Sermon: Why Did Jesus Say 'Peace to You'?

#1775B
David C. Grabbe
Given 03-Aug-24; 36 minutes 2024-08-03

The year 2001 was a unique civilizational milestone, and I’m not talking about the September attacks. In that one year, mankind generated more information than it had in all of history, combined. Then, the next year, mankind doubled the amount of information it generated the year before. And the amount of information has gone parabolic since then.

Clearly, the world is awash in words.

One estimate I saw for the number of words published each day tallied the number of books published in a year, plus the number of magazines and newspapers, the number of academic papers, blogs, social media platforms, and emails and direct messages. After making some assumptions about the average number of words in each item in these categories, it was estimated that mankind publishes 358 billion words each day.

That estimate is undoubtedly inaccurate, and yet still useful in giving a sense of the immense volume of words produced daily.

This incredible flood of words stands in sharp contrast to God’s revelation. The King James version contains a mere 790,000 words. 790,000 words is 2 millionths of a percent of the words mankind produces each day. Not only that, but those words (or their equivalents in the original languages) were written over the course of 1,500 years. That works out to an average of 1 ½ words per day that God inspired in His Scriptures. Compare that to 358 billion that are spewed forth each day in this time of increasing knowledge.

Even more impressive is that while mankind often speaks carelessly, God chose each word in His revelation with absolute precision. He never used one word when another would be better. He included nothing extraneous—nothing without importance in His outworking. If there is an event or even just a single word in His Scriptures, it has an intrinsic and incredible worth.

With this in mind, we will look at what might seem to be an unimportant detail in the gospels:

John 20:19-22 Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

This is John’s account of Christ’s first post-resurrection appearance to most of the disciples. Our focus today is on some words that we might read over without any thought. His first words are, “Peace be with you.” It is a greeting, but it is so much more than a greeting. Those few words, coming from Him at this unprecedented time, spoke volumes.

Notice Jesus says both “Peace be with you,” and “Peace to you.” The repetition adds to the significance. Remember how relatively few words God inspired to be recorded, and that fewer still are quotes of God Himself saying something. Here, Jesus repeats Himself, adding some urgency and emphasis the second time.

This repetition is similar to when Jesus cautioned His disciples about the power that riches can have to undermine God’s purpose for them. He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23-24). Jesus knew from their reaction that they weren’t really getting what He was saying. But it was important enough to Him that He repeated Himself and added emphasis to impress it on them.

We see something similar here in John 20. He says, “Peace be with you,” but it seems like the disciples aren’t really catching the significance of His words. So, He repeats Himself and says more emphatically, “Peace to you!” He was trying to get something across.

Another scene of this story begins in verse 26:

John 20:26-28 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

The first time Jesus appeared to the disciples, Thomas was not with them, as it says in verse 24. But this time he is present, and Jesus again speaks peace to the disciples. There was something significant about Jesus saying “Peace to you” that He did not want anyone to miss. Thomas had apparently taken a short detour in his faith walk, but he was back now, and Jesus did not want Him excluded. Thomas needed to hear this divine, Messianic pronouncement that came on the heels of the watershed event of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. This was something extraordinary, and He didn’t want any of His disciples to miss out, including us.

So, peace was obviously on Christ’s mind, and we will continue to look at that, but first we will consider what seems to be a contradiction. Earlier in His ministry, Christ said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). In Luke’s account, Jesus said, “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division” (Luke 12:51). In both accounts, He was explaining that the cost of discipleship would include separation and division from those who were not His disciples, including family members. Those who were drawn by the Father and truly following Christ would differ significantly from others on earth. The value systems, priorities and worldviews would diverge, causing separation rather than peace.

In other words, His first coming was not about causing peace on earth, so that should not be our expectation, either. His first coming was about radically transforming the lives of a few, and that transformation would come at the expense of relationships with the not-yet-called.

Jesus spoke similarly during the Passover before His crucifixion, and that is where we find a bridge between His earlier statements that He did not come to bring peace and His post-resurrection pronouncements of peace. Please turn back to John 15, and I will highlight some verses.

John 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

There are two contrary mindsets, one carnal and one spiritual. The carnal one will be at war with the spiritual, and there won’t be peace, but division. In verse 21, He says it is because they don’t know the Father. The implication is that if they did, then they would accept the ones the Father calls.

Christ reiterates this in the next chapter, in verse 3. The people around them didn’t know the Father or Christ. This is interesting because these same people knew the Scriptures—they knew them better than nominal Christians today. They knew about God because of their study, but their enmity was evidence that they did not know the Father or the Son. They couldn’t make the connection between what they read and what it truly meant.

And now, dropping down to verse 33, we see a bridge and a clarification. Jesus says,

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

If we don’t compromise, there will always be at least low-level friction, if not outright tribulation, from the world. But in Christ, peace is possible. Real peace is dependent on the strength of our connection with Him—our connection with the true Vine. This is why the world does not and cannot know real peace. There cannot be true peace until people are in Christ, and their worldview and their conduct changes.

So, this lays the foundation for what Jesus said when He appeared after His resurrection, but there is one more element we need, back in chapter 14:

John 14:25-28 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.

Now, if you compare this passage to what we saw in John 20, it reveals that when Jesus appeared to them, He basically resumed this Passover conversation. Here, Christ speaks about giving peace, and then in John 20, He picks right up by saying, “Peace be with you” and “Peace to you.” In verse 26 here, Jesus says the Father would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, in Christ’s name, and then in John 20:21, the resurrected Christ says that the Father has sent Him. He is the Helper, the Comforter, the Advocate—He just was not in spirit form at that point. And then He breathes on the disciples and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit, one of the fruits of which is peace.

Thus, we see that when Jesus appeared to the disciples and spoke peace to them, it was directly tied to that Passover evening and the assurances He gave that even though there would be tribulation and other hardships, He wouldn’t leave them alone. They wouldn’t be friendless, orphans, or helpless. He would come to them—and He did.

But Christ’s proclaiming “peace” to His disciples has an even greater depth because there are so many Scriptures that relate to what Christ said, if not foretell it. What they reveal when they are all assembled is that Christ was not only pronouncing a blessing of peace, but He was also declaring Who He is: He is the One the Scriptures foretold would bring peace.

Peace is a multifaceted concept in Scripture that can have many shades of meaning. The Greek word, eirene, is a dynamic equivalent of the Hebrew shalom, which simply cannot be fully encapsulated by the English word “peace.” To the Hebrew mind, shalom is like a tapestry, woven with threads of wholeness, harmony, tranquility, safety, prosperity, fulfillment, and health, whether physical or emotional. It is the serene flourishing of mind and body, the profound sense of completeness and well-being that encompasses both the individual and the community—and keep the community in mind because it is an important part. God is the source of peace, and peace comes as a result of righteousness. Shalom has been summed up as “the presence of all that is good and the absence of all that is evil.”

The New Testament treats peace slightly differently. For us, peace can prevail internally even when strife is at its peak externally. In the New Testament, the far greater emphasis is on spiritual well-being, safety, prosperity, health, favor, and wholeness, rather than physical. In addition, the community that is most often in view is the church rather than the physical nation.

There is an early and distant foreshadowing of Christ’s pronouncement of peace in the priestly blessing that is found in Numbers 6. It is the source of the Benediction our choir sings on the Eighth Day. It says,

Numbers 6:24-26 “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”

Then God says that is how His name was put on His people.

When Jesus appeared and deliberately spoke peace to the disciples, He was also their divine High Priest. When the priest spoke peace by God’s commission, it included God’s keeping of His people, His making His face shine on them, being gracious to them, and lifting up His countenance upon them. Remember that His appearance after His resurrection resumed His conversation with them on Passover, and He reassured them that even though He wouldn’t be with them in the same physical way, He was still with them. And the first thing He said to them was, “peace.” If they believed Him, then they would know they could also depend on all the other gifts found in the priestly blessing.

There is another strong foreshadowing in the story of Gideon in Judges 6, if you would turn there with me. In Judges 6:11-13, the divine Messenger appears to Gideon, just as Jesus appeared to the disciples. In verse 14, we see another parallel, where the Angel says to Gideon, “Have I not sent you?” Remember that Christ said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” So, Gideon is commissioned, even as the disciples were commissioned.

In verse 16, we find another parallel. The LORD says, “Surely I will be with you,” just as Jesus promised the disciples the Helper that would abide with them forever, and further explained by saying, “I will come to you.”

In verse 21, after Gideon makes a sacrifice, the Angel of the LORD departs out of his sight, even as Christ went away. But then the LORD gives reassurance once again in verse 23:

Judges 6:23-24 Then the LORD said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it The-LORD-Is-Peace . . . .

The disciples were afraid of the Jews and afraid they were talking to a spirit, and Gideon was afraid he would die because he was in God’s presence. In both cases, the LORD spoke peace to them. It is also interesting that this is in the context of external conflict that would only increase as Gideon fulfilled his commission, yet he would have peace with the LORD. In the same way, we have peace in Christ even as we face pressure from the world.

Gideon’s response was to build an altar, which he called, “Yahweh-Shalom”—“The LORD is Peace.” Peace, with all it entails, is one of God’s outstanding attributes. God is holy, and God is love, and God is also peace. He is settled and steadfast, and He desires abundance and goodness for others as well. We can contrast this with our innate nature, which is so often concerned that somebody else might get ahead in some way. That destroys peace. The carnal nature feeds on competition, if not conflict. The carnal mind is agitated, restless, and anxious, striving to have its own way. God is not like that. He is peace, and He alone can give true safety and well-being.

So, when the resurrected Christ appeared and ardently spoke peace to the disciples, the effect of His few divine words far exceeded the effect of the same words spoken by a common man. His speaking peace was grounded in His nature and His position.

Consider the power of words, especially as it relates to the one speaking. Jesus said that the words He spoke are spirit, and they are life. Now, words in general are spirit, but not all of them are life. Christ’s words were effective because of who and what He was—because of His nature and the unstoppable force of His perfect character. Recall how, at His arrest, His speaking caused the troops to draw back and fall to the ground (John 18:6). There was a power at work that transcended the sounds that came from His mouth. The same sounds coming from somebody else would be empty and fall flat (John 9:9; Acts 10:21).

Every person possesses intangible qualities—spiritual qualities—that determine what effect his or her words have. Words that are stirring or calming coming from one person can be ludicrous or ill-fitting coming from another.

There’s a fascinating example of this in Acts 16 during one of Paul’s evangelistic campaigns. There was a slave girl, possessed with a spirit of divination, who followed around Paul and his companions. Wherever they went, she would announce, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”

Now what she said was true in the sense that it was accurate and factual. But because the spirit behind the words was unclean, the words did not have a good effect. Maybe it was her tone of voice, or maybe it was said with mocking or scorn. It does not say, but if there was a wrong spirit, we know something was off. Those accurate words rubbed Paul the wrong way because a testimony from such a contrary figure worked against what God was doing. It was so ill-fitting that it says Paul became greatly annoyed, and he rebuked the spirit. The intangible qualities of the possessed spokeswoman corrupted what was spoken. This shows that Satan can use factual things to advance an ungodly agenda. When it comes to discerning, we must not only evaluate the words, but also the spirit behind it.

But when the Son of God appeared to the disciples and to Gideon and spoke peace, His words had a force and weight and depth that went to the innermost beings of those men. This is the One who spoke the whole creation into existence (Genesis 1:6-7). His relatively few utterances cause momentous and wonderful things to happen. None of His words is idle, nor return to Him without fulfilling His purpose (Isaiah 55:11).

There is a dramatic example of this principle in Daniel 10, if you would turn there. This does not even directly involve God, but rather an angel, a created being, and yet notice the effects of the words because he was sent by God:

Daniel 10:16-19 And suddenly, one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who stood before me, “My lord, because of the vision my sorrows have overwhelmed me, and I have retained no strength. For how can this servant of my lord talk with you, my lord? As for me, no strength remains in me now, nor is any breath left in me.” Then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, “O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be to you; be strong, yes, be strong!” So when he spoke to me I was strengthened, and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.”

This was probably Gabriel, who was commissioned and sent to Daniel. Notice that the angel not only spoke peace, but he also spoke strength to Daniel. The angel’s words had the power to calm and strengthen Daniel so he was not crushed by the heaviness of his visions.

Now, if this could happen through a created being who was sent, think about what life and dynamism there was in Christ’s words when He was sent and He spoke peace, not as a mere greeting, but as a divine command, speaking something into existence.

As mentioned, peace points to God because He is the source of it. We find this with Melchizedek, all the way back in Genesis 14. Melchizedek was the Priest of the Most High, and He is also called, “King of Salem,” meaning, “King of Peace.” He appeared to Abram after the battle to free Lot, after God had given a peace. The next day, the LORD told Abram that He would be Abram’s shield and his exceedingly great reward. Those are themes of shalom—safety and prosperity. But that occasion was also the first mention of peace, when the LORD—who always speaks precisely and deliberately—told Abram that he would go to his fathers in peace. The end of his life would not be one of turmoil or anguish, but peace—completeness and well-being as he went to sleep, awaiting the day of Christ.

Peace is a strong theme of the Messiah in numerous Scriptures, but we will just touch on a couple of them. There is the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 9:6-7. That is the one that begins with, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” One of the names that is listed in the prophecy is, “Prince of Peace.” The next verse foretells that “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end . ...”

The coming of the Messiah meant a benevolent and just Ruler. Even though He has not yet taken His great power and reigned, putting down all other rule, we who have been translated into His Kingdom have that assurance of His sovereign rulership in our lives, which gives us a peace the world cannot understand.

One of the best-known Messianic prophecies directly relates to Christ’s appearing to His disciples. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” More modern translations make the next part of the verse clear: They say, “upon [H]im was the chastisement that brought us peace.” Think of Jesus appearing to the disciples after He had conquered the grave. He showed them the holes in His hands and His feet and His side. Those were the evidence of the wounding and chastening that was prophesied to bring peace. It’s a very striking image.

Christ’s few words were filled with life and purpose, not simply to calm the disciples’ troubled hearts, but to proclaim a divine peace that was now available to them. But it was not just freedom from anxiety of which Jesus spoke. There is an even greater peace that He had accomplished, to which that prophecy alludes: There was now peace with God. God’s controversy with them was ended. Christ’s perfect sacrifice had satisfied the debt for their sins, so there was peace. The Messiah was now their Advocate and their High Priest, continually making intercession for them with the Father, continuing that peace. It was not just for that occasion—now they could walk in peace throughout their lives.

What is more, with their cleansing and with receiving Christ’s Spirit, their carnality was now in decline. Their enmity against God and His law would subside as they learned to walk in that Spirit, because to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. Peace was breaking out on all sides because of Christ’s work. Not only was there now peace between God and those whom He called, but this also allowed for peace between the called as well. Those walking in Christ’s Spirit of peace will behave with peace toward others who are also in Christ, regardless of things like ethnic differences, which was a significant problem in the first-century church because the Jewish believers had a hard time making way for the Gentile believers. Paul explains this in Ephesians 2:

Ephesians 2:14-18 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

Because of Christ’s work, peace is available to us. Christ has already spoken it and commanded it to happen for those in Him, and His few words are eternal. In Him, we have peace with God and peace with the others who are in Him. Those are the most important manifestations of Christ’s peace in our lives. But other peace is available as well: spiritual well-being, safety, completeness, contentment, satisfaction, calmness, settledness, and freedom from agitation, from the wrong kind of striving, freedom from fear.

Now, if we are thinking about our lives and we notice an absence of some of these things, it’s not because Christ’s word has failed. It’s because we have a part to play in God producing this fruit in our lives, and we may not be playing our part fully.

Think back to Christ’s words as He was fulfilling the peace offering that Passover evening. One of the analogies He used in John 15 is that He is the Vine, and we are the branches. If we do not have the peace we would like, we need to think about our connection to the Vine. Hopefully it is strong and growing stronger, but perhaps it is weak and withering. Maybe it is only sporadic, so the spiritual nutrients from the vine cannot consistently get through. Maybe we are in danger of being snapped off by the next strong wind. God produces the fruit, but we must strengthen the connection, and that happens by what we prioritize and what we focus on. What our lives consist of and the way we conduct them demonstrate whether we truly want this peace and all it entails—whether it is worth sacrificing whatever threatens or impedes that connection. If we truly want peace, we will pursue Him.

We will close in Jeremiah 29:11-13:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

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