Bible Dictionaries
Vengeance

　　The word ‘vengeance’ (; Romans 13:4, such ‘wrath’ (ἐκδικέω) occurs in the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:3 xiii. [1915] 340) describes how the doubts of a friend-a Territorial soldier-as to the moral Tightness of war (based on ‘Vengeance is mine,’ etc.) were resolved by reading of the atrocities of Belgium and the nature of German atheism. ‘Vengeance belongs to God,’ he wrote; ‘then we are God’s instruments.’ War as a method of giving expression to the law of international righteousness is admittedly repugnant to the Christian conscience; but until the method is superseded as the result of a consensus gentium, a Christian nation is not absolved from the duty of vindicating either by offensive or by defensive warfare the eternal principles of right and justice.

　　R. Martin Pope.