Peace
- Inner Guide or External Standard? - Colossians 3:15
Colossians 3:15
NASB “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed
you were called in one body; and be thankful.”
This
is a verse that is frequently used in the teaching of many people as a verse on
divine guidance, emphasising that one of the ways in which we come to
understand how the Lord is leading us is through an inner sense of peace. We
are going to discover that that is not true, for a number of reasons. So we are
asking the question: Peace, is it an inner guide or is it an external standard?
When
our Lord taught, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, He taught using a
technique of contrasting truth with error. Frequently He would say, “You have
heard it said,” and then He would make a statement related to a false
interpretation of Scripture. The Sermon on the Mount is actually Jesus
Christ’s/God’s interpretation of the Mosaic Law in contrast to the false
interpretation that had accumulated through two or three hundred years of
tradition among the Pharisees and Sadducees within the religious community of
Israel. So He is stating the accurate interpretation of the Mosaic Law in
contrast to the false interpretation that had become a commonly held view among
most of the Jewish community at that time.
In
any generation, in any culture, there is always a “popular religion.” There are
a lot of Christians in a lot of churches who ought to know better but they
still hold to certain popular ideas that are false—popular ideas about
what is said in the Scripture. This is simply because they are not taught very
well. They sort of enter into the culture of modern evangelical Christianity
and they are not really challenged a whole lot and eventually they come sort of
sacred cows and people are afraid to say anything about them. But that happens
across the board in almost any religious system. There are these popular ideas
that take on a life of their own and that is part of what the Lord was doing:
correcting those kinds of ideas that had entered into the every day Jewish
belief system at that time.
So
He would says, “You have heard it said,” and then He would contrast it and say,
“But I say unto you,” and then He would correct that interpretation. We will
follow a pattern something like that here, that with regard to discerning or
understanding God’s will in our life many of us have not been taught correctly
on this area—especially with regard to this verse that we are studying.
We
have heard it said that God has a perfect will for every decision in our life.
That is really taken to mean that God has a specific will for us in every
single decision that we make in life. We have heard it said that we should live
in the center of God’s will—that is another
popular way in which it is stated—and that God will always reveal to us
precisely what He wants us to do, what His will is for us in any particular
circumstance, whenever we are struggling about what we should do. We usually
think of this in terms of the big questions of life related to marriage,
related to education, related to career, to where we should live, whether to
buy a house or not buy a house, etc. But it also boils down to the many small
decisions in life because we all understand that most of the major events in
our life have really turned upon very small what may have appeared at the time
to have been insignificant decisions; and yet they ended up having a great
impact on things.
And
we have often heard that one of the keys to discerning the will of God is an
inner state of peace or tranquillity when that decision is made. We take it to
the Lord in prayer and when we make that decision that God sort of confirms to
us that it is the right decision because we have a peace of mind, a “peace that
surpasses all comprehension,” quoting Philippians chapter four. This peace that
surpasses all comprehension sort of guarantees us that we have made the right
decision and are living in the center of God’s will.
There
are other things that come into play in this. We are often told that the way to
discern God’s will is to not only pray about it but we also seek guidance from
wise or mature Christians. Also God will open or close doors through various
circumstances, and so we often end up without realising it, putting the
emphasis not on the objective revelation of God’s Word but on subjective inner
impressions; subjective inner interpretations of external circumstances, and it
is almost as if it is some kind of shell game that God plays with us where He
has it hidden under one of the walnut shells which He is constantly moving
around, and we have to guess which one it is, and He is going to give us an
idea of which one to choose because we are going to have some sort of inner
peace.
This
is not biblical. It is actually an extremely subtle but dangerous form of
mysticism. All mysticism is really a way of denying the authority of God and
rejecting the authority of God because it is substituting some inner mental
state for the Word of God. All of this ultimately boils down to understanding
some key things about bibliology, that God has
revealed Himself objectively through history and that that objective revelation
ceased with the closing of the canon of Scripture. Since then God has been
silent. And there is a reason for that silence. If God is communicating
anything to us in any way, whether it is verbal or non-verbal, it is a form of
special revelation. If we think that God is going to vibrate us one way or
vibrate us another way to tell us to go left or right then that is a form of
revelation. We either believe that revelation has ceased or we don’t. And if we
believe that it hasn’t ceased then we end up with a whole host of confusion
because then we have to ask: what is the criterion for determining what
revelation is today and what isn’t? In the Old Testament there were the
prophets; in the New Testament there were the apostles. They sat as a guard, as
it were, to determine what was, and was not from God, what was and was not
revelatory. So if we are going to make claims that we have any kind of
revelation today then who is it that decides whether it or not it is because we
have no apostles or prophets on the scene anymore?
The
key to understand what is going on here in Colossians 3:15 is to understand the
context. “Let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts.” That first part of the verse is part of the second part
of the verse, which says, “to which indeed you were
called in one body; and be thankful.” There are two commands here: let the
peace of God rule in your hearts and be thankful. One of the key interpretive
clues here is that second part that talks about “to which you were called in
one body.” The purpose for letting the peace of God rule in your hearts is
related to maintaining the unity of the body of Christ. But wait a minute. That
doesn’t sound like it is there to help me pick what college to go to, what
person to marry, or what kind of decision to make about where to live or when
to retire, etc. Just reading the whole verse tells us that Paul isn’t talking
about making decisions, he is talking about maintaining unity in the body of
Christ. And we remember as we have gone through Colossians that a major theme
throughout has related to the body of Christ and submitting to the authority of
God.
So as we think about the
way discerning the will of God is frequently taught we will expand on it a
little. In the idea that God has a perfect will for every believer’s life it is
understood that every single decision, great and small, no matter how irrelevant
or minor it may seem to us, is going to be part of God’s will and God is going
to inform us as to what that should be, how we can always make that right
decision. The problem is, if we miss it—for example, we may end up never
being able to recover it—then we may miss it, because the influences, the
friends, the opportunities, the choices that are going to come by living in one
area are going to be quite different from those in another. So if we miss
something that appears to be a minor decision it may radically alter the rest
of our life and we never get back. So there is a sort of internal logical
problem with this center of God’s will idea to begin
with.
One of the most
holy-sounding ways that is given for discerning this is the idea that there is
some sort of inner communication from God the Holy Spirit. This is often taught
as the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. We will hear people refer to an episode
from the life of Elijah where he has run from God, has left Jezreel
under the fear of threats of Jezebel, run down toward Mount Sinai
and is hiding out down there. Then we hear God comes in the storm and then
there is quiet. People say he is listening to the still small voice of God and
that is how we discern what God wants us to do. That is taken totally out of
context in that particular passage.
Then people talk about
inner impressions, that God gives us some sort of inner impression, a feeling,
a glow, a buzz, whatever it might be. This is really a kind of confusion with
the special revelation God gave people in the Scriptures. Often people go to
passages such as Ezekiel chapter one when God calls Ezekiel and gives him
specific instructions. That is special revelation. Or for
example in 2 Corinthians chapter twelve where Paul receives special revelation,
special instruction, from God. All of these examples in the Scripture
where God tells a believer, a prophet, an apostle, or someone something
specific to do are all examples of special revelation. If there is no more
special revelation then we can’t expect that anymore, and they were all given
at a time where there was an incomplete canon of Scripture.
So part of this criterion
that is often suggested for this inner guidance of God is this phrase “the
peace of God.” This is how this is normally taught. As we read in Colossians 3:15,
the opening phrase says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Then
what is taught is that the verb here, which is brabeuo,
present active imperative, means to act as an arbiter, an umpire, a decision-maker. The word was used in the first century to
describe officials who oversaw the athletic games of the Greeks and would make
judgments and decisions at these contests. So the conclusion that is taught is
that we should let the inner peace of God be this umpire. It should call the
decisions of our lives, and as we experience an inner sense of calm when we
make these decisions we can know God’s perfect will for our lives in every
decision.
Unfortunately this doesn’t
pass the smell test and it doesn’t pass the exegetical test. The exegetical
test is the more important one. And it also violates a number of things that
are going on in the midst of our passage in Colossians 3:12-17. This has
nothing to do with what Paul is talking about in these verses, as we will see.
Secondly, it puts a subjective mental or emotional state in authority over the
direct revelation of God (the Word of God). It violates the meaning of peace as
it is used contextually in not only Colossians but also in the broader Pauline
epistles, as well as in the New Testament. It is a subtle and dangerous form of
mysticism and Paul is writing, remember, against mysticism in Colossians. So
why would he suddenly say something in such a vague ambiguous way as to give
the mystics he is writing against a foothold against him? It just doesn’t make
sense. What this does is end up making an authority out of a subjective state
of mind. An example that comes to mind is the idea that if we make a right
decision we are going to have certain confirming emotional senses of wellbeing
or stability. From just everyday experience parents have to corporately
discipline their children. They have to spank them. That is something that God
says to do. If you don’t discipline a child he will not learn authority orientation.
This is clearly taught in Proverbs. But a good parent isn’t going to feel good
about giving his child a spanking. If they are doing it the right way they are
not going to like it. They are doing the will of God because that is what the
Word of God says but it doesn’t make one feel good. That is one example that
contradicts this whole way of teaching.
Another is found in rhe
Scriptures. Matthew 26:36 NASB “Then Jesus came with them to a place
called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, ‘Sit
here while I go over there and pray.’” As Jesus contemplates in
prayer what is before Him we are told some interesting things about His mental
and emotional state. We have to remember Jesus was sinless, so nothing that is going
on here is a sin. [37] “And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
and began to be grieved and distressed.” He is going through intense emotional
turmoil. Wait a minute. I thought that if you were in fellowship and walking
with God you don’t get emotional. Wrong. Jesus got incredibly emotional here.
The terms that are used here, first of all the verb is lupeo, a word that has a variety of meanings. It means to
grieve, sometimes to experience pain, sorrow, fear.
These are profoundly deep, tumultuous emotions. Sometimes it is even translated
“be anxious.” The second word that is translated here “distressed” is the Greek
word ademoneo, which means to be
depressed, full of anguish or sorrow. In His humanity Jesus experiences these
emotions. These emotions are not sin. This is hard for a lot of people to grasp
because the way we have often been taught is that if we have certain emotions
that is sin. No. What is sinful is where volition chooses to react to those
emotions in a sinful way. There are times when we have certain emotional
responses to certain events. If someone kicks you in the shin it is going to
hurt, there is nothing you can do about the fact that you are hurting. What may
be inappropriate is what you do in response to the hurt. That is where the sin
comes in. The physical pain gives you a test as to whether you are going to
handle it in a biblically correct manner or not. So we go through certain
things in life. Someone dies; we experience grief. There is nothing wrong with
grief or sorrow. There is nothing wrong with the emotion that comes, what is
wrong is what we do with that emotion.
There are things that we
can do in life under intense pressure and there is going to be just a turmoil of emotion going on inside of us. That is part of
our humanity. But it is what we do with that. Are we going to trust God and
obey His Word despite how we feel, or are we going to let those emotions drive
us into emotional sins such as anger, bitterness, revenge, mental attitude
sins, other things of that nature? Or are we going to say, I am in a tough
situation here. Of course I’m upset, sorrowful, there is anxiety here but God
is going to get me through this and I am going to trust Him even though I feel
this way. The feeling, the experience of those emotions is not sin.
Matthew 26:38 NASB
“Then He said to them [Peter and John], ‘My soul is deeply grieved, to the
point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.’”
The words “deeply grieved” is a noun based on the word lupeo. Here He uses the word perilupos,
a compound word—peri is the
Greek preposition that means something that goes around, like a periphery. He
feels that He is being surrounded by sorrow. He is under such intense pressure
that He begins to sweat drops of blood. That tells us how intense His emotional
turmoil is, yet He is not going to sin. But that pressure is there; He is being
squeezed emotionally as His humanity perceives what is about to transpire both
in terms of the physical suffering He will encounter as He is tortured before
He goes to the cross, and also the spiritual horrors that He will encounter
when He goes to the cross. Jesus is not experiencing the peace of God which
surpasses all comprehension, and yet He is praying to the Father in terms of
the Father’s will. [39] “And He went a little beyond {them,} and fell on His
face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.’” He knows what
God’s will is. At the same time as He anticipates that He is experiencing these
profound emotions.
We have to understand that
certain emotions are going to normally and naturally arise in our soul. But
what we do with them is where the issue of sin or not to sin takes place. In
many decisions we make in life doing the right thing, doing that which
glorifies God is not always going to be pleasant. It is not always going to be
something we know is right because we have this inner calm, inner peace,
because doing what God wants us to do may bring us into circumstances like our
Lord faced where are experiencing some anguish and emotional turmoil as we face
an extremely difficult situation. But because we know that is God’s will
because of His Word we are able to go through that and obey and glorify Him.
From this example of Jesus
we see that we do not always have this kind of peace. What we are saying is, we
have misunderstood and misinterpreted this whole concept that we run into, this
whole concept of peace and that Scripture is not saying that the way we discern
the will of God in our life is that we are going to have this inner peace.
As we look at this passage
we have to understand what Paul is talking about when he speaks of the peace of
God. Contextually this is related to something he introduced back in Colossians
chapter one which is reconciliation. In Romans chapter five Paul speaks about
the results of justification, one of which is the peace that we have with God.
Because we have been justified we have peace with God. That peace with God is
not an inner state of contentment; it is a recognition and reality of the
removal of the state of hostility between God and man. In Ephesians chapter two
we have a development for Paul of the term “peace” and how it is used for him
in its terms of reference to reconciliation. He says in Ephesians 2:14 NASB
“For He Himself is our peace…” He is talking about something objective. He is
talking about Jesus’ work on the cross as the fulfilment of the typology of the
peace offering from the Levitical offerings in the Old Testament, and that by
Jesus’ atoning work on the cross the wall of separation between man and God is
removed in reconciliation. “…who made both {groups into} one.”
In the context he is
talking about the fact that prior to the cross there was a separation between
the Jew and the Gentile. God had a special plan for the Jew and the Jew was in
a position of spiritual privilege and blessing because God had chosen to work
out His plan, reveal His plan, through Abraham and his descendants. So there
was a barrier. Not only did sin bring a barrier between the human race and God
but sin also created a barrier between Gentile and Jew. The death of Christ on
the cross destroys the barrier between God and man, but it also destroys the
barrier between Jew and Gentile. “…and broke down the barrier of the dividing
wall, [15] by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, {which is} the Law of
commandments {contained} in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the
two into one new man, {thus} establishing peace.” So the peace that is
accomplished objectively at the cross between God and man has an application in
that it breaks down the enmity between Jew and Gentile so that when Jew or
Gentile trusts in Christ as savior they become part
of a new body. They are united in Christ in this new body, the body of Christ,
the universal church in the church age.
In Ephesians, which is the
mirror almost of Colossians, Paul says that at the cross Christ destroyed the
hostility—not the hostility here between God and man but between Jew and
Gentile because He fulfils one. In the commandments the Jew was to remain
separate from the Gentiles, but that aspect because of the destruction of the
barrier, is removed by Christ’s reconciling work on the cross. So verse 16 moves
from talking about the reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and their unity
now in the body of Christ, and he says, “and might reconcile them both in one
body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.” That is
talking about the breaking down of that barrier, the destruction of the barrier
between fallen humanity and God. [17] AND
HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE …” This is
reconciliation, the same thing Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, that
we are ministers of reconciliation. As ambassadors of Christ we are proclaiming
the message to be reconciled to God. Christ accomplished that work of
reconciliation objectively at the cross but it is not realised experientially
until we trust in Christ. When we trusted Him we were reconciled to God, as we
entered into the body of Christ as believers there is now unity in the body
among the different members—Jew and Gentile is not an issue anymore. In
Christ these external social aspects no longer and issue in direct access to
God.
Ephesians 4:1 NASB
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy
of the calling with which you have been called.” This is important because as
we look at Colossians 3:15 what we see is that we are also to walk in light of
that calling with which we have been called—“ to which indeed you were
called.” This is a reference to the calling of God at salvation. This is what
we were wrought to in terms of the body of Christ. We have that same idea in
Ephesians 4:1. In verse 2, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing tolerance for one another in love, [3] being diligent to preserve the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” So peace here is not talking about
inner tranquillity, it is talking about maintaining unity within the body of
Christ and not giving in to schisms and divisions over irrelevant things. There
is a point: we maintain unity not at the expense of doctrine or truth, we
maintain unity on the basis of truth. What we are emphasising here is that
keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is that the reality that
we have in Christ, that that barrier between us has broken down so that we are
one in the body of Christ, is to be an external standard. So when there are
problems in the body of Christ part of the way in which we handle that is to
remember that there is to be peace in the body of Christ and we are not going
to give in to petty differences and personality conflicts that frequently cause
divisions in the body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:4 NASB
“{There is} one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope
of your calling.” So we see that contextually, in terms of Colossians and how
Paul uses the terminology of peace and calling, that this is not something that
relates to an inner sense of tranquillity and calm, but it is talking about an
external reality related to our unity in the body of Christ.
We see an emphasis on the
body of Christ in a couple of different passages. Colossians 1:18 NASB
“He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the
firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in
everything.” Then in verse 24 again he mentions the body, “Now I rejoice in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body,
which is the church …” We see that throughout chapters one and two Paul has
been emphasizing the importance of the body of Christ for the Colossians,
because they are being ripped apart because of these false teachers who have
come in. This is related in the same context to what Paul has said about
reconciliation. He brings that in in Colossians 1:20-22
NASB “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having
made peace through the blood of His cross …” So here we have peace used in
Colossians chapter one in the sense of relating to reconciliation, not
something that is related to an inner state of calm and tranquillity. [21] “And
although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, {engaged} in evil
deeds, [22] yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in
order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” So as
we look at these verses we realise that peace, as Paul talks about peace, is
not on this sense of an internal sort of barometer related to calmness or
tranquillity.
Back to Colossians 3:15, Paul gives
this command: “Let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts …” In modern American idiom reference to the heart is
commonly understood to be emotion, an internal emotional state. So the way this
is read through our cultural grid is that we are to let the peace of God rule
in our emotions. But that is not how the word “heart” is used in Scripture in
either the Old Testament or the New Testament. The word ultimately refers to
something which is the center of something. It is
never used to refer to the organ inside the body that pumps blood. Always it is
used in the metaphorical sense of referring to that which is at the center, the core of something. It refers to the immaterial
part of the human being. In many cases it relates to the soul, just as a
general term for the soul and all of its components. But in about 75 or 80 per
cent of its usage in the Bible it refers more to the mentality of the soul.
There are a few places where it refers to volition, a few places to emotion;
but the vast majority of its usage refers to the mentality. And that fits with
what we have studied with Paul. We are to “think on these things,” Paul says.
He doesn’t say to emote on these things. Phil. 4:8, 9.
In other places we are to study the Word. Again and again we have
the principle laid down in Scripture that God has revealed Himself to us in
language, and we do not understand Him without using reason; we understand Him
through the study of His Word, the normal use of words, grammar and syntax and
studying things in light of their biblical and historical usage. So the
emphasis is on thought.
Colossians 3:16
NASB “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you …” If in verse
15 Paul is talking about a state of emotion then he is going to contradict
himself in the next verse by emphasising the study of the Word and the
internalisation of that special revelation of God. So it doesn’t fit the
context to interpret heart here as an emotional state, we are to let this truth
of this external unification within the body of Christ be the umpire that
oversees our horizontal relations with one another. We are not to let things
come along that are going to fragment and fracture us on the basis of
personality or on the basis of likes or dislikes or petty politics in the local
church. What we are to do is let the truth that we are united in the body of
Christ govern the way in which we relate to one another so that we can maintain
that bond of peace that we have in he body of Christ. [15] “Let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body …” That
is the focal point, the realisation in our experience of the unity of the body
of Christ on the basis of this external rule.
“…and
be thankful.” Usually when Paul is emphasising being thankful it is because we
are facing circumstances for which we would not normally be thankful. So we are
to have a divine viewpoint mental attitude towards whatever these circumstances
are that if we were just operating on our sin nature might lead to division,
antagonism, hostility; but we are going to let the objective reality of our
unity in the body of Christ be the guide for how we handle interpersonal
relationships, and whatever tensions may come into that we are going to be
thankful because this gives us an opportunity to apply God’s Word and to see
Him work within the body of Christ to maintain that unity.
This passage is talking about the
application of the peace that we have with God in terms of our horizontal relations
with one another.