Introduction
On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem in a scene suffused with royalty. He rode on a donkey in the manner of Israel’s kings and the crowds, who understood the symbolism, cried out: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” As the last phrase indicates, Jesus’ royal vocation was also one of establishing peace (Zechariah 9:9-11). But instead of going straight to Pilot’s palace, Jesus turned to the temple to show that the real enemy of peace was at the heart of God’s own people. His royal conquest, which was to take place over the next week, would deal with the true enemy of sin and death once for all, establishing him as the Lord of all and the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6-7). This morning, I want to look at Philippians 2:11-20 to understand how Jesus became our Peace: reconciling us to God and to one another and then consider the responsibility we each have to be agents of His peace.
The Problem of Exile: Division and Boasting
Phil. 2:11 begins by reminding the Gentile Christians of their former distance from God and His people. He points to five ways in which the Gentiles were separated from the privileges of Israel. They were: (1) “separate from Christ,” (2) “excluded from citizenship in Israel, (3) “strangers to the covenants of promise,” (4) “having no hope,” and (5) “without God in the world.”
Clearly the Gentiles were aliens and strangers, But Paul goes further and points to the opposite Jewish problem. The Jews captured the Gentile situation in the derisive term “Uncircumcision.” They, however, were the “circumcision.” Circumcision stood for the fact that they been brought near as God’s people in their father Abraham (Gen. 17). They had been entrusted with the oracles/law of God (Rom. 3:1-2) and were the people of God’s own possession (Ex. 19:5). These were all the gifts of God’s grace, but rather than turning them into a gracious and freedom-giving people as they were intended (Deut. 4:5-8), Israel had turned them into badges of honor and a source of boasting and exclusion (Luke 18:9-14). This is what Paul means when he refers to the “wall of hostility” (vs. 14). What was meant to be a source of blessing and shalom had become a source of hatred and alienation. The law had become like the wall in the temple area that separated the court of the Gentiles from the inner courts (only accessible to Jews) to which were affixed warnings in Greek and Latin; warning the Gentiles to keep out on pain of death.
This highlights a universal sin that Paul has already highlighted earlier in chapter two (2:8): The problem of boasting. Ever since Genesis 3, when God gives good gifts, the sinful heart takes them and uses them as an opportunity to judge others and separate from them. They become marks of our superiority. They become a central manifestation of what Luther called “man incurvatus in se.” The irreligious man and the religious man both have the same problem: We know that we were created to serve God and each other but because we serve ourselves instead, we are always looking for security and something to boast in. This deep insecurity results in rivalry and hatred of others. Notice how many of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:20-21 are expressions of this: “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy…” This is our natural condition apart from God. Titus 3:3 says: “passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” What’s the solution?
The Peace God Gives
The answer, in vs. 14-17, is that Christ has remade humanity by becoming our peace. What does that mean? There are two central things it means here:
- Christ has become our peace by tearing down the wall of separation (the law) in his own body (vs. 14). In Jesus’ body, broken for us, every barrier of hostility that separates people has been removed. He did this “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.”
- In His body, he also reconciled us both to God through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. He killed our hostility by taking it all upon himself (vs. 16). The justice that was due our hatred and pride, He bore willingly. We should be destroyed for our hostility, but instead the “chastisement of our peace was upon him.” (Is. 53:5). Thus, our reconciliation to God becomes the basis of our peace with others.
- Note the outcome of this double reconciliation (vs. 17): “he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
In sum, Jesus himself is a peace that is the end of the boasting, rivalry, and hate that is the source of all divisions. In Him, Jew, Gentile, slave, freeman, barbarian, Scythian, male and female, have all been reconciled to each other in the body of Jesus (Gal. 3:26-29). In Him there are no more distinctions (Jas. 2:1-7) and no more divisions (I Cor. 1:10-17; 11:17-34).
The Peace God Calls For
This peace is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It should not surprise us then how often the Bible exhorts us to be at peace with each other. This is certainly the dimension that Paul has in mind when he identifies peace as a fruit of the Spirit. The rest of the NT confirms: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9); “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom. 12:18); “Make every effort to do what leads to peace” (Rom. 14:19); “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as member of one body you were called to peace” (Col. 3:15); “Make every effort to live in peace with all men” (Heb. 12:14); “Whoever would love life and see good days…must seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Pet. 3:10-11). Finally, Ephesians 4:1-3 calls us to live our calling as those who know the peace of God: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
How do we do this? Paul tells us how we are to walk worthy: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Do these things characterize your life? Do you earnestly seek them? Or are your relationships characterized by works of the flesh: enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and envy. What would the people who are closest to you say? Finally, notice how the emphasis of the Bible puts the responsibility of being at peace squarely on our shoulders. We are to seek every means possible to be at peace with others (Matt. 5:23-24; 18:15). This is because the cause of discord often lies with us.
Pursuing peace is not easy, but it is one of the greatest privileges of our Sonship. We are bear with one another, being patient, selfless, and enduring because our Father has welcomed us. Listen to how Paul puts all of this together masterfully in his exhortation to the strong and weak Christians in Rome:
“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
– Romans 15:1-7