“Christ’s Better Peace” (John 14:27–31)

Series: “John: Life in Christ’s Name”Text: John 14:27–31

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: May 19, 2024

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

Every once in a while, I’ll see the online Christian world begin to argue about the effectiveness of biblical counseling. Sometimes, these arguments are based on misunderstandings. However, there seems to be an underlying assumption among many Christians that the secular world has a superior therapeutic process than what Scripture provides.

Compare this to cultivating a plant in a garden. One person might be a hired landscaping professional, trimming leaves which appear diseased, but a true gardener digs into the soil, helping the roots and thus getting to the core issue. Some people only want pep talks and medications when they feel anxious, worried, or depressed, but this only temporarily addresses the symptoms. Biblical counseling involves admonishment, teaching, and encouragement from Scripture, aiming for genuine heart transformation and thus producing lasting peace. It is only when we get to the root of our issues that we can understand the depth of our sin problems and the reach of Christ’s redemption.

The peace of the Lord is greater than we can imagine. As Philippians 4:7 says, it “surpasses all comprehension” and “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” His peace is able to sustain us through whatever trial we endure. This peace is a vital part of the Christian life, especially while we live in a world so full of anxieties, and its superior to any other peace offered in the world.

That may be why Jesus makes His peace such an important part of His farewell discourse. We’ve already been noting how He is leaving them with comforts in this section as He announces His departure. In John 16:33, He also says, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” He wants them to know that He is leaving them with a supernatural peace which can carry them through whatever they face.

Today, we will see that Christ’s peace is superior to any other peace. We’ll consider three reasons why His peace is better: Christ’s peace surpasses the world’s peace (v. 27), it arrives because of His exaltation (v. 28), and it rests upon His work (vv. 29–31). Let’s consider the first of those.

First, Christ’s Peace Surpasses the World’s Peace (v. 27)

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

Our Lord clearly says here that His peace is greater than the kind of superficial or temporary peace that the world gives, but let’s take a moment to break down what He says. The first word He uses here, in English or in Greek, is the word for “peace.” This is how Jesus would greet the disciples (cf. John 20:19–26), and this is how the apostles would greet their readers. In Hebrew, the term for peace is Shalom, and it remains a standard greeting among Jewish individuals some 2,000 years later.

However, this isn’t just a greeting in our Lord’s mouth. He isn’t saying something trite like He’s sending them positive vibes and good feelings. His is the kind of peace that comes because He has calmed the wrath of a Holy God toward sinners. We’ll talk more specifically to that in a few minutes, but note that His peace is substantial.

Jesus even emphasizes here that it’s not just peace, it’s His peace. The word “My” is emphatic, meaning that this is something of Himself that He is giving. He emphasizes the personal pronoun a second time when He says He gives it. Let me read it that way: “My, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I, I give to you.” This is His peace, and its unlike peace that we find anywhere else.

Remember that the world includes everything in man opposed to God and to Christ, which would include both pagan idolatries as well as the unbelieving Jewish religion. For example, Rome promoted the pax Romana, the “peace of Rome,” through threat of sword, while the false teachers of Israel would cry, “Peace, peace,” when “there is no peace” (cf. Jer. 6:14). The world’s peace is inferior to the peace Jesus gives; it can’t even give true peace!

But Jesus can give the kind of peace a person needs so his heart isn’t troubled or fearful. Jesus used the first word back in v. 1, when He said, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” There are troubles which might grip us, where we think about them throughout the day. However, we don’t have to live with such anxiety.

The second word isn’t the usual term for fear. In fact, this is the only time it appears in the New Testament, and its rare in outside literature. It’s a word that refers to the palpitations of the heart. This is a time of stress, and some even experience a condition of post-traumatic stress. However, Christ gives us the ability to deal with such difficult moments. Christians with has clear consciences before God and man will be less prone to moments of fear. Moreover, God’s sovereign help through the Holy Spirit sustains us through unexpected trouble or persecution.

Jesus commands us, “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” In 1856, a staunch atheist and critic of religion was born, the father of modern psychoanalysis, but this Sigmond Freud could not provide either himself or his followers the kind of lasting peace they thought a secular approach would have. Today, the best this world has to offer is drugs or false religion to deal with stress. Billions of dollars flow to BigPharma and to other idols, but they can’t ever satisfy our root need. However, our Creator promises us a deep and lasting peace in Christ.

Christ has a surpassing peace. And there’s a reason for that. His peace is rooted in His exaltation, which we consider next.

Second, Christ’s Peace Arrives Because of His Exaltation (v. 28)

You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

Jesus had already told them He was going away from them. That’s the point of these chapters; He’s giving His farewell discourse. Back in 13:36, Peter asked Him where He was going, and Jesus replied, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” In 14:3, Jesus went on to say He was going to prepare them a place. In v. 12, He said, “I go to the Father.” These are just a few instances where Jesus said it in the past, and now He tells them they’ve heard Him say it.

Yet, He didn’t just tell them He was leaving. In v. 18, He said He was leaving them, just not as orphans; “I will come to you.” There, just like in vv. 2–3, He is promising eventually to come again bodily, but also return before that. Of course, after His crucifixion, He returned to them.

Yet, He also is saying He will come to them spiritually, in the Holy Spirit. When Jesus promises to come to them in v. 18, that immediately follows the promise of the Holy Spirit in v. 17. Then, in v. 20, He says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” In other words, there will be a spiritual communion that they will have (that we all have as believers) because of the Holy Spirit.

So, that means that the “going away” here refers to the ascension of Christ. He hadn’t ascended to the Father after His crucifixion; in John 20:17, He says Mary, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’ ” Jesus warns here He will leave them for the final time.

We can understand that such a moment would be their saddest hour. However, Jesus challenges them, saying that they should rejoice. Part of the reason is because He was glorified before taking on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5–7). He would be returning to that place of exaltation, and they who love Him should be joyful to know that.

Their human love for the Lord is not perfect (and neither is ours). They wanted things to remain the same, so, in that moment, their love for themselves was greater than their love for the Lord. Theirs is a deficient love because sin taints everyone’s sense of love. Jesus challenges them, then, to get their focus off what they want and on to what Jesus wants. True love always considers first the desires of our Lord.

But that’s only part of the reason for rejoicing. There are practical benefits for them, as we have already been noting. For instance, Jesus would send them the Holy Spirit. This will happen when He gets to the Father.

Before we go further, some get fixed here on the point that Jesus says the Father is greater than He, which He also said in John 10:29. This doesn’t deny the deity of Christ. There remains an ontological equality with God, but at the moment, there is a temporary functional subordination of the Son. What does that mean? Elsewhere, Jesus affirms that He and the Father are one, for He is of the same substance of the Father; yet, as the incarnate Messiah, He brings His flesh into submission to the Father. At this moment, Jesus has two natures, a divine and a human one, and the Father is greater in priority to any of Christ’s human desires.

When Jesus returns to the right hand of the Father, though, He does so in exalted flesh, which means that there is a new reality for all mankind. The Son will return to the Father and resume full glory with God. This aligns with what we see in Philippians 2:8–11, which explains that Jesus,

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Because of this exaltation, we can trust that His life means life for us. He has the ability to send the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of peace into our hearts. We can know that we have heaven’s peace, even now. We don’t need to fear death and hell, nor what man can do to us.

In fact, there’s more! We learn that Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father, interceding for the saints. If we sin, we have this advocate with the Father, pleading our case (1 John 2:1–2). He’s the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). We can know our faith and righteousness is secure in Him.

Divine peace comes because of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t need to look in ourselves or in others, like Mary or the all the saints. His peace is available because of where He is now, interceding at the right hand of the Father.

Our peace also rests on what He has already done, bringing us to our final point:

Third, Christ’s peace rests upon His work (vv. 29–31)

Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

One of the primary reasons for our lack of peace is the feeling of guilt we experience over our sins. Sometimes I bring that up in counseling, especially when people are trying to treat these feelings as simple depression and medicating for it. Sometimes, people don’t receive it well, desiring the secular diagnosis over the spiritual one to avoid dealing with their sins before God. Others, however, have seen that their need for certain medications can vanish when the general angst of conscience is allayed in the gospel.

In the New Testament, we see true peace, our standing before God, won through Jesus Christ (cf. Eph. 2:14–17). The peace we have with God isn’t just a reality that Jesus is continuing to keep secure, but a peace that He first secured with the end of His earthly ministry. His perfect life, death, and resurrection all were essential in the peace process.

For our remaining few minutes, we’re going to briefly look at each of these verses and see how the power of His peace rests on what He accomplished. Three works in these verses undergird His peace: His prophecy, His triumph, and His obedience. Let’s consider the first of these.

His peace is Confirmed by His Prophetic Insight (v. 29)

Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.

We’ve noted that Jesus is fully God as well as fully man. Because of His divine nature, He could speak prophetically, knowing the will of the Father in any instance as well as being able to foretell certain future events. Because Jesus predicted His own death and resurrection, we can trust Him when He also predicts peace for us!

We talk about the importance of believing in Jesus’s finished work for us, and that is essential. People will never experience true peace without trusting in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus on their behalf. Yet, if we believe in Jesus’s work for us, then we should believe His other words of promise, like the fact that we will have peace in Him.

Sometimes, we tend to think of believing in Him only in terms of salvation, not practical Christian living. We should believe everything He said and promised, though. Don’t allow the deceptions of Satan to distract you, bringing us to the next point:

His peace is Secured Through His Triumph Over Satan (v. 30)

I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;

Jesus’s time with them draws to a close. The serpent of old is, at this moment, slithering toward the feet of Jesus, perhaps through the machinations of Judas Iscariot. Yet, those who know the hope of Scripture understand that this ends poorly for Satan; back in Genesis 3:15, the Lord said, “He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” This moment of temporary victory for the devil, this condemnation to the cross, will turn into Satan’s greatest loss.

Jesus already predicted the devil will be cast out (John 12:31). Remember that the rebellious world follows after Satan, “the ruler of this world.” The world was in the process of rejecting Jesus, just as its ruler did. This is one reason not to find peace in this world — Jesus will overthrow it all!

There are those who fear the occult and the powers of darkness. Indeed, in this text, we see that Satan came for our Lord. However, he has absolutely “no claim” (ESV) or “no power” (HCSB) over Jesus. Jesus is sinless, and through His death He rendered the devil powerless (Heb. 2:14). The devil might have bruised Jesus’s heel, but Jesus bruised his head!

Consider that when the devil tempts to disquiet your soul. Our Lord has already scored the decisive victory over the enemy. There is no need to fear, then, for “greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Because of Christ, we can resist the devil, and he will flee (James 4:7). We can have peace knowing that our victory over his evil is in Jesus Christ!

There is one more work our Lord highlights:

His peace is Fulfilled in His Obedience to the Father (v. 31)

but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

We rightly talk about the obedience of Christ that led Him to the cross. Without Jesus’s obedience to become the sacrifice, we wouldn’t have hope for our salvation. This is His passive obedience, in that He allowed Himself to be arrested and crucified.

Still, there’s another aspect called Christ’s active obedience. Jesus always fulfilled the will of the Father. This is what made Him the perfect, sinless, spotless Lamb of God. In Galatians 4:4–5, we read that He perfectly kept the Law. As Romans 5:10 says, we “were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,” and “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” His perfect law-keeping (and resurrection) give us hope of new life. It’s through His obedience that we are made righteous (Rom. 5:19).

One of the sources of guilt with which we struggle is not just that we sin. It’s that we can’t measure up to the holy standard before us. However, the obedience of Christ means that we don’t need to — Christ has already perfectly kept the Law in our place. He is our righteousness!

There’s one other thing worth mentioning before we close. There’s some debate as to what Christ means when He says, “Get up, let us go from here.” The next three chapters seem to continue in the upper room, but it is possible that they begin to walk and talk. As one study notes, it

may be better to see chapters 15–17 as having been spoken after the group had left the house and was headed for the garden. They would have passed vineyards en route, along with the temple and its golden carving of a vine on it, perhaps inspiring 15:1–8. After all, 18:1 doesn’t say they left “the house,” just that they “went out.” In fact, it sounds like they were already on the edge of the Kidron Valley beneath the temple.

Whether Jesus said this while still in the upper room or along the way, He wanted His disciples to know that they could have peace and comfort.

Conclusion

People can quickly come to fear about their bills, their debts, and their food. Yet, the Apostle Paul said, “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need” (Phil. 4:11–12). Christians might become tempted to despair like the world at the end of each month, but they need not live with that kind of fear and anxiety.

Christ’s peace is better than anything we will find in ourselves. It surpasses anything in the world, whether psychology or medication or some other whatnot. His peace is also better than what any other religion might provide. His peace is better because of who He is and what He has done. If you are struggling with finding peace in your life, know that the God who designed you inspired Holy Scripture to teach you how to have peace in Christ — and I’m always available for anyone who is struggling.

Understand, though, that this peace is available only in Christ. The unbeliever will never experience true peace. Even the believer can fail to experience it if he or she is looking to the world for peace. It is only through a genuine trust in the finished work of Christ that someone can experience peace of conscience. It is only thought the Spirit of the God of peace that someone can have a bright hope in the midst of darkness. If you haven’t bowed to Christ, I pray that you will!