Whoever loves transgression loves strife; he who makes his door high seeks destruction.
We do not live lives of peace, we men of earth. Always trouble is in our hearts; ever trouble looms in our lives; perpetually the world whispers of the destruction it can unleash against itself. “Here wealth is fleeting; here friends are fleeting; here man is fleeting; here woman is fleeting. All the framework of this earth will stand waste” (The Wanderer). We walk about troubled by our own sins, by the sins of others, by coincidence and discomfort, by the sweeping sway of the culture. Amidst all of this, peace seems impossible; it becomes precious; it becomes worth struggling for, whatever dubious things we engage in during that struggle. We want peace- but too often we do not want what is necessary to peace.
Peace through falsity or through sin is not true peace. Macbeth obtained a sort of peace for himself, the peace of the throne, but his lady still had the spot, and he still fell in the end to the products of his treachery. Even when the peace obtained seems without such a flaw, undisturbed by some injured party, it is still false. Eventually it breaks, whether from within or without- for it is not the nature of peace to abide sin, as we will see.
Peace does not come by the sins of men. It does not come by the sword, not in essence, though the metaphorical sword is often an instrument in its coming, when wielded righteously. Peace comes from the hand of God; to have peace in general we must first have peace in specific, peace with Him who rules the world. This peace Christ offers us a path to in saying: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Transgression (against God) leads to strife because all transgression against God is strife with God. It breaks peace with Him, and having broken peace with Him, it can achieve at most a temporary facsimile of peace with His creation. Sin can pacify, sin can subdue, sin can suppress, but sin cannot bring true peace, being itself a breaking of His peace. This is why the transgressor is said to love strife, in today’s proverb: he enacts strife in transgressing, declares in his life what he adores: strife with God (Gen. 3:8).
The peace of God is not like the peace of men, small and temporary and wrought with tools of sin and finitude. Philippians 4:7 speaks of “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” and this is the true peace which we seek. It is peace first with Him, the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6), through the sacrifice of the same, as Romans 5:1 declares. Then, because we have peace with Him, we can have peace with all in the world which is righteous, with those in authority (1 Chron. 12:18), with the people of God (Luke 2:14).
In this world, though, this peace is an ‘already but not yet,’ as with some other superlatives of the New Covenant. Peace with God is full peace, sufficient to hold a man against all the world, as it did for all the saints of the Old and New Testaments, but there is still struggle in this world, particularly when we are at peace with Him (John 15:18). This does not harm the peace we have in Him; still, this is the strife which is beloved of the transgressor. This life is imperfect and touched by sin.
The final fruit of peace with Him, though, has no bounds. In the end, there will be peace for all who have peace with Him. For the wicked, there will be no peace, as Isaiah 57:21 states, but in their completed judgement will come their completed impotence, so that they can no longer bring strife against the righteous. Moreover, even the creation which groans beneath its wait, beneath the weight of sin (Rom. 8:22), shall be in harmony with God and those who have peace with Him: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them” (Is. 11:6).
The sum of this, for us on this earth in this day, is that we have peace set before us to seek and to grasp. By His grace, men can have peace with Him and through Him with all that is truly peaceful. By His grace, we can turn from transgression and strife. By His grace, this peace is, once given, an eternal and entire gift, that He does not lose one of those whom God gives into His hand (John 10:28). All that He requires of us is by His grace to repent and believe- which is entire surrender and allegiance (Mark 1:14-15).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Quote from The Wanderer, a wonderful Anglo-Saxon poem, translation by R. Liuzza, <LINK>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
