When we consider the beginning of this section, we find that they walked a considerable distance, from the oaks of Mamre which is somewhere near Hebron. It says that the Lord looked toward Sodom, but from our indications, even though He looked there, there is no indication that anybody could have seen Sodom from Hebron. And yet, they went to a place where they could look down toward Sodom and Gomorrah in the plain.
Now I think this is another example of Abraham’s generous hospitality when he not only walked Christ to the door of the tent, but he apparently walked with Him for about ten miles till they could finally get to a place where Abraham, the man, could then see through a cleft in the mountains down to the plains where Sodom and Gomorrah would be in view. So he was generous to a fault, even to the point of walking ten miles with his guest after feeding them a very fine meal.
It might be good to note as to why the Lord told Abraham what He was going to do. I think that there are two reasons. One of them is right here and we will get to that in a second. The other one I think has another basis to it and it is in John 15.
Remember, Abraham was the friend of God. What the Lord did was done in the spirit of friendship. Friends disclose their minds, their innermost being with one another. There is a sharing of things because there is a loyalty that is extended between friends that probably does not exist in other kinds of relationships. A person can expose their strengths and weaknesses to a friend and a friend will accept the other person in spite of the weaknesses. And a friend will reprove in a right attitude the weaknesses of his friend. Because there is that relationship that is special and a special kind of loyalty between friends. We will see something about this when we get to Lot. There is a contrast there.
What Christ did was, I think, first of all done on the basis of their friendship. He was about to do something that was going to affect some of Abraham’s loved ones in a very serious way.
The second reason for this, I think, is equally important. The one that is mentioned right in the context and the basis for this revelation begins in verse 18.
Abraham was going to grow into something very great—a great nation. Now in order to do this of course Abraham had to have a son, and those sons had to have children. In other words, there had to be a family if there was going to be a nation. There had to be a family grown great if there was going to be a nation. So how could a family grow great and carry out God’s will if that family does not follow in the footsteps of their father, Abraham?
God was going to work out His purpose through Abraham and his seed, that is, Abraham and his descendants. Now that purpose could not be worked out unless Abraham’s children were like Abraham. So God called Abraham in order that He teach his children. Now the King James Version says, “for I have known him that he may command his children.” That is not wrong. However, it is archaic enough of an expression that it gives someone using today’s English language a different impression. “He called Abraham in order that.” It makes it more [unclear]. In order that there would be more progeny, seed, descendants that would be like Abraham, following in his path.
So why would He tell him about Sodom? It is a veiled admonition; it is a warning. “Abraham, you better do what I called you for.” And it was a warning to the children of Abraham that “you better do what I called you for or else you are going to end up like Sodom and Gomorrah.” Now that is serious, because Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be a permanent memorial to the children of Abraham of what happens to the ungodly. That is the lesson.
Yes, Abraham I am going to bless you with a child, but I have called you in order that you might teach him, and that he might teach his children, and … . . .
We call people "crooked." They are crooks. They are crooked. That is all it is. God is absolutely straight. It is our judgment that is crooked. God is straight. Our judgment is perverted. We do not look at things through His standard. We have a powerful tendency to look at things through our own standard, and this is why people think that God is unfair in His judgments. We do not know enough, but God's own righteousness screams out, as it were, through His Word or from heaven: "You stand condemned," He tells these people, "because you have plenty of knowledge of Me, and My judgment will always be exceedingly fair to what you have been given. You're not even living up to what you do know."
Never did a man ask a more rhetorical question. Perhaps it is possible that Abraham, like us, had only an imperfect knowledge at that time of how far such an act was from God's judgment. There was never even the remote possibility that God would kill the innocent along with the guilty, because everybody is guilty. For God to do that, He would have to cease from being God. He would have to cease from being holy. God is supreme Judge of all the earth. If He is unjust, there is no hope that justice will ever prevail in the history of mankind.
There is no injustice with God. God's justice is never divorced from His righteousness. He never condemns the innocent. He never clears the guilty. He never punishes with undue severity. He never fails to reward the righteous. His justice is perfect justice. But God does not always act with justice. Sometimes He acts with mercy. But mercy is not justice, but neither is it injustice because injustice violates righteousness. Mercy manifests kindness and grace, and it does no violence to righteousness.
I used this verse as a basis for explaining that God's justice is according to His righteousness, His holy character. Psalm 119:172 defines righteousness. "All Your commandments are righteousness." Those commandments reflect in writing the character of God.
What God does is always consistent with who and what He is, and what He has written. His righteousness is absolute purity. He is utterly incapable of an unholy, unrighteous, unjust act. It is totally beyond Him to do any such thing. For God to act unfairly, He would simply have to cease being God. It is totally impossible for Him to do something that would be injustice.
When Abraham uses the word "righteous" in "Would You destroy the righteous with the wicked?" he is not saying, "Would You destroy the sinless with the wicked?" He is not saying that these people are sinless. He means people who, through the fear of God and being conscientious about that, have kept themselves free from the iniquity of the cities. The cities here are Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham's concern was that there were people in the city we might consider to be really good citizens. They were not sinless, but if there was a fear of God in them, maybe they were trying with all their might to obey God, but they were caught up simply in being in the environment which God had decided He was going to destroy.
In Genesis 18 there is the discussion—or prayer; or whatever you might call it—between Abraham and God, when Abraham wanted God to spare some of the people in Sodom and Gomorra. And so he says, "Are you going to kill the righteous with the wicked?" "Are you going to slay the innocent with those who are guilty?"
Abraham knew his Friend, God, pretty well. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" In a sense, he was throwing back to God the very understanding that he had of God's holy, righteous character. He knew that in God's justice, there could be no turning from what God is, and that His act toward Sodom and Gomorra would reflect what God is.
Well, there was probably never a more rhetorical question ever asked by a man on this earth. Even though Abraham knew a great deal about God, I don't know whether Abraham had a complete understanding of how far such an act like that was from God's character. There was never a remote possibility that God would kill the innocent with the guilty in the city of Sodom.
God said, "OK, I'll spare it for 45, 40, 35, 30..." God could say that, because it is not in His mind to kill the innocent with the guilty. Do you know why? Because for God to do that, He would have to cease being holy. That's not possible. He would have to stop being God.
You know what follows after this. I think we understand that Abraham's concern was expressed in his beseeching God, which immediately preceded the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. His appeal showed that he believed in God's ability to destroy them, but he did not want to see Lot and his family destroyed with people he knew were evil to the core.
Perhaps the memory of the Flood was on Abraham's mind, but then again what troubled him is the very question that we are considering: How much sin, how much leaven, is enough to motivate God to react in this way? Maybe it was the question, "Does the faith of the righteous hinge on whether they are in the majority?" Maybe the question turned another way was, "To what limits can God's mercy be pushed?" Or then again, he might have been considering, "Exactly what is justice?"
I think one thing was certain to Abraham, as well as to us, that there is a great deal of ambiguity to mankind's recorded history. In addition, there is a great amount of ambiguity to God's reaction to sin. One of the greatest problems in understanding the total plan of God is that reward and punishment are sometimes conspicuously absent from our view.
