“Why is he called Prince of Peace and not King of Peace?”

After King David built his ginormous palace, he desired to build a temple worthy of the God he served and adored. David built himself an incredible palace and then said, “Whoops! Where should you live, God?” And God probably snickered and replied, “Dude, I don’t need to dwell in a house. I’m cool. You’re a warrior king. My house will be built in Peace. Your son will have a time of peace and he’ll construct my temple.”

Was David less than Solomon because he was a man of war? Was he unqualified because he was a man of war? Of course not. David was a man after God’s own heart! David saved Israel by following God and fighting for the salvation of God’s people and building the kingdom of Israel. His mighty warrior hand saved Israel as he depended on the God of Armies. But it was Solomon—the prince of peace—who would build the house where God would dwell.

But that didn’t stop David from preparing. He couldn’t build it, but he invested a great deal into it. He drew out the plans and he collected the provisions. He never lost the passion for the building of the temple and while he didn’t do the construction, he was every bit as responsible for its completion as Solomon.

In providing a time of peace in which His dwelling place would be built, God would begin to reveal a more complete picture of who He is. Not just a warrior God with a mighty hand that saves, but a tender God of peace, of restoration and wholeness. In fact, that’s a more complete definition of the word used for peace: shalom.

Take a moment and consider all that this word peace encompasses:

Completeness (in number)
safety and soundness (in body)
welfare (health and prosperity)
peace (quiet, tranquility, contentment)
peace (friendship)

The temple Solomon built during a time when God brought peace to Israel, the temple where God dwelled, would soon become an illustration of a new thing God was doing. There would be new place to which He would bring peace and where He would dwell.

Hundreds and hundreds of years later, the Prince of Peace about whom Isaiah prophesied would come. And it is about this new dwelling place Jesus would teach before He went to the cross. It is the Holy Spirit about whom Jesus speaks when He says:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14: 26-27).

David, the man of war, commissioned his prince of peace to build God’s temple. God loves to use concrete images of unimaginable spiritual things. And I believe He’s doing this here. Our Mighty God both saves and provides shalom. The God of Angel Armies—the great warrior God—commissioned His Son, the Prince of Peace, to build a dwelling place of eternal peace for those who trust in His righteousness.

Now we know God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One, and we know Christ is a complete reflection of all of the characteristics of God.

Stick with me. I love the way God says it through Isaiah:

“Punishment for our [shalom] was on Him and we are healed by his wounds.”

And I love the way Psalm 85 says it:

“Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

See, what’s beautiful about these passages is that there is no peace without the saving hand of our battle fighting God. There is no wholeness without the righteousness of God. There’s no lovingkindness without truth, and no shalom without righteousness. God is at once a God of peace and of righteousness and of rule. He says in Isaiah 40: “Comfort, comfort my people,” and in verses 10 and 11, we see a picture of the God of both Angel Armies and shepherding peace: “See the Lord comes with strength and his power establishes his rule…He protects his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads those that are nursing.”

Jesus will indeed return as a mighty battle fighting King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus is, after all, a direct reflection of the Father—the God of Armies. His mighty hand is coming to save and it is this warrior King for whom we wait to save us from this time of darkness and bring true and final shalom.

Right now, as we await the saving hand of our battle fighting King, we have God’s Spirit of peace and wholeness. Where the Spirit of the Lord dwells, where the Prince of Peace reigns, there is peace and freedom no matter the circumstances. Not an earthly peace, but our eternal and everlasting peace that declares:

Though the cherry trees don't blossom

and the strawberries don't ripen,

Though the apples are worm-eaten

and the wheat fields stunted,

Though the sheep pens are sheepless

and the cattle barns empty,

I'm singing joyful praise to GOD.

I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.

Counting on GOD's Rule to prevail,

I take heart and gain strength.

I run like a deer.

I feel like I'm king of the mountain!

(Habakkuk 3:17-19)

And it is the Prince of Peace, who is at once Mighty God and Everlasting Father and Wonderful Counselor, for whom we wait. And when we consider the final Kingdom, I believe what we are experiencing now is a mere picture of the entirety of restored creation filled with His perfect peace. The entire Kingdom will be completeness (in number), safe and sound, healthy and prosperous, tranquil and content, and deep friendship will abound between men as well as between God and man.

I love the way Isaiah puts it in 11:9:

“They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.”

And in 9:7

“The dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this."

It is a mind bending task to try to grasp how He is all of these things. And yet, isn’t it magnificent to look at the threads of His eternal story given to us in His Word and see the lengths to which He has gone to try to reveal all of Himself to us? That we could even attempt to understand this three-in-one is simply because He deeply desires to reveal all the facets of His love for us. And so as we wait…we continue to search the depths of Him, and He continues to call and welcome and draw us further in.