Ah, sweet justice!  Few things are more satisfying than a rude driver caught in the web of the magistrate.   When that Dodge Challenger, sporting the fish, blows you off the road then gets pulled over, it’s hard to resist the temptation to honk and wave as you pass.   We feel it is simple poetic justice.  But perhaps, it is actually a desire for vengeance.  

Despite how they feel, vengeance and justice are not the same thing.   Vengeance demands punishment for any and every offense committed against us as individuals.   And it imputes guilt to everyone connected to that offense, whether past, present, and future.   Vengeance also demands its “pound of flesh” for every scratch or insult.  It always operates on an inflated scale of personal offense.  It is punitive.  And desires to inflict pain and loss on a much greater scale than that of the original offense.

Vengeance feels like justice, but it never quite satisfies.   It grows and grows out of all proportion to the offense.   And it consumes the avenged along with the offender.  One wit once noted that “The man who seeks revenge digs two graves.”   And in Laura Hillenbrand’s wartime biography of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken, she offers an important insight on revenge.

“The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.”

By contrast, true justice declares the value of an offense against a Holy God.  And only secondarily, what our sin cost someone else.  Every sin against God deserves His wrath and curse, both in this life and in the life to come.  But the Bible prescribes just temporal consequences to address how our sin affects others as well.  And its prescriptions are fair and limited.   Far from encouraging vengeance, the Bible warns strictly against it.   Vengeance, like unforgiveness, ties our souls in knots.  But justice teaches restraint, compassion, and mercy.  And reminds us to be more concerned about offense to God than ourselves.

After God spoke the Ten Commandments directly to the people at Sinai, he called Moses to come up the mountain to receive the Book of the Covenant.  This Book, recorded in Exodus 21-24, included needful reminders, examples, and illustrations of how God’s covenant people are to apply the Ten Commandments to their daily lives.  And while some of these examples apply specifically to the circumstances of ancient life, how they are unpacked has application for us today.  

God’s first concern is purity of worship.  His second, the condition and care of slaves.   Then he moved on to capital offenses then justice for personal injury.  And while the causes and nature of personal injuries highlighted by Scripture are diverse, one principle binds them all together – a call for justice, not vengeance.   When a servant is abused, or a vulnerable woman harmed by negligence, the desire for revenge is strong.  But what is truly fair and just?  Unlike our highly nuanced personal injury law, the Biblical directive is surprisingly simple.

“But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”

Exodus 21:23-25

Often called lex talionis or the ‘law of the tooth,’ this principle is assumed by moderns to be a primitive, barbaric sanction for revenge.   Indeed, Gandhi famously wrote, “an eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind.”  But like many things about Christianity, Gandhi failed to understand that lex talionis reflects God’s concern to protect life, not a disregard for it.  It is designed to guard against retribution and revenge, not foster it. 

Lex Talionis is a safeguard to prevent the escalation of personal injury into a blood feud.   And far from a literal demand for vengeful mutilation, it requires a careful assessment of the value of what sin destroyed and what restitution demands. Join us as we examine God’s law concerning personal injury in Exodus 21:18-27 and consider the important difference between justice and vengeance. 

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.