John 14:27

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.—The immediate context speaks of His departure from them (John 14:25; John 14:28), and it is natural therefore to understand these words as suggested by the common Oriental formulas of leave-taking. Men said to each other when they met and parted, “Shalom! Shalom!” (Peace! Peace!) just as they say the “Salaam! Salaam!” in our own day. (See 1Samuel 1:17; Luke 7:50; Acts 16:36; James 2:16; Ephesians 6:23; 1Peter 5:14; 3John 1:14.)

He will leave them as a legacy the gift of “peace.” And this peace is more than a meaningless sound or even than a true wish. He repeats it with the emphatic “My,” and speaks of it as an actual possession which He imparts to them. “Peace on earth” was the angels’ message when they announced His birth; “peace to you” was His own greeting when He returned victorious from the grave. “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), and this peace is the farewell gift to the disciples from whom He is now departing. (Comp. John 14:27; John 16:33; John 20:19; John 20:21; John 20:26.)

Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.—The contrast is not between the emptiness of the world’s salutations and the reality of His own gift, but between His legacy to them and the legacies ordinarily left by the world. He gives them not land or houses or possessions, but “peace;” and that “His own peace,” “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.—These are in part the words of the first verse, and are now repeated as a joyous note of triumph. Possessing the peace which He gives them, having another Advocate in the person of the Holy Spirit, having the Father and the Son ever abiding in them, there cannot be, even when He is about to leave them, room for trouble or for fear.

The word here rendered “be afraid” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It points especially to the cowardice of fear. The cognate substantive is used in 2Timothy 1:7, and the adjective in Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:40; and Revelation 21:8.

MacLaren's Expositions

John

CHRIST’S PEACE

John 14:27.

‘Peace be unto you!’ was, and is, the common Eastern salutation, both in meeting and in parting. It carries us back to a state of society in which every stranger might be an enemy. It is a confession of the deep unrest of the human heart. Christ was about closing His discourse, and the common word of leave-taking came naturally to His lips; just as when He first met His followers after the Resurrection, He soothed their fears by the calm and familiar greeting, ‘Peace be unto you!’ But common words deepen their force and meaning when He uses them. In Him ‘all things become new,’ and on His lips the conventional threadbare salutation changes into a tender and mysterious communication of a real gift. His words are deeds, and His wishes for His disciples fulfil themselves.

I. So we have here, first, the greeting, which is a gift.

‘Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.’ We have seen, in former discourses on this chapter, how prominently and repeatedly our Lord insists on the great truth of His dwelling with and in His disciples. He gives His peace because He gives Himself; and in the bestowal of His life He bestows, in so far as we possess the gift, the qualities and attributes of that life. His peace is inseparable from His presence. It comes with Him, like an atmosphere; it is never where He is not. It was His peace inasmuch as, in His own experience, He possessed it. His manhood was untroubled by perturbation or tumult, by passions or contending desires, and no outward things could break His calm. If we open our hearts by lowly faith, love, and aspiration for His entrance, we too may be at rest; for His peace, like all which He is and has, is His that it may be ours.

The first requisite for peace is consciousness of harmonious and loving relations between me and God. The deepest secret of Christ’s peace was His unbroken consciousness of unbroken communion with the Father, in which His will submitted and the whole being of the man hung in filial dependence upon God. And the centre and foundation of all the peace-giving power of Jesus Christ is this, that in His death, by His one offering for sin for ever, He has swept away the occasion of antagonism, and so made peace between the twain, the Father in the heavens and the child, rebellious and prodigal, here below. Little as these disciples dreamed of it, the death impending, which was already beginning to cast its shadow over their souls, was the condition of securing to them and to us the true beginning of all real peace, the rectifying of our antagonistic relation to God, and the bringing Him and us into perfect concord.

My brother, no man can be at rest down to the very roots of His being, in the absence of the consciousness that he is at peace with God. There may be tumults of gladness, there may be much of stormy brightness in the life, but there cannot be the calm, still, impregnable, all-pervading, and central tranquillity that our souls hunger for, unless we know and feel that we are right with God, and that there is nothing between us and Him. And it is because Jesus Christ, dying on the Cross, has made it possible for you and me to feel this, that He Is our peace, and that He can say, ‘Peace I leave with you.’

Another requisite is that we must be at peace with ourselves. There must be no stinging conscience, there must be no unsatisfied desires, there must be no inner schism between inclination and duty, reason and will, passion and judgment. There must be the quiet of a harmonised nature which has one object, one aim, one love; which-to use a very vulgar phrase-has ‘all its eggs in one basket,’ and has no contradictions running through its inmost self. There is only one way to get that peace-cleaving to Jesus Christ and making Him our Lord, our righteousness, our aim, our all. Your consciences will sting, and that destroys peace; or if they do not sting, they will be torpid, and that destroys peace, for death is not peace. Unless we take Christ for our love, for the light of our minds, for the Sovereign Arbiter and Lord of our will, for the home of our desires, for the aim of our efforts, we shall never know what it is to be at rest. Unsatisfied and hungry we shall go through life, seeking what nothing short of an Infinite Humanity can ever give us, and that is a heart to lean our heads upon, an adequate object for all our faculties, and so a quiet satisfaction of all our desires. ‘Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?’ A question that no man can answer without convicting himself of folly! There is One, and only One, who is enough for me, poor and weak and lowly and fleeting as I am, and as my earthly life is. Take that One for your Treasure, and you are rich indeed. The world without Christ is nought. Christ without the world is enough.

Nor is there any other way of healing the inner discord, schism, and contradiction of our anarchic nature, except in bringing it all into submission to His merciful rule. Look at that troubled kingdom that each of us carries about within himself, passion dragging this way, conscience that, a hundred desires all arrayed against one another, inclination here, duty there, till we are torn in pieces like a man drawn asunder by wild horses. And what is to be done with all that rebellious self, over which the poor soul rules as it may, and rules so poorly? Oh! there is an inner unrest, the necessary fate of every man who does not take Christ for his King. But when He enters the heart with His silken leash, the old fable comes true, and He binds the lions and the ravenous beasts there with its slender tie and leads them along, tamed, by the cord of love, and all harnessed to pull together in the chariot that He guides. There is only one way for a man to be at peace with himself through and through, and that is that he should put the guidance of his life into the hands of Jesus Christ, and let Him do with it as He will. There is one power, and only one, that can draw after it all the multitudinous heaped waters of the weltering ocean, and that is the quiet, silver moon in the heavens that pulls the tidal wave, into which melt and merge all currents and small breakers, and rolls it round the whole earth. And so Christ, shining down lambent, and gentle, but changeless, from the darkest of our skies, will draw, in one great surge of harmonised motion, all the else contradictory currents of our stormy souls. ‘My peace I give unto you.’

Another element in true tranquillity, which again is supplied only by Jesus Christ, is peace with men. ‘Whence come wars and fightings amongst you? From your lusts.’ Or to translate the old-fashioned phraseology into modern English, the reason why men are in antagonism with one another is the central selfishness of each, and there is only one way by which men’s relations can be thoroughly sweetened, and that is, by the divine love of Jesus Christ pouring into their hearts, and casting out the devil of selfishness, and so blending them all into one harmonious whole.

The one basis of true, happy relations between man and man, without which there is not the all-round tranquillity that we require, lies in the common relation of all, if it may be, but certainly in the individual relation of myself, to Him who is the Lover and the Friend of all. And in the measure in which the law of the Spirit of life which was in Jesus Christ is in me, in that measure do I find it possible to reproduce His gentleness, sympathy, compassion, insight into men’s sorrows, patience with men’s offences, and all which makes, in our relations to one another, the harmony and the happiness of humanity.

Another of the elements or aspects of peace is peace with the outer world. ‘It is hard to kick against the pricks,’ but if you do not kick against them, they will not prick you. We beat ourselves all bruised and bleeding against the bars of the prison-house in trying to escape from it, but if we do not beat ourselves against them, they will not hurt us. If we do not want to get out of prison, it does not matter though we are locked in. And so it is not external calamities, but the resistance of the will to these, that makes the disturbances of life. Submission is peace, and when a man with Christ in his heart can say what Christ said, ‘Not My will, but Thine be done,’ Oh! then, some faint beginnings, at least, of tranquillity come to the most agitated and buffeted; and even in the depths of our sorrow we may have a deeper depth of calm. If we have yielded ourselves to the Father’s will, through that dear Son who has set the example and communicates the power of filial obedience, then all winds blow us to our haven, and all ‘things work together for good,’ and nothing ‘that is at enmity with joy’ can shake our settled peace. Storms may break upon the rocky shore of our islanded lives, but deep in the centre there will be a secluded, inland dell ‘which heareth not the loud winds when they call,’ and where no tempest can ever reach. Peace may be ours in the midst of warfare and of storms, for Christ with us reconciles us to God, harmonises us with ourselves, brings us into amity with men, and makes the world all good.

II. So, secondly, note here the world’s gift, which is an illusion.

‘Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.’ Our Lord contrasts, as it seems to me, primarily the manner of the world’s bestowment, and then passes insensibly into a contrast between the character of the world’s gifts and His own. That phrase ‘the world’ may have a double sense. It may mean either mankind in general or the whole external and material frame of things. I think we may use both significations in elucidating the words before us.

Regarding it in the former of them, the thought is suggested-Christ gives; men can only wish. ‘Peace be unto you’ comes from many a lip, and is addressed to many an ear, unfulfilled. Christ says ‘peace,’ and His word is a conveyance. How little we can do for one another’s tranquillity, how soon we come to the limits of human love and human help! How awful and impassable is the isolation in which each human soul lives! After all love and fellowship we dwell alone on our little island in the deep, separated by ‘the salt, unplumbed, estranging sea,’ and we can do little more than hoist signals of goodwill, and now and then for a moment stretch our hands across the ‘echoing straits between.’ But it is little after all that husband or wife can do for one another’s central peace, little that the dearest friend can give. We have to depend upon ourselves and upon Christ for peace. That which the world wishes Christ gives.

And then, if we take the other signification of the ‘world,’ and the other application of the whole promise, we may say-Outward things can give a man no real peace. The world is for excitement; Christ alone has the secret of tranquillity. It is as if to a man in a fever a physician should come and say: ‘I cannot give you anything to soothe you; here is a glass of brandy for you.’ That would not help the fever, would it? The world comes to us and says: ‘I cannot give you rest: here is a sharp excitement for you, more highly spiced and titillating for your tongue than the last one, which has turned flat and stale.’ That is about the best that it can do.

Oh! what a confession of unrest are the rush and recklessness, the fever and the fret of our modern life with its ever renewed and ever disappointed quest after good! You go about our streets and look men in the face, and you see how all manner of hungry desires and eager wishes have imprinted themselves there. And now and then-how seldom!-you come across a face out of which beams a deep and settled peace. How many of you are there who dare not be quiet because then you are most troubled? How many of you are there who dare not reflect because then you are wretched? How many of you are uncomfortable when alone, either because you are utterly vacuous, or because then you are surrounded by the ghosts of ugly thoughts that murder sleep and stuff every pillow with thorns? The world will bring you excitement; Christ, and Christ alone will bring you rest.

The peace that earth gives is a poor affair at best. It is shallow; a very thin plating over a depth of restlessness, like some skin of turf on a volcano, where a foot below the surface sulphurous fumes roll, and hellish turbulence seethes. That is the kind of rest that the world brings.

Oh! dear friends, there is nothing in this world that will fill and satisfy your hearts except only Jesus Christ. The world is for excitement; and Christ is the only real Giver of real peace.

III. Lastly, note the duty of the recipients of that peace of Christ’s: ‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’

The words that introduced this great discourse return again at its close, somewhat enlarged and with a deepened soothing and tenderness. There are two things referred to as the source of restlessness, troubled agitation or disturbance of heart; and that mainly, I suppose, because of terror in the outlook towards a dim and unknown future. The disciples are warned to fight against these if they would keep the gift of peace.

That is to say, casting the exhortation into a more general expression, Christ’s gift of peace does not dispense with the necessity for our own effort after tranquillity. There is much in the outer world that will disturb us to the very end, and there is much within ourselves that will surge up and seek to shake our repose and break our peace; and we have to coerce and keep down the temptations to anxiety, the temptations to undue agitation of desire, the temptations to tumults of sorrow, the temptations to cowardly fears of the unknown future. All these will continue, even though we have Christ’s peace in our hearts, and it is for us to see to it that we treasure the peace, ‘and in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known unto God,’ that nothing may break the calm which we possess.

So, then, another thought arises from this final exhortation, and that is, that it is useless to tell a man, ‘Do not be troubled, and do not be afraid,’ unless he first has Christ’s peace as his. Is that peace yours, my brother, because Jesus Christ is yours? If so, then there is no reason for your being troubled or dreading any future. If it is not, you are mad not to be troubled, and you are insane if you are not afraid. The word for you is, ‘Be troubled, ye careless ones,’ for there is reason for it, and be afraid of that which is certainly coming. The one thing that gives security and makes it possible to possess a calm heart is the possession of Jesus Christ by faith. Without Him it is a waste of breath to say to people, ‘Do not be frightened,’ and it is wicked counsel to say to men, ‘Be at ease.’ They ought to be terrified, and they ought to be troubled, and they will be some day, whether they think so or not.

But then the last thought from this exhortation is-and now I speak to Christian people-your imperfect possession of this peace is all your own fault. Why, there are hundreds of professing Christian people who have some kind of faint, rudimentary faith, and there are many of them, I dare say, listening to me now, who have no assured possession of any of those elements, of which I have been speaking, as the constituent parts of Christ’s peace. You are not sure that you are right with God. You do not know what it is to possess satisfied desires. You do know what it is to have conflicting inclinations and impulses; you have envy and malice and hostility against men; and the world’s storms and disasters do strike and disturb you. Why? Because you have not a firm grasp of Jesus Christ. ‘I have set the Lord always at my right hand, therefore I shall not be be moved’; there is the secret. Keep near Him, my brother; and then all things are fair, and your heart is at peace.

I remember once standing by the side of a little Highland loch on a calm autumn day, when all the winds were still, and every birch-tree stood unmoved, and every twig was reflected on the steadfast mirror, into the depths of which Heaven’s own blue seemed to have found its way. That is what our hearts may be, if we let Christ put His guarding hand round them to keep the storms off, and have Him within us for our rest. But the man who does not trust Jesus ‘is like the troubled sea which cannot rest,’ but goes moaning round half the world, homeless and hungry, rolling and heaving, monotonous and yet changeful, salt and barren-the true emblem of every soul that has not listened to the merciful call, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:25-27 Would we know these things for our good, we must pray for, and depend on the teaching of the Holy Ghost; thus the words of Jesus will be brought to our remembrance, and many difficulties be cleared up which are not plain to others. To all the saints, the Spirit of grace is given to be a remembrancer, and to him, by faith and prayer, we should commit the keeping of what we hear and know. Peace is put for all good, and Christ has left us all that is really and truly good, all the promised good; peace of mind from our justification before God. This Christ calls his peace, for he is himself our Peace. The peace of God widely differs from that of Pharisees or hypocrites, as is shown by its humbling and holy effects.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Peace I leave with you - This was a common form of benediction among the Jews. See the notes at Matthew 10:13. It is the invocation of the blessings of peace and happiness. In this place it was, however, much more than a mere form or an empty wish. It came from Him who had power to make peace and to confer it on all, Ephesians 2:15. It refers here particularly to the consolations which he gave to his disciples in view of his approaching death. He had exhorted them not to be troubled John 14:1, and he had stated reasons why they should not be. He explained to them why he was about to leave them; he promised them that he would return; he assured them that the Holy Spirit would come to comfort, teach, and guide them. By all these truths and promises he provided for their peace in the time of his approaching departure. But the expression refers also, doubtless. to the peace which is given to all who love the Saviour. They are by nature enmity against God, Romans 8:7. Their minds are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters east up mire and dirt, Isaiah 57:20. They were at war with conscience, with the law and perfections of God, and with all the truths of religion. Their state after conversion is described as a state of peace. They are reconciled to God; they acquiesce in all his claims; and they have a joy which the world knows not in the word, the promises, the law, and the perfections of God, in the plan of salvation, and in the hopes of eternal life. See Romans 1:7; Romans 5:1; Romans 8:6; Romans 14:7; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 2:17; Ephesians 6:15; Philippians 4:7; Colossians 3:15.

My peace - Such as I only can impart. The special peace which my religion is fitted to impart.

Not as the world -

1. Not as the objects which men commonly pursue - pleasure, fame, wealth. They leave care, anxiety, remorse. They do not meet the desires of the immortal mind, and they are incapable of affording that peace which the soul needs.

2. Not as the men of the world give. They salute you with empty and flattering words, but their professed friendship is often reigned and has no sincerity. You cannot be sure that they are sincere, but Iam.

3. Not as systems of philosophy and false religion give. They profess to give peace, but it is not real. It does not still the voice of conscience; it does not take away sin; it does not reconcile the soul to God.

4. My peace is such as meets all the wants of the soul, silences the alarms of conscience, is fixed and sure amid all external changes, and will abide in the hour of death and forever. How desirable, in a world of anxiety and care, to possess this peace! and how should all who have it not, seek that which the world can neither give nor take away!

Neither let it be afraid - Of any pain, persecutions, or trials. You have a Friend who will never leave you; a peace that shall always attend you. See John 14:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you—If Joh 14:25, 26 sounded like a note of preparation for drawing the discourse to a close, this would sound like a farewell. But oh, how different from ordinary adieus! It is a parting word, but of richest import, the customary "peace" of a parting friend sublimed and transfigured. As "the Prince of Peace" (Isa 9:6) He brought it into flesh, carried it about in His Own Person ("My peace") died to make it ours, left it as the heritage of His disciples upon earth, implants and maintains it by His Spirit in their hearts. Many a legacy is "left" that is never "given" to the legatee, many a gift destined that never reaches its proper object. But Christ is the Executor of His own Testament; the peace He "leaves" He "gives"; Thus all is secure.

not as the world giveth—in contrast with the world, He gives sincerely, substantially, eternally.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Peace be with you, or to you, was the Jewish common salutation, 1 Samuel 25:6; under that general name they comprehended all manner of good: with this good wish they both saluted their friends when they met them, and took their farewell of them when they left them. Christ, being now about to take his leave for a time of his disciples, wishes them

peace; nay, he doth not only wish it to them, but he

leaves it to them; he giveth it them as a legacy; and that in another kind of peace, and in another manner, than was common. He therefore calls it his peace revealed in the gospel, Ephesians 6:15; purchased with his blood, Romans 5:1; brought to the soul by his Spirit, by which we are sealed to the day of redemption. Christ’s peace is either union or reconciliation with God, or the copy of it, which is a quiet of conscience, and assurance of his love; or a union with men by brotherly love, so often commended and pressed by Christ. Nor doth Christ give this peace as the men of the world give peace; who often wish peace earnestly, never considering what it is they say; often falsely, formally wishing peace, when they are about to strike those to whom they wish it under the fifth rib; and when they are most serious, wish it, but cannot give it. Christ leaves it to his disciples for a legacy, giveth it to them as a gift; if they want it, it is their own fault: therefore, as in the first verse, so here again he saith,

Let not your heart be troubled; and adds,

neither let it be afraid. Fear is one of those passions which most usually and potently doth disturb the hearts and minds of men; but there was no reason it should have this ill influence on Christ’s disciples, because he had left them peace for his legacy, and the gifts of God are without repentance; and, if God be for us, (saith the apostle, Romans 8:31), who, or what, can be against us?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Peace I leave with you,.... Christ being about to die and leave his disciples, makes his last will and testament, and as the best legacy he could leave them, bequeaths peace unto them;

my peace I give unto you: he left the Gospel of peace with them, to be preached by them to all the world; which is a declaration and publication of peace made by his blood; is a means of reconciling the minds of men to God and Christ, to the truths, ordinances, and people of Christ; of relieving and giving peace to distressed minds; and which shows the way to eternal peace: and as Christ had kept his disciples in peace one with another, so he left them in peace; and left orders with them to maintain it one among another: but what seems chiefly designed here, is peace with God, which Christ is the sole author of; he was appointed in the council and covenant of peace to effect it; he became incarnate with that view, and did procure it by his sufferings and death; and as it was published by angels, when he came into the world, he left it, and gave it to his disciples when he was going out of it: or else that peace of conscience is meant, which follows upon the former, which arises from the sprinklings of the blood of Christ, and from a comfortable view, by faith, of an interest in his justifying righteousness, and is enjoyed in a way of believing, and commonly in the use of ordinances "leaving" it supposes that Christ was about to leave his disciples, but would not leave them comfortless; he leaves a Comforter with them, and bequeaths peace unto them as his last legacy: "giving" it, shows that it is not to be acquired by any thing that man can do, but is a pure free grace gift of Christ; and which being given as his legacy, is irrevocable; for the allusion is to the making of a will or testament when persons are about to die: though some have thought it refers to the custom of wishing peace, health, and prosperity, among the Jews; but Christ does not say "peace be to you"; which was the more usual form of salutation among them, and which was used by them when they met, and not at parting; especially we have no instance of such a form as here used, by dying persons taking their leaves of their relations and friends. It must indeed be owned that the phrase, "to give peace", is with them the same as to salute, or wish health and prosperity. Take two or three of their rules as instances of it;

"whoever knows his friend, that he is used (a), "to give him peace"; he shall prevent him with peace (i.e. salute him first), as it is said, "seek peace and pursue it"; but if he "gives" it to him, and he does not return it, he shall be called a robber.''

Again,

"(b) a man may not go into the house of a stranger, on his feast day, , "to give peace unto him" (or salute him); if he finds him in the street, he may give it to him with a low voice, and his head hanging down;''

once (c) more,

"a man , "not give peace to", or salute his master, nor return peace to him in the way that they give it to friends, and they return it to one another.''

Likewise it must be owned, that when they saluted persons of distinction, such as princes, nobles, and doctors, they repeated the word "peace" (d), though never to any strangers; however, certain it is, that it was another sort of peace which Christ left, and gave to his disciples, than what the Jews were wont to give, or wish to one another;

not as the world giveth, give I you. The peace Christ gives is true, solid, and substantial; the peace the world, the men, and things of it give, is a false one; and whilst they cry, "peace, peace, sudden destruction is at hand": the peace of the world is at best but an external one, but the peace Christ is the giver of, is internal; the peace the world affords is a very transient, unstable, and short lived one, but the peace of Christ is lasting and durable; the peace of the world will not support under the troubles of it, but the peace which Christ gives, cheerfully carries his people through all the difficulties and exercises of this life: and as these differ in kind, so likewise in the manner of giving, and in the persons to whom they are given; the world gives peace in words only, Christ in deed; the world gives feignedly, Christ heartily; the world gives it for its own advantage, Christ for his people's sake; the world gives its peace to the men of it, to the ungodly, none to the godly, whom it hates; Christ gives his; not to the wicked, for there is no peace to them, but to the saints, the excellent in the earth. Wherefore says Christ,

let not your heart be troubled; at my departure from you, since I leave such a peace with you:

neither let it be afraid: at the dangers you may be exposed unto, and the trouble you may be exercised with; for in the midst of them all, "in me ye shall have peace", John 16:33.

(a) T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 6. 2.((b) T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 62. 1. Maimon. Obede Cochabim, c. 10. sect. 5. (c) Maimon. Talmud Tora, c. 5. sect. 5. (d) T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 62. 1. Maimon. Hilch. Melacim. c. 10. sect. 12.

Geneva Study Bible

{9} Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

(9) All true comfort and peace comes to us by Christ alone.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 14:27. “These are last words, as of one who is about to go away and says good-night, or gives his blessing,” Luther.

εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν] The whole position of affairs, as Jesus is on the point of concluding these His last discourses (John 14:31), as well as the characteristic word εἰρήνη, introduced without further preface, justifies the ordinary assumption that here there is an allusion to the Oriental greetings at partings and dismissals, in which שָׁלוֹם (i.e. not specially: Peace of soul, but generally: Prosperity) was wished. Comp. 1 Samuel 1:17; 1 Samuel 20:42; 1 Samuel 29:5; Mark 5:34; Luke 7:50; Luke 8:48; Acts 16:36; Jam 2:16; also the Syrian pacem dedit, in the sense of valedixit in Assem. Bibl. I. p. 376; and finally, the epistolary farewell-greeting, Ephesians 6:23; 1 Peter 5:14; 3 John 15. That which men were wont to wish at departure, namely, prosperity, Jesus is conscious of leaving behind, and of giving to His disciples, and that in the best and highest sense, namely, the entire prosperity of His redemptive work, “fore ejus benedictione semper felices” (Calvin), in which, however, the peace of reconciliation with God (Romans 5:1), as the first essential element, is also included. To assume (with Lücke) in the expression a reference, at the same time, to the O. T. peace-assuring and encouraging address שָׁלוֹם לָכֶם (Genesis 43:23; Jdg 6:23, et al.), is less in harmony with the departing scene, and the remote μὴ ταρασσέσθω, κ.τ.λ., as well as with the expression of this consolatory address.

εἰρ. τ. ἐμὴν δίδ. ὑμ.] More precise definition of what has preceded. It is His, the peculiar prosperity proceeding from Him, which He gives to them as His bequest. Thus speaks He to His own, who, on the threshold of death, is leaving hereditary possessions: “I leave behind, I give,” in the consciousness that this will be accomplished by His death. So also Jesus, whose δίδωμι is to be understood neither as promitto (Kuinoel), nor even to be conceived as first taking place through the Paraclete (who rather brings about only the appropriation of the salvation given in the death of Jesus).

Not as the world gives, give I TO YOU! Nothing is to be supplied. My giving to you is of quite another kind than the giving of the (unbelieving) world; its giving bestows treasure, pleasure, honour, and the like, is therefore unsatisfying, bringing no permanent good, no genuine prosperity, etc.[156] Quite out of relation to the profound seriousness of the moment, and therefore irrelevant, is the reference to the usual empty formulas of salutation (Grotius, Kling, Godet).

ΜῊ ΤΑΡΑΣΣΈΣΘΩ, Κ.Τ.Λ.] “Thus does He conclude exactly as He first (John 14:1) began this discourse,” Luther. The short asyndetic (here supply ΟὖΝ) sentences correspond to the deep emotion.

ΔΕΙΛΙΆΩ (Diod. xx. 78) here only in the N. T., frequently in the LXX., which, on the other hand, has not the classical (ΔΟΚΙΜΏΤΕΡΟΝ, Thomas Magister) ἈΠΟΔΕΙΛΙΆΩ.

[156] Hengstenberg introduces quite groundlessly a reference to the θλῖψις which the world gives, according to John 16:33.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 14:27. εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν, “peace I bequeath to you”. The usual farewell was given with the word “peace”. And Jesus uses the familiar word, but instead of uttering a mere wish He turns it into a bequest, intimating His power not only to wish but to give peace in the further description εἰρήνην τὴν ἐμὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν, “my peace I give unto you”; the peace which He had attained by means of all the disturbance and opposition He had encountered. Leaving them His work, His view of life, His Spirit, He necessarily left them His peace.—οὐ καθὼς ὁ κόσμος δίδωσιν, ἐγὼ δίδωμι ὑμῖν, “not as the world gives give I to you”. This is referred by Grotius to the difference between the empty form of salutation and Christ’s gift of peace. (“Mundus, i.e., major pars hominum, salute alios impertit sono vocis, nihil saepe de re cogitans; et si cogitet, tamen id alteri nihil prodest.”) So too Holtzmann and Bernard. Meyer considers this “quite out of relation to the profound seriousness of the moment,” and understands the allusion to be to the treasures, honours, pleasures which the world gives. There is no reason why the primary reference should not be to the salutation, with a secondary reference to the wider contrast. This gift of peace, if accepted, would secure them against perturbation, and so Jesus returns to the exhortation of John 14:1, μὴ ταρασσέσθω … “Observing that the opening sentence of the discourse is here repeated and fortified, we understand that all enclosed within these limits is to be taken as a whole in itself, and that the intervening words compose a divine antidote to that troubling and desolation of heart which the Lord’s departure would suggest.” Bernard. He now adds a word, μηδὲ δειλιάτω, which carries some reproach in it. Theophrastus (Char., xxvii.) defines δειλία as ὕπειξίς τις ψυχῆς ἔμφοβος, a shrinking of the soul through fear. With this must be taken Aristotle’s description, Nic. Eth., iii. 6, 7, ὁ δὲ τῷ φοβεῖσθαι ὑπερβάλλων δειλός. It may be rendered “neither let your heart timidly shrink”.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. Peace I leave with you] “Finally the discourse returns to the point from which it started. Its object had been to reassure the sorrowful disciples against their Lord’s departure, and with words of reassurance and consolation it concludes. These are thrown into the form of a leave-taking or farewell.” S. p. 226. ‘Peace I leave with you’ is probably a solemn adaptation of the conventional form of taking leave in the East: comp. ‘Go in peace,’ Jdg 18:6; 1 Samuel 1:17; 1 Samuel 20:42; 1 Samuel 29:7; 2 Kings 5:19; Mark 5:34, &c. See notes on James 2:16 and 1 Peter 5:14. The Apostle of the Gentiles perhaps purposely substitutes in his Epistles ‘Grace be with you all’ for the traditional Jewish ‘Peace.’

my peace I give unto you] ‘My’ is emphatic; this is no mere conventional wish. Comp. John 16:33, John 20:19; John 20:21; John 20:26. The form of expression, peace that is mine, is common in this Gospel. Comp. the joy that is mine (John 3:29, John 15:11, John 17:13); the judgment that is mine (John 5:30, John 8:16); the commandments that are mine (John 14:15); the love that is mine (John 15:10).

not as the world giveth] It seems best to understand ‘as’ literally of the world’s manner of giving, not of its gifts, as if ‘as’ were equivalent to ‘what.’ The world gives from interested motives, because it has received or hopes to receive as much again (Luke 6:33-34); it gives to friends and withholds from enemies (Matthew 5:43); it gives what costs it nothing or what it cannot keep, as in the case of legacies; it pretends to give that which is not its own, especially when it says ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14). The manner of Christ’s giving is the very opposite of this. He gives what is His own, what He might have kept, what has cost Him a life of suffering and a cruel death to bestow, what is open to friend and foe alike, who have nothing of their own to give in return.

Let not your heart be troubled] See on John 14:1. Was He not right in giving them this charge? If He sends them another Advocate, through whom both the Father and He will ever abide with them, if He leaves them His peace, what room is there left for trouble and fear?

The word for ‘be afraid’ is frequent in the LXX. but occurs nowhere else in the N.T. ‘Be fearful’ is the literal meaning.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 14:27. Εἰρήνην) שלום, peace in general (the genus); the peace of reconciliation. [Such as ye might have enjoyed as Israelites (as distinguished from “My peace”).—V. g.]—ἀφίημι) I leave, at My departure. The same verb occurs in John 14:18, Matthew 22:25 [ἀφῆκε τῆν γυναῖκα, said of the man dying without issue, and leaving his wife to his brother].—εἰρήνην τὴν ἐμὴν) My peace, in particular (the species): the peace of sons. So τὴν χαρὰν τὴν ἐμὴν, My joy, ch. John 17:13. All things in Christ are new; even the commandment of ‘love,’ ch. John 13:34, and in some measure faith itself. See note, John 14:1 [The old faith in God receives as it were a new colour from the Gospel, which orders faith in Christ].—δίδωμι, I give) even now. See ch. John 16:33, “These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace.” To the gradation in the nouns, peace, My peace, there corresponds the gradation in the verbs, I leave, I give.—ὁ κόσμος, the world) in its empty salutations [which in Hebrew were generally wishes for ‘peace’ to the person saluted], or in merely external benefits, which do not reach the heart, and which, simultaneously with the presence, cease from the sight and life of mortal men. The world so gives, as that it presently after snatches away; it does not leave.—μὴ ταρασσέσθω, let not—be troubled) by fears from within.—μηδὲ δειλιάτω, nor let it be afraid) by terrors from without.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - "Then follow the last words as of one who is about to go away, and says 'Good night,' or gives his blessing" (Luther). Peace I leave with (or, to) you. Peace (dρήνη) answers to the (שָׁלום) shalom of ordinary converse and greeting, and signifies prosperity, health of soul, serenity, farewell. This is the sacred bestowment and Divine legacy of the Lord. "Peace" is always the result of equilibrated forces, the poise of antagonistic elements, held in check by one another. Of these the most placid lake, hidden in the hills and reflecting the sunshine and shadows, is a remarkable illustration. So the peace Christ leaves is power to hold the wildest fear in pause, to still a clamor or hush a cry - it is the coming of mercy to a sense of sin, of life to the fear of death. But when he added, The peace that is mine I give to you, we are reminded of the tremendous conflict going on in his own nature at that very moment, and of the sublime secret of Jesus, by which the will of man was brought, even in agony and death, into utter harmony with the will of God. The ἀφίημι, and δίδωμι of this verse show how the ordinary salutation may become invested with immense significance. There are moments when into one human word may be condensed the love of a lifetime. Christ does but pour through these common words the fire of his eternal and infinite love. Not as the world giveth, give I to you, both as to manner and matter and power. The mode of giving is real, sincere, neither formal nor hypocritical. "I say it, and I mean it." (Meyer, in opposition to Coder, thinks this unworthy of the Savior at this moment; but Godet is right.) The matter, substance, and value of the prosperity and peace I give stretches out into eternity; and I give it, I do not merely talk of it or wish it. "Christ's farewell greeting is forerunner of the beatific salutation which shall accompany the eternal meeting" (Lange). Then, returning to the Divine words of Ver. 1, he seems to say, "Have I not justified all that I have said?" - Let not your heart be troubled, harassed by these mysteries or by my departure, neither let it be terrified (δελιάτω). This is the only place in the New Testament where the word occurs, though it is found in the LXX.; δειλός and δειλία, in the sense of timidity from extrinsic fear, may frequently be found. He must have seen some rising symptoms of the carnal weakness which would prostrate them for a while. John 14:27

Vincent's Word Studies

Peace

"These are last words, as of one who is about to go away and says 'good-night' or gives his blessing" (Luther). Peace! was the ordinary oriental greeting at parting. Compare John 20:21.

My peace Igive

Compare 1 John 3:1. "It is of his own that one gives" (Godet).

Let it be afraid (δειλιάτω)

Only here in the New Testament. Properly it signifies cowardly fear. Rev., fearful. The kindred adjective δειλός fearful, is used by Matthew of the disciples in the storm (Matthew 8:26), and in Revelation of those who deny the faith through fear of persecution (Revelation 21:8). The kindred noun, δειλία, occurs only in 2 Timothy 1:7, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear," contrasted with the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.