By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
Benedictions are greeted in America with great delight, for it means that the service will soon end and the people will be free to go! But benedictions are also meant to impart a gift from God of unusual grace and mercy on all our lives. Benedictions must never be taken for granted or treated in a casual way; they are enormously important. Perhaps we should hold our hands out as if we were already receiving the benefits that God has been pleased to bestow on us as the prayer is offered up on our behalf as a congregation.
The text I have chosen is from Hebrews
13:20-21. It reads: "Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect, in every good work, to do His will, by working in you, that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory, forever and ever, Amen."
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This prayer is a veritable summary of the whole book of Hebrews. In four great summaries it outlines all that a believer needs for competing, succeeding and completing any walk, talk or ministry to the glory of God in this twenty-first century. Let us look at each of these four summaries in the order given here in this magnificent summary of the whole argument of the book of Hebrews with its case for the "Finality of Jesus Christ."
I. The Source of Our Peace
Our first summary is to be found in the expression, "God of Peace," which is located only here and in the prayers of the apostle Paul. It is found, for example, in
Romans 15:33, "Now the God of peace be with you all, Amen." Again, it appears in
Romans 16:20, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." And in
Philippians 4:9, "Those things, which you all have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you." Finally, in
1 Thessalonians 5:23 it affirms, "And the very God of peace sanctify you totally; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The writer of Hebrews, whoever he was, used this Greek word for "peace," with its Hebrew roots of shalom to refer to every benefit that our Lord can give: physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally -- everything! The title is properly assigned to God the Father alone.
Humanity has not been capable of effecting much peace. Thus, there is little or no peace left except what is to be found in the nature and will of God. He alone is the author of peace because He designed it from eternity, and because He carried it out in Jesus Christ.