Shalom: God's great, free gift

Jesus offers us one of the greatest gifts ever

Israel had one thousand years of experience with God and of the relationship into which they had been invited.  Yahweh was their God, and they were the people of God, chosen by God.  They had close-up and personal experiences of the abundant promises that the Almighty had given, promises that had been fulfilled repeatedly.  Nothing, not even their abundant sinning, could break that divine commitment to faithfulness.  Paul put it beautifully in his second letter to the Church in Corinth.

16 What use has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.  God himself has declared:  

‘I will live in them and walk among them,    and I will be their God,    and they shall be my people.17 Therefore come out from them,    and be separate from them, says the Lord,and touch nothing unclean;    then I will welcome you,18 and I will be your father,    and you shall be my sons and daughters,says the Lord Almighty.

The prophet Jeremiah was in the middle of the maelstrom that was the invasion by the Babylonians and the beginning of what would be a seventy-year-long exile in distant lands, but his message was primarily about the divine punishment for the sins of the people.  In the middle of the horrors and darkness of the invasion and subsequent exile, Jeremiah preached Hope.  The prophet spoke of an end to their suffering and a future time of restoration, of a new beginning.  No other nation had survived such exiles, but God was guaranteeing they would be the exception.  Israel, the northern kingdom, had been taken to Assyria in 722-720 BC, and they never returned. This is why Jeremiah's prophecy reverberates down through history as a reassurance to those in darkness that God is already working away to bring light to their lives, to ensure that every divine promise is fulfilled in full in them. It is one of the more memorable verses in the Scripture: Jeremiah 29:10-14…

10 For thus says Yahweh: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Thus, when it comes to Jesus and the promises he made, we listen to them knowing that God has a spectacular track record of faithfulness.  What Jesus offered to the people who came to him was already on the way to being fulfilled as soon as the promise was made.  This is the source of our Hope.   We can trust God, rely on him with one hundred per cent certainty.

One of the greatest and most powerful promises Jesus made was uttered at the Last Supper:

13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it (John 14:13-14).

Later, in the same chapter, Jesus extends the magnificence of his promises by offering all those who come to him a life-transforming gift.  The gift of Shalom.  He insists that this Shalom is nothing like the peace the world offers.  His gift of peace truly works.  Peace is what happens when Jesus is embraced.  Shalom is what happens whenever God dwells within.

Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, but I am doing just what the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Get up, let us go from here.

God my Father is your Father as well

One reality that stands out in this section of the Gospel is the frequency with which Jesus uses the phrase "My Father" and "the Father."    In the last five verses of the chapter, we find it used four times. In the whole chapter, it occurs no less than twenty-two times!  In this respect, the chapter stands out in the New Testament. It affirms, without ambiguity, that Salvation is a gift from the Triune God.     That is the life into which they are drawn, and a life into which they are to invite others as a part of their mission.  To know God is to know Peace. To live lives in imitation of the saviour Jesus Christ is to have life.

Jesus was not one to waste time.  All Jesus said, along with all he did, was pregnant with meaning and thus we need to affirm that his use of the phrase “My Father” was significant for His theology, for His teaching and a key element in understanding His message on the Kingdom of God.  It was not a throwaway line.  It was a message He intended His followers to remember, one around which they were to construct their ministry and build their lives.

 The Father and the Son were united in their actions in creation, and alongside of the Spirit, both engaged in the works of salvation.  It was something God carried out, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  Everything the Son said came from the Father and opened for people everywhere, life in God’s Kingdom. This chapter is of great significance for the life and mission of the Church of every age.  It is a chapter rich in Hope, encouraging in its reassurances that the Church will never be left to struggle on its own because of another divine guarantee…Behold I am with you always, even to the ends of the age.   What age?  Until the Son of Man returns in glory, the very Last Day of creation. What more does a disciple of Christ need?  What greater promise could be given to us, what greater guarantee?   What else does the world need to achieve the Shalom, the Peace that was built into the universe at the time of creation?

It is in this context that we should understand the guarantees given by the Lord:  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.  This is a Christ-only gift, something the world can never provide, despite their unending promises and their seductive temptations.  Without God, the world’s guarantees of Peace are like a chimaera, unable to deliver.

Biblical Shalom and Eirene of God’s Kingdom

The Jewish word shalom does not occur in the Greek New Testament. There is a Greek word, however, that is almost identical in meaning, eirene (pronounced eye-RAY-nay). While this word is usually translated as peace in the New Testament, whenever the New Testament writers wrote eirene, they were mostly thinking shalom.

In non-biblical Greek, the word eirene was used in referring to a condition of law and order that arose out of the blessing of prosperity.  It was usually achieved by brute force, through human endeavours. The Roman Empire is a good example of this. They boasted of the Pax Romana, the great Roman Peace. However, that so-called peace was obtained through brutally crushing and destroying their enemies. The New Testament’s use of eirene is more all-encompassing. Like shalom in the Old Testament, it includes a vision of human flourishing that maintains a strong and clear emphasis on God’s saving work through Jesus Christ.

This focus on the divine is why eirene is such an important word in the New Testament. There are approximately 90 occurrences in the Greek New Testament of the word eirene and in almost every instance, it is used in the same ways that shalom is used in the Old Testament. For example, 1 Corinthians 14:33 can be translated, For God is not a God of confusion but of peace (eirene).   God is a not a God of confusion or instability he is the God of the way things are supposed to be, where everything is working as he intended. 

We know what this God-created world was like before sin was introduced by the man and the woman.   Everything existed in the fullest possible relationship with the Creator.  There was a harmony there because of God.  That beautiful, harmonious world is the true meaning of Shalom.  The world of Shalom is a world of flourishing, of light, a world where chaos is no longer.  For the Greeks however, the end game is all about what is good, what is true and what is beautiful, and we see that actualised in their magnificent art and architecture.  Standing in stark contrast to both Greek and Roman thought, the end, the goal of creation in the Hebrew vision of Shalom is a world where the lion lies down with the lamb. The promise of Peace in the early Christian communities was understood as a promise of the restoration of a broken world, the breaking of the chains of sin and death imposed on creation because of original sin.   In inaugurating the Kingdom of God among men, Jesus opened the way to the possibility of a new Garden of Eden on earth, a foretaste of the eternal reality waiting beyond the grave.

The Kingdom Vision of Shalom/Eirene

According to the Old Testament prophets, shalom/eirene was to be an essential characteristic of the Messiah’s kingdom, and is therefore used almost synonymously with the idea of salvation through Christ (Eph. 2:17…So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near). It describes both the content and the goal of the New Testament Christian message called the “gospel of peace (eirene)” (Eph. 6:15…As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.). 

This biblical view of flourishing, thriving, booming, as highlighted in the use of shalom and eirene stands apart from all others in that it provides not only a vision but also sets out the way a person can achieve true flourishing. The theologian Jonathan Pennington writes: 

The Bible speaks to the issue of human flourishing in very significant ways. But this was not unique, for there were other ancient or current philosophies, religions, or worldviews. What is unique and what is revelational and authoritative for the Christian is that Holy Scripture understands human flourishing to be a function of God’s redemptive work in the world, the very core of his relation toward his creatures.

God’s scripture paints a beautiful picture of biblical flourishing represented by the words shalom and eirene. It also shows us that God’s goal in redemption through Christ is the restoration of what was lost in the Fall—shalom. 

Peace is Christ's distinctive gift, not money, not worldly ease, not temporal prosperity. The things for which the worldly strive, in which they place so much hope, can never deliver. They usually do more harm than good to the soul and all too often the harm goes unnoticed.  Like cancer, it eats away quietly, undetected, infecting and then destroying those who yearn for the things of this life.   They are burdens and dead weights to our spiritual life.

 The alternative is far richer.  Inward and enduring peace of conscience, arising from a sense of pardoned sin and reconciliation with God, are what makes the world a better place.  That is what changes the individual.   This peace is the gift destined for all believers, whether high or low, rich or poor.  It is why Jesus could promise the crowds, blessed are the poor in Spirit.

The peace Christ gives is unique

The peace which Christ gives, He goes on to declare as being "my peace." It is uniquely His to give. It is His gift because He bought this peace, by His own blood, purchased it through his incarnation and death on the cross.  Jesus has been appointed by the Father to pour it out into a struggling world. The Bible sets the background to faithfulness. Just as Joseph was sealed and commissioned to give grain to the starving Egyptians, so is Christ specially commissioned to bestow peace on earth, shalom to the world's needy people.

The peace that Christ gives is not given as the world gives. What He gives is unique to Him.  The world cannot give this Shalom.  Furthermore, the Shalom He gives is given neither unwillingly, nor sparingly, nor for a little time. Christ is far more willing to give than the world is to receive. What He gives, He gives for all eternity and never takes away. He is ready to give abundantly, far above whatever we could think to ask for.   Open your mouth wide, He says, and I will fill it (Psalm 81:10.).

There are no limits to the generosity of God manifested in Jesus

Psalm 81:10 reminds us of the promises of God that I can amply supply all your needs. His children Israel, had no need to pursue other gods - the gods of other lands - as if there was some kind of deficiency in God’s power or resources, as if God was not able to meet their necessities.

That Psalm is all about encouraging Israel to come to him for all they truly needed.  It is difficult to appreciate the insistent generosity contained in the original Hebrew text.  God was to hear them voicing their every need:  ask what you need - what you will; come to me and make any request with reference to yourselves as individuals or as a nation - to this life or the life to come - and you will find in me all abundant supply for all your needs, and a willingness to bless you commensurate with my resources. 

What is said here of the Hebrew people is not limited to Israel alone.  It is an opening up of the divine arms to all people of every nation.  This is the way one commentator so powerfully expressed it: There is not a want of our nature - of our bodies or our souls; a want pertaining to this life or the life to come - to ourselves, to our families, to our friends, to the church, or to our country - which God is not able to meet; and there is not a real necessity in any of these respects which God is not willing to meet. Why, then, should his people ever turn for happiness to those things, people and ideas that have no power to fulfil their promises (Galatians 2:9…Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again)?   Do we think God is not willing to meet our needs, or able to satisfy us?  Why should God’s children ever contemplate the seeking for happiness in vain amusements, or in sensual pleasures, as if God could not, or would not, supply the real needs of their souls? 

Conclusion

As the Body of Christ, children of the God of Shalom, we feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, clothe the naked, reaching out in love to others in the same way God reaches out to us.  All in the power of the Spirit, and thus to the glory of God.  The message of the gospel, on the lips of those who are actively mending what is broken, has the power to transform the world when all they do is done in collaboration with the Almighty.

Bishop Michael Hough                                                                                     May 2025