The Peace of Knowing the End from the Beginning

I like watching new movies. Every now and then though, I like to watch something that I’ve seen before. As I get older, this is sometimes because I’ve genuinely forgotten what happens. At other times though, I know exactly what is going to happen, and yet I still want to watch. There’s a certain comfort and joy in experiencing a good story with a known, good ending.

This is one of the best things about being a Christian. As a Christian, you don’t necessarily know how your individual story is going to play out, but you do know how it’s going to end. This produces something more than just comfort and joy; it produces peace. Paul spoke of this peace when he said, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

As Paul says, the reason we can know the end of our story as Christians is because of the story of Jesus. Jesus’ story is different from ours in one major aspect: He not only knew the end of His story; He knew the entirety of His life’s story as a human before any human story ever even began. John the baptizer described Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), and the apostle John added that He was, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Jesus knew “all things that would come upon Him” (John 18:4), and yet He lived out a story that saw Him described as, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), a story filled with pain and tragedy, to grant us the opportunity of peace and a good ending.

One of my favorite Bible passages demonstrates Jesus’ foreknowledge, His confidence, and His ability to provide us with peace. Jesus concludes some words to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion by saying, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Careful Bible students typically notice that God sometimes speaks of future events using past grammatical tenses to indicate a degree of certainty that only He can have about the future. Before the garden and its betrayal, before the trial, before the cross, and before the tomb, Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” He had peace, and He invited His disciples (and, by extension, us) into that peace.

Four things stand out to me as I reflect upon this powerful passage. First, there is a definitive location of the peace Jesus provides. Jesus says, “in Me you may have peace.” Too often, men and women can be guilty of saying, “‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). False offers of peace abound. Only Jesus can offer real peace, and He only offers it in one place: “in Him.” Indeed, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” is “in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3); there is no peace nor any spiritual blessing apart from Him. The only way to be “in Him” is to put Him on in baptism, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

Second, John 16:33 describes a definitive means of Jesus’ peace. He says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.” One cannot be truly baptized into Christ without “faith in the working of God” (Colossians 2:12), and faith comes from “hearing… the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17 ESV).  Further, one cannot abide in Jesus unless, as Jesus said, “My words abide in you,” and “you keep My commandments” (John 15:7, 10). The words of Jesus incorporate the “red letters” found in some Bibles that highlight the words He spoke during His life as well as the entirety of the New Testament which He died to put into effect (Hebrews 9:16-17). The words of inspired men like the apostle Paul are none other than “the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37).
 
Third, I find in John 16:33 a clear indication of what peace is not. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” Sometimes people think that peace is the absence of evil; Jesus knew no such peace and promised no such peace. No, peace for Jesus was something different. Rather than granting the absence of evil, the peace Jesus offers for those in Him is the abiding presence of all that is good. Tribulation not only exists; it is promised. No matter how tumultuous the tribulation gets, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12), but this does not in any way detract from their peace.  

The fourth thing that stands out to me as I reflect on John 16:33 is why this is so. Christians can abide in peace because Jesus Himself abides. Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Satan must have truly thought that Calvary was going to be a battle and that the gates of Hades would indeed prevail against Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth of what happened. Jesus’ life and subsequent death on the cross allowed Him to “destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). As prophesied, Jesus was not left in Hades, and His body saw no corruption of decay (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27). The gates of Hades did “not prevail against” Jesus building His church (Matthew 16:18), the institution to which He adds the saved in Him (Acts 2:47). The outcome of any and all tribulation Jesus faced was known and overcome before it even began; so it is with those in Him.

Jesus knew the end of His story from the beginning and could say with full confidence before it even happened, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). There is no greater peace than knowing a good end is coming before a story has even started, and it is exactly this peace that Jesus offers to us. If you want this peace, get in Jesus, abide in Jesus, and let His words abide in you (John 15:7) to the point “that you bear much fruit” (John 15:18), indeed, “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org