Alfred Bernhard Nobel invented dynamite in 1867. It is the most famous or infamous of the 355 international patents Nobel held. It was his goal to use dynamite to aid demolition and construction. It was used to create weapons of war that made Nobel rich. In 1888, Alfred’s brother Ludwig died. A French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Alfred, entitled “The Merchant of Death is Dead.” A chastened Nobel determined he did not want this to be his legacy. He quit the business of warfare, liquidated his assets, and used nine million dollars to establish the Nobel Peace Prize. It is the most prestigious award in the world. 

Matthew 5:9 is the most important but greatly unappreciated peace prize: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” The seventh beatitude is the final beatitude that addresses the character of the Christian. The eighth beatitude is about how the world responds to righteous people. Christians inevitably face persecution. Yet Christians should not unnecessarily provoke justified persecution. We should be known as peacemakers, not troublemakers.

This is the most popular beatitude of Jesus among those who do not follow Jesus. But you cannot embrace this beatitude and reject the others. In verse 8, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” The pure in heart are also peacemakers. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Peace and holiness go together. 

We define peace as the absence of conflict, warfare, or hostility. But peace is more than the absence of animosity. It is the presence of tranquility.  The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom.” This Jewish greeting prayerfully wished wealth, wholeness, and well-being. The term should be understood spiritually, not relationally, politically, or militarily. James 4:1 asks, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” 

• You cannot be at peace with others if you are not at peace with yourself.
• You cannot be at peace with yourself if you are not at peace with God.

Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Peacemakers” is a literal translation. Peace does not just happen. Peace must be made. The definite article emphasizes that not all are peacemakers. Not all who think they are peacemakers are peacemakers. The term describes one’s character before one’s conduct. Peacemakers are more than peaceful people. They are not merely peacekeepers. Peacemakers actively and persistently make peace.

Jesus does not specify the target of the peacemaker’s efforts. It can be intimate, interpersonal, or international. Jesus does not guarantee the peacemaker will be successful. But God blesses the peacemakers. Peacemakers may be reviled, persecuted, and slandered. Yet Jesus says to the peacemakers, “Congratulations! You’re already blessed.” What does it mean to be a peacemaker? 

Peacemakers Know God’s Peace. 

The term peacemakers was used of ambassadors sent to negotiate peace. These official representatives made peace with other nations on behalf of their government. The effectiveness of the peacemaker was based on his closeness to his king. This is the prerequisite of the peacemakers. Peacemakers strive to reconcile hostile individuals, families, and nations. It begins with knowing God’s peace. You cannot give what you do not have. Peacemakers know God’s peace. This is the power of the gospel.

Sinners wage war against God. In their innocence, Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect peace with God. All that changed when the first couple sinned. After eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed. The first sin reveals the nature of sin. Sin is not merely making a mistake. It is deliberate rebellion against divine authority. There are no degrees of sin. Sin is sin. All Adam and Eve did was eat a piece of fruit. What’s wrong with that? They ate in disobedience to God. This is the sinfulness of sin. It is not about how bad the act is. The gravity of sin is rebellion against God. 

David committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband to cover it up. In Psalm 51:4, David confesses, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”Sin is a theological issue, not an ethical one. People are collateral damage. God is the ultimate target. All sin is against God. James 4:4 says, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

• Sin is rebellion against the authority of God. 
• Sin is a declaration of war against God. 
• Sin is mutiny against the government of God. 

Romans 8:7-8 says, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Sin is pervasive. Our sinful nature results in our sinful ways. Iniquity births every evil act the sinner commits. Iniquity aborts every righteous act the sinner attempts. This is the bondage of the will. We are free moral agents. But sin has corrupted free will. We are free to do as we want. We are not free to do as we ought. 

Romans 7:21-25 says, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

God makes peace with sinners. In Luke 14:31, Jesus says, “Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?” This is a statement about the cost of discipleship. It is also a statement about the miracle of salvation. Upstarts make peace with a conqueror when their forces cannot prevail in battle. Great kings don’t make peace with inferior rebels. But this is what God has done for us in Christ. Sinners do not, will not, cannot make peace with God. But God makes peace with sinners by his mercy and grace.

Peace at God’s expense. Nations at war may sign peace treaties. But formal statements must be backed up by conciliatory sacrifices. If not, peace will only be a cold war that erupts into conflict at any point. Peace is costly. The cost of peace with God is too high for sinners to pay. The price was not too high for God. Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”Grace is free. Grace is not cheap. It cost God his Son to make peace with sinners. Colossians 1:19-20 says, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Peace on God’s terms. Admiral Nelson led a decisive victory over the French navy. The French admiral boarded Nelson’s ship to surrender, dressed in his full regalia, with his sword at his side. When he reached out to shake hands, Nelson said, “Your sword, first.” God makes peace with sinners. But you must lay down your sword first in full surrender. Psalm 85:10 says, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

• Man says, “No justice, no peace.” 
• God says, “No righteousness, no peace.”

This is the necessity of the atonement. The righteousness of God demanded a penalty for sin. What God demanded, he provided in Christ. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

Peacemakers do God’s work. 

Having received peace with God through faith in Christ, peacemakers extend that to others. Peacemaking is no virtuous act for which we may take credit. It is the work of God. God deserves the glory. It is our privilege to join God’s holy work of peacemaking. Matthew 10:34-36 says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” 

The peace for which Jesus worked was not about interpersonal relationships. It was about making sinners right with God. He was the line between war and peace. Because of Jesus, families are divided between believers and unbelievers. To follow Jesus is to join in the unifying yet divisive work of kingdom advancement. 

Making peace among unbelievers. The Battle of Blue Licks, fought on April 19, 1782, was the last battle of the American Revolutionary War. It was fought ten months after the war ended! News traveled slowly. There was no means of communication over the Appalachian Mountains to Blue Licks, Kentucky. 50 Loyalists and 300 American Indians ambushed 182 Kentucky militiamen because no one knew the war was over. 

Many sinners remain at war with God because they do not know that God made peace at the cross. Some sinners refuse to lay down their arms after hearing the good news. We do not know how God is at work in their hearts. John 3:8 says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

• It is God’s job to change the hearts of sinners.
• It is our job to declare peace through Christ.  

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 says, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” 

Sinners are not warned to repent before it’s too late. God appeals to sinners. Christ imploressinners. We are ambassadors of Christ. Evangelism is the priority of the peacemaker. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Charles Spurgeon said, “Never be satisfied with going to heaven alone. Ask the Lord that you may be the spiritual father of many children, and that God may bless you to the ingathering of much of the Redeemer’s harvest.”

Making peace among believers. Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” This is how believers should relate to unbelievers. We should live peaceably with all. There may be times when peace is not possible. But we should never be the reason why peace is broken. The New Testament does not talk this way about believers’ relationship to one another. We must be at peace with one another for the sake of the gospel. In John 13:34-35, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love is the weapon of the peacemaker.

Ephesians 4:1-3 says, “I therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Christian unity is not cultural, institutional, or organizational. It is the unity of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”The indwelling Holy Spirit unites us. But we are to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Divisive people should not be tolerated in the church. Titus 3:10-11 says, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.” 

Unity of fellowship is an essential mark of a healthy church. 1 Corinthians 1:10 says, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” Yet there is not to be peace at any cost. Peace should not come at the expense of truth. Martin Luther said, “Let there be peace if possible, but let there be truth at any rate.” Peace without truth is just a truce, not peace. 

Ephesians 4:15-16 says, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Peacemakers are God’s sons. 

The reward for the peacemakers is unique. The other blessings imply something done. This blessing indicates something said: “They shall be called.” The divine passive is used in many of the beatitudes. God is not directly mentioned. But God acts. Most likely, this is the case here. God calls the peacemakers sons of God.

That peacemakers are called sons of God does not mean they become sons of God by peacemaking. Sinners become members of the family of God through regeneration and adoption. These are not works of self-righteousness we accomplish. These are gifts we receive through faith in Christ. 

John 1:12-13 says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Peacemakers are not God’s sons by peacemaking. Peacemakers are called God’s sons through peacemaking. The original is emphatic: “They, and they alone, shall be called the sons of God.” Richard Baxter wrote, “He that is not a son of peace is not a son of God.”  

Peacemakers are called sons of God by God and by man. Acts 11:26 reports: “And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” Early Christians did not call themselves Christians. They were called Christians by unbelievers. It was not a compliment. They were called Christians because they believed in Christ, belonged to Christ, and behaved like Christ. It is the same way with peacemakers. The reputation of the peacemakers points beyond the peacemaker to God. Peacemakers are not called peacemakers. They are called sons of God.

“Son of” is a Hebrew idiom that means to share the nature, character, or behavior. Mark 3:17 says Jesus called James and John “Sons of Thunder.” They were not offspring of thunder. Their attitudes, personalities, or behavior were thunderous. Acts 4:36 says the apostles called Joseph Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” His life was so characterized by encouragement that they nicknamed him “Mr. Encouragement.” In this sense, the peacemakers shall be called sons of God. Hebrews 13:20 calls God “the God of peace.” Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus “the Prince of Peace.” Galatians 5:22 says the fruit of the Spirit is peace. 

• It is a blessing to join the Father’s household. 
• It is a greater blessing to join the family business! 

Gender-inclusive language misinterprets the God-intended meaning of this beatitude. Sons means sons, not children. In the ancient world, a daughter did not receive an inheritance. The inheritance typically consisted of land, not money. The family benefited from the estate that was passed down from generation to generation. Sons were desired to carry on the father’s name, lead the family, and manage the estate. It was assumed daughters would marry and take the name of their husbands. Thus, daughters did not receive an inheritance, lest the family’s estate become the husband’s possession. In Christ, all are sons who share in the Father’s inheritance. 

Galatians 3:27-29 says, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” Do not be a prisoner-of-war in bondage to who you used to be. 

Romans 8:15-17a says, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” You were a slave to sin. You are a son of God. You will be like Christ. 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be as has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”