I leave peace with you; I give *my* peace to you not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it fear.
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The Setting
Spoken in the upper room on the eve of the cross, John 14:27 is the Lord's parting bequest to His own as He prepares them for His departure. Two questions rise from the verse: what kind of peace is left, and why is its source unlike anything the world can offer?
Two Distinct Peaces
Commentators are careful to distinguish the two clauses. They are not a poetic doubling but two real gifts:
MagazinesThere 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."
The first is peace for us, settled at the cross; the second is the peace of Christ Himself, shared with us:
MagazinesChrist never needed the peace which we did as having been at enmity with God; and yet was it His to enjoy peace, after a sort, which had never been before. Therefore He adds, not merely, "Peace I leave with you," but, "My peace I give unto you," the peace which He ever enjoyed, which reigned within Him and lit up all around Him.
The Peace He Left — A Legacy from His Death
The first half of the verse looks back to Calvary. It is the righteous portion of the believer:
MagazinesJesus "leaves" peace with us as a last legacy that comes to us from His death, peace the righteously won portion for the soul that believes in His name.
"My Peace" — His Own Unruffled Communion
The second half lifts the disciple into the very atmosphere Christ Himself walked in. William Kelly draws this out plainly:
William KellyThroughout the Lord supposes His death. This was necessary to peace; His own peace goes farther still. It was the peace He enjoyed while here — a peace unruffled by circumstances, and in unbroken communion with His Father; a peace as far as possible from man's heart, in such a world as this... He Who gives it gave it not away, and had it not the less because we were to receive it. Like all else that He gives, it is enjoyed unimpaired in its own Divine fulness, every one that shares rather adding to it than taking from it.
This deeper boon flows fresh from His own heart:
Magazines"My peace" seems to be a deeper and more personal boon, not procured by His work only, but fresh from His own heart which was ever filled with it to overflowing. It supposes the peace that He has made for us by the blood of His cross and left to us; but it follows on and puts us wondrously in communion with Himself, enjoying now the peace He Himself enjoyed.
"Not as the World Gives"
The world's giving always costs the giver and rarely satisfies the receiver; Christ's giving brings the receiver into His own enjoyment without loss:
J. N. Darby"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The way that Christ gives is to bring us into the enjoyment of all that He enjoys Himself. "In the world ye shall have tribulation." He leaves us His own path.
A magazine writer adds that biblical peace is not the world's "absence of war" but something stronger — peace in the midst of war — the very calm that marked the Lord at the breaking of bread when "all Satan's power and more was about to be let loose upon Him" (Magazines).
"Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled"
The verse closes with a holy logic. If His peace is ours, fear has no footing:
William KellyWhy, indeed, with His peace, should the heart be confounded or fearful?
Darby points to the inner certainty of this:
J. N. DarbyIn Christ I see a divine heart, reflecting the perfect certainty of a love whose perfection cannot be questioned. It is peace. Now He says to us, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."
Summary
- Two peaces. "Peace I leave" settles the conscience through the blood of the cross; "My peace I give" admits us into Christ's own communion with the Father.
- A legacy. The first peace is the disciple's righteously-won portion, bequeathed from His death.
- A shared atmosphere. The second is the very calm that ruled in Christ — unruffled by circumstance, undiminished by being shared.
- Unlike the world. The world's gifts cost the giver and fail the receiver; Christ brings us into the enjoyment of all He enjoys Himself.
- The cure for fear. Possessing His peace, the believer has no rational ground to be troubled or afraid.