The region into which Christ admitted this woman. It is remarkable that in the present case, and in that other to which I have already referred, the phraseology employed is not the ordinary one of that familiar Old Testament leave-taking salutation, which was the goodbye' of the Hebrews, Go in peace.' But we read occasionally in the Old Testament a slight but eloquent variation; It is not Go in peace,' as our Authorised Version has it, but Go into peace,' and that is a great deal more than the other. Go in peace' refers to the momentary emotion; Go into peace' seems, as it were, to open the door of a great palace, to let down the barrier on the borders of a land, and to send the person away upon a journey through all the extent of that blessed country. Jesus Christ takes up this as He does a great many very ordinary conventional forms, and puts a meaning into it. Eli had said to Hannah, Go into peace.' Nathan had said to David, Go into peace.' But Eli and Nathan could only wish that it might be so; their wish had no power to realise itself. Christ takes the water of the conventional salutation and turns it into the wine of a real gift. When He says, Go into peace,' He puts the person into the peace which He wishes them, and His word is like a living creature, and fulfils itself.
So He says to each of us: If you have been saved by faith, I open the door of this great palace. I admit you across the boundaries of this great country. I give you all possible forms of peace for yours.' Peace with God --that is the foundation of all--then peace with ourselves, so that our inmost nature need no longer be torn in pieces by contending emotions, I dare not' waiting upon' I would,' and I ought' and I will' being in continual and internecine conflict; but heart and will, and calmed conscience, and satisfied desires, and pure affections, and lofty emotions being all drawn together into one great wave by the attraction of His love, as the moon draws the heaped waters of the ocean round the world. So our souls at rest in God may be at peace within themselves, and that is the only way by which the discords of the heart can be tuned to one key, into harmony and concord; and the only way by which wars and tumults within the soul turn into tranquil energy, and into peace which is not stagnation, but rather a mightier force than was ever developed when the soul was cleft by discordant desires.
In like manner, the man who is at peace with God, and consequently with himself, is in relations of harmony with all things and with all events. All things are yours if ye are Christ's.' The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,' because Sisera was fighting against God; and all creatures, and all events, are at enmity with the man who is in antagonism and enmity to Him who is Lord of them all. But if we have peace with God, and peace with ourselves, then, as Job says, Thou shalt make a league with the beasts of the field, and the stones of the field shall be at peace with thee.' Thy faith hath saved thee; go into peace.'
Remember that this commandment, which is likewise a promise and a bestowal, bids us progress in the peace into which Christ admits us. We should be growingly unperturbed and calm, and there is no joy but calm,' when all is said and done. We should be more and more tranquil and at rest; and every day there should come, as it were, a deeper and more substantial layer of tranquillity enveloping our hearts, a thicker armour against perturbation and calamity and tumult.
