THE beautiful description of the heavenly wisdom which the Epistle commends to the saints closes with its result in peace along the way.
“And righteousness' fruit in peace is being sown for those that make peace” (ver. 18).
In the practical walk of the believer the fruit of righteousness is the prime requisite, but “in peace “; as we have seen the wisdom from above is “first pure, then peaceable.” In the natural man, as in the world, self-will reigns, the enemy of all righteousness, in an overbearing spirit, the seed of an ever-growing harvest of contention, as the beginning of the next chapter clearly indicates.
Even in the Lord Jesus we find the same order, as in Heb. 7:2, “first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace.” Such is the application of Melchizedek, king-priest of Salem. It is indeed a type more than fulfilled in the order of Christ's priesthood even now, about to be fulfilled by-and-by in its exercise, when the battle is won over the Beast and the kings of the earth and their armies at the end of the age.
When we look at redemption, if grace reigns as it does, it is through righteousness unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord. Only then, through Him dead and risen, could we justified by faith have peace with God. Therefore are the saints everywhere called on, walking righteously, to be in peace (if possible, as much as hangs on them) with all men. Nor do the Epistles to the Corinthians differ from that to the Romans; God hath called us in peace, says the First; rejoice, be adjusted, be encouraged, be of one mind, be in peace; and the God of love and peace would be with them. Such is the exhortation and promise in the Second. So to the Galatians the apostle writes, for as many as walk according to the rule of the new creation, peace be on them and mercy; as to the Ephesians, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, he would have their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. What a place peace has in the Philippian Epistle every reader ought to see; nor is it less deep in that to the Colossians where he would have Christ's peace rule in their hearts; as he prays for the Thessalonians in the First that the God of peace would sanctify them wholly, and in the Second that the Lord of peace Himself would give them peace continually in every way. And the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts to pursue peace with all, and holiness, giving this however the primary and peremptory place in accordance with the doctrine elsewhere.
But the fruit of righteousness in peace, though acceptable to God, a blessing in itself, and a comfort to fellow-believers, is far from welcome to men in general, who know not God and do not obey the gospel but unrighteousness, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating each other. It is sown, as we are here told, “for those that make peace.” The will of man, no more than the wrath of man, works God's righteousness. Discord and every evil issue are the sad effect. Blessed, says the Lord, are the peace-makers; for they shall be called God's sons. But in that wondrous outpouring of blessing from His lips on the mount, we may notice that the four descriptions of the blessed are of the righteous class (vers. 3-6), before the three of the gracious sort (vers. 7-9), with a blessing supernumerary on the persecuted for righteousness' sake, and another yet richer on those persecuted for His own sake. Righteousness necessarily precedes. For it is vain to think or speak of walking in grace, where we fail in consistency with our relationship. The fruit of righteousness in peace is being sown for those that make peace. Such are evidently walking in a spirit which grace produces; but the fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for them. Some contend strongly that we should understand “by” rather than “for.” Grammatically the clause is susceptible of either sense; but the former seems hardly so suitable to the bearing of the context. Let the Christian reader judge for himself.