Romans 12,17-21
At last we come to the end of this Chapter on Paul's advice about Christian living. However Paul has in many ways saved the hardest to last. Up till now the advice may have been hard but now for the human and unregenerate mind the advice becomes not only impossibly hard but also to the human way of thinking it seems to become foolish. At least that's the way it seems to the unbeliever who looks on this advice.
The advice given here is about how to deal with our enemies. We are told never to repay a wrong. To do what seems good in the sight of others as far as that is possible and we are told in so far as it is possible to live at peace with everybody. Noble and high minded sentiments and we need to be really determined to walk down the road of sainthood to achieve it. Yet it is the way of Jesus and one that we must with all our hearts and minds endeavour to follow. It is the road down which we are called to follow. That narrow way that leads to glory.We say we love the Lord and yet often we hear these words of his in the Holy Scriptures and we turn away from them, turning our backs not to those who do wrong but to our Lord himself! And in this way we can so easily slip off the road while still thinking that we are travelling on the right one!
And then of course just when we think it has got as hard as it can get it gets even harder. Not only are we to resist taking revenge or repaying a wrong we are then called upon in the words that are quoted from Proverbs behave in a most extraordinary way : " If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for by doing this you will make him burn with shame." Wow! but that is hard advice. It is the exact opposite of all that human advice would countenance as being wise and real. But that just continues to illustrate for us the terrible depths into which human beings have sunk as a result of the fall. How twisted and distorted has our life become. How badly we view the world and our fellow human beings when this way of treating them seems unutterably alien to us.
In the first instance however we must state this morning a plain fact, one that must be obvious and straightforward and although already addressed has not been stated plainly.
It is this. As children of the living God, as disciples of Jesus, we attract evil just as magnet attracts iron filings or better still as an illustration the way a bright light attracts moths. It is the devils great desire to have us fall from grace. It is his great desire to lure us away from the pathways of God. It is also the desire of all those who are not redeemed to see us fall from the our faith. They find our belief and faith a frightening challenge to their way of life. So we are constantly subjected to wrongdoings and temptation and abuse because of our faith. If this is not the case with you then I would urge you very strongly to re-examine your own faith -for you may find it is not what it ought to be!
So be aware that the children of God are open to regular and sustained attack often from within the church itself....after all did not Judas come from within the church itself, indeed from its inner core.
Being aware of this fact and reality Paul writes to us with advice about how we should behave. Loving forgiveness without repayment of wrong is what Paul is suggesting. He is saying to us leave any vengeance or repayment of wrong to God. He says to us in the very last sentence "Do not let evil defeat you instead conquer evil with good."
From this idea grows the proverb two wrongs don't make a right. But it it even more important than that. To respond to evil is to allow evil to grow. When we repay like for like then evil flourishes and the devil rejoices. And how easy it is easy for evil to grow in this way. It happens in families people fall out and then the evil grows. It happens in churches, at work in all sorts of relationships. And when that happens, then evil, without us realising it, has overcome us and defeated us.
Was this the way of Jesus? Of course it was. He was led at Easter time like a lamb to the slaughter. He didn't resist the massive onslaught of evil. He stood his ground in love. When they hit him he didn't fight back. He didn't call down legions of angels when they spat upon him. Nothing sprang from the skies as they nailed him to the cross. The words that sprang from his lips were words of love and reconciliation as they killed him he prayed for them "Father forgive them for the know not what they do...."
It is to that kind of living and loving that we are called. It is to have the same attitude and values as Jesus that we are called.
Now as we preach his message to us so we all might well be convicted in our hearts that we are guilty of failing to live like this. We may all be conscious of the fact that evil has in fact defeated us on many occasions and may even currently be holding sway over us in our lives. If that is the way we feel right now then rejoice for the Lord is shining a light on the error of our ways and in doing that the Lord himself will show to us how we must now live and in so doing he give us a glorious opportunity to repent. A chance to see the error of our ways.
So Paul is teaching to us quite clearly that we must repay good for evil. It is not sufficient merely to turn the other cheek. We must actually respond to evil with good. And although we read of this as being a duty - and it certainly is - we do have to feed them and give them drink - however we would be foolish to take this only literally, These expressions are merely figurative of the attitude we should have - we are not only to keep our enemy alive but also to treat him with all affection and kindness. We are told that by doing this we will make our enemy burn with shame or as other translations put it: "you will heap burning coals on his head"
Now it is to this idea of heaping burning coals on the heads of our enemies that I want us to turn.
Now this is a difficult phrase to deal with and one which if truth be told is often misunderstood. The commonly held view would be that to heap coals on someones head would be to inflict maximum pain and discomfort and punishment upon them. In Psalm 140 v10 we read, "May red hot coals fall on them - may they be thrown into a pit and never get out." This is not a nice sentiment at all! Psalm 11v6 reads: "He sends down flaming coals and burning sulphur on the wicked...."This is the realm of fire and brimstone and talks to us figuratively of the punishment sent by God.
Now there are three leading ways of interpreting this phrase as we find it in Romans. The first and probably the oldest and the most generally believed is that Paul means that by being kind to our enemies and leaving punishment in the hands of God then they will be much more severely punished than if we had taken revenge into our own hands. I find this somewhat repulsive and even although it would be regarded merely as a statement of fact rather than something we would do deliberately in order to inflict maximum punishment on people even so I think we must probably reject it.
The second interpretation is the one that we find in the GNB translation which reads:"for by doing this you will make him burn with shame". And this is certainly a very acceptable understanding of the concept.
But there is another way of looking at it - by being loving, kind and affectionate towards your enemy you stand the greatest chance of subduing him. It is a way of overcoming evil with good - for there are few who can resist the steady onslaught of good. And I think that this is the only way of really truly interpreting this verse in he light of the fact that this is exactly what Paul goes on to say in verse 21.
Hodge in his commentary has this to say: "Nothing is so powerful as goodness; it is the most efficacious means to subdue our enemies and put down opposition. Men whose minds can withstand argument and whose hearts rebel against threats are not proof against the persuasive influence of unfeigned love, there is, therefore, no more important collateral reason for being good, than that it increases our power to do good.
And there of the moment my friends we must leave Romans behind. Holy Week looms large on the horizon and over that whole period and I want to deal with how we understand the Bible - in other words I want to take us through the whole of the Bible in one week and reveal and lay before the marvel of God's Plan of Salvation. And I trust that during this period as many of you as possible will attend these services so that we might grow together in grace and understanding of the Word of God.