This
is a question everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be impossible.
Yet the Word of God promises other things that seem impossible,
as well as this. His Word has promised peace. It has also promised...
that there is no death,
that resurrection must occur, and
that rebirth is man's inheritance.
The
world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures
us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised us that peace
is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible.
But
it is true that the world must be looked at differently if His
promises are to be accepted.
What
the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should
be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose
this.
Again
we come to the question of judgment. This time, ask yourself whether
your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For
they say different things about the world, and things so opposite
that it is pointless to try to reconcile them.
God
offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it.
God
says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable
end of life.
God's
Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it
is unlovable.
Who
is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so.
The
text explains that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to all problems
you have made. These problems are not real, but that is meaningless
to those who believe in them. And everyone believes in what he made,
for it was made by his believing it. Into this strange and paradoxical
situation—one without meaning and devoid of sense, yet out
of which no way seems possible—God has sent His Judgment to
answer yours. Gently His Judgment substitutes for yours. And through
this substitution is the ununderstandable made understandable.
How
is peace possible in this world?
In
your judgment it is not possible and can never be possible. But
in the Judgment of God, what is reflected here is only peace.
Peace
is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those
who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world
escaped! It is not the world that makes peace seem impossible. It
is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment
on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace.
And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace
now belongs here because a Thought of God has entered.
What
else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being
what it is?
The
earth bows down before its gracious Presence, and it leans down
in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It
is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but
instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"
