Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. LukeMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Luke -- Commentaries
The region into which Christ admitted this woman. It is remarkable
that in the present case, and in that other to which I have already
referred, the phraseology employed is not the ordinary one of that
familiar Old Testament leave-taking salutation, which was the
'goodbye' of the Hebrews, 'Go in peace.' But we read occasionally in
the Old Testament a slight but eloquent variation. It is not 'Go in
peace,' as our Authorised Version has it, but 'Go into peace,' and
that is a great deal more than the other. 'Go in peace' refers to
the momentary emotion; 'Go into peace' seems, as it were, to open
the door of a great palace, to let down the barrier on the borders
of a land, and to send the person away upon a journey through all
the extent of that blessed country. Jesus Christ takes up this as He
does a great many very ordinary conventional forms, and puts a
meaning into it. Eli had said to Hannah, 'Go into peace.' Nathan had
said to David, 'Go into peace.' But Eli and Nathan could only wish
that it might be so; their wish had no power to realise itself.
Christ takes the water of the conventional salutation and turns it
into the wine of a real gift. When He says, 'Go into peace,' He puts
the person into the peace which He wishes them, and His word is like
a living creature, and fulfils itself.
So He says to each of us: 'If you have been saved by faith, I open
the door of this great palace. I admit you across the boundaries of
this great country. I give you all possible forms of peace for
yours.' Peace with God--that is the foundation of all--then peace
with ourselves, so that our inmost nature need no longer be torn in
pieces by contending emotions, 'I dare not' waiting upon 'I would,'
and 'I ought' and 'I will' being in continual and internecine
conflict; but heart and will, and calmed conscience, and satisfied
desires, and pure affections, and lofty emotions being all drawn
together into one great wave by the attraction of His love, as the
moon draws the heaped waters of the ocean round the world. So our
souls at rest in God may be at peace within themselves, and that is
the only way by which the discords of the heart can be tuned to one
key, into harmony and concord; and the only way by which wars and
tumults within the soul turn into tranquil energy, and into peace
which is not stagnation, but rather a mightier force than was ever
developed when the soul was cleft by discordant desires.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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