Divine vengeance

[Byron Jack Gaist]

This is a topic which has already been touched on in other threads, but I wonder if someone can shed some more light on it for me: what is the correct Christian attitude towards God's Wrath, the Dies Irae?

I'm thinking specifically of psalms like Psalm 58 (KJV) (http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=Psalm%2058;&version=9;), where it is stated that


The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.(v.10)

How does this harmonize with the commandment to love our enemies? A monk once said to me, when I described the behaviour of a particularly implacable foe at work, "he (the foe) will be sorted out by God". Although I heartily relish the prospect that personal and social injustices will be settled by the Just God in the next life, I do wonder how Christian it is to do so (along with the "relishing", I also fear that I may be quite high on the Divine 'hit list' myself)...

Also, God is impassible. His nature is love. So where does all the wrath and vengeance come into it?

Old questions perhaps, but any thoughts would be welcome.

In Christ
Byron

[Andrzej Fiderkiewicz]

Perhaps you could look at other psalm:

"For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime" (Ps 30,5 KJV}

I would recommend you to read two important articles, "The River of Fire" by Alexandre Kalomiros (which I think has separate tread devoted to it here:

http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm

and "Heaven and Hell in the Afterlife According To The Bible" by Peter Chopelas:

http://aggreen.net/beliefs/heaven_hell.html

In Christ,
AF

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Andrzej,

Thank you for the articles. I have previously come across "The River of Fire", but confess I never read it in whole, something I will do when I get the chance.

The quotation you offer from the psalms (Ps 30:5) in response to my own (Ps 58:10) leaves my initial question unanswered. In fact, Ps 30:5 must be talking about how to deal with suffering in this life, not in the next, where torment will be eternal. I am aware that it is the Orthodox belief that heaven and hell are conditions, not locations, and that the same Presence of God will be experienced as Paradise by those who love Him, and as Hell by those who do not. Nevertheless, the quotation from Ps 58:10 still puzzles me, since it seems to suggest that part of the pleasure experienced in Paradise will be in witnessing the suffering of the damned. Surely this vindictiveness does not chime with a love for all mankind, and especially sinners and enemies.

My question about Divine Vengeance came after reading a particularly vivid description of God's anger in a popular Orthodox booklet on "What Hell is" by Archimandrite Vasilios Charalampopoulos. The author suggests that God is very patient while we are alive in order to give us a chance to repent, but will unleash his fearful wrath on unrepentant sinners once they are dead. To me, this is almost like the image of an irritated authority figure who is only putting up with our bad behaviour for a while, before unleashing a huge fit of suppressed anger; it hardly seems to do justice to the profound love of God for His creature, or indeed God's own mastery over all passion. Is God passive-aggressive?! Similarly, are Christians only kind and loving in this life, but waiting to get their revenge on sinners in the next?

In Christ
Byron

[Antonios]

-I think God's 'wrath' is not a passion-filled vindictive attitude but rather an unadulterated justice which is hard for us to comprehend.

-As for the psalms, the terms 'wicked' and 'enemies' are better understood as the demons and the minions of Satan rather than our fellow humans who are made in the image and likeness of God, at least, that is what I've read.

Although I heartily relish the prospect that personal and social injustices will be settled by the Just God in the next life, I do wonder how Christian it is to do so

The more Christian way would be to pray for those who do the injustices than to relish that they will 'get whats coming to them'. Christ commanded us to love and pray for our enemies and to be merciful as God in heaven is merciful, something which in its essense is easy to understand though hard to practice. The role of Judge, however, is left soley to Christ, likely because even though in this world it is something we frequently practice, Divine Justice is in essence something we can hardly grasp.

in humility and love,
Antonios

[Marty Zyph]

According to the Bible by Peter Chopelas:

"The Bible indicates that everyone comes before God in the next life, and it is because of being in God's presence that they either suffer eternally, or experience eternal joy. In other words, both the joy of heaven, and the torment of judgment, is caused by being eternally in the presence of the Almighty, the perfect and unchanging God."

Could this then be thought of as irresistible Grace?

[Leandros Papadopoulos]

From Heaven & Hell in the Afterlife According to the Bible by Peter Chopelas (http://aggreen.net/beliefs/heaven_hell.html)

You can find at the above link the respective article, which I have not read yet.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Marty, you wrote:


"The Bible indicates that everyone comes before God in the next life, and it is because of being in God's presence that they either suffer eternally, or experience eternal joy. In other words, both the joy of heaven, and the torment of judgment, is caused by being eternally in the presence of the Almighty, the perfect and unchanging God."

Could this then be thought of as irresistible Grace?

I'm not entirely sure I follow. The concept of 'irresistible grace' is usually taken to suggest that faced with the immediate and full reality of the grace of God, an individual cannot resist -- the draw is too great, and there is conversion. So the idea of heaven and hell both being described as standing in the presence of God, but from differing perspectives and experiences (a very good description, really), would only seem to follow this concept if that experience converted those for whom it was 'hell', such that they drew close to the love of God in that experience and it was transformed into heaven.

INXC, Matthew

[Marty Zyph]

Thank you Matthew, I was thinking of Grace as “the uncreated energies of God”. I am under the impression (may very well be wrong) that in the moment God may offer or withdraw grace with respect to the cooperation of the will, in other words I am free to resist His calling and to resist conversion…but the article gives me the impression that the experience of Hell might also be an experience of a type of Grace, a type from which the creature cannot hide or resist?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Marty,

Thank you for your last message. Yes, I suppose the phrase 'irresistable grace' could be used in that manner, i.e. as the experience of God from which one cannot hide -- which in heaven is profoundest joy and hell great pain. I would only wish to be careful with the actual title, 'Irresistable Grace', since this usually means something quite different (as I mentioned in my previous post, my no. 837).

INXC, Matthew

[Brad Thomas]

Here is an analogy that helps me to understand God's wrath. Please keep in mind it is not intended to be comprehensive.

Think of God as a great, flowing river in which everything is suspended. If we submit to the flow of the river and even work with the current, we are carried peacefully to our destination. If, however, we resist the current, it can seem contrary or even violent as it beats against us and spends its "wrath" upon us. The river has not changed, nor its direction but how we chose to interact with it.

I know it's very limited but it helps me somewhat to reconcile God's wrath with His loving nature.

[Clint Sharpley]

Concerning the original question which involved Psalm 57(58):10

Euphranthesetai dikaios, hotan ide ekdikesin asebon, tas xeiras autou nipsetai en to aimati tou hamartolon.

The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vegeance of the ungodly. He shall wash his hands in the blood of the wicked.

The Masoretic text (Hebrew) is quite corrupt in the middle of the psalm, so it is possible to to be suspicious of variations from the earlier Septuagint here at the end.

The variation in the Hebrew is the word paamin, feet, in place of hands. I will leave that difference to those who want to discuss cultic practices.

I want to discuss similarities.

In both cases there is a clear use of vengeance (naqam in Hebrew and a form of ekdikesis in Greek...see Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the NT volume 2 pp. 445-446 for uses of the Greek term in the Septuagint and the New Testament).

I have read River of Fire in its entirety. While we want to avoid the gnostic heresy of constucting a god above God which is a standard to which the true God must conform and by which he must be avenged, we must also be true to the Biblical passages, which are somewhat extensive, stretching even beyond the Hebrew naqam for this Greek word for vengeance. I do think it clear that God avenges Himself and thereby the righteous.
There is a another similarity that needs to be pointed out, in my opinion. That is the similarity between this psalm and the preceeding one, namely Psalm 56 (57). It is one which I as well as many other people have memorized and repeated often. I gives great assurance to the believer in times of conflict and hardship. Very rarely will you hear 57(58) quoted, much less sung, as is its predecessor. However, you must notice that they have the same author (David) and are actually to be sung to the same tune (Do Not Destroy). They carry the same theme (God is a help in times of distress, granting us the victory that is His.)

What can we then conclude? Be exalted O God Above the Heavens, Let Your Glory Be Over All the Earth is a very similar thought to Happy are the Righteous when they are avenged when they wash their appendages (hands, feet) in the blood of the wicked.
Why? In each case we learn, in the words of the final poem, men will say. Surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who rules over the earth.

In these two linked poems men have learned one great lesson indeed.

And so the priest says 3 times as in the Divine Liturgy he censes the sacred meal that has just been covered: Be exalted O God above the heavens. Let Your glory be over all the earth.

May this small contribution to your discussion be to the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Athanasios

[M.C. Steenberg]

It is also worth remembering how many of the fathers speak of the spiritual nature of such psalms as these: i.e. that while there may be explanations and understandings on a 'practical' level of human-to-human interactions, in most cases the psalms should first and foremost be applied inwardly, to the battle of the heart against its own passions and demons. That in mind, the question of defeat of enemies, of righteous anger, takes a different turn.

INXC, Matthew

[Doug Gwinn]

This thread is most pertinent to one's understanding of Salvation.

"The River of Fire" was my first clue that there was even any other way to think of Salvation than that of the West Juridicial/Satisfaction Theory which is all I have previously ever known thanks to our buddy the Archbishop of Canterbury Anselm. However, it is somewhat hypercritical of western theology and "angry." (in my opinion)

"Heaven and Hell in the Afterlife" afore mentioned by Peter Chopelas is more charitable and gives more Scriptural basis from the original languages but basically draws the same conclusion. He is a civil engineer I met on a ski trip this last weekend and is a very interesting fellow to talk to!

His take on the "wrath of God" in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorroh which I asked him about last weekend (and can't anywhere near explain as good as he did) was that God showed up, and not unlike what the ungodly will experience in the afterlife, those evil cities experienced His Presence as fire and brimstone (literally "burning stone"), i.e. he did not "punish" them. Not that it makes that much difference on how one gets to the "ashes" state!

I still have way too much of the Western theology relish for vengeance on the wicked and bad people getting what they deserve. Praying for my enemies, and those who persecute me is a very hard thing and proves I have a VERY long way to go. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Lord have mercy, or I am in very deep do-do!

Doug

[AndyHolland]

It is also worth remembering how many of the fathers speak of the spiritual nature of such psalms as these: i.e. that while there may be explanations and understandings on a 'practical' level of human-to-human interactions, in most cases the psalms should first and foremost be applied inwardly, to the battle of the heart against its own passions and demons. That in mind, the question of defeat of enemies, of righteous anger, takes a different turn.

INXC, Matthew
That is so true.

It would be insane to pray the Psalms without realizing that the main battle is within - that the walls of Jerusalem are our own hearts - and that the little ones dashed against the Rock are our sins dashed against the name of the Lord - Jesus Christ, and our rock of faith - confessing Him as Lord (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner). Perhaps that is why so many give up praying the Psalms?

Also, some Psalms that speak from a point of view of righteousness are clearly from the point of view of Jesus who fights for us. So if we apply all of them to ourselves, we would also be lost in insanity thinking ourselves as righteous when the proper attitude - at least for me is, "Christ Jesus came into the Universe to save sinners of whom I am chief." Clearly in those Psalms, its Jesus who is righteous in us fighting our sinfulness.

The god we often read into the bible is ourselves - while the God who has revealed Himself to us is humble, kind and true - healing all our diseases if we let Him.

Better to be alone in a room with a viper than a bible.

andy holland
sinner

[Moses Anthony]

Dear Andrzej,

Thank you for the articles. I have previously come across "The River of Fire", but confess I never read it in whole, something I will do when I get the chance.

The quotation you offer from the psalms (Ps 30:5) in response to my own (Ps 58:10) leaves my initial question unanswered. In fact, Ps 30:5 must be talking about how to deal with suffering in this life, not in the next, where torment will be eternal. I am aware that it is the Orthodox belief that heaven and hell are conditions, not locations, and that the same Presence of God will be experienced as Paradise by those who love Him, and as Hell by those who do not. Nevertheless, the quotation from Ps 58:10 still puzzles me, since it seems to suggest that part of the pleasure experienced in Paradise will be in witnessing the suffering of the damned. Surely this vindictiveness does not chime with a love for all mankind, and especially sinners and enemies.

My question about Divine Vengeance came after reading a particularly vivid description of God's anger in a popular Orthodox booklet on "What Hell is" by Archimandrite Vasilios Charalampopoulos. The author suggests that God is very patient while we are alive in order to give us a chance to repent, but will unleash his fearful wrath on unrepentant sinners once they are dead. To me, this is almost like the image of an irritated authority figure who is only putting up with our bad behaviour for a while, before unleashing a huge fit of suppressed anger; it hardly seems to do justice to the profound love of God for His creature, or indeed God's own mastery over all passion. Is God passive-aggressive?! Similarly, are Christians only kind and loving in this life, but waiting to get their revenge on sinners in the next?

In Christ
Byron

When we; to the best of our ability, think of the completness of Almighty God, who commands us to "...be perfect as I am perfect.", What is it we perceive the perfectness, the completness, the wholeness of God to be? I admit to not having a great understanding of the matter, and that using human comprehension to apprehend the knowledge of the Divine is porous at best, still it all we have.

We know that God created all the known (and unknown) universe by a word, through the Word. In this creation, without the Scriptures saying so, God created all the physical laws which we're coming to know -and not necessarily to understand. Now we know that one over-riding virtue of the nature of God, is agape love. And because cogitating on such, gives us nice warm fuzzies, it is difficult to embrace any other thought. However; again the thought arises, what does it mean when we say that God is complete, for it's a no-brainer that humans posses anger. It is part of how we were created by God, in whose image we're created.

We say much about how we'd rather believe in a God, who gives a kindly nod to those living an admirable life, who would never consign to hell, part of His own creation just because they choose to not believe in His only Begotten Son. But God is complerte, who though as in a mirror, we perceive portions of His nature, it is not in the least like our own. And now we come to this impass, which may be because of the manner in which we approach the subject.

We Christians -Orthodox or otherwise- make much of the Blood of Jesus, and rightly so. However, we seem to gloss over the fact that God, our God knows us through Blood Covenant, which is pictured over and over again throughout the Old Testament, and finally realized in the crucifixtion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The best we can understand of this is through the relationship of the sons of Saul and Jesse, Prince Jonathan and the shepherd David, i.e., a greater and a lesser. The terms of Blood Covenant were applicable to the covenant members family; and yet, if any terms of the covenant were broken by either party, the other member had the right to -if they so chose- kill the other. This is the God with whom we have entered into covenant, through the Blood of His Son Jesus.

If this wrath is evident in His covenant, then where did it come from, is it a part of who He is. Is this what it means when we say that God is complete. To Moses on Mt. Siani God said "...I Am that I Am" , I will always be what I have always have been. If this so, then wrath has always been in the God we're so conditioned to believe is nothing but pure love.

As I said at the start of this post, this is not something which I fully understand myself, because like most others, I focus more on the love of God, from which nothing on earth below, or in heaven above can ever seperate me. God's love is pure, and so is His wrath, but then again this is something we perceive as through a glass darkly.

May God pardon my ignorance, forgive my sin, and lead me to a more intimate and truthful knowledge of Himself!

the sinful and unworthy servant
moses

[M.C. Steenberg]

It would be insane to pray the Psalms without realizing that the main battle is within - that the walls of Jerusalem are our own hearts - and that the little ones dashed against the Rock are our sins dashed against the name of the Lord - Jesus Christ, and our rock of faith - confessing Him as Lord (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner). Perhaps that is why so many give up praying the Psalms?

As a slight aside on this, it is an interesting quirk of the development of parish practice that the psalms end up featuring rather slightly in the normal parish liturgical experience. There are certain encounters with certain psalms that most parishes will experience regularly (e.g. the Six Psalms at matins, Psalm 103 and Psalm 118 at Saturday vespers/vigil, the selection of psalms read at the Hours); but given that most parishes do not keep a full rota of weekday services, in which the psalms are often the heart, the enormous emphasis placed upon the systematic, routine, rhythmic encounter with them in the Church's liturgical structure is often missed.

If keeping the full daily cycle of the hours and services (including daily matins and vespers), the whole of the psalter is read each week, and some parts of it many times over in the week (e.g. Psalm 103, which is read every day, as are many others -- even if they're also read as part of the kathisma for the day). And there is nothing quite like this in-depth absorption of the psalter for the fostering of the Church's consciousness of God and man; it's the very reason it figures so prominently into these services.

And when one encounters certain sections of the psalter regularly -- such as, for example, kathisma 6, or 8, or 9), linking these together with the prayers of the hours and services, the nature of the 'vengeance' of God becomes far clearer.

INXC, Matthew

[AndyHolland]

When we; to the best of our ability, think of the completness of Almighty God, who commands us to "...be perfect as I am perfect.", What is it we perceive the perfectness, the completness, the wholeness of God to be? I admit to not having a great understanding of the matter, and that using human comprehension to apprehend the knowledge of the Divine is porous at best, still it all we have.
the sinful and unworthy servant
moses
Its seems clear to me it is impossible to be perfect without God - so when Jesus says for us to be perfect, would it be reasonable to assume that He is calling us to allow Him to make a home in us?

How do we contain the uncontainable God? I like to ponder why we call the Theotokos the Champion Leader.

andy holland
sinner

[Tim Grass]

I've always thought there is something confessional about all the anger and vengeance in the psalms.... that somehow, when we read them and find ourselves saying with David, "Let their infants die," "May they all be cursed," "May my enemies not be helped out of their suffering, even if they ask for it," that we're some confessing our tendencies to think like that.... and our confession is joined to David's... showing us that we're not the only people who do sometimes think like that, and that as God forgave David, He'll forgive us too.

--tim

[AndyHolland]

I've always thought there is something confessional about all the anger and vengeance in the psalms.... that somehow, when we read them and find ourselves saying with David, "Let their infants die," "May they all be cursed," "May my enemies not be helped out of their suffering, even if they ask for it," that we're some confessing our tendencies to think like that.... and our confession is joined to David's... showing us that we're not the only people who do sometimes think like that, and that as God forgave David, He'll forgive us too.

--tim
We are taught to love our enemies and to bless them and feed them etc....

So it seems fairly obvious that the enemies to be crushed and destroyed are the passions themselves and they are personified externally because they are manifested that way when we allow them to have free reign in our hearts - what is true on the inside becomes true on the outside. That is why external religion is useless - being a whitewashed wall - our minds must be purified. If we practice an external christianity, then like pharisees - 'it is expedient that one man should die for the nation' and christianity simply dies on the cross alone and forsaken - we become bad thieves blaming everyone else - even our Lord.

But if we are honest with ourselves and Christian thieves, we die to our passions and crucify ourselves with them and with Christ Himself confessing Him as good and we utterly and relentlessly wage war against thousands of passions with Christ who fights with us and in us and wins the victory - defeating our own worst sins. The battlefield is the mind which must be renewed - not by fighting thoughts with thought but by fighting thought with prayer - especially His name which is the Rock against which sins are dashed even as little ones.

But if we do not fight the passions, then how do we truly pick up our crosses and follow Jesus? Of course, if we think for a moment our fighting is of ourselves, we are hopelessly vain.

We don't give off fighting passions and crushing these inner enemies and the war is relentless even as our external enemies are relentless. If we defeat our passions with Christ there can be no external enemy for being crucified on the inside and dead to passion, we can happily accept crucifixon on the outside and forgive our enemies - happily - because they are no more forever.

Being dead to passions, we are dead to hating anybody and truly become like God - loving even our enemies from the depths of our hearts, and forgiving them even as they torture us. That is true Christian invincibility. If we follow the Orthodox Way we become humble - the pain we feel we freely accept as readily deserved, because we have sinned against Christ.

When we pray to Christ to silence those passions and defeat them with His name, then the psalms make allot of sense as well as many other "hard" books of the bible. But if sin is in me and that is the real problem - not some external enemy but the enemy within that gives external enemies a presence and force, then "Christ Jesus came into the Universe to save sinners of whom I am chief" is truly approved by all and lived by all - seeing the number one problem as number one. Of course, all this is theoretical because I truly am a selfish sinner!

And in all this either one way or the other, we are thieves because the work done in us might make us look like God - but to God alone the Glory in that He alone wins the victory, and we must steal His name proclaiming it continually in our hearts to defeat the passions. Our own efforts are like that of the most simple child mimicing a parent who is doing the real work - so being adults, we are thieves.

So our external enemies are the shadows and phantoms - being contrivances of our true enemies within - the passions stirred by the demons (who are on the outside of the baptised). When we attack others on the outside, or imagine anything against another human being - we are really practicing a form of vanity. Like a bird attacking its own reflection in a window. The real war is internal, and the warrior David surely understood this.

Therefore, if we practice the Jesus Prayer and pray the Psalms, then like smoke vanishes, so let them vanish away, like wax melts before the fire - so sinners perish before the face of God - and all we see is pure being pure - the fire of love purifies all. That must be where St. Seraphim was - to see everybody as His Joy because sinners perished, and all he could see was the pure. We need to pray to get anywhere near where He is in seeing everybody at all times like that - as Joys.

Where are the tears of repentance for my many sins to wash clean the log from my eye so I truly see myself as the sinner? Please pray for me.

Thanks,

andy holland
sinner