“Peace on Earth”

At the time when a proposal for a “nuclear freeze”—that is, a cessation of the construction of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union—had appeared as a ballot referendum in several states, including New Jersey, the Home News of New Brunswick, New Jersey requested statements on the question, “What is the meaning of ‘peace on earth’ today?” The replies were published on Christmas Day, 1983. Here is mine:

 

The phrase “peace on earth” occurs in the New Testament. In the Gospel According to (2:14), angels sing to shepherds of the Christ’s birth:
Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom
He is pleased.

There is no utopianism, here. The angels do not herald peace on earth among all men—only peace on earth among those with whom God is pleased. The New Testament famously insists that only those who sincerely worship the Christ please God.

In Christian terms, then, there can be no general peace on earth today because genuine Christians do not rule all the nations. Nor will they ever rule on this earth, according to Scripture. Only the Christ can bring peace on earth, and only after He returns to earth, eventually creating a new heaven and a new earth. Centuries earlier, Jews also understood that divine intervention alone can bring peace to the nations. The prophet Isaiah foresaw swords beaten into plowshares after, not before the coming of the Messiah.

Today, many people at “peace on earth,” believing that peace-loving human beings can themselves fashion perpetual and universal peace. There is no evidence for this belief either in history or in Scripture. Such persons transform Judaism and Christianity into a kind of politics called ‘pacifism.’ They confused themselves with the Messiah, forgetting both the realism of the political man and the humility of the religious one. Their utopian worldly ambitions are too spiritual, their proud spirituality too worldly. They invite martyrdom without redemption.