Eye for an Eye

What would the world be like if everyone waited on God for judgment?

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. - Second Letter to the Thessalonians 1:5-12

It used to be that we chose to punish those who had committed a crime.

There was no talk of redemption or deterrence back then.  You commit the crime, you do the time.

In some cultures, the punishment was severe, like losing a hand or tongue.  

Inhumane is the word we gave to these types of punishment, and eventually to punishment itself.  So, we tried to reform instead of punish, to makeover, to renew.  That required redemption, which came from repentance and admission of guilt.

There is work involved in the process.  The person who wants to be redeemed needs to do something.

But what if they don't want to change?

Paul tells us that God will deal with them, but what about now?  What about the evil they can do today, before God gets around to them?

I don't think we will ever let go of our need to judge and punish.  It is in our nature, and it is how we view God.  Even Paul says that God will punish those who do evil.

So, what is the humane thing to do?  

If we do nothing, we could wind up back at the old approach of an eye for an eye, with people taking judgment into their own hands.

Or maybe we are there already.

More to come...