Peter Barnes | John 14:27-28
SERMON NOTES
The Peace of Christ
Isaiah 26:1-21; John 14:25-31
– Christ’s peace versus the world’s peace
1. Christ gives His people peace.
– 14:27. Shalom in 1 Sam.1:17; pax Romana for the emperor; but only a counterfeit peace (1 Thess.5:3)
– 2 Cor.5:18; Col.1:20
2. Love rejoices at Christ’s victory.
– 14:28; love looks outward (1 Cor.13:5)
– we love Christ for the benefits He brings to us (e.g. 4:13-14; 5:24; 7:37-38), but that cannot be the sole motive or it will be like Saul’s ‘love’ for David in 1 Sam.16:21-23
3. Christ is functionally unequal to the Father.
(a) It would be absurd in the extreme for a mere man to comment that the Father is greater than he.
(b) If I say: ‘The queen is greater than I’, I am not saying she is more of a human being than I am.
(c) Leon Morris: ‘The reference … is not to Christ’s essential Being, but rather to His incarnate state.’ Phil.2:6-7. In the incarnation, Christ the Son did not so much gain something as lose it. He emptied Himself.
(d) The Father functions in a greater capacity than the Son or the Spirit even in the Godhead (e.g. John 4:34; 5:19-30; 8:29; 12:48-49).
1 Cor.15:24.