We have now talked about how we should not return evil for evil or harm for harm, but should return good for evil. This is what Jesus teaches and models for us. Today we look at this in another light. There is more going on here than just enduring harm and giving back good. When someone harms us, there is a struggle unleashed within us to see whether we will be overcome by it, or whether we will overcome it.
Another way
According to the world there is only one real way to respond to evil. We should harm our enemies in return. But our Christian faith teaches us a different truth. For Jesus not only endured evil on the cross, he overcame evil through love. This is the cornerstone of our faith. So Jesus shows us that there is another way to respond to evil.
Paul speaks of this in Romans 12:19-21. And I want us to look more closely at this passage today. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
First we look at the negative side of this . . .
How to be overcome by evil
This comes from the phrase in v. 21, “do not be overcome by evil.” This is how it works. Someone harms us. This can happen on a small scale, for instance, someone cuts you off on the road. Or it can happen on a big scale, for instance, someone kills a family member.
How will we respond? It’s natural to be angry and to want justice; in fact, we usually want more than an eye for and eye; we want to give back more harm than we got. Evil is very powerful. When we become a victim of it, it gets into our system and tries to replicate itself through our anger – so that we start doing evil also. The question is ‘What will we do with our anger?’
Usually we give in to our anger to one degree or another. And when we do this we return harm for harm, either through acts of personal vengeance or by seeking to get back at them or even destroy them through the justice system.
The result is that you are now harming another person, just as your enemy harmed you. You have been overcome. You are now caught up in the cycle of harm for harm, just responding to others based on how they have treated you; a captive of other people’s actions.
But harm for harm never truly satisfies – even, for instance, if someone kills your family member and the criminal is executed. It doesn’t restore what was taken away from us. It doesn’t give us peace.
You may even the balances, but you will never overcome evil, with more evil, that is, by responding to harm your enemy. So we should set this response aside. As Paul says in Romans 12:17 – “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”
Let’s look now at another way . . .
How to overcome evil with good
Paul tells us in v. 21 to “overcome evil with good.” There are three steps in this process. When an enemy harms us:
1. Endure the harm without giving it back. Paul says in Romans 12:19, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves.” Now, there is a lot that we can do, and we have talked about what love allows in terms of tough love and taking care of ourselves and others. But fundamentally the point here is that we don’t return evil for evil, harm for harm.
2. Look to God for your justice. Romans 12:19 says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
As I said, it’s normal to have anger when someone harms us. This is due to our sense that an injustice has happened. This is how God made us. We are not to deny this or try to suppress it. It is what you do with your anger.
Paul teaches us that we are to place our anger in God’s hands. This is the key to overcoming evil – giving the agenda of justice or payback over to God. He can fight for us and judge our enemies according to his will.
Does God actually do this? Well, we not only have Romans 12:19, there are many passages that teach this. (See Handout – God can take care of our concerns for justice). I would just highlight Luke 18:7-9. This comes after the parable of the persistent widow on prayer. Jesus says, “Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”
When we suffer harm from an enemy, pray something like this, “God I am bearing this wrong. Take note of what they are doing to me. Act for me in the way that is pleasing to you. I give it into your hands and trust you with it.”
3. Do good to your enemies. Once we have placed the agenda of justice or payback into God’s hands this frees us up to love our enemies and do good to them. We can focus on mercy since we know that God will take care of issues of justice.
Paul says in Romans 12:20, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” Rather than harming our enemies we return good for evil.
It’s counterintuitive, for sure, but we can only overcome evil by choosing mercy and love, and by returning good for evil. This releases us from being captive to the cycle of anger, hatred and harm for harm. The circuit is broken. We are set free!
But there is another part to this topic of overcoming evil with good, that has to do with . . .
Overcoming our enemy
When we return good for evil, not only are we not overcome by evil, but rather we overcome it – we can also overcome the evildoer. This can happen in two ways:
1. The person repents of their evil. Our love for our enemy can cause them to see their evil and turn away from it. We pray and hope for this.
However, we are not naïve. People often don’t care about our acts of goodness. Jesus was, after all, killed despite his love and good deeds. This is why the defeat of the evildoer is ultimately left in God’s hand.
2. God acts to judge the evildoer. Just as Jesus promises (Luke 18), God will act for those who suffer wrong and yet look to him and trust in him. God will act to put the evildoer down and raise us up.
- Sometimes God will not act until the final day. God is longsuffering and merciful and wants the evildoer to repent (just as God was patient with us so that we would repent (Romans 2:4).
- Sometimes, however, God will intervene in the ‘here and now’ to put down the evildoer for us. There are many examples of this in Scripture as we will see in a later class.
I want to end by illustrating all of this with the example of -
The cross
When Jesus’ enemies sought to harm him:
1. He endured the harm without giving it back. As 1 Peter 2:23 says, on the cross, “when he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten.”
2. He looked to God for vindication. 1 Peter 2:23 tells us that while he suffered, he “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” He gave the agenda of payback and justice into God’s hands.
3. He continued to love his enemies. As Luke 23:34 tells us, while he was on the cross, he prayed for his enemies, for mercy and forgiveness.
And God did take care of his justice. God acted to deliver and vindicate him.
- God raised Jesus up to his own right hand and put Satan down.
- God also judged those who killed Jesus and the corrupt social and political system that supported them. Forty years later, (just as he predicted) Jerusalem was destroyed. This was a ‘here and now’ intervention to judge Jesus’ enemies.
Finally, the cross is an example that we are to follow. As Peter says, Jesus left us an example, “so that (we) should follow in his steps” – I Peter 2:21. This is not an easy or glorious way. But it is the way to overcome both evil in our lives and the evildoers who harm us.
William Higgins
