Avenger
"The LORD is a God who avenges. O God who avenges, shine forth." (Psalm 94:1 NIV)
If I asked you to make a list of your favorite names of God, I'm not sure "Avenger" would be particularly close to the top. And that's okay: God is not asking if we like His names. He is asking if we will revere them.
The New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words (Lawrence O. Richards) explains that "one of the reasons we hesitate to accept the [Old Testament's] presentation of a God of vengeance is our failure to develop a balanced God-concept. We have tried to measure God by ourselves, and we cannot. Because vengeance is associated with attitudes and emotions that distort the human personality, robbing us of compassion and infusing a bitter vindictiveness, we mistakenly export these human characteristics to God. Yet God is at once and always a God of love and compassion. No emotion or decision can rob any act—even acts of judgement—of these qualities. Only in God is it possible for love, compassion, and vengeance to be exhibited, along with holiness, in the same act."
God alone has every right to avenge. God alone has the perfect wisdom to know how to do it in the right way. God alone has the perfect love to do it for the right reasons.
If God does not avenge, if He does not judge, if He does not right wrongs, if He does not deal with evil, then He is not all that He is. But we know there is nothing lacking about God, and there is nothing superfluous about Him.
He is the Avenger..and Yahweh-Shalom.
He is the Judge...and the Advocate.
He is the Glorious Sword...and the Healer.
He is the Consuming Fire...and the Father of Lights.
All we need God to be, He is, and all He is, we need Him to be.
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I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to tell me what you really think. Years ago, I explained to my then-two-year-old that my appointment with a counselor was "sort of like going to a doctor who will help me be a better mommy." Without blinking, she replied, "You'd better go every day." All of which is just to say I've spent some time in the school of brutal honesty!