Burning coals

On loving one's enemies

We can blame my friend Ryan again for occasioning this post. He asked me for his opinion on a long discussion of Romans 12:19-20 and his summary of his discussion is this:

"Enemy love" is not about non-violence, some kind of "loving" affection towards your enemies, or some tactic by which we convert our enemies to friends (because "love wins"). It is about not taking personal vengeance (which on all accounts would be justifiable and just) for wrongs committed against you but instead leaving such vengeance to God at the final judgment.

I’m not directly responding to a long discussion that you don’t have access to, but I am going to tackle this summary, and put this into a longer discussion in this post about Jesus’ ethic of love for others, especially enemies. Even though this is a long read (2500 words), it still only scrapes the surface.

Let’s begin with Romans 12 then.

v9: Let love by un-hypocritical…

17 returning evil for evil to no-one, but thinking beforehand of what is beautiful before all human beings; 18 if it be possible, dwelling in a state of harmonious relations with all people to the extent that it is on your part; 19 not taking one’s own vengeance, beloved [of God], but grant space for [God’s] wrath; for it is written “Mine is vengeance, I will repay – says YHWH.” but if your enemy hungers, feed them; if they thirst, give them drink; for doing this, you will heap up coals of fire upon their head. 21 Do not be conquered by evil [or ‘the evil one’] but conquer evil by good.¹

Chapter 12 is a turning point in Romans, where Paul moves decisively from the concerns that have shaped chs 1-8 and 9-11, and it contains exhortations on living in response to his gospel. Chapter 12 is held together under the umbrella of verses 1-2, and the chapter as a whole is one where Paul sounds like he is passing on the most Jesus-like teachings of his letters. That is, you can hear clear echoes of gospel texts, like the sermon on the mount, in Romans 12.

I think v9 starts with an overall principle, that love should not be hypocritical, and keeping in mind previous comments about ‘hypocrisy’ in the 1^st century, this means not just that words and deeds match, but that external behaviour matches internal orientations of the heart.

v14 then moves to “bless those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44), and generally responding to maltreatment. v17 then turns specifically to responding to enemies/those who mistreat you. The general principles here are clear:

1. Non-retaliation (evil suffered should not result in believers doing evil/harm to others.)

2. Peace (believers should be peace-makers, insofar as it is possible to make peace)

3. Non-avengement (believers shouldn’t seek to extract even just punishment)

But what do we do when we get to v20? And how does it relate to v19 and v21?

Verse 19 indicates that believers don’t take their own vengeance because vengeance belongs properly to God, and so not properly to us. It does this by citing Deuteronomy 32:35, where is is God’s vengeance that is in view, and that’s why we should understand it as “leave space for God’s wrath”. We naturally desire justice when we suffer injustice, and the means by which we address that is by recognising that there is and will be perfect justice enacted and exacted by the just judge, God.

This is why, I think, people who don’t have a belief in the ultimate justice and judgment of God can be so driven by the desire for justice. If there’s no just judge beyond us, then people who get away with horrific crimes in this world, who ‘make it home scot free’, so to speak, live out their days of crimes and die without consequences “escape justice”. That deeply offends our sensibilities as mortals, because we want them to be hunted down and “brought” to justice before they die. Paul teaches differently: no one escapes justice, and so we don’t have to take matters into our own hands to exact justice.

v20 However teaches not just that we can and should leave vengeance in God’s hands, but that we should do what is positively good for them. This goes back to v17. “food and drink” stand in for doing good of every kind, providing for their needs. This is a practical expression of Jesus’ teaching of love for enemies (Matt 5:43). But, here’s the key issue: what does this have to do with burning coals?

Paul is quoting Proverbs 25:21-22a

²¹ If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
²² In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the Lord will reward you. ^(NIV)

Which isn’t much use since it’s no clearer to us from Proverbs! Here are the options discussed by ‘the commentators’

a) fire and coal are used metaphorically in the OT to refer to God’s awesome presence, in judgment. Paul means, on this view, that showing practical love leads to increased guilt and so to increased judgment (as a consequence, not a purpose). This view does not cohere well with the context.

b) ‘coals of fire’ are a metaphor for feelings of shame. That is, responding to evil by doing beneficent goodness out of love leads enemies to feel shame, and so to repent. This seems to accord well with v21, but there isn’t good evidence for this sense of ‘coals of fire’.

c) William Klassen makes a novel argument that points to parallels with Egyptian literature and takes to to mean “a dynamic symbol of change of mind which takes place as a result of a deed of love” (Klassen, W. New Testament Studies IX (1962–63), p. 349.) This view also sees it as effecting a change in the enemy, but the pointof the metaphor is not shame.

d) Schreiner seems to view it, on the basis of OT texts, and 2 Esdras 16:53, as a metaphor for judgment. In his argument, however, we need to sever the link we see between act and motivation. That is, it’s not that believers show practical love in order to bring God’s judgment on evildoers. It’s simply that a sure and certain knowledge frees believers to do good, knowing that God will judge justly: “Believers will not chafe at any oppressor being brought to repentance, because they trust the goodness and justice of God, knowing that he does all things well and that they themselves were deserving of wrath”² My strongest objection to this view is that it doesn’t take “doing this” very well into account; it would work better if the text read, “they do this, [and] God will heap coals of fire on their head”. The closer connection of “doing this” suggests a stronger connection between the acts of enemy-love and the heaping of coals.

All these views have difficulties which leave us in a bit of a quandry. But v21 is far more clear, so let’s proceed accepting that any reading of v20 needs to remain provisional.

v21 restates in resounding terms the overriding principle here, which connects enemy love with the gospel of grace. For the whole story of redemption is the story of Good overcoming Evil, rather than of Evil winning. Evil wins when we give in to our own desire for vengeance, when we exact wrong for wrong, when we pursue vengeance. Good, however, triumphs when we respond to Evil with Good, and this includes the practice of love-for-enemies through concrete expressions of love for them. Whether v21 implies that someone love wins over evil by them becoming good is not definitely answered here.

So now I want to return to Ryan’s summary, now putting it into point form:

"Enemy love" is not

1. non-violence,

2. some kind of "loving" affection towards your enemies,

3. or some tactic by which we convert our enemies to friends (because "love wins").

It is

4. not taking personal vengeance for wrongs committed against you but instead leaving such vengeance to God at the final judgment.

I think this suggests a dichotomy where it cannot be more than one of these options, and so in the context of Romans 12 it seems to be (only) option 4. And yet I think it embraces, with important qualifications, options 1-3 as well. But to get there we need to go broader.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

What is love?

Here is a definition of love I run with:

The will, affections, and actions of the one to the other for the sake of their ultimate good, in Christ, (even) at the cost to themself.

It’s a bit Augustine, a bit Aquinas. It’s designed to comprehend volition, affections, and actions as I think truncating any of these results in a deficient view of love. Love desires the good of the other; but love also delights in the good of the other; furthermore, love moves in action for the good of the other. That good is not defined by either the lover or the beloved, but ultimately by every other’s ultimate ‘good’, which is God himself. However the configuration of the movement towards the ultimate good is in Christ. Lastly, love’s shape is expressed, due to the fallenness of the world, through the willingness and actual putting of the other’s good ahead of oneself. We love sacrificially.

The New Testament, and Jesus in particular, teaches us:

1. Love for God (Matt 22:37)

2. Love for neighbour (Matt 22:38)

3. An expansive definition of ‘neighbour’ (Luke 10:25-37)

4. An especially high bar of love for fellow believers (1 John 4:20 and passim)

5. Love for enemies (Matt 5:44)

Points 2-5 here form the origin for a love-ethic that seeks the good of all other fellow human beings, that binds believers in certain forms of intra-community love (4), but sees love aimed outwith the community as an extension of the same type of love, and this love is specifically taught to extend to enemies, that is to the utmost extreme of those it is hard to love and dangerous to do so.

To return to Ryan’s points 1-3. I think it must include point 2, “affection” towards enemies because otherwise we are running with a deficient vision and version of love. What happens if we remove the affections from my definition of love? We end up with love that is, at best, volition and action. That is better than not having those things! But we can run two analogies to see why our instinct should be that this is deficient.

If I will the good of my wife, and act towards it, those are both good things. But if I don’t delight in her being and goodness, we ought to say that my love lacks something. I should have feelings, even though I should continue to act and will the good when I don’t feel like it.

If God’s love towards us is only a matter of volition and action, it likewise lacks something. God would take no delight in us. He would love us in a way that does not value nor prize us in any way.

To learn to love enemies with affection is to learn to see and value what is good in them, that they too are made in the image of God, are intrinsically of great worth, and that the good that is in them is a beautiful gift of God. As we cultivate just such an affection towards enemies, who in their evil are disfigured, we will find it easier to will and act towards their good.

What about point 1, non-violence? I think non-violence requires a larger argument, and we are already at 2,000 words in this essay. I’m happy to make that case, another time.³ Matthew 5:38-47 certainly seems to at least trend in the direction of non-violence, doesn’t it?⁴ It is difficult, I would say, to argue that doing physical harm to the other, especially if it occasions death, is an act of love oriented towards the other’s good. Love, by its shape, at the very least involves a strong a priori presumption against violence.

As for point 3, is love for enemies a tactic by which enemies are converted to friends? Yes, but not as its raison d’être, and not infallibly so. Enemy-love doesn’t exist as a ‘tactic’ in the sense that it’s good primarily in an instrumental sense. As if, if we could achieve a greater good by a different means, we’d be freed not to love our enemies. Indeed, by loving our enemies we treat them as ends, not means, and so consider the ends for which they are made. Enemy-love is not a case of, “well, you can’t win them over by harsh treatment, so be nice, it’s more effective.” It’s that willing, emoting, and acting for their good is the point. That said, it is true that genuine love for enemies turns some enemies into friends. How? Isn’t that part of the thrust of Romans 5:1-10? That God, in loving us while we were yet enemies, acted with enemy-love for our good at great cost to himself, and in so doing turned us from enemies into friends. So too in inter-human relations, it is sometimes the case that love wins over enemies. But it is not always so, and we should not assume that we will succeed in such endeavours. Some enemies will remain intractable. For them awaits not our vengeance, but God’s divine justice.

Point 4, then, is part and parcel of enemy love because it abstains from judgement or refrains from it. In doing so we: (a) practice forgiving others as we have ourselves been forgiven, (b) leave space and time for repentance which is an act of love, (c) recognise God as the just judge, not ourselves. I do not think point 4 can be made the whole of enemy-love, but I do think it is an important part of what enemy love looks like. It is especially relevant when we consider that loving our enemies often does not ‘succeed’ in the point 3 sense. We are not called to love our enemies because it is an effective tactic to turn them from evil to good and see them flourish as friends of God and us. We are called to love our enemies because we have been loved by God when we were yet enemies, and we follow a Lord who taught us to follow his example in loving enemies, which is exactly how he conquered evil by good, dying on the cross at the hands of his enemies, even as he prayed for their forgiveness.

1. ¹⁷ μηδενὶ κακὸν ἀντὶ κακοῦ ἀποδιδόντες, προνοούμενοι καλὰ ἐνώπιον πάντων ἀνθρώπων· ¹⁸ εἰ δυνατόν, τὸ ἐξ ὑμῶν μετὰ πάντων ἀνθρώπων εἰρηνεύοντες ¹⁹ μὴ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκδικοῦντες, ἀγαπητοί, ἀλλὰ δότε τόπον τῇ ὀργῇ· γέγραπται γάρ· ἐμοὶ ἐκδίκησις, ἐγὼ ἀνταποδώσω, λέγει κύριος. ²⁰ ἀλλὰ ἐὰν^* πεινᾷ ὁ ἐχθρός σου, ψώμιζε αὐτόν· ἐὰν διψᾷ, πότιζε αὐτόν· τοῦτο γὰρ ποιῶν ἄνθρακας πυρὸς σωρεύσεις ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ. ²¹ μὴ νικῶ ὑπὸ τοῦ κακοῦ ἀλλὰ νίκα ἐν τῷ ἀγαθῷ τὸ κακόν. Dirk Jongkind, ed., The Greek New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), Ro 12:19–21.

2. Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, vol. 6 of Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 676.

3. I’m reasonably sure I could write several posts on enemy-love, but it might exhaust you to read them.

4. I don’t think that’s the main point of Matthew 5:38-47, but having just digested six different commentaries on that passage non-retaliation and then love for enemies (indeed, love for all) are being placed as ethical corrections to Torah misunderstandings, to show a deeper understanding of the Torah. Non-violence, in my view, is a Christ-shaped consequence of this principle.