Righteousness First, Then Peace

Heb. vii. 2

Finl being by interpretation King of Righteousnesi, and after that also King of Salem, which is King of Peace,” — HXB. vii 2.

HE mysterious figure of Melchisedec is here taken as being a significant allegory of Jesus Christ. That figure starts out of the history in Genesis with a strange abruptness. He unites in himself the two offices, the separation of which was essential in Judaism, and the union of whicl. has so often been a curse — of King and priest. He has no recorded ancestors or predecessors, and no sons or successors, and the absence of any mention of those from whom he received, or to whom he bequeathed, his double functions, suggested to the author of Psalm ex. the use of Melchisedec as a type of the eternal priesthood of the mysterious monarch whose conquering kingdom he foretold. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews echoes the Psalm, but adds some other points to th prophetic significance of the dim figure of that ancient priest-king. His name is probably significant — “king of righteousness” — expressive of hi personal character, of the animating principle of his dominion and the purpose of his reign. The name of his city is significant — “Salem”: that is, peace. Amidst the barbarisms of the military monarchies of the time, this strange figure stands as a witness of the aspirations of man after a dominion which is not a tyranny or founded on arbitrary will, and of a realm in which the swords are beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning-hooks.

But our writer sees still a further significance in the order in which the names occur. Of course, this is a play of fancy, but it is fancy which pierces deeply into fact. Christ is “King of Righteousness,” and after that, and only “after that, also King of Peace.” The order of designation is the order of manifestation, and in it the writer finds a symbol of some of the deepest things about Christ and His kingdom. I want to point out in two or three words some various applications of this thought.

I. — First, then, we find in this order a hieroglyphic of Christ’s reconciling work.

First, King of Righteousness, afterwards King of Peace. There is no peace and amity with God possible, except on the basis of righteousness. If we are to believe that he is indifferent to moral distinctions, and that men hating righteousness and loving iniquity can live in friendship and concord with Him, then all our hopes are gone, and

Tbe i^IIared firmamefnt were rottenness
And earth’s base built on stubble.

It is a true gospel, however harsh it sounds, which proclaims “Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in iniquity, neither shall the wicked dwell in Thy sight.” This is the dictate of conscience; this is the dictate of what people call “natural religion.” This, the necessity of righteousness for friendship with God, is the message of the old covenant; and this, the absolute need of purity and cleanness of life and heart for all true enjoyment of the Divine favour, is Christ’s message as truly.

Nay, further, the first thing which the Gospel — which Christ, who is the Gospel — does when He comes into a man’s heart is to emphasize two facts, — the absolute need for righteousness in order to friendship with God, and the want of it in the heart to which He has come. And so the conflict is intensified, the sense of discord is kindled, the alienation between man and God is made conscious on the first entrance of Christ into the spirit. Instead of coming with peace. He comes with a sword, a sword which pierces to the “dividing asunder of the joints and marrow and to the discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The oil comes after the arrow, the bandage after the wound. The bandage and the oil have no blessing or preciousness, except the wound and the arrow come first. And the first word of the peace-bringing Christ, whose mission it is to reconcile men with God, deepens and aggravates, sometimes to despair, and always to bitterness, the consciousness of a separation between man and God.

First, King of Righteousness, and after that King of Peace. For when once the consciousness of alienation, enmity (or at least the absence of concord), has been kindled in the heart, then the next step is the gift of righteousness. “Being justified by faith we have peace with God.” We do not need to plunge here into the subtleties of technical theology, but here is the great message round which all the power of Christianity has centred, and from which it all flows, that by humble faith in Jesus Christ, we may all be so united to Him as that we may receive pardon, and stand before God as righteous, and obtain the grant of a true new spirit of righteousness and purity. Christ, by our union with Him, becomes our righteousness in no mere artificial and forensic sense, but in this most deep and real sense, that He, by His Divine power, pours Himself into the trusting heart, and thereby turns its evil into good, and makes it, though but in germ, in its deepest centre righteous and loving righteousness. Joined to Him, our faith receives the righteousness which is of God, and is ours through Christ.

And so the peace comes. First, as King of Righteousness, He bestows His own righteousness upon us, and makes us, therefore, capable, and only thereby capable of entering into loving relationship with God Himself. On the hearts thus pardoned and cleansed, as upon some mirror, polished from its rust and stains, the living sunshine can fall, and play, and create the image of itself on the now brilliant but once dark surface. He is King of Peace because He is King of Righteousness.

Dear brethren, here are the two great principles which this text enforces upon us: no peace with God without righteousness; no way of getting righteousness but union with Jesus Christ.

II. — And so, secondly, I see in this order a summary of Christ’s operations in the individual soul.

There is no inward harmony, no peace of heart and quietness of nature, except on condition of being good and righteous men. The real root of all our agitations and distractions is our sinfulness; and wherever there creeps over a heart the love of evil, there comes, like some subtle sea-born mist stealing up over the country and blotting out all its features, a poisonous obscuration which shrouds all the spirit in its doleful folds. Disturbance comes not so much from outward causes as from an inward alienation towards that which is pure and good. “The wicked is as the troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” When your consciences are pulling one way and your lusts another, when the flesh is fighting against the spirit, and, if I may so say, the spirit has its back to the wall and is vainly trying to beat down the impulses of the stinging flesh; when reason says, “Don’t,” and inclination says, “But I will/* what tranquillity is there possible for you? The only way by which we can walk in peace is by living in righteousness. “The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.”

And now, remember, by righteousness we do not mean any abstract theological virtue, but we mean the plain dictates of conscience obeyed; that you shall be good men, even in the world’s sense of goodness; we mean that you shall be just, chaste, temperate, self-controlling, gentle, placable, kind, enduring, practising “whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report.” And it is the hearty love of these, and the continual cultivation of them, that alone can bring secure peace to the heart. You will get these, and the desire for them, only by keeping close to Christ that He may bestow them, as He will, upon you. Peace within comes from righteousness within, and no man is righteous unless he has Christ’s righteousness for the very spring and strength of his life.

III. — Thirdly, I see in this order the programme of Christ’s operations in the world.

The herald angels sang “on earth peace.” Nineteen centuries have passed, and Christianity is still a revolutionary and disturbing element wherever it comes, and the promise seems to linger, and the great words that declared “Unto us a child” should “be born “... and His name shall be... “the Prince of Peace,” seem as far away from fulfilment as ever they were. Yes, because He is first of all King of Righteousness, and must destroy the evil that is in the world before He can manifest Himself as King of Peace.

So the very psalm on which my text is founded, with its singular vision of a priest-king scarcely paralleled in the whole course of Messianic prophecy, whilst it sets forth the dim figure of a priest after the order of Melchisedec, arrays him in the garb of a warrior, and shows us his armies following him in the conflict. David and Solomon have both to be taken together, and in the order in which they reigned, in order to complete the programme of Christ’s work in the world. His coming brings effervescence and tumult. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.’* And so, blessed be His name! it will always be. “In righteousness He doth judge and make war.” His kingdom of peace will be set up through confusion and destruction, overturning and overturning until the world has learned to know and love His name. First, King of Righteousness — that, at all hazards — that, though conflict may dog His steps and warfare ever wait upon Him — first. King of Righteousness, and a/ier that, King of Peace.

So learn the duty of His servants. There are plenty of us who seek in our religion comfort, pleasant emotion, a sense of the Divine favour, an assurance of pardon, a hope of Heaven, with a great deal more earnestness than we seek in it a means of conquering our own sins and of helping us to conquer the world’s sin.

Let us beware of all forms of Christianity which either fail to answer the question, “How can an unrighteous man find peace with God y” or which fail to answer the question, “How can I make myself more and more pure and good?” or which fail to send the Christian warrior out into the world with a religion in his hand which is not only his own balm and comfort, his own support and strength, but also his weapon, mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds.

If we are the followers of the Prince of Peace, who is, first of all, King of Righteousness, we are called to be His faithful servants and soldiers. For all the social evils that swarm round about us to-day, intemperance, impurity, commercial dishonesty, follies of fashionable and of social life and the like, for all teachings that dim and darken the face of His great counsel and purpose of mercy, we are to cherish an undying hatred, and war against them an unceasing warfare.

My text ought to be as a trumpet call to every Christian man, banishing the foolish dreams of a selfish and ignoble peace, and awaking him to the consciousness that peace is only to be won through long, continued conflict, and that to seek for tranquillity before we have fought the fight is an anachronism, and to indulge ourselves in quiet repose whilst the world lieth in the wicked one is treason to our Master and a misreading of His Gospel. The” men that turn the world upside down ‘* was the designation of the early Christians, Ye are called to peace, but ye are called to fight for peace, and to win it by your swords. So far to-day the task is conflict, and for to morrow the assurance is victory and repose.

IV. — And that brings me to the last word. I see in this order the prophecy of the end.

The true Salem, the city of peace, is not here. One more conflict every soldier of the Cross, ere he treads its pavement, has to wage with thn last enemy who is to be destroyed by Jesus Christ, but to be destroyed only at “the end.*’ For us and for the world the assurance stands firm that

:2J RIGffTEOUSXESS FIRST, THEN PEACE.

the King, ho Himself is Righteousness, is the King whose city is peace. And that city will come. ‘*I saw the New Jerusalem descending out of Heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband,” and within its streets there shall be no tumult nor conflict, and its gates need not be “shut day nor night” ‘’The kindly earth shall slumber,” lapped in universal law, the law cf the King of Righteousness. He at last, after that awful final conflict when the armies of Heaven ride forth behind Him whose name is the Word of God, shall be manifested as the eternal and peaceful King.

So, dear brethren, the sum of the whole thing is, peace is sure; peace with God; peace in my oti tranquil and righteous heart; peace for a world, from out of which sin shll be scourged; peace is sure, because righteou-ness is ours, since it is Christ’s. And for ourselves, if we want — and who does not want? — to “be found of Him in peace, without spot b]an.eless,” let us see to it that we * are found, not having our own righteousness, but ihat which is of God through faith.” Christ is King of Peace only to those to whom Hf has l.ecome, through th-ir humble trust, the King of Righteou:>nes&.