Go In Peace and Be Whole

Go In Peace and Be Whole

by Gloria Copeland

God has made thousands of wonderful promises to us in the Bible. All of them belong to us in Christ, and the blessings they make available to us are too numerous to count. But after studying them for more than five decades now, if I had to sum them all up in a single word, I know exactly the one I would choose.

SHALOM.

The Hebrew word for peace, shalom is among the most powerful words in the Bible. Absolutely packed with meaning, it’s used in the Old Testament to describe the new covenant. It’s the word God used in Isaiah when He called the coming Messiah the “Prince of Peace.” Prophesying about the new day He would usher in, God said to His people that after the Messiah comes, “With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee…for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace [shalom] be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee” (Isaiah 54:8-10).

I learned from my friend Billye Brim, who spent time years ago studying the Hebrew language in Israel, shalom means “to be made sound, to be whole, perfect, with nothing missing, and nothing broken.” It speaks of a condition of completeness that includes health, well-being, safety, tranquility, material abundance, fullness, rest, harmony, and the absence of agitation or discord.

Think of it: Every one of those things (and more) are promised to us, as New Testament believers. God included them all in the “covenant of His peace.”

Many times, you’ll find in your Bible that where the word peace is used, in the margin it says prosperity. Those two words go together because you can’t truly be whole without having your financial needs met. Some people claim us modern-day “prosperity preachers” came up with that idea. But really, it’s God’s idea. He knows better than anyone what it means to be at peace, or to have shalom, and He says that financial abundance—having plenty to meet your own needs and plenty to give and be a blessing to others—is an indispensable part of it.

One of my favorite definitions of peace comes from W.E. Vine’s expository dictionary. It says peace is “everything that makes for man’s highest good.”

That’s what God has always desired for His people. Even under the Old Covenant, He didn’t want His people to be subject to the evil results of the curse that got into the earth through sin. He wanted His people to walk in THE BLESSING, so He told them to hearken diligently to His voice and do what He commanded.

If they did that, He said, “All these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee” (Deuteronomy 28:2). You’ll be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. Your children will be blessed. Your livestock, crops and everything you own will be blessed. You’ll be blessed when you come in and when you go out.

When enemies rise up against you, they’ll be defeated before you. They’ll flee from you in every direction. The Lord will command the blessing on your bank accounts and savings accounts, and everything you set your hand to. “The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow” (verse 12).

God’s Will for All Mankind for All Time

Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful peacefilled way to live? Certainly it does! Sadly though, God’s Old Covenant people never managed to live that way very long. Since the new birth wasn’t available back then, they still had a fallen spiritual nature. So, instead of hearkening to God’s Word and being blessed, they kept disobeying Him and falling prey to the curse.

Every broken condition man can possibly suffer is the result of the curse. You can see that from reading its description in verses 15-68. Listed there you’ll find such miseries as sickness and disease, poverty and lack, defeat, sorrow, depression, failure, fear, anxiety, and more.

Those things have never been God’s will for His people. He made that clear when He put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Before they sinned and messed things up, everything there was perfect. Nothing was missing. Nothing was broken.

There was plenty of food to eat, and it didn’t have to be cooked. It grew on trees! The temperature was just right.

Adam had a perfect wife. Eve had a perfect husband. And God was there to walk and talk with them. Created in His image, they were clothed in His glory and had nothing to fear because He’d given them dominion over the whole earth.

That’s a picture of God’s perfect will not only for Adam and Eve but for all mankind—and His will hasn’t changed. It’s still the same today!

“But Gloria, even if that’s true, we’re in a different situation than Adam and Eve were. We’re not living in the Garden of Eden. We’re living in a fallen world where ‘all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’ Isn’t that what Romans 3:23 says?”

Yes, but read the next verse! It tells us the Spanish broadcast that’s not the end of the story. It says that, as born-again believers, we are no longer just sinners doomed to continually fall short. Under the new covenant we are "justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and graciously by His grace... through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus" (verse 24, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).

Unlike the Israelites in the Old Testament, our spirits have been re-created in God’s image. We have His nature on the inside of us and His laws written in our hearts. We have what it takes to continually hearken to His Word and obey Him because now, as Titus 2:11 says, “The grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people” (New Living Translation).

The New Testament word salvation means the same thing shalom does in the Old Testament. Translated from the Greek word soteria, it can be defined as “preservation, material and temporal deliverance from danger and apprehension; pardon; liberty, healing, restoration, soundness, and wholeness.” Most Christians today have yet to realize this, but Jesus secured all those things for us. When He went to the Cross, He paid the price there for our full salvation.

As believers, we are a saved people. We are a healed people. We are a blessed and prosperous people. We’ve been redeemed from the whole curse of the law because Jesus took upon Himself that curse in its entirety. He left nothing out. He bore it all so that THE BLESSING of Abraham can come on us, and we can be whole and live in peace!

As Isaiah wrote, looking forward in time and seeing Jesus’ crucifixion:

“Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment]…. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole” (Isaiah 53:4-5, AMPC).

The Apostle Peter, looking backward in time at that event after it happened, also wrote about the healing Jesus secured for us. Only he wrote of it in the past tense and said, “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24, New King James Version).

Jesus’ Peace Is Yours

Study the Gospels and you’ll see Jesus has always been against sickness. When He was ministering on earth, everywhere He went, if people would receive Him and believe the Word that He preached, they got healed and delivered. Some of them had been sick and in desperate conditions for years and had no hope at all in the natural, yet when they put their faith in Jesus, they were made whole.

Take, for example, the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5. In addition to having suffered physically for 12 years, she’d suffered financial devastation. Desperate to get well, she’d spent all her money on doctors, but instead of getting better she kept getting worse. Then something happened in her life that changed it forever. She heard about Jesus!

What did she hear? She heard He was healing people, and she believed it. She didn’t shrink back in doubt and think, Well, I might not qualify for healing, or I’m too far gone; even Jesus probably couldn’t heal me.

No, she declared, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” Then she acted on her faith. She pushed her way through the crowd that surrounded Jesus and touched the hem of His garment.

What happened? She got exactly what she said.

“Straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague…. And [Jesus] said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:29, 34).

In addition to receiving healing, I think that woman received financial restoration as well. Why? Because according to Jesus, her faith had made her whole. And as I’ve already said, scriptural wholeness (or shalom) includes financial prosperity.

Jewish people in Jesus’ day understood this. That’s why the statement He made to His disciples in John 14:27, when He was about to go to the Cross, carried so much weight. “Peace I leave with you,” He said, “my peace I give unto you.” The disciples knew the Hebrew language. So, they understood what Jesus meant better than most Christians do today. He was saying, “My shalom, My wholeness, My completeness, I leave with you. My protection, My deliverance, everything I am and everything I have which makes for your highest good, I give you!”

Jesus said that because it’s the heart of our heavenly Father. He doesn’t want anyone left broken. He doesn’t want anyone left sick or in lack. People in some Christian circles have taught that He does, but they’re mistaken.

They have a different picture of God than the one the Bible presents. It doesn’t portray Him as harsh and demanding, as someone who is stingy with His blessings and hard to please. It says God’s nature is just the opposite. That “the LORD is gracious, (or disposed to show favor) and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:8-9).

God is not hard to please! You’ll never catch Him on a bad day. He is good and He wants good in your life. He does require you to do things His way, but that’s because He knows best. Everything He wrote down for us in His Word to believe, say and do, was written for our benefit. The only reason He commands us to listen to and obey Him is because His way works.

The world’s ways, on the other hand, do not work. Under the dominion of sin and the devil, the world is in the dark. If you walk in darkness (or in disobedience to God) there is no way you’re going to be whole. Things will always be missing. Things will always be broken.

If, however, you walk continually in the light of God’s Word, there’s no way you can stay broken. As you keep living according to the light you have and seeking more light, like the woman with the issue of blood, you will be made whole!

It’s your choice. You get to decide. What do you want to do?

God has already made His choice. He wants you to take Him up on all His exceedingly great and precious promises. He wants you to enjoy all that’s yours in Christ Jesus, walk in His covenant of peace, and keep increasing in every area of life.

For you to do that, though, you must delve into that covenant and find out what belongs to you. Otherwise, you’ll be like someone who has money in the bank but doesn’t know it. God said about one group of His Old Covenant people that they were “destroyed for lack of knowledge.” But you don’t have to be like those people.

You can put God and His Word first place in your life. You can open your Bible every day and read His promises and His life-giving instructions. You can hearken continually to the voice of the Scriptures and the voice of His Spirit in your heart that’s saying: “Peace belongs to you. Healing belongs to you. Deliverance belongs to you. Everything that makes for man’s highest good belongs to you. Believe it. Say it. Act on it.”

Go in peace and be whole!

POINTS TO GET YOU THERE:

1 God used the word shalom to describe to His Old Covenant people the marvelous new covenant He would establish with us, as believers. (Isa. 54:10)

2 Salvation means the same thing shalom does and in Christ it’s available to all. (Titus 2:11)

3 Jesus paid the full price for our salvation, which includes pardon from sin and deliverance from its power, healing, prosperity, restoration, soundness, and wholeness. (Isa. 53:5, AMPC)

4 As a believer, you can walk in the same peace Jesus did when He was on earth. (John 14:27)

5 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”(Hos. 4:6), so open your Bible every day and find out more about your covenant of peace. (John 8:32)