Can we love our enemies and also wish vengance upon them?

[Fritz Kobus]

Seems at least the martyred saints can:

Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

What about us?

 

[atpollard]

Is there no room for JUSTICE?

When I was 8 years old I had a friend at school that was sexually assaulted by his mother’s boyfriend. I watched the light in his eyes go out. At 8 years old I discovered the philosophical question known as ”the problem of evil” and I learned that it was possible for a body to live and the soul to die.

Does he deserve no Justice? Is it wrong to think that God should somehow balance the scales of Justice?

What of the ripples of evil that precipitated out from that event, like rings from the stone dropped in a pond? That God could stand by and do nothing as such monumental evil happened was the first nail in the coffin of my “Santa Clause” and “Easter Bunny” like faith in a god. It marked the first step on a road that would lead me to sins probably greater than his in their own way (he was likely sick/broken while I freely embraced evil).

For the victims of Injustice to cry out to God for Justice, is not a license to hate. That is a hard-learned lesson. To hate your enemies is to choose to be consumed by a cancer of the soul. Anyone that looks into the eyes of a shark comments on the sense one gets that the shark has no mind behind those soulless eyes. It is nothing more than a biological machine programmed to swim and kill. It does it without thought and it is incapable of doing anything else. Hate long and hard enough and you can have shark-like eyes … dead, soulless, incapable of anything but killing. I lived in a world surrounded by those dead eyes. I came close to having those same dead eyes.

God gives us a choice. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord”. That is our choice, to hold onto our hate and our right to avenge our wrongs, or to CHOOSE to hand it over to God and trust Him to deal with it. God commands us to let go of it because we are not designed to carry that burden. The command to “Love our enemies” is not for their benefit ... it is for OUR benefit. The cost of HATE is just too great for us to carry.

So WHAT ABOUT JUSTICE?

If those that wronged us continue to reject God’s mercy, then they will suffer an eternity of crying out and gnashing of teeth … would YOU choose to inflict more on them?
If God forgives those that wronged us, then the Son of God will be beaten beyond recognition as a human being … the skin flayed off his back ... and then He will be tortured to death, then face the Wrath of God for sin … is THAT enough punishment to satisfy OUR Justice? Would you demand more?

 

[atpollard]

As I pondered the question of JUSTICE, I long ago found myself humbled and more than content to leave the matter in God’s hands. I am grateful that I do not need to decide what is Just; I can trust in God’s GOODNESS and give thanks for His mercy.

The Martyrs in Revelation 6:9 were not looking for vengeance, they just wanted to know when God would put an end to the suffering caused by evil. “How long, O Lord” … my heart aches for God to end the evil as well.

 

[Fritz Kobus]

You provide good information to ponder and I want to be on the right side of this question, so I bring up another verse, 2 Timothy 4:14 where Paul says that,

"Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:"

So it seems that we can hope and wish for evildoers to be dealt with. Seems to me that we should always pray that evildoers are hindered in their evil activities, even if stopping them may cause them harm. Similar to how an attacker may have to be shot to protect others' lives. Shooting an active shooter before he can kill many more people seems a mercy to those innocents who would otherwise be shot.

And then there are those whom have been given over to perdition such as Pharaoh and Judas. I wonder if Soros, Gates, Fauci, Obama, and others of their ilk have also been given over to perdition. I pray the Lord bring them to justice. I also pray they repent.

 

[Andrew]

Revelation speaks of the dead martyrs crying out for vengeance