Isaiah 9:6. The Prince of Peace
Mackay (1793-1873) was at this time the parish minister of Dunoon. This is the first of two sermons on the text; it is somewhat abridged and comes from his volume, Sermons on the Christian Warfare and Titles of Christ.
The common idea we attach to the term Prince is the son of a king, or one closely connected to royalty. But civil history shows that the term has been indiscriminately applied to the sovereign of a country. This remark is of some importance, in relation to our text, because every idea is dangerous which might lead you to associate, with the divine and glorious Saviour, any opinion that He is inferior in glory and perfection to God the Father.
The whole preceding context confirms the doctrine that Christ, as a divine Person, is equal with God the Father, and that in His offices as the Saviour of sinners, all authority and power, in heaven and on earth, are committed to Him personally, for the good and the eternal salvation of all His people; and that gracious government is on His shoulder. He is “the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. The last title is equivalent to the King of Peace, or the Sovereign of Peace. And let me seek to impress this upon the heart and conscience of each one of you present, that all these descriptions of the Person, character and offices of Christ are given for this object: to bring you individually into growing spiritual acquaintance with Him, that all who truly desire and seek salvation might live lives of faith on the Son of God.
We must continually urge it upon you solemnly that you cannot prosper but by having a growing knowledge of Christ in your mind – as the principal means of increasing life in your soul. It will be nothing, and worse than nothing, to you if you hear of Him without this practical faith and knowledge being rooted and grounded in you, and you grounded in them – and if all the testimony which the Word of truth bears to you about Christ does not bring you into closer habits of communion with Him, as your Saviour and Lord. If all this does not incline you, more and more, to live to Christ, it is because the Word is not mixed with faith in your heart. Seek this faith from Christ Himself, through His Spirit conveying the testimony of the Word to you with power. Then Christ will be glorified in you, and you in Him, growing in preparation of soul for being glorified with Him, when He shall come – and you know not how soon – to summon your soul into His presence.
There are two things which specially demand our attention: (1.) The title here given to Christ; and (2.) The peace of which He is the Sovereign.
1. The title here given to Christ.
It signifies that Christ, as Mediator between God and men, has full sovereign authority. But there is one aspect of the doctrine to which we must direct your attention: the true, important and practical view that all the benefits of salvation have been purchased for His people by Christ alone. You will remember a particular emphasis given to this designation of prince when He addressed Jacob: “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed”. The title therefore suggests the abundant, prevailing power which Christ had essentially as God, when He appeared in our likeness and, by all His doings and sufferings, obtained the victory for His people. He obtained the victory over sin in its condemning power, enduring all that it merited as punishment from the justice of God, and securing to sinners, from God, the benefits promised in the covenant of grace. He did so by His own prevailing strength, as He likewise overthrew Satan’s dominion in the hearts of those whom He purposed to save.
He took out of the way what stood between their souls and the favour of God – which could never have been removed unless He had come as the Prince of Peace, to prevail, by His own Almighty power, in this fearful conflict. We would here also ask you to note what was said to Jacob: that as a prince he had power with men. There is an allusion here to Jacob’s circumstances at the time. Men had combined against him. His brother Esau, actuated by the worst passions of the human heart, came with armed forces, bent on Jacob’s destruction. How did Jacob prevail with men as a prince? Not by opposing strife to strife, but by acting in kindness, truly as a prince, disarming his brother’s mind of those evil passions by showing him kindness and love. He convinced Esau that, instead of Jacob cherishing toward him the evil designs which Esau suspected, he cherished towards him kindness and affection, and all the regard for his welfare and happiness which Esau could desire. It was unspeakably more than he might reasonably expect, considering his conduct to Jacob.
This important analogy is to remind you that sin has brought on our race ignorance of God, so that the human heart is filled with suspicions of God, with fear and terror and enmity. But Christ, the Prince who is spoken here, came and made known to sinners – as He now seeks to do to you individually – kindness and love. We, as Esau toward Jacob, naturally act to God, and to Christ personally, with evil suspicions, fears and enmity; and the evil passions of the natural mind. We reject Him and despise His salvation. The natural heart is jealous of Christ and of God, fearing that They demand from us too much homage, obedience and devotedness. The natural heart shrinks from giving these in the manner or measure required; it fears that this Prince will disturb us and rob us of our possessions, idols and joys. It arms itself therefore against receiving Christ and His glorious gospel; it calls to its aid everything it can of its own ingenuity and skill – to ward off the calls of Christ in the gospel, from the conscience and heart.
How much of this kind we see around us: the sinner dreads to be interfered with, or robbed of his pleasures, if he should receive Christ to rule in his soul. But this glorious Prince of Peace shows to every unbelieving soul here that He wishes your good – that He has everlasting benefits to bestow, of unspeakably greater value than those you possess – that He purchased them by sufferings unspeakably more awful than those of Jacob in a land of strangers. As He purchased them and now possesses them, He would impart them to you, and bless your soul in possessing them for ever.
It is when the mind is enlightened to see the grace of God in Jesus Christ, to understand the value of what Christ has purchased and would now bestow – it is then the mind is renewed with reference to God and to Christ. So Esau’s mind changed towards Jacob when he saw such princely gifts before him. If Esau had not seen those gifts, he would never have believed that Jacob was brotherly towards him; but the sight overcame him, and he was then reconciled. And while Christ, as the Prince of Peace, has purchased glorious eternal bounties for sinners like you, and now offers them freely to you, we would testify to every unconverted mind here that the sorest trespass you commit against your own everlasting well-being is not considering those things in their greatness, value and glory, which Christ is now offering to your souls as blessings for you.
It is both your guilt and your misery that you do not wish to think of these blessings, that you will not lay them to heart, that when they are urged on you, you turn your mind away. You must be conscious that this is your habit of mind. While it is so, how unworthy is your conduct towards the Prince of Peace! It is infinitely worse than that of Esau to Jacob and involves for you consequences infinitely more awful. You are urged to receive all these precious, eternal benefits. To everyone here who has not yet chosen Christ and His salvation, but positively neglects them; who does not yet feel that the favour of God is the life of your soul, who does not pursue it as life to you – what has been the effect on you of all these offers of Christ? Only that you still think evil of God and this glorious Prince of Peace.
Perhaps you do not willingly admit this charge. But consider, while you refuse to treat the salvation of Christ as the one thing needful; while you refuse to give to it your heart and mind above all other objects, you reject the Prince of Peace in His gracious offers. Why do you still refuse? It is because you judge that Christ’s authority, and the offers of Him in the gospel, would interfere with your comforts and your good. You will not part with them as your treasure – as you vainly suppose them to be – for the gifts which the Prince of Peace is offering. Do you not then dislike the authority and offers of the glorious Prince who makes them? Assuredly you do.
We solemnly entreat you to consider this. Will you not seek that He would give you the desire and the ability to ponder the things which belong to your peace? If you do not, how can you defend yourselves from the charge that you really dislike the whole matter? You cannot deny this in the presence of an all-seeing God. Such a state of your mind is positive enmity, but to be restored from it is peace and salvation. The Prince of Peace waits to be gracious to you. Come then to Him, while He yet calls to you, to be instructed by His Spirit and become sharers in His everlasting benefits.
We would offer some counsel to those who have been brought to seek salvation as the one thing needful. While Christ is held forth to you in the Word as the Prince of Peace, and while this title signifies that He has purchased every benefit you stand in need of, it is your safety to feel continually that He is the purchaser of them, whatever special benefits, or grace, or help you seek, as you feel your present need. Do you not know, ever since you were made earnest about salvation, that you have been prone to attach much more importance to your asking and seeking, as a means of receiving, than to the purchasing work of Christ? In your supplications and prayers, has your mind been directed to Him as the Prince who conquered for sinners? That is why you ask and receive not – because you ask amiss.
Even when you thought you had, for the time, clear views of the work of Christ as the only way of purchasing the benefits you sought, how sad it is when you again lose sight of Him as the Prince of Peace, conquering for sinners, and purchasing the benefits! And while you longed to receive them, your mind again settled down into thinking more that you have asked and performed your duties, than that He has purchased. Perhaps every wish you expressed for the needed benefit, and every hope that you would yet receive it, was much more connected with your deeds than with the sufferings of Christ. On the former you leaned as a ground of hope in God, and not on the latter. Now, in such a state, you have been turning away from Christ as a Prince, and trusting to yourselves. It is true He commands the means and the duties which you have observed; it is true that He promises benefits to those who seek, and your commanded course most truly is to seek them.
But this seeking is not the purchasing; this has all been done already by Christ; the benefits are in His own hands, to bestow them, as the Prince who obtained them. You must therefore come to see Him by faith as your Prince; you must seek this believing view of Him to rule your mind. Your prayers, your every duty must be performed at the foot of His cross, beholding Him there as the mighty, glorious Prince who achieved all things for sinners, the Sovereign who now has them as purchased benefits to bestow. Seek therefore from Him, through His gracious Spirit, that this believing view might be given you and continually upheld in your mind. While you come short of it in practice, you come short of true peace. As Christ is the Prince of Peace to His people, He must be so in this view: in His purchasing work, in His power to conquer, before they become sharers in that peace which He gives and which He seeks that all His own people should enjoy.
This is a view which continually humbles the mind; it makes the spirit contrite – feeling that you have not merited bounties of peace but inflictions of wrath, that your personal sinfulness renders you wholly unworthy. This is the truth – a true view for the believing soul. It is the view in which peace, consolation and joy will begin to come in and abound, notwithstanding the believer’s knowledge of himself. He sees that in Christ all the purchasing work is already finished, that in Christ the power and the love to bestow reign with eternal and unchangeable fulness. Christ therefore declared, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. If the mind is effectually awakened to consider the things which belong to its peace, it is as impossible for it to have true establishment or comfort or hope, without this believing view of Christ, as it is to enjoy light, warmth and comfort on earth, without the natural sun rising and shining on it.
2. The peace which it is the purchase and property of Christ, the Prince of Peace, to bestow.
We would ever seek to impress it upon you, as the leading characteristic of this peace, that it is peace with God as opposed to the temper of mind which every son and daughter of Adam naturally shows to God in their unconverted state. As this temper of mind is put into practice, it is in opposition to the will and government of God, in what He requires of us and what He would have us to be and what He offers to us as our everlasting portion. This peace includes reconciliation of the mind and soul – in its principles and powers, and in its desires and habits – to the will and government of God over us individually, to what He would have us to be, and to what He offers to us as our everlasting inheritance. It is anything but a peace and contentment with ourselves in our natural estate and condition, anything but a peace with sin and contentment in sin ruling over us, or a peace or enjoyment in its ways.
A peace with God implies, as its primary element, a knowledge of God, a cherished view of His glorious perfections and divine character, and of that sovereignty over His creatures which is His by eternal right. It implies a reconciliation, in each one who enjoys this peace, to God in exercising that sovereignty over the individuals themselves – who know Him, and whom grace makes obedient to Him. Now, it is through Christ that this knowledge of God has been given. And when it has been received by the mind and applied by the Holy Spirit, sinners are reconciled to God.
We would seek to appeal to your consciousness about a feeling which is inherent in the mind of man by nature, a distant sort of conviction that there may be, or is, a God. But when this is the only knowledge of God exercising the mind, it is accompanied by a dread of God, a shrinking from the sense of His authority over you, and a dislike of the demands He makes on your obedience and love. Now, very much of this temper of mind is most obviously the fruit of spiritual ignorance concerning God. Christ has revealed the Father; He has shown to us what God is: that He is merciful and gracious, and bears toward sinners an everlasting love, that He freely offers to you everlasting happiness for your soul. Of this He has given the clearest proofs through Jesus Christ. God has made clear the way for you to be reconciled to God – in Him, the Prince of Peace. Not only has Christ made known the character of God, but Christ has in Himself made provision for the temper of mind to be removed which naturally reigns in you – to be subdued and done away in your heart and spirit.
He invites you to contemplate His mercy, grace and love, as exhibited to you in His finished work, that you might be thus reconciled to God. God gives you the assurance in His Word that, if you come to Christ, your sins will be pardoned, accounted no longer to you, and that your soul will be accepted guiltless before Him, for the sake of what Christ has suffered and done. And He assures you that you shall be treated as His children, enjoying the blessing and favour of God. All these privileges Christ has procured, who is Himself God and the Saviour, and who has the divine authority, power and will to make you possess a mind and heart reconciled to God, and at peace with Him. But you cannot possess this peace without being brought to Christ, without you coming to Him, without you seeking and obtaining the knowledge of Him, as He is set forth in the gospel, full of grace and truth, and now exalted in heaven, to bestow on you this peace with God, as His own purchased gift.
From what has been already advanced on the first head of this discourse, is it not obvious to you individually that you need such a peace with God, such a reconciliation with Him, as would incline you effectually to seek to God, and not to retreat from Him? Is it not obvious that such a peace and reconciliation would dispose you to cultivate communion with God and to be obedient to His divine authority and will? That you do not have such dispositions naturally, we consider to be a matter made out in all plainness to you already, and yet unless you are actually brought to have such dispositions and desires, you have no peace with God. And though you may name the name of Christ, and profess Him outwardly in solemn services, yet He is not to you “the Prince of Peace”.
Such a peace with God, such a reconciliation to His government, character and will, as would have the effect of preserving in your mind a supreme desire to serve and glorify Him as the great end of your being, is of unspeakably great value. It establishes the mind in peace and security on the most assured and unchangeable foundations. It enables the soul to contemplate God as its friend; it strengthens the soul to wait habitually on God, as manifested in Christ, for every needed blessing, for time and eternity. Yet it gives no security that individuals shall be given what will gratify their natural desires in the present life which they are by nature prone to seek as their principal good. But it gives them the immeasurably better assurance that God freely offers to them in Jesus Christ: a glorious, eternal and unfading inheritance; an assurance that their true happiness does not depend on the transitory objects of the present world.
But when all those things have passed away which they who do not know God seek after, there will be awaiting for those who do know Him, what ear has not heard, what eye has not seen, and what it has not entered into the mind of man to think, of glory and eternal happiness. Surely what establishes the mind on such sure and unchangeable prospects of safety and happiness, is well worthy of being called peace. This conquers the world in all its sorrows and pains, in all its grievances and vexations; and it gives a cheering hope to the mind – a hope based on the word and promise of the eternal God of truth – that whatever evils afflict the individual in his person or circumstances in the life that now is, they are sent in mercy, wisdom and kindness, and will all be the means of contributing to his everlasting good.
But let us remember that none of these blessings can be enjoyed without a believing view of God, as a God in Christ, without this view being continually cherished. And if you feel the difficulty of realising this, it is indeed your weakness and your spiritual disease; but there is an ample remedy for this in the covenant of grace, of which the Prince of Peace is the living and glorious Head. The Spirit of truth is willing to come to dwell with you, that you may have His enlightening and convincing power. So this view of God as a God in Christ, merciful, gracious and faithful, will be upheld in your mind, and you will enjoy the blessedness of those whose minds are stayed on the Lord. And He shall keep your mind in perfect peace. To the believer, then, there is manifested, through the gospel, the will of God to bestow eternal happiness and glory on him as an individual soul. This has been purchased for you by Christ, believer, Christ now has this to bestow; all the calls of God upon the believer are for his own good.
The unbelieving mind does not accept this, it does not understand. Being mad on its idols, it does not seek to understand. But if we truly behold the will of God to be gracious to sinners, a primary element of everlasting peace with God is conveyed to the soul and established there, and it shall remain for ever. Like every other element of spiritual life, this view of the character of God, when received, is eternal, for it is truth itself – it is the true manifestation of the character of God.
Again this peace, of which Christ is the Prince, implies a believing view in the mind of the beauty, excellence and glory of the character of God in His essential attributes: the infinity of His being, His eternity and self-existence, His everlasting sovereignty and dominion, His unchangeableness and perfection of being, His wisdom, His power, His holiness, His justice, His goodness and His truth. When these attributes are seen, by a spiritual enlightening of the mind, not only does the believer become reconciled to them, but he feels it to be his duty and privilege for his mind to become submissive to God, and he begins to love God for what He is in Himself, as well as for what He is willing to be to unworthy, guilty sinners. Christ has clearly revealed all those attributes of God, in such a way that they are all magnified and made honourable in the forgiveness of the guilty, in the sanctifying of the polluted soul of the sinner, and in him receiving glory, honour and immortality from God, as the purchased gifts of Christ.
Such a believing view of God as this, when manifested to the soul by Jesus Christ, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, attracts the soul to God with ardour of spiritual attachment and a godly desire of heart. The sinner is now ashamed of his sin, as committed against so glorious and so gracious a being, and sincerely repents of it. He abhors sin and seeks to flee from it, anxious to strive against its ruling power in the mind. Formerly he was at peace with sin, and at enmity with God; now he is at peace with God, reconciled to Him, and at enmity with sin. This is an essential change upon the spiritual character of the human mind.
Do not deceive yourselves by imagining that you are the subjects of this Prince of Peace, if you neither possess nor truly desire the peace which He purchased, and which He offers to bestow. Let each one of you see to your own state of soul. You must be either the friends or the enemies of God and of Christ. Strangers to this peace with God are His enemies; but He is a gracious God and still beseeches you to be reconciled to Him, to seek from Him, by Jesus Christ, that knowledge of His will and character which would bring your souls into friendship and union with Him.