Theology Detail
Applied to: War funding
Matthew 5:9 is one of the Beatitudes, in which Christ pronounces blessing on those who make peace, calling them children of God. It establishes peacemaking as a mark of the kingdom and a defining characteristic of those who belong to God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) open the Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s most sustained ethical teaching. They describe the character of those who belong to the kingdom of heaven—not as a set of rules to earn entry, but as a portrait of the kind of people the kingdom produces. Each beatitude names a quality and pronounces a blessing.
The seventh beatitude blesses “peacemakers” (eirenopoioi). This is an active word. It does not describe those who merely enjoy peace or who avoid conflict. It describes those who make peace—who labor to bring about reconciliation, justice, and the resolution of enmity. The peacemaker is not passive; he works to establish peace where there is conflict.
The reward is striking: “they shall be called the children of God.” This is because God Himself is the supreme peacemaker. He reconciles sinners to Himself through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). Those who labor for peace reflect the character of their Father. Peacemaking is not merely a social virtue; it is an expression of the divine nature.
The context of the Sermon on the Mount is important. Christ is teaching His disciples, and through them, all who would follow Him. The Beatitudes describe kingdom ethics—the values that should govern the conduct of those who confess Christ as Lord.
Those who belong to God’s kingdom are called to be active peacemakers, laboring to resolve conflict and establish justice, not merely acquiescing to the absence of hostility.
The principle must be carefully stated. Biblical peace (shalom, eirene) is not merely the absence of war. It is the presence of justice, wholeness, and right relationship. Jeremiah 6:14 condemns those who cry “Peace, peace; when there is no peace”—that is, who use the language of peace to paper over ongoing injustice. True peacemaking includes the pursuit of justice, the restraint of aggressors, and the protection of the vulnerable. It does not mean capitulation to evil in the name of avoiding conflict.
The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 135) includes among the duties of the sixth commandment “peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behaviour” and “forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries.” Peacemaking is woven into the Reformed ethic of neighbor-love.
Matthew 5:9 speaks to the war funding question by establishing the moral priority of peacemaking for those who follow Christ:
The connection is a prudential application. Matthew 5:9 does not address government budgets or military spending. It establishes the kingdom ethic of peacemaking, which Christians should bring to bear on every policy question, including the allocation of public funds to military purposes.
Matthew 5:9 does not teach that peace should be pursued at any cost, or that all military action is contrary to peacemaking. Sometimes genuine peacemaking requires the restraint of aggressors by force. The Allied response to Nazi aggression in World War II is often cited as an example of peacemaking through military action: the destruction of an unjust aggressor in order to establish a just peace.
The beatitude also does not give Christians a mandate to impose peace through political coercion or to treat every military expenditure as a moral failure. The Reformed tradition recognizes that the magistrate’s authority includes the use of force for the common good (WCF 23.1–2). The question is not whether force is ever justified, but whether it is being used in the service of genuine peace or in the service of unjust ends.
Christians should resist two temptations: (1) using “peacemaking” as a slogan for appeasement or moral passivity in the face of genuine evil, and (2) using the legitimacy of just war to dismiss the kingdom ethic of peacemaking as naive or irrelevant. Christ’s words are not optional for His followers. They describe what His people are called to be.
Matthew 5:9 teaches that peacemakers are blessed and shall be called children of God. This kingdom ethic establishes peacemaking—the active pursuit of reconciliation and just resolution of conflict—as a defining mark of Christ’s people. Applied to war funding, it calls Christians to evaluate military expenditures in light of whether they serve the cause of genuine peace or perpetuate unnecessary conflict. The burden of moral justification falls on those who advocate for war, and Christians should consistently press for alternatives to armed conflict wherever justice permits. This is a prudential application of Christ’s direct teaching on the character of the kingdom.