Vengeance is Mine

(Read Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19)

My favorite movies involve stories when the protagonist pays the ultimate price at the end. From a purely entertainment perspective, it’s so gratifying watching the bad guy suffer for his crimes. Rambo, Walking Tall, Jason Bourne, Lethal Weapon, and Taken are all thrilling fictional examples of justified revenge. But watching something play out on TV doesn’t involve God’s righteousness involvement. When it comes to real life, the rules aren’t the same.

‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution,
In due time their foot will slip;
For the day of their disaster is at hand,
And their doom hurries to meet them.’
Deuteronomy 32:35

Moses was leading his people out of Israel to the promised land. He was giving the Israelites a warning from God. He was warning them about enemies within Israel, not outside the Jewish community. Many of his people had turned their hearts from God towards idols and false gods. Their behavior angered God because they knew the truth, they knew better, but their lack of repentance would eventually provoke God to inflict the punishment of exile on them.

What I love most about this passage is God telling us that vengeance is His, not ours. Some translations say, “Vengeance belongs to me.” In a stark, direct message, God commanded His people to back away from retribution. God was not only putting them in their place, but He was showing them a lesson about His righteousness, His justice, and the finality of His judgement.

It can be difficult to separate vengeance from anger. What makes God’s vengeance so much different from our version? I have never been actively involved in physical vengeance, but in my mind I righted wrongs ten-fold. The thoughts I sometimes have towards people who have done harm to me, my family, or friends are the exact reason why God through Moses said, “I got this.” It’s OK to be angry when we’ve been wronged, it’s normal human behavior. The problem comes when we want to do something about it. Our vengeance is reckless and vindictive, merely making us feel better temporarily. God’s vengeance is justified. It’s also often redemptive. God’s vengeance has a greater purpose than making Him feel good.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
Romans 12:19

Up until this point in the book of Romans, Paul had exposed what God in his mercy has done. In verse 19, he let them know that it was time to act like Christians. As repentant sinners, we are supposed to love as Jesus loves us, and we should never put ourselves in place of God. We are spectators in this world and need to let God administer His wrath as He sees fit. The other thing to remember, which I forget all the time, is that God loves even the worst sinners. So, when we’re seeking vengeance, we are lashing out at God’s children.

From our perspective, vengeance is more about forgiveness than retribution or punishment. What does the Bible teach us about forgiveness? The ESV translation uses “forgive” 109 times. Jesus reminded us to not let evil fuel our behavior. He pointed out the connection between God forgiving us with us forgiving others. “…Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” – Matthew 6:12

Forgiveness is a hard pill to swallow. It’s replacing our ego with God’s justice. Forgiveness doesn’t deny that something happened, it doesn’t even fix the injustice, but it does stamp a paid receipt for the wrong. Something that was lost, broken, or destroyed has been paid in full.

God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and “God will judge his people.”
Hebrews 10:26-31

Robbie Parker, facing a pool of cameras, publicly forgave the gunman who killed his daughter and 26 others at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “We’d like to offer our deepest condolences to all the families who are directly affected by this shooting. It’s a horrific tragedy and we want everybody to know that our hearts and our prayers go out to them. This includes the family of the shooter, and I can’t imagine how hard this experience must be for you and I want you to know that our family and our love and our support goes out to you as well.” Somehow, someway this grief-stricken dad found God’s love amidst this tragedy. He added, “As we move on from what happened here, what happened to so many people, let it not turn into something that defines us, but something that inspires us to be better, to be more compassionate and more humble people.”

Antoinette was born in Kigali, Rwanda. “My parents didn’t have much, but I admired how they worked very hard to raise me and my brothers,” she said. “My family – who are Tutsi – faced discrimination, and years before the genocide many Tutsi people were imprisoned and killed.” In the spring of 1994, this eleven-old witnessed horrific acts that many people would never recover from. It is estimated the Hutu militia killed 800,000 people in Rwanda, mostly Tutsi. “The following morning, the Interahamwe (the Hutu militia) came to our house, looking for ‘cockroaches’. On one occasion, while I was hiding in a bush, I saw two dogs eating dead bodies and this absolutely terrified me.” How can good come from something like this? Antoinette said, “I became a Christian in 2000 at the college I was attending. Because of what Jesus has done in my life, I have found the strength to forgive those who killed my family.” Demonstrating the rich maturity in her faith, she said, “I have embraced forgiveness as a fundamental key to freedom and a steppingstone to reconciliation. I have discovered that forgiveness is a choice you have to make over and over again. I still have to forgive people associated with my loss.”

If we take vengeance upon ourselves, we take it from God. It becomes ours not His. What does that say about our relationship with God and trust in God? When things happen to us, many of us adopt vengeance is “mine.” God told us in the Bible, that vengeance is His and He dealt with it with the finality of Christ on the cross. Every single sin ever committed was either paid for on the cross or will be paid by that offender in hell.

As children of God, we have some simple rules to follow. Love God with all our heart and soul and our neighbors alike. If we love God the way we’re supposed to, we allow Him to be judge and jury. We give justice to Him. If we love our neighbors the way Jesus loves us, we show them compassion and forgiveness.

“The difference between justice and forgiveness: To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That’s what the forgiving God does.”
― Miroslav Volf

Key Applications:

1. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) While hanging on a cross, humiliated, tortured, and ridiculed, Jesus was moments from His death. Perhaps only He would be capable of this level of forgiveness, but it serves as a perfect model for us. When someone cuts in front of you on the highway, take a breath. Let it go. How you react says more about your Christian state than the person who did that to you.
2. Read Deuteronomy 32:35 a few times. Pray for God to help you let go of this control over something in your life. Vengeance is God’s. He said it. Let Him have it.
3. It has been said that hatred and bitterness is like poison. Like rust, it will continue to grow and grow until it changes the inner and outward composition. Think of someone you need to forgive and use their name in this part of the Lord’s prayer – forgive “_______” who has sinned against us.

Where else in your life can you live out the teachings of Christ? Look for next week’s Devotion.