What once caused division between us and God is no longer true of us. If you have come to Christ by faith, God no longer sees you as a sinner; he sees you as forgiven of your sins and clothed in his Son’s righteousness. And so now, there is no more enmity; there is no more wrath. We are now reconciled to God. The root cause of all that disorder and turmoil has been removed.

Each Lord’s Day when our church gathers, we begin our service with the traditional Christian greeting: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This traditional greeting was not merely invented by men; it comes directly from Scripture.

In fact, every Pauline letter begins with grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, as do 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation.

What is the significance of these words? These are not words Paul and other authors include merely for tradition’s sake; they are not empty platitudes. These words are at the very heart of the gospel. They serve a significant function at the beginning of New Testament epistles.

Here are two important words that are central to the gospel, central to the New Testament, and, indeed, central to all of Scripture. Let’s consider each of them in turn.

What is Grace?

First, Paul extends grace to his recipients.

A traditional Greek greeting would simply be “chairein—greetings.” It literally means, “May you have joy.” It’s like when we say, “Good day to you.” Yet in Paul’s greetings, he changes chairein to charis—“grace.”

A similar idea to chairein is implied here—Paul wishes his recipients to have joy, blessing, favor. And yet by changing chairein to charis, Paul emphasizes one very important truth: this joy must come from favor that is extended from another.

This is what the word charis—grace—means: favor granted to us from another. You can’t somehow work up this joy from within yourself—it must come from somewhere else.

And Paul explicitly tells us from whom this favor comes: grace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the consistent testimony of Scripture. All true favor comes from God (Exod 33:19, Ps 84:11, Prov 3:34, James 1:17).

So in this greeting, Paul is extending to his recipients favor from God such that they will experience blessing.

All true favor comes from God.

What is Peace?

And then, Paul indicates what kind of blessing comes from God’s favor. Unlike the focus of chairein, joy isn’t really the ultimate outcome of favor from God that Paul is extending here. Rather, it is peace that God’s favor brings. Peace is the goal—grace is its source.

Peace is no surface-level happiness. Peace is far deeper than that; it is a sense of wholeness, blessedness, harmony. The New Testament concept of peace is equivalent to the Hebrew idea of shalom.

This is the kind of well-being and completeness that God intended for mankind in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 1 and 2 present the ideal state of shalom, where humanity dwells in perfect harmony with God, with one another, and with creation. Everything fit together in perfect harmony as God intended. Adam and Eve enjoyed unbroken communion with God, harmonious relationship with each other, and fruitful dominion over creation.

This is the shalom, the peace, that Paul is extending here—a peace that only comes as a result of grace—favor from God.

Why We Need Grace and Peace

Now why is it that Paul extends grace and peace to his recipients at the beginning of each letter? Why do they need grace and peace?

They need grace—favor from another—because the Bible teaches that in ourselves, we do not possess peace because of sin. In fact, the whole world has become characterized by lack of peace.

Men’s souls are disordered. We live in a restless world, people desperately searching for satisfaction and ultimately rest in something. Surely, something will take all this chaos inside me and just let me rest. Our world is filled with people either trying to distract themselves from the turmoil within them, or they dry to drown it out.

Sinners do not know the way of peace, Paul tells us in Romans 5:17. Instead, sinners are enemies with God. The prophet Isaiah said in 48:22, “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.” In fact, because of sin, God has pledged to pour out upon sinners the very opposite of rest. The fact is that our very nature and lives deserve war from God, not peace.

This is the tragic reality for all sinners who attempt to enter into God’s holy presence—we are God’s enemies. We deserve judgment and wrath. We have no access to the presence of God; for a sinner to enter God’s righteous presence would mean being consumed by his white-hot holiness.

Sin brought a disintegration of the shalom God created humankind to enjoy. We are now at enmity with God, in conflict with other humans, and even creation itself brings chaos.

And not only do sinners lack external peace, we also have no peace within us. God’s moral law continually accuses the consciences of sinners made in God’s image. No matter what we try to do to gain inner peace in ourselves—good works, earthly pleasures, entertaining distractions—sinners cannot find true rest.

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