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1871 246 There are two characters of peace presented to us in this verse. "Peace I leave with you" is not the same thing as "My peace I give unto you." Peace we need in every form. Peace we need first of all for the conscience, and the Lord would set the consciences of His disciples happy and free before God. Now this was one, and indeed we may say the main, object of our Lord's coming here — specially of His death. As we are told elsewhere, "He made peace through the blood of his cross." And so in the fulness of this peace, when He rises from the dead, first He says, "Peace be unto you," a peace that so suffices, so overflows, that our Lord repeats it a second time in connection with the mission on which He was sending them out. "Peace be unto you. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you … Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."