God the Peacemaker 8
If you have appropriated the peace dividend, how then are we to live? That’s the very practical question addressed in the next chapter of God the Peacemaker by Graham Cole:
Chapter Eight: Life Between the Cross and the Coming
How should followers of the Lord Jesus live? By faith. And our author gives an excellent exposition of what walking by faith, and not by sight, looks like. Living by faith means:
- always trusting God, including in the age to come
- living a life of love (Gal 5:6)
- the opposite to living by fear and by sight (Matt 8:26; 2 Cor 5:7)
- giving our total allegiance to the One who won our redemption (1 Cor 6:19f)
- responding to Christ’s love in a “self-donating lifestyle” (eg. Phil 1:13-26). Simply put, Christ is worth it!
- living as a true servant (“worthy of the Gospel”), exemplified in the Lord Jesus’ “great stooping both in incarnation and atonement” (Phil 2:5-11)
- being prepared to suffer for Christ (2 Cor 11:23-28; 1 Pt 4:12-16). This is the reality for so many of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world
- attracting spiritual opposition from the demonic. The devil has not disappeared; he is behind human hostility to the gospel and is to be resisted (1 Pt 5:8f). The armour against his attacks are defensive (shield of faith, breastplate of righteousness, helmut of salvation) and offensive (the Word of God). Prayer is crucial. It needs to be specific and gospel focussed (Eph 6:14-20)
- living now, in the reality of what we will be – “Spirit-impelled resurrection life.” In the most practical of ways, this means worshipping the Lord through the offering of our whole person as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2). The individual believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20) as is the corporate Body (1 Cor 3:16-17) and that’s what needs to be displayed – not a physical Temple.
Living by faith (I think of it as being ‘up close and personal with Jesus, as we walk around the Sea of Galilee together’) means living as Kingdom people. Graham zeroes in on two of the beatitudes in Matt 5-7: ‘blessed are the merciful’ and ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’ When we are ‘shalom-bringers’ we are acting like God in character. And active peacemaking will be in sync with justice – reconciliation requires that wrongs are confronted and acknowledged.
As those who have appropriated the peace dividend (ie. those who are caught up in God’s reclamation project), we have a story to tell the world. And it is undertaken by:
- evangelists, gifted by the risen Christ and equipped by His Spirit (Eph 4:11-13) to tell the story. Our author gives a succinct account of the gospel content and proclamation approaches in the Acts of the Apostles.
- witnesses. Every believer is not gifted to be an evangelist but every believer has a story to tell – of God’s ways and deeds.
- apologists. Again, every believer has the task of answering questions raised by the gospel (1 Pt 3:13-16). And we are to do so with gentleness and respect – if there is offence its source must be the gospel itself and not our manner!
Life between the Cross and the Coming is a life lived in the Spirit - the great applier of our salvation. Graham provides a helpful overview on “filling” as seen in Luke/Acts. And then in considering the Spirit’s role (in relation to the Trinity), he comments:
“…the Holy Spirit…uses our evangelism, witness, apology, shalom-making and mercy-showing…to bring to fruition the divine plan.”
This is a great chapter, linking biblical theology with helpful historical theology examples, with a focus on the way we live out our daily lives now, in this age. There will be wonderful benefit in chewing on the contents of this chapter with our Bibles open, and hearts submissive to the Spirit’s transforming work.