The law of retaliation.
When we consider "retaliation," we find that it is the converse of the "golden rule." In fact, it is giving back to a person his breach of that rule to see how he likes it. It is just a rough method of teaching rude, selfish souls that there is retribution in all selfish practices; the gun may be fired maliciously, but it sooner or later lays the sportsman in the dust. Now, it is morally right that those who do to others as they do not wish others to do to them should have precisely their own paid back to them. It is simple justice.
I. PUBLIC JUSTICE MAKES PROVISION FOR THIS IN EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY. When Jesus directed his disciples not to retaliate, but to cultivate the spirit of nonresistance to evil (Matthew 5:38 42), he did not wish them to take the law into their own hands, but to leave to public justice what in the olden time had to be settled privately. He certainly did not mean that his disciples should screen men from the processes of public law, when they had made themselves amenable thereto. His advice regarded the edifice of public justice as raised by advancing civilization, and taking up consequently many matters which private parties in a ruder age had to deal with. £
II. RETALIATION WAS IN THE EARLY TIME A DUTY WHICH INDIVIDUALS OWED TO THE PUBLIC. It is too often supposed that revenge is such a gratification that men need no exhortation to take it. But we find men that are too cowardly to retaliate, men who would rather let the greatest ruffians escape than risk anything in giving them their desert. £ Before the erection of public justice, therefore, as a recognized and well-wrought institution, it was necessary to sustain the courage of the people against lawlessness by making retaliation a public duty. The avenger was not a man thirsting for blood, but one who would very likely have remained snugly at home instead of risking his life in retaliation. Men have to be "whipped up" oftentimes to the requisite courage for public duty.
III. RETALIATION, WHEN FAITHFULLY CARRIED OUT, WAS A CHECK ON SELFISH CONDUCT AND A HELP TO A HIGHER MORALITY. The golden rule of doing unto others as we would that they should do to us was the goal at which the morality of the Old Testament was aiming. One way of leading up to it is by carrying out its opposite, and giving to the wrong-doer an idea of what it is to receive what we do not desire. We have to practice this in the correction of children. When they act a cruel part by others, they get a taste of suffering themselves, just to let them know what it is like.
IV. AT THE BACK OF ALL GOD'S MERCY THERE IS THE ALTERNATIVE OF STRICT JUDGMENT IN CASE HIS MERCY IS REFUSED. The gospel is the golden rule in its highest exemplification. It is God doing unto man as he would have man do unto him were he in such circumstances. But if men reject the Divine mercy, and will not receive God's love, then there is no other alternative but strict justice. And strict justice means retaliation. It is giving back to man what he dares to give to God. If man refuses God's love, and, instead of accepting and returning it, gives to God hate; then it is only right, eternally right, that he should receive what he gives. God cannot bat hate as utterly abominable the soul that hates him who is essential Love. Wrath is the "love-pain of God" (Liebes-schmertz Gottes), as Schoberlein has called it. It is forced on him by the action of his creatures. They have had the opportunity of love, but, since they refuse it, they must be visited by wrath.
Hence there is nothing weak about the Divine administration. Its backbone is justice; but special arrangements were made in the atonement of Jesus to allow of God being "justly merciful;" when, however, this just mercy is rejected, God must return to the stricter lines, and deal with the ungrateful as they deserve. In the retaliation of God there is, of course, nothing mean and nothing selfish. His vengeance is in the interests of public morals, and a necessary part of a wise administration. There should be no trifling, then, with the Divine offer; for, if it be not accepted, men must prepare for wrath.—R.M.E.