Vengeance: Love's Alleged Opposite

Lady Justice may be blind but Israel’s Lord is not

The lectionary epistle for this Sunday is Romans 12, in which the apostle exhorts his hearers to live in a manner that their life together might exemplify the word of the cross. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil…,” Paul writes, “beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.”

The biblical dialectic between love and vengeance or, analogously, peace and justice underscores the problem with slogans. “God is love” may be an indispensable slogan only if by it the slogan refers to whole narrative of God’s history with Israel, culminating in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection— all grasped in God’s saving intent.

Unfortunately, the slogan “God is love” rarely functions as a summation of the history God makes with his people. And nowhere is this omission more evident than we think about love’s alleged opposite, vengeance.