'Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath.' Do not
take the law into your own hands, but leave God's way of retribution
to work itself out. By avenging, the Apostle means a passionate
redress of private wrongs at the bidding of personal resentment. We
must note how deep this precept goes. It prohibits not merely
external acts which, in civilised times are restrained by law, but,
as with Christian morality, it deals with thoughts and feelings, and
not only with deeds. It forbids such natural and common thoughts as
'I owe him an ill turn for that'; 'I should like to pay him off.' A
great deal of what is popularly called 'a proper spirit' becomes
extremely improper if tested by this precept. There is an eloquent
word in German which we can only clumsily reproduce, which christens
the ugly pleasure at seeing misfortune and calls it 'joy in others'
disasters.' We have not the word; would that we had not the thing!
A solemn reason is added for the difficult precept, in that
frequently misunderstood saying, 'Give place unto wrath.' The
question is, Whose wrath? And, plainly, the subsequent words of the
section show that it is God's. That quotation comes from Deuteronomy
xxxii. 35. It is possibly unfortunate that 'vengeance' is ascribed to
God; for hasty readers lay hold of the idea of passionate resentment,
and transfer it to Him, whereas His retributive action has in it no
resentment and no passion. Nor are we to suppose that the thought
here is only the base one, _they are sure to be punished, so we
need not trouble_. The Apostle points to the solemn fact of
retribution as an element in the Divine government. It is not merely
automatically working laws which recompense evil by evil,
but it is the face of the Lord which is inexorably and inevitably set
'against them that do evil.' That recompense is not hidden away in
the future behind the curtain of death, but is realised in the
present, as every evil-doer too surely and bitterly experiences.
'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' God only has the
right to recompense the ungodly and the sinner as well as the
righteous. Dwelling in such a system as we do, how dares any one take
that work into his hands? It requires perfect knowledge of the true
evil of an action, which no one has who cannot read the heart; it
requires perfect freedom from passion; it requires perfect immunity
from evil desert on the part of the avenger; in a word, it belongs to
God, and to Him alone. We have nothing to do with apportioning
retribution to desert, either in private actions or in the treatment
of so-called criminals. In the latter our objects should be
reformation and the safety of society. If we add to these
retribution, we transcend our functions.
II. Take the positive,--Follow God's way of meeting hostility with
beneficence.
The hungry enemy is to be fed, the thirsty to be given drink; and the
reason is, that such beneficence will 'heap coals of fire upon his
head.' The negative is not enough. To abstain from vengeance will
leave the heart unaffected, and may simply issue in the cessation of
all intercourse. The reason assigned sounds at first strange. It is
clear that the 'coals of fire' which are to be heaped on the head are
meant to melt and soften the heart, and cause it to glow with love.
There may be also included the burning pangs of shame felt by a man
whose evil is answered by good. But these are secondary and auxiliary
to the true end of kindling the fire of love in his alienated heart.
The great object which every Christian man is bound to have in view
is to win over the enemy and melt away misconceptions and hostility.
It is not from any selfish regard to one's own personal ease that we
are so to act, but because of the sacred regard which Christ has
taught us to cherish for the blessing of peace amongst men, and in
order that we may deliver a brother from the snare, and make him
share in the joys of fellowship with God. The only way to burn up the
evil in his heart is by heaping coals of kindness and beneficence on
his head. And for such an end it becomes us to watch for
opportunities. We have to mark the right moment, and make sure that
we time our offer for food when he is hungry and of drink when he
thirsts; for often _mal-a-propos_ offers of kindness make things
worse. Such is God's way. His thunderbolts we cannot grasp, His love
we can copy. Of the two weapons mercy and judgment which He holds in
His hand, the latter is emphatically His own; the former should be
ours too.