And having come, He preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
Truth to Learn
All Christians should be proclaiming peace with God through the gospel message of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as payment for our sins.
Behind the Words
The words “having come” are from the verb erchomai, which means “to come” or “to go.” It is expressed as an aorist participle, thus we translate it as “having come.”
“Preached” is translated from euangellidzō, which is a compound verb made up of eu, meaning “good” or “well” and aggellō, which means “to proclaim.” Thus, this word literally means “to proclaim the good news.” This is the word from which we get our English verb “to evangelize.”
“Peace” is translated from eirēnē, which means, as we saw back in verse fourteen, “to be at peace with someone.” In the current verse, the best Greek manuscripts have the word eirēnē appears twice. Therefore, the verse should be translated:
And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and peace to those who were near.
The words “afar off” are from makran, which we saw back in verse thirteen. It means “a great distance away.”
“Near” is translated from the Greek word engus, which is based on the verb agchō, meaning “to squeeze.” Engus indicates that something is “nearby” or “close at hand.”
Meaning Explained
The current verse indicates a direct fulfillment of the words of Isaiah:
“I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to the ones far off and near,” Says the LORD, “And I will heal him.” (Isaiah 57:19)
In verse fourteen we learned that Christ is our peace. In verse fifteen we learned that He made peace between Jews and Gentiles. Now we learn that Christ proclaimed (or announced) peace, both to those who were near and to those who were far away. In verse thirteen we learned that Gentiles are the ones who were once far away. By inference, we know that “those who were near” refers to the Jews.
There are a number of verses in the New Testament in which Jesus proclaimed peace, so it’s not hard to understand what Paul means by saying that he proclaimed peace to those who were near. But, we have to ask ourselves the question, “How did Jesus preach peace to those who were far off?” For the key to the answer to this question let’s look at John’s gospel. He recorded this statement that Jesus made to his disciples in the upper room after He was raised from the dead,
Therefore Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." (John 20:21)
Jesus sent his disciples (and by extension, you and me) into the world to proclaim the gospel of peace. That’s how He proclaims peace to those who are far off.
Application
You and I are the means by which Jesus Christ is still proclaiming peace to those who are far off. When was the last time you shared the Gospel message to people around you?
In God's service, for His glory,
Copyright © 2015 Will Krause. All rights reserved