Romans 12:19

Avenge not yourselves, beloved; but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.

The child of God may not collect a blood debt, to borrow the euphemism of the North Vietnamese who murdered 9,000 civilians in one of their Tet offensives. Vengeance is not a Christian prerogative, this being true for a number of reasons, such as: (1) God has forbidden it; (2) it is illegal in any civilized state; and (3) it is contrary to the Christian principle of overcoming evil with good, the latter being the master strategy against evil. The punishment of evil-doers is a prerogative of God and may not be usurped by his children.

The quotation here is from Deuteronomy 32:35, where the text has,

To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

Significantly, Paul did not use the exact words of Deuteronomy, but stated the thought in a form found nowhere else in scripture except in Hebrews 10:30, where the appearance of exactly the same words strongly suggests Pauline authorship of Hebrews. Who but Paul, of all the people of that generation, could have paraphrased a portion of Deuteronomy in exactly the same words? There also seems to be a different meaning from that of Moses, as similarly in other passages of Romans (Romans 10:6-8), thus still further tying the peculiar arrangement of these words to Paul alone. In Deuteronomy, the emphasis is upon the occurrence of some disaster, accident, or calamity to check the evil-doer, with the implication that God's agency might cause such to occur; but here Paul's thought pointed to the function of the magistrate and the legal system as the agency through which God will execute vengeance upon wrongdoing, which is exactly the subject Paul was about to take up (Romans 13). Whiteside especially understood this to be the case. He said:

To punish evil-doers is God's prerogative; let him do the punishing in his own appointed way. Paul's quoting that statement (Deuteronomy 32:35) did not change its meaning nor its application. It does not refer to the vengeance God will take on sinners at the final judgment. Under the law of Moses, God took vengeance upon evil-doers by the agency of chosen authorities. Paul's quoting that part of the law did not change its application, and the vengeance here mentioned will be taken in the same way. A little later, Paul will show how this is to be done.[18]

Whatever is the full meaning of the question of God's taking vengeance upon wicked men, the use of constituted authorities is surely one way it is accomplished (see under Romans 13:4); but this writer believes that God may, for sufficient reason, bring disaster upon a sinner, as surely implied in the Deuteronomic passage cited. Also, the final judgment is another theater of God's vengeance upon the wicked. The fact of God's taking vengeance is here revealed, as in the Old Testament; and at least three manifestations of that vengeance are visible: (1) in the matter of direct providence (the case of Herod in Acts 12); (2) through legal authorities; and (3) at the final judgment. There are also possibly other ways in which God executes vengeance which lie totally beyond our human knowledge or understanding. The fact that vengeance will truly be taken is a truth to be held in humility and awe.