20. Our relationship to our enemies: not retaliation but service
When we are moved by the mercies of God, and when our minds have been renewed to grasp his will, all our relationships become transformed. Not only do we offer our bodies to God (1–2), and develop a sober self-image (3–8), and love one another in the Christian community (9–16), but now also we serve our enemies (17–21). These have already appeared in the guise of our persecutors (14) and are about to reappear as evildoers (17). In fact, the last five verses of Romans 12 handle the question of how Christians should respond to evildoers. Good and evil are contrasted throughout the whole context (e.g. 9, 17, 21 and 13:3–4).
The most striking feature of this final paragraph, if we add verse 14 which anticipated it, is that it contains four resounding negative imperatives:
All four prohibitions say the same thing in different words. Retaliation and revenge are absolutely forbidden to the followers of Jesus. He himself never hit back in either word or deed. And in spite of our inborn tendency to take revenge, ranging from the child’s tit for tat to the adult’s more sophisticated determination to get even with an opponent, Jesus calls us instead to imitate him. To be sure, there is a place for the punishment of evildoers in the law courts, and Paul will come to this in Romans 13. But in personal conduct we are never to get our own back by injuring those who have injured us. Non-retaliation was a very early feature of the Christian ethical tradition, going back to the teaching of Jesus, and beyond this to the Old Testament wisdom literature.
The Christian ethic is never purely negative, however, and each of Paul’s four negative imperatives is accompanied by a positive counterpart. Thus, we are not to curse but to bless (14); we are not to retaliate, but to do what is right and to live at peace (17–18); we are not to take revenge, but to leave this to God, and meanwhile to serve our enemies (19–20); and we are not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good (21).
If Paul’s first contrast between good and evil was ‘bless and do not curse’ (14), which we have already considered, his second begins: Do not repay anyone evil for evil (17a). Instead, we are to be careful to do what is right [kala, ‘good things’] in the eyes of everyone (17b), or ‘see that your public behaviour is above criticism’ (jbp). The reasoning seems to be that it would be anomalous to refrain from evil if at the same time we are not seen to be practising good. A further counterpart to retaliation follows, which is equally universal in its application: If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (18). To refuse to repay evil is to refuse to inflame a quarrel. But this is not enough. We have also to take the initiative in positive peacemaking, even if, as the two qualifications indicate (‘if it is possible’ and ‘as far as it depends on you’), this is not always possible. For sometimes other people either are not willing to live at peace with us, or lay down a condition for reconciliation which would involve an unacceptable moral compromise.
Paul’s third prohibition is: Do not take revenge, my dear friends (19a, agapētoi, ‘beloved’; he assures them of his love because he is calling them to the way of love). To this negative Paul again opposes a positive counterpart, or actually two. The first is: but leave room for God’s wrath. Because the Greek sentence means literally ‘give place to wrath’, without specifying whose wrath is in mind, some commentators have thought it was either the evildoer’s (‘let his anger run its course, give in to it’) or the injured party’s (‘let your anger pass and not express itself in revenge’). But the quotation which immediately follows (It is mine to avenge) shows conclusively that the reference is to God’s anger, and Paul has already made us familiar with this absolute use of ‘the wrath’ to indicate God’s wrath (e.g. 5:9). Paul goes on: for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord (19b). The word for avenge is ekdikēsis, meaning ‘punishment’; it corresponds to the verb in verse 19, do not take revenge. Similarly, the verb I will repay corresponds to do not repay in verse 17. It is used of God’s judgment, as when Jesus himself said that ‘the Son of Man . . . will reward each person according to what they have done’.
This use of similar words between what is written of God and what is forbidden to us makes Paul’s point plain. The very two activities which are prohibited to us (retaliation and punishment) are now said to belong to God. The reason the repayment or judging of evil is forbidden to us is not that it is wrong in itself (for evil deserves to be punished and should be), but that it is God’s role, not ours. We are to ‘leave room for God’s wrath’, which is expressed now through the state’s administration of justice, since rulers are ‘God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer’ (13:4), and which will be finally expressed on ‘the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed’ (2:5).
If the first counterpart to ‘do not take revenge’ is ‘leave room for God’s wrath’, the second is the command to serve our enemy:
On the contrary,
‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’
(20)
Because in the Old Testament it is said that God will ‘rain fiery coals’ on the wicked, some take the coals here as a symbol of judgment, and even argue that to serve our enemies ‘will have the effect of increasing the punishment’ which they will receive. But the whole context cries out against this explanation, especially the very next verse and its reference to overcoming evil with good. Others suggest that the pain inflicted by the burning coals is a symbol of the shame and remorse experienced by an enemy who is rebuked by kindness. A third option is that the coals are a symbol of penitence. Commentators draw attention to an ancient Egyptian ritual in which penitents would carry burning coals on their heads as evidence of the reality of their repentance. In this case the coals are ‘a dynamic symbol of change of mind which takes place as a result of a deed of love’.
The two positive alternatives to revenge, then, are to leave any necessary punishment to God and meanwhile to get busy in serving our enemy’s welfare. These are not contradictory. Moreover, both are supported by the Bible. Our personal responsibility is to love and serve our enemies according to their needs, and genuinely to seek their highest good. The coals of fire this may heap on them are intended to heal, not to hurt, to win, not to alienate, in fact, to shame them into repentance. Thus Paul draws a vital distinction between the duty of private citizens to love and serve evildoers, and the duty of public servants, as official agents of God’s wrath, to bring them to trial and, if convicted, to punish them. Far from being incompatible with each other, both principles are seen operating in Jesus at the cross. On the one hand, ‘when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate’. On the other, ‘he entrusted himself to him who judges justly’, in confidence that God’s justice would triumph.
The fourth contrast of good and evil, which is also a summary of Paul’s argument and the climax of the chapter, is verse 21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. A stark alternative is set before us; no neutrality, no middle way, is possible. If we curse (14), repay evil for evil (17) or take revenge (19), then, because all these are evil responses to evil, we have given in to evil, been sucked into its sphere of influence, and been defeated, overcome, even ‘overpowered’ (jbp) by it. But if we refuse to retaliate, we can instead ‘take the offensive’ (jbp), and practise the positive counterparts to revenge. Then, if we bless our persecutors (14), if we ensure that we are ourselves seen to be doing good (17), if we are active in peacemaking and peacekeeping (18), if we leave all judgment to God (19), and if we love and serve our enemy, and even win him or her over to a better mind (20), then in these ways we have overcome evil with good.
In all our thinking and living it is important to keep the negative and positive counterparts together. Both are good. It is good never to retaliate, because if we repay evil for evil, we double it, adding a second evil to the first, and so increasing the total amount of evil in the world. It is even better to be positive, to bless, to do good, to seek peace, and to serve and convert our enemy, because if we thus repay good for evil, we reduce the total of evil in the world, while at the same time increasing the total of good. To repay evil for evil is to be overcome by it; to repay good for evil is to overcome evil with good. This is the way of the cross. ‘Such is the masterpiece of love.’