John 14:27 · Passage · Peace
My Peace I Give to You
Jesus spoke these words to His disciples on the night before His death, in the discourse that John records in chapters 14 to 16.
Within hours of hearing the promise, the disciples deserted Him and fled (Mark 14:50), and after the cross He came back to them with the same word.
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.
- The passage
- John 14:25 to 31, John 16:33, John 20:19 to 21
- Book
- John
- Hold in memory
- John 14:27, John 16:33
Summary
The peace of John 14:27 is a gift from Jesus Himself, given as He was about to leave His disciples and go to the Father. John records the farewell discourse in chapters 13 to 17, and the gift of peace stands near the end of its first part, just before Jesus said, "Get up! Let us go on from here" (John 14:31).
- Jesus calls it "My peace" and sets His giving against the way the world gives (John 14:27).
- He joins the gift to two commands, one against troubled hearts and one against fear.
- At the end of the discourse He promised peace in Himself and tribulation in the world, and told the disciples to take courage because He had overcome the world (John 16:33).
- After He rose He showed the disciples His hands and side and sent them out as the Father had sent Him (John 20:19 to 21).
Peace Left on the Last Night
Jesus spoke of peace near the end of the supper, after He had told the disciples that He was going away.
My Peace I Give to You studies the peace Jesus left with His disciples in John 14:27 and the greeting of peace He gave them after He rose. It belongs to the value of peace, because in this verse Jesus calls a peace His own and hands it to His friends.
The question the page answers is what peace Jesus left and how He gave it. Below stand the Greek of the verse, a table of His three words of peace in John, His promise of peace inside tribulation and the Old Testament greeting behind His words. Two readings of the verse, two teachers of the early church and the evening of the resurrection follow.
All this I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you.Jesus promises the Holy Spirit as the disciples' teacher in the sentence just before He gives His peace, so the gift of peace comes with the promise of the Spirit.
The Spirit of verse 26 and the rest of the supper discourse have their own studies on the site.
The verse has two verbs of giving, aphiemi, I leave, and didomi, I give. The noun eirene, peace, stands at the head of each clause.
In the second clause Jesus adds emen, of Mine, so the peace He gives is the peace He has Himself.
Three Times Jesus Spoke Peace to the Disciples
John records Jesus speaking peace to His disciples at the supper, at the close of the discourse and on the evening He rose.
John records Jesus speaking peace to the disciples three times, at the supper, at the close of the discourse and after He rose.
| Text | Setting | Hearers | The Berean words |
|---|---|---|---|
| John 14:27 | The supper on the night before His death | The disciples, after Judas "went out into the night" (John 13:30) | "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you." |
| John 16:33 | The end of the discourse, after He foretold their scattering | The same disciples | "I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace." |
| John 20:19 to 21 | The evening of the first day of the week, behind locked doors | The disciples, with Thomas absent (John 20:24) | "Peace be with you!" |
Peace in Me, Tribulation in the World
At the close of the discourse Jesus set the peace He gives beside the trouble the disciples would meet.
“Look, an hour is coming and has already come when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and you will leave Me all alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.Jesus has just foretold that the disciples will scatter and leave Him, so the promise that follows is spoken to men who will fail Him that night.
I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”The last sentence of the discourse before the prayer of John 17 ends on victory.
The Greek sets two places side by side, en emoi, in Me, and en to kosmo, in the world, with the verb to have in each clause. The disciples were to have the peace and the tribulation at the same time.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871), drew the same conclusion from the verse and wrote that the peace promised "was far from an unruffled one".
The Greeting of Israel
Peace was the word with which Israel greeted and parted, and Jesus used it in both ways.
When the LORD appeared to Gideon, He said, "Peace be with you. Do not be afraid, for you will not die" (Judges 6:23). David sent ten young men to Nabal with the greeting "peace to you and your house" (1 Samuel 25:6).
Jesus sent away a woman He had healed with the same word of parting, "Go in peace and be free of your affliction" (Mark 5:34).
The Greek lexicon behind the site's word pages lists this use under eirene. It gives the sense of the Hebrew shalom carried into Greek, "of a state of security and safety", with the formula "go in peace".
The word eirene occurs six times in the fourth Gospel, always on the lips of Jesus as He addresses His followers. It stands twice in John 14:27, once in 16:33 and three times after the resurrection, in 20:19, 20:21 and 20:26.
The Peace Jesus Calls His Own
The second half of the verse turns from the gift to the hearts that receive it.
The first command uses tarasso, which the lexicon glosses "to stir or agitate (roil water)". John 14:1 carries the same command in the same form.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well.The discourse begins with the command against troubled hearts and joins it to belief in God and in Jesus.
The second command uses deiliao, to be timid. The STEP Bible lexicon counts one use of the verb in the New Testament, in this verse.
You heard Me say, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.Jesus gives the disciples a reason for joy in His going to the Father, which answers the trouble His going had caused them.
I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming, and he has no claim on Me. But I do exactly what the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Get up! Let us go on from here.Even as He gives peace, Jesus names the enemy who is approaching and declares that he holds nothing over Him.
Paul later wrote to the church at Philippi that "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7).
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), turned the verse into a prayer: "Lord, evermore give us this peace!"
How the Church Has Read the Promise
Two teachers of the early church read Jesus' words of peace in John as a charge to the church and a promise for the tribulation.
died 258 · Cyprian
Cyprian of Carthage (died 258), in his treatise On the Unity of the Church, read Christ's bequest of peace as a charge to keep the church at one.
“The Holy Spirit warns us, and says, ‘What man is he that desireth to live, and would fain see good days? Refrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile. Eschew evil, and do good; seek peace, and ensue it.’ The son of peace ought to seek peace and ensue it. He who knows and loves the bond of charity, ought to refrain his tongue from the evil of dissension. Among His divine commands and salutary teachings, the Lord, when He was now very near to His passion, added this one, saying, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.’ He gave this to us as an heritage; He promised all the gifts and rewards of which He spoke through the preservation of peace. If we are fellow-heirs with Christ, let us abide in the peace of Christ; if we are sons of God, we ought to be peacemakers. ‘Blessed,’ says He, ‘are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the sons of God.’ It behoves the sons of God to be peacemakers, gentle in heart, simple in speech, agreeing in affection, faithfully linked to one another in the bonds of unanimity.”
Cyprian · Treatise I On the Unity of the Church · on John 14:27Patristic
died 430 · Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo (died 430), in his Tractates on John, taught that the disciples would keep their peace by abiding in Christ through the tribulation that began with their scattering.
Read the page on Augustine of Hippo
“And then, in bringing to a close this weighty and protracted discourse, He said, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ The beginning of such tribulation was to be found in that whereof, in order to show that they were infants, to whom, as still wanting in intelligence, and mistaking one thing for another, all the great and divine things He had said were little better than proverbs, He had previously said, ‘Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own.’ Such, I say, was the beginning of the tribulation, but not in the same measure of their perseverance. For in adding, ‘and ye shall leave me alone,’ He did not mean that they would be of such a character in the subsequent tribulation, which they should have to endure in the world after His ascension, as thus to desert Him; but that in Him they should have peace by still abiding in Him.”
Augustine of Hippo · Tractates on John 103 · on John 16:33Patristic
A Greeting or a Gift
Commentators read the words of John 14:27 in two ways, as Israel's everyday farewell given new weight or as a legacy Christ hands over in person.
Both readings start from the same words, which open with the greeting heard throughout the Old Testament.
The common farewell filled with more than a wishAlbert Barnes; Adam Clarke
Albert Barnes, in his Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), wrote of the words, "This was a common form of benediction among the Jews". He added that in this place it "was, however, much more than a mere form or an empty wish".
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, called the words "The Jewish form of salutation and benediction".
The objection: the next words, "I do not give to you as the world gives" (John 14:27), mark this peace as more than a farewell.
A bequest that Christ carries out HimselfJamieson, Fausset and Brown; Augustine of Hippo
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote on the verse that "Christ is the Executor of His own Testament", so that what He leaves He also gives.
Augustine, in his seventy-seventh Tractate on John, read the two clauses as two gifts: "peace He leaves with us when going away", and His own peace He gives at the end, when He returns.
The objection: after the resurrection Jesus greets the disciples with the everyday words of greeting, so John keeps the common form beside the gift.
Peace Be with You
John records the risen Lord's first words to the gathered disciples.
It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them. After He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.”The peace promised before the cross is now spoken by the risen Lord.
The Greek of the greeting is eirene humin, peace to you. Eight days later Jesus spoke it a third time, when Thomas was with them (John 20:26).
The disciples had met His peace once before, on a night crossing of the lake, when He stilled a storm and asked why they were afraid.
John Chrysostom (died 407), in his eighty-sixth homily on John, explained why the risen Lord repeated His greeting. He wrote that the disciples "had a truceless war with the Jews", and that Jesus spoke peace again and again, "giving them, to counterbalance the war, the consolation".
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged Greek text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible TBESG lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, based on Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922)
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on John 14:27.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on John 14:27.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on John 14:27 and 16:33.
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 86, on John 20:19 to 21 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 14)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on John 14:27.
- Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 77, on John 14:27.
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