But the peace of God is different from peace with God. Go back to Philippians 4:7 and look again at those words, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The peace of God goes to a deeper level in the human soul because it goes beyond anything the human mind can understand. Said another way, the peace of God is incomprehensible and especially so to the natural man. That is why unbelievers just can’t get a handle on it and why they don’t understand the reason Christians act and react they way they do.
Someone once explained the peace of God by saying it protects the mental, emotional and spiritual welfare of Christians, and that it is absolutely necessary for successfully dealing with life and everything it throws at us. Any number of Christians are spiritual wrecks in that their souls are never at peace because each dawn brings another list of rules, and they are not even sure they kept the previous day’s rules. They want their last conscious thought to be, “Lord, forgive me…” before they go to sleep so that their perceived last-minute sins would be forgiven in case they die before sunup. Some of these people compensate for their lack of assurance by being divisive and condemnatory toward those Christians who don’t see everything their way. They think that their self-righteous contentiousness is pleasing to God and earns them points on His check list
Consider marriage. It indeed has a legal aspect, but even a legalist understands a good marriage is not a relationship of formality and personal perfection based upon an official document on file at the court house. They know it is all about the love a husband and wife have for one another. But when it comes to their faith it is a different matter. The reason they have difficulty understanding that they can have the peace of God which comes with assurance of salvation, and that they can look with grand expectation to the rapture is that they do not believe anyone can have that kind of relationship with God. They spend their lives trying keep God happy with them by perfectly interpreting scripture and perfectly keeping all the rules. When a husband and wife have a relationship based upon perfection and rule keeping they are said to have a dysfunctional marriage.
Consider just two verses in their context: “He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit produces life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6) “There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.” (1 John 4:18) These verses, and others, should at least motivate the legalist to study anew, without a preconceived bias, the whole idea of what makes the gospel good news. Such a study might go far in breaking the bonds of legalism and its obligatory fear of the rapture.
Christians often focus on God’s love, and there is no way to overemphasize it. But we would do well to spend time thinking about God’s grace, also. You see, God would have been perfectly righteous by loving us, but withholding His grace. He could have told us that He loved us and that He would give us one more chance to keep His commandments. Does anyone think they could have lived a sinless life with a second opportunity?
Biblical Christianity is the only religion that offers hope based upon grace and mercy. It removes anxiety of facing God at the rapture, and replaces it with confidence based upon the fact that Jesus has done for us that which we could never do for ourselves. And it was all His idea to begin with. Don McGee
