AVENGE NOT YOURSELVES

The concluding verses of chapter 12 bring before us a very important principle. Vengeance involves the outpouring of righteous wrath in proportion to the extent of the grievance done. The moment this is understood, we understand also that we are not capable of accurately dispensing such justice. Vengeance involves retribution, punishment that is weighed and fitting, but we think in terms of retaliation, the visiting of maximum wrath on the object of our anger. The judges and magistrates who administer our legal code bear the near-impossible task of meting out fair penalties for crimes that, at best, they little understand. How can a human judge weigh the motive behind someone’s deed? How can he measure the hurt done to the victim? These gross limitations are the reason why the common man so often perceives that justice is not being done. Which of us has not fumed over the apparent leniency of a sentence handed down for some notorious crime, or pronounced our own views on the senselessness of a penalty that seems to totally outweigh the severity of the offence?

Paul has exhorted the Romans to bear unrighteous behaviour towards them with dignity and fortitude. Does that mean the abandonment of justice? Not at all! Paul says, ‘Avenge not yourselves’ because God alone is competent to fairly assess all the facts of the case. He alone is absolutely impartial in His righteous judgement. ‘Give place unto wrath’, says Paul, exhorting the saints to move out of the way so that divine wrath can be dispensed without hindrance. Just as a paramedic at an accident scene may order well-meaning but incompetent bystanders out of the way so that he can do his work, so it is with the exacting of vengeance. The believer is to continue to do good in the face of evil, even to the extent of giving succour to his tormentor, and leave the final settlement of justice with God. The unexpected kindness of the believer in the face of enmity will be like heaping coals of fire on the head of the enemy. This does not suggest that extra judgment will be brought on him, but, rather, that he might be broken down and brought to repentance, thus escaping judgement; cf. 1 Pet. 2. 15.