“Confess me before men! Whoever confesses me, I will confess in heaven before God and the angels.” Whoever denies Christ—fails to confess him when called; fails all this weary life long—Jesus will deny before his Father.

How clever man can become in denying Christ, deceiving many and himself that he is, in fact, following Christ. Such a man does not fool Christ, who sees the heart. And when that clever confessor comes before Christ, that man will hear these terrifying words that seal his eternal destiny: “Depart from me, wicked evildoer. I know not whence ye are. I never knew you.”

Confession of Christ—and denial of Christ—is the inevitable result of the coming of Jesus Christ. When he comes, he lays hold on the hearts and thus on the souls, minds, mouths, tongues, and the entire existences of his elect people. He makes them his own by his indwelling Spirit, so that it is not we who speak but the Spirit of the Lord who is in us; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the Lord himself. His people are engrafted as branches into him, the vine, and they produce the good fruit of confession. And when Jesus comes into the believer, the believer confesses Christ before men. The believer confesses Christ before men; he confesses Christ at work, in his home, with his wife and children, with his father and mother and sisters and brothers, with his grandfather and grandmother, and before the whole world. He confesses Christ where he has his church membership. He confesses Christ in word and in deed, both in the confession of the truth of Christ and in the ordering of his life according to that truth and the law of God.

Oh, if for a time the believer does say that he will not speak Christ’s word, then he will be as a boiling pot that cannot be contained.

Yes, if he sinfully and shamefully denies his Lord—what a wretch man is—he, too, will go out like Peter and weep bitter tears of repentance; and his Lord will come to console him and will ask him whether he loves Christ. Surely, the believer will respond, “Thou knowest, Lord, that I love thee!”

He will confess Christ.

The believer cannot do otherwise. For Christ has come, come into him, and made him new. Christ sounds out through the believer at work, in his home, with his family, in his church membership, among his friends, and before the world. He is a living testimony to Christ in all he says and does.

All who confess Christ will Christ confess in heaven. All who deny Christ will he deny.

But when you confess, do not think that Christ is come to send peace on the earth: he came not to send peace but a sword!

Painful, sharp, hard—divisive—confession of Christ.

How common, how dreadfully common, is the thought that Christ is come to bring peace on the earth! How varied are the forms of this terrible misconception! Jesus’ disciples themselves were guilty of thinking that when Jesus came—and indeed when he had come—he would establish an earthly kingdom of peace and riches.

The world and the false church sing of Jesus’ coming in lyric strains about peace on earth and goodwill toward men. They suppose Jesus came for earthly peace, earthly justice, earthly happiness, and for the benefit of their earthly lives. It never crosses their minds that the disciples of Christ are killed all the day and all history long and that justice is rarely served in this life. If the idea does cross their minds, they react viscerally against the idea with hatred and venom. They labor for a carnal kingdom and call for this kind of kingdom in their books and writings. Urgent calls are issued for churches to lay down their swords and to join with others to labor for peace on earth.

But this carnal misconception of Jesus Christ comes much, much closer to home. “Do not think that I am come to bring peace in your life—among your acquaintances, your family, and your friends, at your church, in your school, in your home, at your coffee hour, on your jobsite, or in your email inbox.”

Not peace but a sword!

But does not this contradict the rest of scripture, which speaks of peace in Christ’s coming? Yes, Jesus brings peace. He is the revelation of the God of peace. God is the God of peace not only because he makes it, but also because he is peace in himself. He lives in perfect harmony with himself. In him there are no contradictions, no struggle, no warfare, and no frustration—not the least ripple of disharmony mars his being. He lives in perfect, blessed covenant fellowship and friendship in himself among the three persons of his divine being. Blessed God of peace.

His peace he gives. He gives it in Christ. In Christ God made peace. When Christ was born, the army of angels sang of peace. The night sky was filled with angels, and the hills around Bethlehem and the sacred halls of heaven reverberated with their song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace toward men of God’s goodwill.”

The Old Testament prophets from Moses to Malachi also spoke about peace, and none more eloquently than Isaiah, who sang the song of the new heavens and new earth. He sang of the everlasting reign of the Prince of Peace; of a world of perfect righteousness; of a creation in which the ox, the ass, the lamb, the lion, and the wolf all lie down together in peace, so that the whole creation lives in everlasting, uninterruptible peace. Lovely peace.

There is only peace in righteousness, so there is only peace in Jesus Christ. He alone has righteousness, the very righteousness of God worked out at Christ’s cross for God’s people. So the apostles, as the heirs of the prophets, spoke of God’s people being justified by faith, of their sins being forgiven, of their warfare being accomplished, and of divine righteousness being freely imputed to all and everyone who does not work but believes the gospel. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By his gospel he establishes peace in his church. Jesus has broken down the middle wall of partition and established peace between Jew and Gentile in his church, out of two making one new man and so making peace. He brings peace to believers, a peace that passes all understanding and that keeps our hearts and our minds in every circumstance. For if God be for us, then who or what can be against us? In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Jesus brings peace. He is peace. He establishes peace. He perfects peace in his kingdom and forever.

But peace on earth Christ does not send.

Not peace but a sword!

A sword is an instrument of war, division, and death. The sword is the power to take away a man’s property, liberty, and life. The deep cause of the sword is hatred. Because one man hates another man, he takes up the sword against the one he hates in order to kill him. The sword is the weapon of warfare, suffering, division, and death, which arises out of an intense hatred. Defining the sword, Christ says, “To set a man at variance.” Christ comes to send division, warfare, and strife.

“Do not think that I come to bring peace on the earth.”

Not peace but division!

It is division that takes place in nations of the world, so that certain members of the nation drag other members of the nation before kings and counselors in order to try them, condemn them, and kill them.

It is division that comes into churches. Jesus warns that men will deliver you up to the councils and scourge you in the synagogues. These were the councils, consistories, and churches of his day. Members falsely will charge other members before the consistory. Ministers wickedly will charge other ministers. Elders deceitfully will charge their ministers with crimes beyond belief. Members will hate other members. The back of church will be a killing gallery of evil whispers and murderous looks. The assemblies of the church will be viper pits, where if one as much as twitches he is a dead man. There is division in the council, in the consistory, at the classis, and at the synod; so that there is no unanimity, no comradery, no mutual affection, but hatred and division. There is unrest in the congregation, members leave, and families are divided on the same church question. This division might begin with simple dissent. The division progresses until the votes pass by a smaller and smaller margin, and consistory meetings drag on with endless discussions. Then, perhaps, motion after motion fails on a tie vote. Much evil is hidden for many years by smooth words. But when the carnal element has the majority, the truth is cast out by vote.

It is division that comes into families. “Oh, confess me before men!” They will hate you! The world? Yes, the world will hate you. The false church? Yes, it will malign you. But so will your brother. A man’s enemies will be those of his own household. Lord, but my wife, my children, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my friends?

“Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth!”

Not peace but a sword!

Christ’s coming into one and not another divides a son against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Christ divides between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, between cousins and uncles and aunts, between grandchildren and grandparents; so that there are strife, arguments, disagreements, hatred, enmity, and warfare. Christ rips apart Sunday coffee hours, birthday party gatherings, and family get-togethers. He divides in the home, church, and school.

Christ does!

When he comes.

Not peace but a sword!

In the family.

There is no righteousness in many, so that there is treachery against the truth. There is the treachery of a wife against her husband, a child against his parents, or parents against the children. Treachery is the breach of a sacred trust, so that the most intimate bonds of human fellowship and relationship are violated. A brother delivers up his brother to be killed. A child betrays his parents to the authorities, or the father rises up against his children to cause them to be put to death. In order to save their lives, officebearers betray their sacred trust to love the truth and to defend it at all costs. Secret meetings are held, and open rebellions are fomented.

There is no love of the truth in many, so there is hatred of the truth. Men put other men who confess the truth on trial, condemn them, scourge them, slander them, and shake their heads at them.

For those who are so despitefully used, there is disappointment, discouragement, trouble, and affliction of every conceivable kind: indescribable, excruciating, crushing psychological and spiritual anguish; numbing bewilderment; terrible, paralyzing, agonizing fear.

The husband confesses, and the wife of his bosom tells him, “I do not believe what you believe, and I hate you for what you believe. I am angry at you for bringing this trouble into our marriage. I am leaving you because of what you believe and confess.” The father tells his daughter who sacrifices all for the truth’s sake and who leaves the apostatizing church and joins the true that she is sinning. The mother-in-law—if she will talk to her at all—lays all the blame for the family troubles on her daughter-in-law. The friend forsakes his friend, and the brother shamelessly kills the brother.

This sword brings death into the mind, heart, relationships, and life of the child of God. Jesus says that. “He who finds his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it.” If only all that Christ talked about was physical death; for in such a circumstance, death would be a relief that at last brought an end to the suffering of the child of God from this painful, devouring sword that has devoured his marriage, his family, his livelihood, his relationships, and seemingly all his former life.

When Jesus comes, the devouring sword of division, hatred, and warfare comes. All history long in his coming, this is true.

He came into the garden of Eden, and what was the word of God concerning his coming? Enmity! Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, yes. Then warfare with the devil and all his seed. There was peace on earth for a few awful moments between Adam and Eve and Satan, and thus there was war between Adam and Eve and God. War with God is terrible. War with God means that the holy and righteous God in all the fullness of his perfectly glorious and good being stands against the sinner to destroy the sinner, so that his whole earthly life and all that he receives in that earthly life stand against him and serve his condemnation. In Eden the human race in Adam stood at war with God. Better war with the whole world than war with God. Better peace with God and warfare with the world.

And into Eden God himself personally came and preached peace. God preached Jesus, and God established peace in the hearts and lives of Adam and Eve by the preaching of Jesus. God forgave their sin—terrible sin—and he imputed to them righteousness, the promised righteousness of Jesus Christ, and there God made peace between them and him and reconciled them in their hearts and minds with him by faith in Jesus Christ.

And with that act of God’s grace, massive, history-long enmity and division came into the earth.

The whole history of the Old Testament bears witness to the coming of the sword in the coming of the promised Jesus. Old Testament history is nothing more and nothing less than the history of the coming of Jesus Christ in all the promises and prophecies and in all the types and ceremonies.

What a bloody history! Cain and Abel. Enoch would have been killed, but the Lord took him. Noah and his family had to be saved from the threatening world by water. Jacob and Esau warred in the womb. The whole wretched history of Joseph was one of this murderous sword. The bloody history of Israel. Nation rising against nation, city against city, kingdom against kingdom, people against people, and family against family. The persecution of Israel in Egypt and the Lord’s destruction of the Egyptians. The Levites’ killing their own brethren within the nation and Israel’s killing the Canaanites in the wars of the conquest: city after city, army after army, people after people destroyed. The wars of David; the division of the kingdom; the captivity; the hatred of Haman, the Edomite.

Then Christ came in the flesh. He came, and there was more blood. The babies of Bethlehem at the hands of Herod’s murderous soldiers: a terrible judgment at Christ’s coming. Christ came preaching, and there was division among the people because of him. There was division among his disciples because of him: one betrayed Jesus with a kiss; they all forsook him and fled; another denied him with cursing and swearing. The church council tried Jesus and condemned him in secret and in the dead of night. The false church betrayed him to the world, and the world executed him as a common criminal.

Not peace but a sword!

Everything is peaceful until Christ comes! War with God but peace on earth. Peace among nations, peace among the apostate, peace in families, peace among brothers and sisters, peace among husbands and wives, peace among parents and children, and peace among grandparents and grandchildren. Many convivial coffee hours, happy get-togethers, fun vacations, and pleasant beach days.

Until Christ comes; then a sword, and all is torn to shreds.

Salvation!

Christ personally is the realization of the promise of peace. In him God and man are perfectly and permanently united together. As God and man in perfect union, Christ also suffered the sword himself. In suffering that sword, he also accomplished salvation. He earned and merited perfect righteousness, holiness, satisfaction, and redemption. He established peace by his cross. He accomplished the reconciliation of his people and brought them to God through the blood of the cross.

And Christ comes in the preaching of the truth of the gospel. Not just preaching but the preaching of the truth of the gospel! Preaching, mere words of men—sometimes moving, sometimes emotional, and sometimes full of earthly wisdom and earthly power, but always and only the words of men—never bring a sword. Under such preaching there will be peace on the earth; peace in congregations and at classes and synods; peace on jobsites; peace in families and in marriages; peace at coffee hours and during vacations; peace between the church and the world and between the church and the apostate church. There will be no division and no warfare. And everyone in that peaceful relationship—coexistence—shall perish. They will perish in their peace and in all their conviviality, for they are without God and without Christ and without righteousness and truth in the world.

But when the gospel comes, then Christ comes and confesses about himself; then he lays hold on his people, draws them to himself, and saves them. Then the Spirit of Christ speaks in them, and they confess him before men.

Then not peace but a sword!

When Christ comes, he always comes for the salvation of his people. When he comes, he calls them out of the world and unto himself. In himself he gives them his peace. When he comes, he changes them in the depths of their beings, in their hearts. They were at peace with the world because they loved the world, and the world loved them. When Christ comes, his people are at peace with God, and the world hates them, and they have war with the world. The love of God is enmity with the world, and the love of the world is enmity with God.

When Christ comes, he creates division between his people and the world. He does not bring peace on the earth because there is no peace between him and the god of this world, Satan. There is no peace between Christ and the world. There is no peace between Christ and the ungodly, false church; and thus there can be no peace—only warfare—between his dear church and the ungodly world and the apostate church.

This means that the only thing that can gain the believer peace in the world is conformity with it. Conform with the world, and you will have peace. Conform with the false church and all her lies, all her murders, and all her wickedness; and you will have peace. Conform, and you can have peace with all who love the world, the things of the world, and the life of the world and whose hope is in this world. Conform with the world-loving spouse, and you will have peace. Conform with the world-loving child, parent, brother, or sister; and you will have peace. You, too, can share together superficial friendship and superficial fellowship.

But you will be without God.

The church can only conform with the world out of love for the world and hatred for God. That is the deep source of world conformity: love of the world, an unholy love of the world that God hates, and an unrighteous toleration of that which God will not tolerate.

There is perfect peace between Christ and his church. The true church confesses his truth. The true believer joins the church where the truth is confessed. The church and believer live contentedly under the truth of Jesus. But that truth will never bring peace on the earth. That truth will always bring a sword, so that that truth is the occasion of divisions in nations, churches, schools, families, and right within the heart of a man. The only way to have peace on the earth is abominable silence about Christ, abominable world conformity, and making an abominable peace with wickedness. The confession of Jesus, if that confession be a confession of Jesus, does not bring peace but a sword. The preaching of Jesus, if that preaching be the preaching of Jesus, does not bring peace but a sword. If Jesus has come to a man and saved him, he will have not peace in the earth but a sword, and if that man will have peace in the earth—in his family, home, school, and church—then he must cast out Jesus.

Oh, it is not as though those who cast out Jesus never mention his name again or do not have some preaching about Jesus. But they will not have the Christ of the sword of division. They cast out Jesus precisely at the point at which Jesus brings division. Whatever is the specific point of the sword that is piercing their lives or the edge of the sword that is dividing in their families, then Christ must be gotten rid of at that precise point so that they might have their abominable peace.

When Jesus comes and where Jesus is, there is no peace on the earth but a sword!

Do not think, then, that Christ comes to bring peace. Such thinking imperils confession of Christ and thus imperils the soul. Thinking that Christ’s coming is to bring peace and supposing then that it will bring no sword, that man is offended when Christ—not men but Christ—brings a sword. Being offended that Christ brings the sword—in the preaching, in his church, among his friends, at coffee get-togethers, with his wife and children, and on the job—he denies Christ, falls silent, or heaps all manner of blame on Christ.

Do not say, “That wretched minister. If only he would stop preaching this or that subject, we could have peace.” Do not say, “If only my brother, my mother, or my daughter would stop bringing up this or that question, we could have peace.” Then you blame Christ and heap blame on him for his sword. You will not join your confessing brother, mother, or daughter in the confession of Christ, and you will not suffer Christ’s sword to come into your life either. Do not say, “Let us sit down together and have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and let us talk about business or the weather, and let us not talk about these doctrines and issues that divide us.” Then you have fallen silent about Christ. Not to confess Christ is to deny him. Not to confess Christ at the point he must be confessed is itself a denial of him, but that is also where it inevitably leads. Peter went to the high priest’s residence just to observe quietly, but God revealed Peter’s heart. His quietness about Christ was a denial of Christ. Not to confess Christ inevitably leads to a denial of Christ.

To think that Jesus brings peace on the earth, which is to deny that he sends the sword, is already a denial of him, for Christ said without any doubt that he brings a sword.

To think that Christ brings peace on the earth will imperil the church’s militant confession of the truth at those specific points where that confession brings division. Because she thinks Christ brings earthly peace, for the sake of that earthly peace in her midst or even with other churches, she will cease to confess militantly the truth of Christ. Thinking that Christ comes to bring peace, church members will be offended by the division that he brings. Thinking that Christ comes to bring peace, they will carefully craft their writings so that they do not bite or chide and offend anyone—not even the enemies of the truth. Thinking that Christ comes to bring peace, they will demand that the preacher speak smooth words to make their church foyers more comfortable, their coffee get-togethers more pleasant, their family gatherings more convivial, their work environments easier, and their fellowship with the deniers of Christ more enjoyable. Thinking that way, churches, professors, ministers, elders, deacons, husbands and wives, parents and children, and brothers and sisters will be offended by Christ and those who bring him. They will not confess him and bring that division, and they will hate those who do.

Division is not at all difficult to explain. Christ says that he comes to send a sword; and in sending the sword, he creates division in the most intimate human relationships; and families, churches, denominations, and whole nations are torn in pieces. We are forbidden by Christ to suppose that our confession of him or our preaching of him will do anything else in the earth than send out a sword that divides in the most painful ways and brings suffering and sorrow into our lives.

This corrects our naïve—carnal—thinking. Maybe the disciples were naïve. Ministers fresh out of seminary; they had learned from Jesus, and then they were going to preach Jesus in the synagogues. Perhaps they counseled themselves that if they preached Jesus, Israel would listen and the multitudes would grow. They were mistaken. Jesus brought a sword. People left, and the disciples were beaten. Friends and family turned on them and hated them.

Do not think that Jesus will bring peace.

Not peace but a sword!

It is Jesus’ work. When he comes, he sees to it that a sword comes. That not only teaches the believer that this will happen and that Christ is the author of it, but it also comforts the believer. It comforts him in the division for which he is invariably blamed at Christ’s coming. The believer confesses Christ in a world that hates him, and the believer takes the blame: you are an evil Christian; you are a divider of brethren, husbands and wives, and parents and children. You are an evil church for teaching those things. You are harsh and unloving for saying those things. You are to blame for the division! You, you are!

Christ claims that work for himself.

More still, this division is God’s will. God determined Christ’s coming and his work. Not peace on the earth but the sword is God’s will. He takes one of a family and two of a city. “I come not to bring peace on the earth. Not peace but a sword because God sent me for this purpose—a purpose that is ultimately the revelation of God’s eternal counsel of election and reprobation. When I come, I come to bring a sword because in my coming I save God’s elect people, and I harden the reprobate.

“No, no, no, dear confessing believer. Do not be depressed and cast down. Do not be offended at the sword that I send, so that you stop confessing me. Confess me, and do not deny me. He who confesses me will I confess. He who denies me, I will deny. Do not love your earthly family more than me; do not love anything more than me; he who loves his father or mother or sister or brother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever saves his life shall lose it. Whoever loses his life shall save it.

“Confess me!

“He who confesses me, I will confess before my Father and his holy angels in heaven.”