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I. CHRIST MAKES PEACE. He was predicted as the Prince of peace. His birth was heralded by the good news, "On earth peace."

1. Peace between man and man. In Christ the enmity between Jew and Gentile ceases. Christianity forbids all envy, jealousy, hatred, and strife. It is cosmopolitan, and will not sanction national selfishness cloaked by the sacred name of patriotism. It is brotherly, and will not favor sectarian animosity sheltering under the mask of loyalty to truth.

2. Peace between man and God. Both Jew and Gentile are reconciled "unto God" (ver. 16). The discord between man and man is but a symptom and after consequence of the deeper quarrel between man and God, just as the unrestrained war of factions is a result of the overthrow of the central authority in a state.

II. CHRIST'S PEACE IS STABLE. A hollow peace which like an unstable equilibrium is liable to be upset at any moment, and is little better than an armed truce, is only a deception and a snare. But Christ's peace is solid and secure, involving two great safeguards.

1. Reconciliation. A duel may be interrupted by the police, and yet the combatants may still cherish mortal hatred to one another. The forced agreement of Jew with Gentile under the Roman empire was no real peace. The order of a state in which criminals are curbed but not reformed, and the decorum of a society in which only social fear prevents outrageous insults to purity and godliness, are no proof of real peace with God and man. But Christ reconciles, takes away all disposition for quarrelling., and establishes peaceable affections between man and man and between man and God.

2. Union. The old fends between Norman and Saxon can never be revived, simply because the two races have been blended together. So Christ would blend Jew and Gentile, and establish a common family union between Christians and also between the whole Christian brotherhood and our one Father in heaven.

III. CHRIST'S PEACE DEPENDS ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CAUSES OF DISCORD. It does not merely heal the surface-symptoms, but it goes to the root of the evil and cuts this out. The Law, which was the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, is abolished. The religion of Law, which provoked constant enmity between man and God, is done away. In the place of rigid, painful exactions, never by any possibility fully satisfied, we have the service of the Spirit, which is the same for all and which is possible to all.

IV. CHRIST'S PEACE IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF.

1. In relation to God. Christ makes reconciliation by his great propitiatory offering of himself. As we look at the cross our enmity to God dies down, and we learn in humble penitence to seek for forgiveness.

2. In relation to man. Christ has died for every man. Before that awful tragic event all mutual enmity should be hushed. In the love of our Peacemaker, which is shown in his dying for us, we have the strongest possible motive for a common fervor of love to him that should quench and drown all petty animosities and unite all Christians into one body. - W.F.A.

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KJV: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

WEB: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.