His manhood was untroubled by perturbation or tumult, by passions or contending desires, and no outward things could break His calm. It was His peace inasmuch as, in His own experience, He possessed it. It comes with Him, like an atmosphere it is never where He is not. His peace is inseparable from His presence. 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. 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. So we have here, first, the greeting, which is a gift. His words are deeds, and His wishes for His disciples fulfil themselves. 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. 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. It is a confession of the deep unrest of the human heart. It carries us back to a state of society in which every stranger might be an enemy. ‘Peace be unto you!’ was, and is, the common Eastern salutation, both in meeting and in parting. The cognate substantive is used in 2Timothy 1:7, and the adjective in Matthew 8:26 Mark 4:40 and Revelation 21:8. It points especially to the cowardice of fear. The word here rendered “be afraid ” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. 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. 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. He gives them not land or houses or possessions, but “peace ” and that “His own peace,” “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” 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 is our peace” ( Ephesians 2:14), and this peace is the farewell gift to the disciples from whom He is now departing. “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 repeats it with the emphatic “My,” and speaks of it as an actual possession which He imparts to them. 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. 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. 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.
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