In the last days
the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.
Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the LORD Almighty has spoken.
All the nations may walk
in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in the name of the LORD
our God for ever and ever.
(Micah 4.1-5)
The cross not only elicits our worship. . .but it also directs our conduct in relation to others, including our enemies. . .We are to exhibit in our relationships that combination of love and justice which characterised the wisdom of God in the cross.
But how, in practice, we are to combine love and justice, mercy and severity, and so walk in the way of the cross, is often hard to decide and harder still to do. Take ‘conciliation’ or ‘peace-making’ as an example. Christian people are called to be peacemakers (Mt. 5.9) and to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (1 Pet. 3.11). . .In pronouncing peacemakers ‘blessed’, Jesus added that ‘they will be called sons (or daughters) of God’. He must have meant that peace-making is such a characteristically divine activity that those who engage in it thereby disclose their identity and demonstrate their authenticity as God’s children.
If our peace-making is to be modelled on our heavenly Father’s, however, we shall conclude at once that it is quite different from appeasement. For the peace which God secures is never cheap peace, but always costly. He is indeed the world’s pre-eminent peacemaker, but when he determined on reconciliation with us, his ‘enemies’, who had rebelled against him, he ‘made peace’ through the blood of Christ’s cross (Col. 1.20). To reconcile himself to us, and us to himself, and Jews, Gentiles and other hostile groups to one another, cost him nothing less than the painful shame of the cross. We have no right to expect, therefore, that we shall be able to engage in conciliation work at no cost to ourselves, whether our involvement in the dispute is as the offending or offended party, or as a third party anxious to help enemies to become friends again. . .
The incentive to peace-making is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peace-making exhibits the love and justice, and so the pain, of the cross.
John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p341–343
No comments:
Post a Comment