“Peace” in the Bible isn’t just the stop of conflict; it’s a state of wholeness or completeness. But something gets in the way of us experiencing this state of being.

By nature and by choice, we’re all sinners, which means we’re fractured, and our relationship to God, others, and even creation itself is ruptured. For us to experience the wholeness of peace, God must first reconcile us to Himself.

Experiencing and spreading peace, then, begins with God’s independent, loving choice to rescue sinners–both from their sin and His justice against sin–a choice the Bible calls “predestination." One of the clearest pictures of predestination comes from Deuteronomy 7:6-8:

“The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession [...] because the LORD loves you [...] the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery...”

God makes it clear that reconciling sinners to Himself has nothing to do with their goodness or loveliness; He reconciles because He loves. And this reconciliation begins with a rescue.

In the Bible, sin is equated with slavery, so when God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt, He gave us a historical foreshadowing of what He would one day do through His Son, Jesus: rescue His people from the ultimate slavery of sin so that their relationship with Him, other people, and creation itself could be restored.

With this reconciliation, sinners are given Jesus's wholeness as a gift, and the Holy Spirit’s peace-making power flows from within, making Christians vessels of God’s peace throughout the world.