich term which includes any and every positive aspect of a relationship, in particular in regards to wholeness or completeness. Today we move on to peace within the New Testament. As I mentioned last post, I will often use the term shalom when referring to how peace is viewed within the Bible. This is fine with the Hebrew Bible since that is the word which is actually used, but in the New Testament the word translated to peace is something different, eiréné, since of course it was written in Greek rather than Hebrew. However, I often prefer to keep using the term shalom simply as a way of distinguishing it between our culture’s understanding of the term peace and the Bible’s.
The New Testament is absolutely bathed in talk of shalom, even more so than in the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, shalom is undoubtedly the direction that all is leading towards. God planned for shalom and, despite humanity’s continual insistence on thwarting His plans, God again and again promises that shalom will prevail. That is God’s project, God’s vision, and in the end it will come about. In the New Testament, we finally have shalom’s inauguration. Even if still not complete, now within the people of God, the Kingdom has come and it spreads outwards towards all people and against all other empires. In Ezekiel 34:25, God says that he will make a covenant of peace with his people. Willard Swartley believed that the New Testament was that covenant of peace, and I’m inclined to believe him.
Before we get too far into that, let’s talk a bit about what is meant by the idea of peace in the New Testament. Shalom in the New Testament is basically of the exact same essence of that within the Hebrew Bible. In fact most, if not all, of the differences stem from one predictable source: Jesus. The writers of the NT saw Jesus as the manifestation of the shalom discussed and promised in the Hebrew Bible. Unsurprisingly, these scriptures are where these first Christians’ notions of shalom grew. Any understanding of shalom in the New Testament sprouts up from this rich source. This identification of Jesus with shalom, or at least the coming of shalom, is more than just a theological clarity though. Through shalom’s manifestation in Jesus the Messiah, the early Christians believed and wrote about shalom as something which governed their lives, both present and future. They also saw Jesus’ followers as ones who would further expand that peace to the ends of the Earth, even to their enemies.
The purpose of this series is actually pretty narrow. After a brief survey of the essence of peace within the NT, I’m going to go over several ways in which peace is discussed but isn’t generally recognized as such. Peace is mentioned or discussed in nearly every page of the New Testament. At times it feels as though it permeates every line. In addition to the Greek word for peace being used around 100 times and in nearly every book in the NT, the various authors of the New Testament also use different terms and metaphors for speaking of peace. They each have their favorite terms and metaphors. This series will identify some of these terms and concepts so that you will hopefully be able to go forth in your own studies to further draw out the message of peace within the scriptures. As such, we will not delve too deeply into any specifics unless it helps us understand how a certain concept pertains to peace. I will also hardly mention any of the very many verses and passages which explicitly mention the word peace. Those have often been largely forgotten within Christianity as well, but it is simply not what I am looking at today.
Just for a brief rundown of what is meant when the idea of shalom is invoked in the New Testament, I will provide a slightly edited list from Willard Swartley1:
- Relationship between God and humans arising through salvation in and by Jesus Christ.
- A simultaneous peace among humans, breaking down walls of enmity such that peace is thus also reconciliation (cf. Eph 2:13–18 with 2 Cor 5:17–20).
- Christ’s new creation peace, creating an alternative community to the Pax Romana
- A peace with sociopolitical dimension, evident especially in Luke-Acts, but also in Paul and in all NT lordship titles of Jesus Christ.
- Peace with cosmic dimensions, clearest in Col 1:20 (“through Christ God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether in earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross”), uniting all things in Christ (Eph 1:10), and creating a new heavens and earth (Rev 21:1).
- Peace that stills the human spirit, giving confident hope amid adversity and imprisonment.
We also see a link between righteousness and shalom which the authors surely learned from reading many of the scriptures which we discussed in the last post. For example, Romans 14:17 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In 2 Timothy 2:22 we see, “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” And in James 3:17-18, my personal favorite on the topic, James writes, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.“
Before we finally start, some of you may be thinking, okay, yes, peace is important of course. Surely it is not such a huge focus though, right? It is a fruit of the Spirit, agreed, but it is not as central and prominent as you make it out to be.
Fair concern given the little attention it has traditionally been given. So let me at least give a few reasons to help support my claim of peace’s centrality. This is in no way exhaustive obviously, but hopefully it is enough to at least show how wrong we have been to sideline peace the way we have.
- To start off, eiréné, the Greek word for peace, is used 100 times in the New Testament. That is fairly impressive in and of itself, but considering how much more focus most of us give the concept of reconciliation than of peace even though that word is only used four times is telling. I will also argue later that reconciliation is another word denoting peace, but even without that, it still should be something that catches our eye. How many sermons have we heard on justification? That word is used less than half as many times as peace and instead of being spread throughout the entire New Testament, it is found primarily in a single author, Paul, and within his writings mostly in just two books, Romans and Galatians. Word counts should not be taken too terribly seriously for numerous reasons, but again, given the number of sermons and books written on something related to justification compared to those on peace, it warrants taking a closer look.
- Willard Swartley notes that peacemaking and loving of enemies is related to being a child of God by several NT authors. Of course Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be children of God,” but Ephesians 5:1-2 also says, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” We read in 1 Peter 1:17, ”If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds…” and then climaxes in 2:21-21, “For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps…” 1 John 4:7-12 “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
- It is important to note here that these are from four different authors and are quite different i.e. no sharing was done. This is significant because it shows that several people came up with similar conclusions in their own way.
- Paul’s frequent use of the title “God of peace” is significant. This seems to be a title that Paul himself came up with. He apparently felt that the terminology used before him was inadequate and that he needed to coin a new phrase in order to accurately depict what he was experiencing. He uses it six times while “God of hope” occurs only once (Rom 15:13) and “God of love” only once, and that in conjunction with “God of peace” (2 Cor 13:11). The fact that “God of wrath” or “God of judgment” does not appear despite the prominence of the “God as warrior” motif in the Old Testament also strengthens the importance of this title.
- Paul uses the word “peace” in every letter of his that we have. This is significant in and of itself of course, but it is even more powerful when we recognize that most other claims for centrality in his thought, including justification by faith, only occur in some and not all of his writings.
- Lastly, Krister Stendahl notes that what is usually regarded as Paul’s conversion is his call to announce Jesus Christ’s peace to the Gentiles and to make peace with the enemy. This reminds me of what a friend of mine says. The most obvious change in the transformation from Saul to Paul was his refusal to use violence against his enemies. He remained just as bold and zealous for the God of Israel, but once he came in contact with the risen Christ he sought to break down the walls between us rather than force others outside our territory.
In the next several posts we will be covering some of the different themes or words used by various authors of the New Testament which are ways of speaking about peace. Below are links to the entire series.
Justification and Reconciliation
Love of Enemies and Nonretaliation
Logos
Christmas
Notes
- A whole lot of what I have to say here comes, either directly or sprang from, my devouring of Willard Swarley’s A Covenant of Peace. I won’t go on too long about it, but I do want to give a special shout out to it because, though I’m a fairly voracious reader, that book was a landmark in my faith. One of those few situations where I’ll be able to look back and see a distinct change in my outlook. It is a long, a bit expensive and only available in physical copy. Though not overly difficult, it is academic and may not to appeal to all, but if you find this episode interesting then I highly suggest you check it out. He also has a book called Send Forth Your Light which is similar, in fact there are entire sections which are shared between the two, but is slimmer and only $5 for an ebook. Anyway, enough of advertising. What Willard Swartley taught me most with those two books though, was that peace is spoken of in a variety ways in nearly every verse, certainly nearly ever chapter, of the NT. He has some truly insightful understandings of how certain themes work together or how the narrative implies entire streams of the writing should be seen with a lens of peace. We are not going to discuss any of those things here though, but are simply going to go over different ways in which the writers of the New Testament typically spoke about peace. They all had shalom in mind as they wrote and they often wrote explicitly about it. However, they also used different terms and tended to focus on different aspects which has tended to hide this fact from us. Using a slightly modified list of Swartley’s, we are simply going to go over six different ways the writers of the NT spoke about peace, or shalom.
Crucifiedpeace 
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