2. His own conduct during His ministry is the best commentary on His teaching. It is true that there is much denunciation of evil {e.g. Mt 23),
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VENGEANCE
VERILY
that He upbraided for their unbelief the cities where He had wrought His great miracles (Mt IP"*''- II), that He swept the Temple clear of those who had robbed it of its sanctity (Jn 2^'^^-, Mt 2V-^- II). But these are echoes of the Divine wrath ; they are not in any single instance the expression of personal anger, of retaliation, of hatred. On the other hand, we have His patient endurance of all manner of personal abuse, His heart-broken lament over Jerusalem (Mt 23^' ||), His bearing during and after His trial (Mt 26. 27), and above all, His prayer on the cross : ' Father, forgive thein : for they know not what they do' (Lk 23**).
3. This teaching of Christ, forbidding vengeance, requiring forgiveness and love, is built on a firm religious basis. His aim as a religious Teacher, as the Sent of God, was to renew the sin-broken fellowship between men and God, to make men sons of God ; but the indispensable condition of sonship is unity of nature. The essence of the Divine nature is love, and the highest manifesta- tion of the Divine love is forgiveness and benevo- lence. The spirit of malevolence, of retaliation, of vindictive dealing with men, is alien to the spirit of God. Therefoi-e it must be banned out of the heart of those who would be sons of God, and re- placed by the spirit of forgiveness, of ungrudging- love. It is this conception of the essential love of God issuing in forgiveness, in love, that is the basis of the high demands of Christ, and the inspiration and possibility of our response (Mt 543-45. 48 1823-35^ Li^ 635_ ^otc, also, how Christ links the Second Commandment to the First as ' like unto it,' Mt 2239 11).
4. If the teaching of Christ seem at first sight impracticable, destructive of moral order, and de- livering wrong-doers from the fear of punishment, the answer to these objections is not far to seek. In the first place, liberation from the spirit of vengeance is a moral triumph for the sufferer of wrong. Revenge is evil. It belongs at best to a lower stage of morality and of the knowledge of God. It cannot justify itself to those who have seen God in the face of Jesus Christ. The sons of God must be like the Son of God, like God Himself, who loves and forgives without limit. Furtlier, love is the most potent moral force that the world has ever known. To meet wrong with revenge may be a satisfaction, and may seem a right thing to the natural man. Vengeance may accomplish its object, may fully punish and even crush the wrong-doer. But it does not conquer him, it does not crush the wrong out of his heart, it does not make him ashamed of his sin, it does not win him to good and to God. Love does — not always in- deed, but often — and nothing else can. Love is a heaping of coals of fire on an enemy's head (Ro 122"), ^j^g kindling of a burning shame in his heart, the overcoming of evil with good, the triumph of God. See art. Retaliation.
5. There is a further and a very solemn strain in the teaching of Christ, in which we find the final answer to the fear that moral anarchy may arise from the exorcism of the spirit of vengeance. The clearest expression of it is found outside the Gospels (Ro 12^'*) : ' Avenge not yourselves, be- loved, but give place unto wrath [rg opyy, the wrath, the wrath of God] : for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the Lord.' To avenge ourselves is to assume the pre- rogative of God. So Christ teaches, e.g., in the parable of the Unjust Judge : ' Shall' not God avenge his own elect? ... I say unto you, that he will avenge them speedily' (Lk I8''*-)- It is in this light that we must read all Christ's words of denunciation, His parables of Judgment, His judicial acts (such as the cleansing of the Temple), His lament over impenitent Jerusalem. ' It shall
be more tolerable . . . in the day of judgment ' (Mt 10^'^ ; cf. 10- Ipoff. I236f- l63f-, Jn 8«). The moral order of the Avorld will be vindicated by Him whose right alone it is to mete out vengeance to evil- doers, who alone has adequate knowledge and wisdom to do justice to sin.
It would, of course, be easy to hold this teaching of Christ in a wrong spirit, to cherish a sense of satisfaction that, even if we may not avenge our- selves, yet vengeance is certainly in store for ■\vrong-doers. This would be entirely contrary to the spirit of Christ. It would be the old evil spirit of vengeance in a new form, a more subtle and therefore a worse form. It would mean an utter absence of the love Avhich Christ inculcates, which desires and prays for the good of the enemy. It would be the conquest of ourselves by evil, not of the evil in others by good. But, on the other hand, the moral sense which God has implanted in us, and which He has strengthened by His revelation of Himself, could not rest satisfied unless it were assured that evil shall not go unpunished, that unrepented wrong shall receive its due re^\•ard from an all-wise and, let us add, an all-loving God.