“To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; 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.”

(Deuteronomy 32:41)

“And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.”

(Micah 5:15)

“And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

(Ezekiel 25:17)

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”

(2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

God is a God of vengeance! He has taken vengeance in the past upon Israel in the Old Testament, and also upon the enemies of Israel! In the New Testament, He promises that He will take vengeance upon those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He even promises to take vengeance upon those who once walked with Him but are now gone astray walking in their own will and sinfulness:

“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

(Hebrews 10:26-31)

In Christian circles, you will hear much about God’s forgiveness but very little about His vengeance. You will hear much about His love, but very little about His wrath. He is very much a God of wrath and vengeance. He has been mispresented by people who want to convey only certain aspects of His character and nature.

He is a righteous Judge who judges according to a very high standard. He regards sin as very offensive. He is only forgiving in those cases where His forgiveness is appropriate, i.e., where a person has repented and is remorseful over their sins. In other words, a person must meet the conditions to be forgiven by God. Where those conditions are not met, God promises to be a God that will take vengeance on all His enemies, and recompense every sin.

To understand this is to truly understand the fear of God.

When He begins to take vengeance, He will leave no stone unturned as He exposes and deals with every offense against Him:

“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

(Matthew 12:36)

Recompense means to “pay back”. God will pay back people for every wrong sin that they have ever committed unless they repent and turn to Him.

He is a God of holiness and righteousness and worthy to be feared. One cannot truly appreciate His forgiveness and mercy without first understanding His wrath and holiness.

God is at enmity with the world:

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

(James 4:4)

Any self-respecting enemy would pay back an opposing force for wrongdoings committed against it, inflicting punishment, unless that opposing force came with terms of peace and reconciliation. God in this sense is not any different.

“Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.”

(Psalm 21:8-9)

God is in the business of paying back His enemies and going after them with a vengeance, inflicting greater pain on His enemies because He is the stronger of the two opposing forces.

Through the cross, we have been given terms of peace and reconciliation. God has sent Jesus to the cross as the sacrificial lamb to atone for our sins. Through the preaching of the gospel, He has laid down terms and conditions of peace.

“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”

(2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

He is giving us one last chance to lay down our arms and come forward waving a white flag of surrender, and accept His conditions of peace. If we don’t surrender and accept, He will obliterate us into oblivion!

In sending Jesus to such a brutal cross we can see how serious God is to offer those terms of peace to us. If we don’t respond in kind, He will be just as serious in His inflicting of punishment for our sin upon us.

If we don’t accept Jesus’ punishment for our sin, we will bear the punishment for our sin, and that will be severe for us.

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men”.

(2 Corinthians 5:11)