The Prince of Peace

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

—Isaiah 9:6–7

The end of the year of our Lord 2024 is upon us, and Christmas time is again quickly coming and practically here.

Throughout all of this year, there has been a great absence of peace. The angels proclaimed to the shepherds “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14), and yet from that time through the two millennia of history, there has always been a conspicuous absence of peace.

Where is the Prince of Peace?

The part of the world that we know as the Middle East is often, and even now is a center of conflict. Even in the rest of the world a conflict exists among differing groups about the problem and its solution.

Centers of so-called “higher education” have been taken over and shut down with activist students shouting out slogans of hatred and bitterness such as “from the river to the sea”, etc., etc..

I have one better for them:

“From the river even to the ends of the earth.”

That is from the Bible.

Let’s put that even more in its context:

Zechariah 9:9–10 — “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and He shall speak peace unto the heathen: and His dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.”

Who is this King of glory? What is his name?

He is the Prince of Peace! He is our Lord Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:3–4)!

Why is there not peace as promised?

Many relate the Mideast conflict to many different things. Some say it is because Israel does not belong there. Some say that it is the “Zionist colonizer” that is the root of the problem and if Israel were just pushed into the sea that the problem would go away. They have many followers in this, and it has gained alot of traction, even among people who are supposedly Christians and would say “Christ is King” proudly (yet often facetiously).

Some have also noted that the problem of eternal conflict is really rooted in Abraham and Sarah and their foolish decision to “help God” and bring Hagar into their marriage resulting in Abraham’s son, Ishmael, whose hand would be against every man (Genesis 16:12). While there may be some truth to this rivalry, the reality is that there is a religion and not an ethnicity that wants to push the Jews out to the sea. The descendants of Ishmael and of Isaac are both invited to the peace of the Prince of Peace.

To understand the true Middle East peace problem, let us go back to Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the Prince of Peace.

For unto [Israel] a child is born, unto [Israel] a son is given: and the government shall be [not upon the Roman Empire, nor upon the Ottoman Empire, nor upon the British Empire, nor upon the UN, nor upon the Israeli government no matter which party, but] upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace [from sea even to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth] there shall be no end, upon the throne of David [in Jerusalem], and upon his kingdom [In Mount Zion, Isaiah 2:3], to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts [not the zeal of the Zealots, see Acts 5:36–37, nor the zeal of the Crusaders, nor the zeal of the Fifth Monarchists, nor the zeal of the Christian Nationalists, nor the zeal of the Zionists] will perform this.

Yes, it is the zeal of the LORD — Jehovah, or if you prefer, YHWH, of Hosts — that will perform this!

The Prince of Peace came, so where is the peace?

The Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ our Lord, came unto His own, and His own received Him not (John 1:11).

However, the grace of God is far greater than all of our sin. For when the people of the Covenant, the very children of the promised Kingdom, took counsel together against the LORD and against His Christ (Psalm 2), saying “we will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14), and “we have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15), judgment was due and well deserved.

But Jesus Christ from the cross, while despised and rejected of men, cried to His Father, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

The Father heard, and granted what we might call a “stay of execution”. See Luke 19:27. Read the entire parable for context of the Old Testament history coming to a conclusion in Christ.

In Acts, the Apostle Peter along with the Twelve and those raised up by them brought the guilt of the murder by crucifixion OF GOD’S ANOINTED to the people of Israel. See for yourself in Acts 2:22–36, 3:12–26, 4:8–12, 4:25–28, 5:29–32, and 7:51–53.

Stephen also cried to the Lord — the Lord Jesus as Son of Man — whom he saw STANDING on the right hand of God — to “lay not this sin to their charge”. What would come next, without the intervention of sovereign grace, would be God’s wrath against those who would not have the LORD’s Christ — Jesus Christ — to reign over them.

Psalm 110:1–2 — “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is once again seated at God’s right hand, and this wrath was postponed. As is the reign on earth of the Prince of Peace, ON DAVID’S THRONE, to order and establish it. The Kingdom is vested in the person of the King, and the King — Jesus Christ the King — is seated in Heaven. But make no mistake, His Kingdom will come to earth, and His will shall be done on earth as in Heaven!

Ephesians 1:20–23 — “Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”

But now Jesus Christ our Lord is reigning in grace and peace, continuing His stay of execution. For when He comes to establish His Kingdom reign as the zeal of the LORD of Hosts will perform, great wrath must also come, for His enemies who would not have Him reign over them are due their execution.

But God would not execute His wrath on His people and the rest of the world without first the gospel of His grace sounding out to the whole earth. Indeed it has (Colossians 1:6, Titus 2:11), even as the whole world is still rejecting Him.

God in grace called and saved by His sovereign grace Saul of Tarsus, the personification of the Christ-rejecter, to bear the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.

1 Timothy 1:12–17 — “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

We live now in this dispensation of God’s grace in which God is longsuffering toward sinners who deserve His wrath. He has not yet returned with a sharp sword to smite the nations (Revelation 19:15) because:

2 Peter 3:9, 15 — “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. … And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you…”

While the world struggles and fails to make and keep peace, you can have peace. You can have the peace that matters. Around the world, especially in the Middle East, but elsewhere too, the peacekeeping agencies are a total failure. The world’s peacekeepers think that they can establish and maintain peace, without the Prince of Peace. It will not happen without the Prince of Peace, but you can receive the Prince of Peace as He wants you to receive Him.

When you receive the Prince of Peace, you have peace WITH GOD, TODAY, though our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1. Christ died for our sins, and God only requires our faith in this gospel of Christ that He died for our sins and rose from the dead to enter into that wonderful peace with God.

Romans 5:6–11 — “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”

Having peace with God, we can have the “peace of God, that passeth all understanding” to rule in our hearts (Philippians 4:7, Colossians 3:15).

The peace belonging to the Prince of Peace can be yours, even before He takes the throne of David on earth in Jerusalem and His peace extends from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. For if you have peace with God, you truly have peace.

20 centuries have passed since the Lord Jesus Christ came in peace. He will one day come in righteousness to judge and make war. The Prince of Peace will rule in peace by putting His enemies under His feet. Until then:

2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2 — “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, [Christ] who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

“We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION.)”