Retribution Is God's Face, Not Our Fist

The natural instinct binds us: enmity answers enmity, kindness answers kindness. A dog stretches its neck to be patted and snaps at a raised stick. We are creatures of reciprocal reaction. Yet Christian morality requires us to master this instinct through strenuous effort.

When Paul writes, 'Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath,' he does not merely forbid violent acts—law already restrains those in civilised times. He strikes at the thought-life itself: I owe him an ill turn, I should like to pay him off. These whispered resentments, what society calls 'proper spirit,' become improper under this precept. Even the German Schadenfreude—'joy in others' disasters'—falls under condemnation, though we English lack even the word for such ugliness.

The force of the command lies in its reason: 'Give place unto wrath'—God's wrath. Hasty readers imagine passionate resentment transferred to Yahweh, but His retributive action contains no resentment, no passion. It is not merely impersonal laws recompensing evil by evil. Rather, the face of the Lord is inexorably and inevitably set 'against them that do evil.' This recompense is not hidden in eternity but realised in the present—every evil-doer experiences it bitterly.

'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' When we refrain from avenging ourselves, we do not leave wrongs unpunished. We place them in the hands of Divine justice, which is neither hasty nor merciful toward injustice, though it may be merciful toward the injurer. We surrender the office of judge to the One whose face burns against evil.