Four Levels of Peace

This study began its life as a short teaching series for our church, which was delivered online on Tuesday mornings. I believe the subject matter is important for us all, and so I want to post it on the Taught By God website.

As I begin to prepare the article for publication in early March 2025, two peace processes are taking place in different parts of the world:

• In the Middle East, Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organisation which controls the Gaza Strip, have just completed phase 1 of the process initiated by the previous American president, Joe Biden, but there is some doubt as to whether the second phase of this three-phase project will ever begin.

• In eastern Europe, the current American president, Donald Trump, is attempting to broker separate business deals with Russia and Ukraine, with the hope that somehow an enduring peace will find itself arising out of the mix. Perhaps as you read this the outcome of this endeavour will be a matter of history, but as I write this there are more questions than answers, with Trump having extended an olive branch to Russia, the aggressor, and a branch of poisoned ivy to Ukraine, the victim.

In my home region of Northern Ireland, we went through a tedious and fraught Peace Process in the 1990s, which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement, so-called because it was eventually signed off by the various parties on the morning of Good Friday in 1998. Whether the outcome of this process could be genuinely called ‘peace’ is a matter for debate, but as with the two other peace processes referred to above, in the politics and international relations of our fallen world, how close to a genuine state of peace do we ever really come?

Of course, the answer to that question depends on what you mean by ‘peace’. Normally we mean ‘the cessation of hostilities’ – i.e. the two parties stop fighting with each other and, instead, start talking respectfully and constructively with each other. If all goes well, they may even end up being friends, as was the outcome of the peace process following World War II. Nations that were once at each other’s throats are now sitting side by side in the European Union, NATO, and G7 and tackling common issues as a team.

But, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that there can be a deep divide between what is happening in the world around us, and what is occurring within our own souls.

I may find myself in the most peaceful of environments, beside the lake, beneath the trees, watching the golden daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze, and yet be tormented within by unrelenting anxiety. Or I may be thrust into an environment of turmoil and existential jeopardy, yet have a heart that is as still as a mill pond, incapable of being ruffled by even the stoutest of storms.

I would contend that we experience peace at four levels, with each level being the product of a different phenomenon, as follows:

• Level 1 – The peace that is experienced through SEPARATION
• Level 2 – The peace that is experienced through RECONCILIATION
• Level 3 – The peace that is experienced through HARMONY
• Level 4 – The peace that is experienced through UNITY

Let’s now consider each of these in turn.

1. The peace that is experienced through SEPARATION

The lowest level of peace is that which is experienced through SEPARATION from whatever it is that is causing the disturbance, for example:

• The irritating noise
• The onerous duty
• The contention with a neighbour
• The dysfunctional relationship

A Biblical example of this is when King Hezekiah, after having shown off all of his treasures to the visiting envoys from Babylon, is rebuked by the prophet Isaiah for the double-barrelled fault of both giving way to his own natural pride in his possessions and failing to seek the Lord’s guidance before entering on such an ill-advised course, since it would be the Babylonians, in future days, who would come and take all of it away as plunder:

In his heart, Hezekiah was able to separate himself from the disaster that lay ahead and receive the prophetic word gladly, on the basis that it would not come to pass during his own lifetime, but in the lifetime of some of his descendants. He lay down and slept peacefully that night. It was the peace of SEPARATION.

We could say that there are two types of SEPARATION, namely:

• PASSIVE separation, which is to withdraw yourself from the disturbance;
• ACTIVE separation, which is the attempt to conquer the disturbance in some way.

Hezekiah was exercising PASSIVE separation by telling himself, “It’s all right, because it’s so far away that it won’t affect me.”

At another troubled period during Hezekiah’s reign, when the king of Assyria’s chief propagandist, the Rabshakeh, was sent to Jerusalem to undermine Hezekiah’s authority and the morale of his subjects, this is what the Rabshakeh pronounced in order to entice them out of the city and away from the fight:

The Rabshakeh is attempting to make the Israelites choose PASSIVE SEPARATION, because it involves getting up and walking away from the problem, which is the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. The war can be over and you can be free from the danger in a moment. All you have to do is switch sides and surrender. Simple!

On the other hand, the Assyrians were engaging in ACTIVE SEPARATION by seeking to CONQUER Jerusalem. When Jerusalem fell, and all of its citizens had been either captured or killed, there would be peace. The war would be over, because the cause of the disturbance (Israel’s resistance to being enslaved) would have been done away with.

In the end, though, it was God who actively separated Israel from the disturbance by slaughtering the Assyrian army with a plague, which killed 185,000 men in a single night (2 Kings 19:35-37).

Passive separation may not provide a permanent solution to the problem, but it can be helpful in bringing some temporary respite (Proverbs 21:9; 25:24).

Active separation can bring about a better outcome, but perhaps requires more wisdom, and should not be applied when tempers are running high. It’s easy to smash the TV set because you can’t get the sound turned down, but a better course of action would be a period of passive separation (i.e. switch the TV set off and calm down) followed by some sensible remedial action, such as having a technician investigate and attempt to fix the problem.

In dealing with people, rather than TV sets, active separation is seldom the best policy. Instead, we should always be trying to bring about peace through the more challenging process of RECONCILIATION.

2. The peace that is experienced through RECONCILIATION

The second level of peace is achieved by confronting the disturbance and taking steps to RESOLVE THE CONFLICT.

In relationships, reconciliation always involves REPENTANCE and FORGIVENESS, and it requires a commitment to change on BOTH sides of the dispute.

• REPENTANCE involves admitting that your are in the wrong and undertaking to change your ways.

• FORGIVENESS involves cancelling the debt that you consider the other party to owe you because of their behaviour.

Job’s friend Eliphaz offers Job the following advice:

Reconciliation is much more than a cessation of hostilities or an agreement to ‘live and let live’.

It is a bold and honest confrontation of the issues with a determination to resolve them and move on into a new healthy and mutually beneficial relationship.

Reconciliation with GOD

The most important act of reconciliation is our individual reconciliation with GOD, which is described in the following scriptures:

For this reconciliation to take place, a number of important steps are required:

• God, who is perfect, pure, and holy, must not only be willing to be reconciled to sinful man, but must actively reach out in some way with the offer of forgiveness and acceptance. He did this, of course, through the atoning act of submitting to crucifixion on our behalf, taking our sins upon Himself, and then rising from the dead to open the door for us to ascend with Him into the heavenlies.

• God must also publish His offer of salvation, which He has done through raising up apostles and evangelists to bring the Gospel to the peoples of the world.

• To be reconciled to God, man must first of all acknowledge his own fault – that it is because of his personal sin that the breakdown in the relationship exists. This is a very difficult thing for most people to do, because for the most part we believe that we are pretty good and, although we make mistakes from time to time, we really do deserve to be commended.

• There must also be an act of repentance – a confession of guilt and a commitment to turn away from selfish living and enter into a life of humble obedience to God.

• God, in His turn, must now extend to the penitent both forgiveness and the reassurance of acceptance into His Kingdom.

• The penitent then, for his part, must accept that forgiveness and begin to live the life of discipleship.

As we can see, there is a need for not only action but CHANGE by both parties.

God Himself changed by becoming flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). He even had to learn obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5:8). God had also to change His attitude toward the unrepentant sinner, to love him despite his sinfulness and to die for him while he remained in his sinful state (Romans 5:8,10).

The man or woman must change both attitudes and actions in order to bring them into line with – in other words, to reconcile them to – the will and the purposes of God. Carrying on as they were before will not do. If there is no change, was there really a reconciliation, or was it no more than a ploy to win favour, or an emotional flash in the spiritual pan?

Reconciliation with MAN

Reconciliation with other people is also fundamentally important. Jesus said:

This case is different than between God and man because, when men are at loggerheads with each other, more often than not both of them are at fault, which means that both will have to repent and both will have to forgive.

Two men, or two women, will argue for years over who did what and why the other’s sin was more grievous than theirs. At some point, one of them must wake up to the fact that their dispute is going to land both of them in hell (Matthew 18:32-35).

A pastor was once asked, “Who should make the first move, the one in the wrong or the one who’s been wronged?” His answer was: “Whichever one of them is the more godly!”

To err is human; to forgive is divine.

We’ve probably all at some time in our lives heard someone say, “I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget!” Maybe you’ve even said it yourself! However, the second statement contradicts the first. True forgiveness wipes the slate clean. It didn’t happen.

This does not mean, of course, that we have no more recollection of the event, but it does mean that the event itself, and its memory, is stripped of all emotional power: all hurt, all regret, all resentment, all sense of debt. It is now a past event, and nothing more.

A reconciliation where there is lingering resentment is tenuous at best, and probably non-existent.

Some time ago, I was thinking about a particular situation and a particular individual who was involved in it, and I came up with the following set of adages in relation to him:

• A man cannot be at peace with his neighbour while he is at war with himself.

• A man who has not found peace in his heart will always be at war with someone.

• A man cannot be at peace with himself while he is at war with God.

• A man who has not found peace in God will always be at war with himself.

• A man who has not found peace in the cross will always be at war with God.

Reconciliation with CIRCUMSTANCES

We often need to be reconciled to circumstances which are either not of our choosing or which have turned out differently than we had planned or expected.

Many young people are deeply dissatisfied with how they look, and wish that their appearance might be different.

We all from time to time go through seasons of ill health, and for some these seasons become years of frustrating disempowerment.

We may also have lost a part of our body, or the use of a part of our body, through disease, accident, or injury.

We have all lost connection with loved ones, through someone moving away, or a relationship breaking down.

Shortly before she passed away, Queen Elizabeth II observed that, “Grief is the price we pay for love”. Death brings bereavement, and bereavement grief.

In these cases, the solution does not come through repentance and forgiveness in the strictest sense of these words, but we still need to repent of our tendency to wish that things could continue to be as they had been, or become as we might prefer them to be; and to forgive God, or fate, or ourselves, or someone else that we might blame for having brought about this state of affairs.

I think that the famous Serenity Prayer is helpful to us in this. In case you’re not familiar with it, here it is:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Joni Eareckson was a lively and athletic teenager when, at the age of 17, she dived into water that was not as deep as she had expected and sustained an irreparable fracture to her neck which left her quadriplegic – i.e. she lost all control of her voluntary muscles from the neck down.

For about two years following the accident, she fought mentally and emotionally against the new reality that had been thrust upon her, even blaming God for her circumstances and contemplating suicide.

However, as she entered into a course of occupational therapy, her attitude began to change, and she eventually came to the place where she found the serenity to accept the things that she could not change, in due course embarking on an internationally acclaimed ministry which has brought faith, hope, and a new lease of life to millions across the globe.

The apostles all exhort us to reconcile ourselves to trying circumstances and to look beyond the challenge to see the loving hand of the Great Potter using these experiences to mould us more closely into the image of our Lord Jesus:

3. The peace that is experienced through HARMONY

In music, harmony is when two or more sounds go together to produce a fuller and more pleasing composite sound. A chord is a pattern of three or more notes which harmonise with each other.

The word ‘chord’ is derived from another English word, ‘accord’, which has the basic meaning of correspondence, agreement, or harmony. This word comes from the Latin, meaning ‘to the heart’.

The opposite of accord is discord, which is what we hear when the instrument is out of tune and its notes do not harmonise but clash with each other.

In the visual arts, certain colours, shades, and tones go together to produce a pleasing display, while other colours or shades clash with each other and produce a display which we find ugly and repulsive.

Art in general uses harmony of sound and vision to convey its message.

Harmony produces a sense of peace in us; discord disturbs the peace and makes us feel uneasy. We find an example of this in the scriptures, where king Saul’s distress was restored to peace by David’s music:

Interestingly, this passage would suggest that the experience of evil spirits is the opposite of ours, in that harmony is offensive to them but discord is pleasing. I remember, as a young man in my pre-Christian days, listening to a certain guitar player, of whom I was big fan, and thinking that I couldn’t imagine his music being listened to in heaven, because it was so wild, incoherent, and inharmonious at times.

When we return home from going through the often stressful and sometimes hostile experiences of our day, we want to relax with something which will help to restore harmony into our souls, because we want peace instead of turmoil, and peace can be found in the presence of harmony.

If I am living in harmony with my environment, I will experience peace.

If I am living in harmony with my neighbours, I will experience a greater peace, which will enable me to overcome any misgivings I might have about my environment.

If I am living in harmony with God, I experience the peace that overcomes all discord:

Harmony does not just happen; it is the result of INTENTION, as anyone who has ever sung in a choir or played in a group knows all too well!

In my younger days, I played the guitar, and I found that I always had to check that the strings were in tune before I started playing, otherwise discord would have been the order of the day!

In our dealings with other people, harmony is found in TEAM WORK, where each member of the team is intent on flowing together with everyone else to produce the desired result.

For this to work properly, the following two things must be in place:

• a) an AGREED DESIRED RESULT, and
• b) someone to function as a LEADER, to keep the team focused on that goal.

That leader might have a different title, depending on the type of team, but the basic function is the same:

• a Conductor of an orchestra
• a Captain of a ship
• an Architect in charge of a building project
• a Pastor of a congregation
• a Chairman of a board
• a Foreman of a work detail

It is vitally important that the team members SUBMIT to the authority of the leader and all work together.

I suspect that we’ve all had the unpleasant experience of trying to achieve some common goal while one member of the team wants to do his own thing, or argue with the leader, or criticise the other team members, or laze about cracking silly jokes, or make himself out to be the star of the show, or in some other way disrupt the harmonious functioning of the team.

Submission to God, to leadership, and to each other is an essential element of harmonious, and therefore peaceful, functioning within God’s church:

• We submit ourselves to God and resist the devil (James 4:7)
• The church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5:24)
• We obey our leaders and submit to them (Hebrews 13:17)
• Wives submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22)
• The saints submit one to another (Ephesians 5:21)

2 Chronicles chapter 27 tells us about king Jotham, the son of Uzziah. Uzziah had been a good king and a very successful one, living under the continuous blessing of God. “As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success”, we read in 2 Chronicles 26:5 (NIVuk). But verse 16 goes on to tell us that, “after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall”, the details of which are recounted in the remainder of the chapter.

Jotham clearly learned the valuable lesson from his father’s disastrous error, because we find the following observation in chapter 27:

In other words, he brought his own life, his plans and his activities, into harmony with the will and purposes of God, and in so doing found strength, prosperity, and peace in the blessing and favour of the Almighty.

You and I should be doing the same.

4. The peace that is experienced through UNITY

The greatest measure of peace that we can experience comes through UNITY. In fact, we could say that true peace is achievable only through unity.

Unity differs from harmony in the following way:

• HARMONY is the willing and intentional submission of individuals to a common purpose and an agreed leadership.
• UNITY is the heart commitment of individuals to surrender their independence and devote their lives to a common purpose and an agreed leadership.

I can dip in and out of a relationship of HARMONY, but I am committed for life to a relationship of UNITY.

If I have a girl-friend, I will see her from time to time. If I have a wife, I will be with her every day. I may share a meal with my girl-friend a few times a week. I will have breakfast, dinner, and supper with my wife every day, and lunch at the weekends. If I honour and respect my girl-friend, I will conduct her home safely in the evening, but never stay the night. If I honour and respect my wife, we will share our bed always.

I may decide, or my girl-friend may decide, that the relationship should come to an end, and we can part on good terms and remain friends, but marriage is for life, because the TWO have become ONE in the sight of God (Genesis 2:23-24; Matthew 19:4-6).

If peace through harmony is no longer possible, then peace though separation may be the solution. However, if peace through unity has been disturbed, then unity must be restored, because unity is the goal that God is working to achieve both in His relationships with mankind and in our own relationships with each other.

UNITY in the BODY

My BODY is made up of hundreds of distinct parts, but it functions overall as a UNIT. If you were describing me, you would not go into detail about my skeleton, skin, arteries, veins, and vital organs. You would focus on matters such as my relationships, my achievements, my appearance, my abilities.

The individual parts of my body are of no interest in themselves, but only in so far as they either enable or disable the functioning of the whole.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the parts exist for the sake of the whole.

Normally, I only notice the existence of one of my internal organs because something has gone wrong, and when this happens, my peace is disturbed. If I experience pain or discomfort or feel unwell in any way, I want to fix the problem so that peace can be restored.

When I experience peace in my body, I have the assurance that all is well.

The Hebrew word for ‘peace’ is ‘shalom’ (number H7965 in Strong’s Bible Dictionary), which can mean completeness, soundness, welfare, safety, health, and even prosperity, as well as peace in all of its forms.

• When I am well, I am at peace.

• When I am safe, I am at peace.

• When I am prosperous, I am at peace.

• When my spirit, soul, and body, and all of their bits and pieces, are complete, sound, safe, and in proper working order, functioning together as a single unified whole, then I experience health, wholeness, and peace.

Paul uses the metaphor of the human body to help us to understand God’s purpose for His church:

It is extremely unfortunate – in fact, it is a tragedy – that the Church of Christ worldwide exists in a state of disunity, discord, hostility, and separation. The cause is not difficult to discern. While the parts of the body think of themselves more highly than they ought (Romans 12:3 KJV) and fail to submit to the will and purpose of God, but give way to jealousy and selfish ambition (James 3:16 ESV), how can there ever be any form of peace?

We should be pursuing the wisdom which comes from above, as James exhorts us to:

UNITY in the GODHEAD

If you’re looking for a perfect example of unity in practice, then you need look no further than God Himself.

The Bible shows us very clearly that while God is ONE He is also THREE – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The term that was coined by the early Christians to express this mystery is the word ‘TRINITY’, which is an abbreviation for ‘TRI-UNITY’, that is to say, THREE-IN-ONE. We sometimes use the expression, ‘the triune God’.

If you’re wondering why I referred to this as ‘a mystery’, it is simply because it is beyond our natural ability to conceive of a single being who is, at the same time, three distinct beings, yet this is what the Bible tells us about God.

God is one, but at the same time the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Holy Spirit nor the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the same as either the Father or the Son.

Here are some scriptures which show us the Three being One and the One being Three:

In everything that the Three Persons of the Godhead do, They do it as one, in perfect unity. There is never any disagreement, never any hesitation, never any alternative opinion among Them, for They are totally one even though They are distinctly three.

Here are a few scriptures which illustrate that point:

UNITY in CHRIST

It's one thing to consider the Three Persons of the Godhead being distinct persons and yet one being, but what are we to think about the following scriptures which tell us that you and I, fallen, sinful children of dust, can be united with the holy, perfect, almighty and eternal God, and in so doing be united one with another?

I must confess that this is beyond my comprehension at my current state of spiritual maturity, so I have no intention of even attempting to comment on any of these statements, but simply to present them to you as being the word of God, the word of truth, and leave you to meditate upon them for yourself:

Here is what I would consider to be Paul’s expression par excellence of his personal unity with Christ:

In my attempt to come to an understanding of this, I came up with the following simple paraphrase:

• He died for me that I might live through Him;
• I died for Him that He might live through me.

The revelation that John the Baptist had received from God was not as fully developed as that which God granted to Paul, since Paul had a much broader ministry to accomplish, but we see in the following statement from John the seed of this same understanding:

Through RECONCILIATION and HARMONY we can find peace WITH God, as Paul tells us:

However, there is a deeper place where we are able to experience, and enjoy, something really special, which Paul talks about in his letter to the Philippians:

True unity is possible only when we abandon our selfish plans and ambitions and submit fully to the will of God, permitting the Holy Spirit to work in us in the same way that the Father worked in Jesus, each one being and doing what God determines, through faith and obedience, and thereby experiencing the greatest peace of all – the PEACE OF GOD Himself.

Conclusion

King Solomon, the son of the great king David, wrote the following psalm:

At one level, Solomon was presenting his prayer to God for his own kingdom, but at a deeper level he was writing prophetically concerning the kingdom of the King who is to come, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed Son of David, who turned out to be, in reality, the Son of God, as David himself prophesied in Psalm 110:1 (compare Matthew 22:43-45, where Jesus clearly attributes this interpretation to David’s cryptic statement).

We live in a world where peace is in great demand but in short supply. However, if we follow the Maker’s instructions we will discover that peace is actually available in great abundance, though at a price that men, in their pride, are often loath to pay.

We normally seek peace through SEPARATION, but this is only an external peace – the absence of contention. The turmoil within our own hearts is not addressed. It remains unanswered.

Through grasping the nettle, humbling ourselves, and seeking RECONCILIATION, we can find a level of peace which is not only personally satisfying, but which also addresses and resolves the issues which brought about the contention in the first place.

But reconciliation is costly for both parties, as at least one must repent and at least one must forgive. Between men, usually both must repent and both must forgive, and these are the two things that men, in their pride, find most difficult to do, because both require humility.

God, in His greatness and perfect humility, is always ready to reconcile with anyone who is willing to repent of their sins and surrender to His grace. The price for man is small, but the benefit is priceless. The price for God was beyond measure, but worth it for the joy of your salvation and mine (Hebrews 12:2).

Beyond reconciliation, we come into the place of HARMONY, where we flow together in mutual respect and submission, making music together that brings joy to the hearts of those who participate and of those who observe. But perhaps we are in harmony today, and tomorrow in discord again. Our peace can be short-lived. We must find a deeper place where our peace will endure.

This is the place of UNITY, where pride must not merely surrender, but must die; where self must fall upon the sword; where flesh must join the crucified Christ upon the cross.

• Jesus died for me so that I might live through Him.
• I must die for Christ, so that He may live through me.

Solomon speaks of righteousness and justice being the foundation of God’s throne (see also Psalm 89:14 and Psalm 97:2). Where there is no righteousness, there can be no peace; where righteousness and justice prevail, then peace can flourish (Romans 14:17).

Let us together, and as individuals, strive to come to that place where together, as one, we experience and live the peace of God, which is beyond all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

This is our calling and our destiny in Jesus Christ.