Jesus is the God of peace. “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). “Now may the Lord continually grant you peace in every circumstance” (2 Thess. 3:16). “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body (Col. 3:15). “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). We carry the peace of Christ. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Rom. 12:18). The Christian is always overflowing with peace, because he is filled up with the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17-19). Someone who does not have peace with all men, and especially with the brethren, does not have the Holy Spirit, or may have extinguished it (1 Thess. 5:19).
If God is the God of Peace and translated this peace by the Cross through the death of His only begotten Son (2 Cor. 5:19), a doubt and a question come to our minds: Why was Jehovah, who revealed himself, the God of enmity? In the very beginning, in Gen. 3:15, it is written: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Satan should be the enemy of the Church because he is evil, and not because Jehovah determined. Ordaining enmity, Jehovah is equally God of the woman and God of Satan, for the serpent is Satan. According to Jehovah, the Church has a weak spot on her heel, and the serpent bruises the Church, which should be pure and holy, according to what the Apostle Paul says: “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2,3). Did Satan bruise Eve’s heel, throwing her down, and does Paul fear that the same might happen to the Church? Does Jehovah prophesy the work of the serpent, which he himself placed in paradise, for the purpose of deceiving Adam and Eve?
Jehovah put enmity between Cain and Abel, for he accepted Abel’s offer and rejected Cain’s, knowing that they were primitive men and did not have conscience of future things. Abel’s sacrifice was a figure of the sacrifices of the Law, and not of the sacrifice of Jesus, according to Hebrews 12:24: “and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”
Jehovah put enmity between Ishmael and Isaac. The story was that Sarai was barren, and since Jehovah had promised a son to Abraham, Sarai gave him her servant Hagar to see if the son would be born. Sarai acted in this manner because she blamed Jehovah for her sterility (Gen. 16:2). Hagar gave Abraham a son, and enmity was born between Sarai and Hagar (Gen. 16:5). Jehovah was the one to name the boy. “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. And he will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers” (Gen. 16:10-12). Besides the enmity between Sarai and Hagar, Jehovah put enmity between Ishmael and Isaac, that is, between Arabs and Israelites, because Isaac is the father of the Israelites, and Ishmael is the father of the Arabs. Paul says that Ishmael persecuted Isaac (Gal. 4: 28,29).
Evidently, Abraham told his son Isaac that Jehovah had plotted the enmity, so Isaac feared having children. This fear is registered in Gen. 31:42,53. In Hebrew, the word “fear” is the same as “testicles.” Being so, Isaac feared having children who would be enemies, just as it had been the case in his father’s household. The worst happened, though. The sons of Isaac were twins and enemies from the womb, even though he had prayed about it (Gen. 25: 21-23). And Esau wished to kill Jacob, his brother (Gen. 27:41). Jacob ran away so he would not die (Gen. 27:41-43).
Jehovah divided the kingdom of Israel in two. It is obvious that Jehovah knew that there would be war between the two kingdoms. Judah was Rehoboam’s share, and ten tribes went to Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:35,36). Done this, Jehovah forbid war between the two kingdoms (1 Kings 12:21-24), but there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all of their days (1 Kings 14:30 e 15:6,7). In the next generation, there was war between Asa, king of Judah, and Baasha, king of Israel (1 Kings 15:16,17).
Jehovah knew that there would be war, because a divided kingdom could not subsist (Matt. 12:25). The truth is that Judah and Israel were enemies formed by Jehovah. All that Jehovah does brings on enmities and hostilities. Let us read: “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, BY ABOLISHING IN HIS FLESH THE ENMITY, WHICH IS THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity” (Eph. 2:13-16).
When a Moslem and a Jew are converted to Christ, the enmity is over; nevertheless, if both remain in their original religions, the enmity remains. The author of this enmity is Jehovah; the God of enmity. We conclude that he is against Christ, the God of peace.
The most interesting thing is that Jesus came two thousand years ago and established the blessing of peace, but enmities between Jews and Arabs persist, that is, between Ishmael and Isaac, thus proving that the darkness from Jehovah which is in this world, prevails over the light of Christ. This same demonic spirit of enmity reigns today in the Christian churches, where the traditional Christians condemn the Pentecostals.
We finish this brief writing by asking our reader: Who is your God—the one of enmity or the one of peace? They are not the same one, but Jesus Christ said: “ I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira