The Father promises his people in Leviticus 26: “I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.”
David speaks to the Lord: “You, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 29 affirms, “The Lord will bless his people with peace,” and Psalm 85 declares, “The Lord will speak peace to his people.”
A prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah calls him the “Prince of Peace.” And, of course, Isaiah 26 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you.”
Perhaps the clearest example of “the Lord is peace” in the Old Testament is found in Judges 6, where Gideon, having encountered the Angel of the Lord and fearing for his life, builds an altar to the Lord and names it “The Lord is Peace.” Though he was afraid he would die, he did not.
The apostle Paul frequently refers to God in this way. He already does so in Romans 15, momentarily signing off with the words: “May the God of peace be with you all.”
Elsewhere, in his first letter to the Corinthians, he reminds them that God is not a God of confusion but of peace. In his second letter to them, he writes: “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace—and the God of love and peace will be with you.”
To the Philippians, he says: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practise these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4).
To the Thessalonians: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely” (1 Thessalonians 5).
And in Hebrews 13: “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant…” and so on.
