“The Peace of God” is the second chapter of volume three of Inner Land, Experiencing God.
Arnold opens this chapter with an appeal to human experience. Deep down, we know what we wish the world would be like: peaceful, harmonious, and in unity. But we often only see the opposite. Perhaps this is because our efforts to find peace do not fully grasp what is required. We equate peace with “impassive silence and unbroken quiet,” but these “belong only to the deathly peace of the graveyard” (50).
True peace comes to us through Jesus. It affects the heart, the nation, and the whole world with its call to love one’s enemies. It is not exclusive to the individual soul nor to a ceasefire between nations; rather, it extends to all areas of life. God’s peace means economic justice and the end of private property, for example, a theme that Arnold will expand on later. And because it is God’s peace, we can have faith that it will ultimately prevail. Because it is God’s peace, we don’t need to fear death – in contrast to warring nations that agree to an armistice without dissolving their armies. This is not true peace, and it is driven by the fear of death.
Arnold returns to a theme common elsewhere in Inner Land, our understanding of history in order to illustrate the distinction between human efforts at peace and God’s peace: “To us mortals and our undertakings only a brief span is allotted. Only God’s peace and the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, who is arisen from the dead, have no end” (53–54). In Jesus, God is at work throughout history to bring about his peace, despite human failures. Nonetheless, this does not mean that work for peace isn’t expected of us. Indeed, those who talk about peace without changing their lives to pursue it are simply offering “false prophecy” (55).
The human work for peace, then, grows out of the peace of God found in the gospel. Importantly, like God’s kingdom, it encompasses all areas of life: “To the first challenge ‘Lay down your arms!’ belongs the second ‘Pick up your tools!’” (55). For Arnold, this means living in community with other believers. It also means a rejection of all sin, not just violence. Materialism, lying, and sexual impurity need to be fought too. This is similar to the argument Arnold makes in his previous chapter: faith does not compromise on anything but accepts all the demands of discipleship, including the most difficult ones, like sharing all possessions in community.
Throughout this chapter, Arnold continually returns to the need to put our commitment to peace into action. The foundation for this active peace comes from God himself: “The quiet and security of God’s household of peace makes us free to dedicate ourselves to the task” (59). In addition to the strength he gives us, God also provides us with an exemplar in his Son. Just as Jesus’ pursuit of peace cost him his life, so we should be ready to sacrifice our own lives for peace. Nonetheless, we should be careful not to confuse sacrifice with salvation. Only God’s forgiveness, not our readiness to die, can take away our sin.
Next, Arnold traces the theme of peace in the Bible. Here, he summarizes, “the predatory nature of brute force is overcome by the sacrificial nature of long-suffering” (66). A tightly packaged narrative stretching from Adam and Eve to Israel’s first kings follows. Because it only occupies about one page, familiarity with the passages mentioned is needed to appreciate the account and reflect on it fruitfully. Arnold demonstrates a firm connection between sin and violence, with Cain, the son of the first sinners, Adam and Eve, killing his brother, Abel. Cain’s descendants go on to found cities, and these lead to “dire confusion, disintegration, and warlike tensions between nations,” symbolized by the tower of Babel (67). The resulting violence and chaos invite judgment in a flood that destroys most of humanity, though God gives Noah a rainbow as a sign of the “covenant of peace” (67).1
Soon after the flood, Abraham appears, and in Genesis 14 he is blessed by a figure named Melchizedek: “The father of faith is consecrated as a prince of peace by a mysterious priestly figure who belongs to the united dominion of peace” (67). The second part of Arnold’s statement makes sense as the text associates Melchizedek with the place of Salem, literally “peace” (Gen. 14:18). The first part, however, is not immediately clear, as Abraham receives this blessing after returning from a victorious battle in which he saves his nephew, Lot. There is no mention of peace in the text besides that alluded to in the word “Salem.” Perhaps Arnold takes the fact that Abraham is not involved in any further battles after this as an indication that Melchizedek’s blessing relates to peace, but, without any further explanation, the meaning of Arnold’s words can only be guessed at.
The precise meaning of Arnold’s next sentences is also unclear: “The faith of the patriarchs turns again and again to peace because the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the one God shows itself as a uniting power. So the greatest blessing of these patriarchs and later of Aaron (the first priest of atonement) is the blessing of peace” (67). Again, while not explicitly stated, Arnold may be thinking of the relative lack of violent conflict in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Genesis 26, for example, Isaac’s conflict with the Philistines results in a covenant, and the two parties agree to do no harm to one another. And in Genesis 32 and 33, Jacob reconciles with his brother Esau, who, twenty years earlier, had wanted to kill him for his deceit.
Arnold proceeds to discuss Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites, who are enslaved in Egypt sometime after their ancestor’s death. God delivers them through Moses and gives them the law at Sinai. This is followed by extensive violence between Israel and other nations because the law prescribes punishment for sin. Nonetheless, God also provides Aaron with the priestly blessing in this period:
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. (Num. 6:24–26)
Later, the people of Israel arrive in the Promised Land and are governed by God through different judges. The people eventually request a king, however, because they want to be like the other nations, despite the warnings of the prophet Samuel that this transition will lead to further violence (1 Sam. 8). As such, Arnold can say that God grants this request “in his wrath” (67). Still, various psalms set in this period demonstrate an ultimate longing for peace.
Arnold gives much more space to Israel’s prophets, where peace emerges as a central theme, along with demands for justice. The prophets look to a world in which God’s peace reigns, yet such a world means not just an end to war between nations but an end to economic equality in our own societies. Arnold thus discovers a prophetic vision for peace that entails condemnation of “assessing human beings in terms of monetary value” (69), of living luxuriously, land ownership, charging interest, debt collection, homelessness, and other things that result from human greed. As he writes a few pages later, “When peace conquers, it means the abolition of wealth as much as of armed force” (73).
While Arnold does not delve deeply into the logic of this connection between economic justice and peace (or between greed and violence), he does say, “Luxury and greed, property and wealth are the roots of discord” (73). If the rich are not content with what they can extract from the poor in their own nation, their greed will lead them beyond their borders. Alternatively, this may instead just be another expression of Arnold’s tendency to see the kingdom of God – and thus discipleship – in comprehensive, interconnected terms. That is, just as in the coming kingdom, economic justice and peace are one, so they should be now.
Throughout his discussion of peace in the prophets, Arnold makes a number of references to Jesus Christ. The first is found in the prophetic hope that “the coming helper and leader of God’s people will calm the raging sea of nations” (68). Christ “will judge the lowly and wretched justly and protect them, but he will overthrow the oppressors with the word of justice” (71). We see this already in his ministry, where he blesses the poor and condemns the rich (e.g., Luke 6:20–26). More broadly, the Old Testament prophecies of peace begin to take form in the church and its mission as people live in anticipation of the ultimate peace that comes at the end of history.
Arnold gives particular attention to the Sermon on the Mount, a central text in his other talks and writings. Here, he mentions some of the radical demands of the discourse, such as being ready to sacrifice your possessions, working twice the amount of time if asked, refraining from pursuing matters in the courts, and prioritizing reconciliation above worship services, for example. Arnold takes an image from the workers’ movement to summarize Jesus’ call to discipleship: “The church of peace conducts an active and creative general strike against all the surrounding injustice of outward unpeace” (78). Love is to direct believers in all their actions.
Staying with the subject of the church, Arnold returns to a favorite theme: unity. The church must approach Jesus’ teaching as a unified whole, not dividing it, and the church must also be unified because all members seek one thing – to do God’s will. This, among other things, like the command to share possessions, means living together in community. And such a community refuses all forms of violence: “every hostile act is rejected, whatever the circumstances and however weighty the reasons” (80). Therefore, none of the members can participate in the military, police, or the courts, nor can they support any government, regardless of whether it comes from the left or the right.
This uncompromising commitment means Christians should expect opposition from those who “are neither able nor willing to accept the call to such complete community” (80). The only alternative to the way of peace is to put trust in state power, and Arnold finds an analogy for this in Israel’s demand for a king. This way, of course, leads to violence, an indirect expression of God’s wrath. Arnold’s comments here both recall the horrors of the First World War and portend some of those to come under Hitler’s government: “Thus will God’s judgment let the fiery flood of war break in over this Christ-hating unpeace, which now craves its own ultimate escalation. … War is the karma, the necessary consequence, of discord, unpeace, and lack of community” (83).2
In this way, war also has a positive function in that it exposes human sin and the inevitable rule of violence that arises when God’s way is rejected. War makes people long for death to be overcome, leading them to repentance and the gospel. Before it reaches its end, then, history is driven by two opposing forces: evil, which “leads to a tearing down and to a new building up” (85), and love, which provokes opposition because of human sin.
Much of this opposition comes from the apostate church. This institution divides itself between incomplete devotion to Jesus and friendship with state power. As Arnold writes, drawing on imagery from Revelation, it “hypocritically flaunts the raiment and the mien of the animal of peace, like a sacrificial lamb, while making propaganda for the dragon of war” (86). Just as Israel’s prophets criticized the religious order of their day, Christians need to be on the lookout against this kind of compromise.
For Arnold, amid all this war and violence that colors the course of history, it is essential not to lose sight of God, whose heart always “triumphs over the ways of his wrath” (87). Everything else comes from “the historical instruments of judgment” and “the human vessels of wrath” (89). In contrast, his peace is final, and his plans for peace can already be discerned in the present. Indeed, Jesus foresaw the tremendous events that would precede the coming of ultimate peace.3 Arnold places his words in the context of the modern world: “Political chaos, outbursts of war and revolution, economic depressions, and frightful natural catastrophes shall once more deliver humankind to the knife of its own unpeace” (89). But those who know Jesus will hold to him and refuse to become embroiled in any form of violence, even as the world falls to pieces around them.
Further on, Arnold draws on his considerable knowledge of early Christianity to explore how believers active after the first century understood Jesus’ calls for peace among his disciples: Justin Martyr mentioned people who had left a life of war to pursue peace; Theophilus reported that Christians were forbidden to take part in gladiatorial shows; Origen wrote that believers were to reject all forms of violence, including military service; and Tertullian and Athenagoras stated that Christians should not take on government responsibilities if this meant participating in violence, even indirectly. In keeping with his holistic understanding of peace, Arnold also notes early Christian opposition to abortion as a form of murder, to unfaithfulness in marriage, and to the pursuit of wealth.
But how, Arnold asks, are we to meet “such stringent demands” (103)? Only in the power of the Holy Spirit. This power needs to be sought in what Arnold calls “peace of heart” (103). And peace of heart comes from unity between the individual and God, which itself is fostered in silence before God. Of course, this does not mean withdrawal into a solitary spirituality. Our quiet before God is “productive quiet” (107), always going back out into the world again. But this quiet is still essential, and Jesus himself often withdrew from the public for the same reason. Here, Arnold also addresses our confrontation with sin during these times. In fact, the greater the consciousness of our sin and weakness, the greater our appreciation of God’s peace and strength, just as war makes people better appreciate times of peace. And even when peace seems to withdraw from us, we need to hold fast in faith and remember that God’s peace will prevail in the end.
Continue:
Introduction
1.1. The Inner Life
1.2. The Heart
1.3. Soul and Spirit
2.1. The Conscience and Its Witness
2.2. The Conscience and Its Restoration
3.1. The Experience of God
3.2. The Peace of God
4.1. Light and Fire
4.2. The Holy Spirit
5.1. The Living Word
1. The term “covenant of peace” is not used in Genesis 9, where God makes a covenant with Noah, but it is used elsewhere (e.g., Num. 25:12; Isa. 54:10), and Arnold may be deliberately using later biblical language to characterize this event.
2. Arnold’s use of “karma” has a more specialized sense here than that found in its popular usage today. It comes from his own familiarity with Indian philosophy, and the reference underscores his appreciation of truth found in other traditions.
3. Arnold is likely thinking of Jesus’ words in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:3–31; Mark 13:3–27; Luke 21:5–28).
