Is God Fair?
Is God Fair?
Genesis 18:16-33
Abraham has recently been reminded that God can do whatever he chooses to do (Genesis 18:14). But here we find out the answer to the question, “Will God’s choice be just?” (Genesis 18:25). In his dealings with Sodom and Gomorrah, God demonstrates that he is completely just in both his wrath and mercy toward sinners.
I. God is completely just in his wrath
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is clearly a story about God's wrath toward sin and sinners: Deuteronomy 29:23, “an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath.” The fate of Sodom becomes an example in the Bible of what happens to those who anger God with their sinfulness: 2 Peter 2:6, “If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” Why is God so angry at sin? Is his anger just, or is it a fitful rage? There are four reasons I can find in this text that demonstrate why God's wrath toward sin and sinners is completely just.
A. Because sin always has a victim
Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great.” (verse 20). Why is it that God even takes notice of Sodom? Because there is a cry of distress coming from the city. Every sin has a victim who cries out for help or vengeance, like the blood of Abel crying out to God from the ground (Gen 4:10). God hears these cries of distress and cannot ignore them.
B. Because God is moved by the affliction caused by sin
Listen to these words from Exodus 2:23-25, describing the oppression of the Israelites at the hand of the Egyptians:
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
God is moved by the affliction and wrong-doing done by sin and justice requires him to respond. God is the defender of everyone who has been victimized by sin. He will make all wrongs right. He does not forget those who have been wronged.
Our text says that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was “very grave.” The Hebrew is literally “heavy.” It is the same word used to describe God's glory. It can also describe a “weighty” person in society, “someone who is honorable, impressive, worthy of respect.”[1] The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was so severe that God could not help but notice. He would be unjust if he did not respond in anger at the flagrant sinfulness. What would we think of someone who is not outraged at the grossest criminals of our day? A convicted mass-murderer. A serial rapist. A child predator. God feels the heaviness of sin, and he is just in responding to it.
C. Because God fully investigates the sin
But God does not respond impetuously. Notice what he says to Abraham in verse 21: “I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” Amazing. God knows everything, so why does he need to check out for himself how sinful Sodom really is? We read in verse 17 that God has already decided what he is going to do to Sodom. What more proof does God need?
The answer is of course that he needs no more proof of the sinfulness of humanity. But he fully investigates the sin for our sake, to demonstrate to us how just he is in his wrath. He did this with Adam and Eve, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Gen 3:11). He did this with Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen 4:9). He did this at the tower of Babel (Gen 11:5). By fully investigating sin, God exposes how reprehensible sin is. He leaves no stone unturned. When God judges sin he does so thoroughly, so that God and man alike will agree that God's judgment is just.
And we know what happens to the angelic delegation that went down to Sodom; they found out first-hand how bad the sin was. They experienced the wickedness of sin. And as God's representatives, they demonstrate another reason why God is completely just in his wrath.
D. Because God is the victim of every sin
Does it disgust you to read of the men of Sodom—from the youngest to the oldest—surrounding the angelic messengers, intending to carry out on them homosexual gang rape? It should. We should feel the disgust and acknowledge the justness of God for destroying them all. Their sin is a sin against God himself. And because he is holy, every sin is a crime committed against God. He is the victim in every sin.
Does it disgust you to think of the innocent Jesus tortured and mercilessly crucified on a cross? It ought to. But note: every one of us had a part in this crime:
Behold the Man upon the Cross
My sin upon his shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held him there[2]
We, like the men of Sodom, have victimized a holy God. He is completely just in executing his wrath on us.
But this story not only demonstrates God's justice in his wrath. We also discover God's justice in his mercy.
II. God is completely just in his mercy
When we ask the question, “Is God fair?” it is here that we have the biggest problem. If the sinfulness of humanity is so bad, on what basis can God be just in being merciful to any of us?
This is an important question to ask and answer about God. He is just in his wrath toward all. But he demonstrates that he is also merciful, sparing many from the punishment of his wrath. On what basis is he just for doing so?
A. He is moved by his compassion for sinners.
We can certainly begin with a similar point that we made in defending God's wrath, namely, his compassion. Listen to these words from Hosea 11:8-9.
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
Here we see one of the differences between God and man. Humans know only wrath, revenge, punishment. That is what it means to be a man. But God says I am not a man, “I am God.” And it is because he is God that he says, “I will not come in wrath.” Compassion and mercy are traits that belong to God, not to man. Listen to the words of commentator Duane Garrett, “texts such as this should be allowed to speak to us in the power of their raw emotion. It is precisely in texts such as this that the love of God becomes a vivid reality and not a barren abstraction.”[3]
In our text we can sense God's compassion, as he invites Abraham into his counsel. And in verses 18-19 we find another reason why God is completely just in his mercy.
B. He is faithful to his covenant with sinners.
God's decision to include Abraham in his plans for Sodom led to God's mercy on Lot (Genesis 19:29). So why did God give to Abraham this prophetic status (Amos 3:7)? Verse 18 is a summary of the Abrahamic covenant first enunciated in Genesis 12:2-3. God decided to include Abraham in his plans for Sodom because of the covenant he had previously made with Abraham. Because it is God's purpose to bless the nations through Abraham, God begins here allowing him to do just that—bless the nations.[4]
But Abraham is a man! How, then, will he have compassion on the wicked sinners of Sodom?
1. God chooses to establish a community
Abraham will learn compassion and mercy from God himself. This is the basis of the Abrahamic covenant. God “knew” Abraham. This “knowing” refers to a deep relationship. The verb can mean acquaintance, but here it must mean something much more intimate. Referring to Sodom just a few verses later (v 21), it is used to refer to a knowledge gained by experience and close contact. God chose (as most versions have it) Abraham, and that is why Abraham would become a great nation.
2. So that a godly race will be established
And the purpose for which God has known Abraham is so that he would raise up a godly posterity. God purposely knew Abraham (entered into covenant with him) in order to have a posterity that would be obedient to him. This God-fearing nation would learn “the way of the LORD” by practicing righteousness and justice. Abraham would be the first to see it.
3. To whom God can fulfill the promises of the covenant
And the purpose for which a godly posterity was needed was so that God could fulfill the promised blessings of the covenant. Ethical morality is here seen to be a prerequisite to the realization of the covenant (see also Gen 17:2; 22:15-18; 26:4-5).
God will be completely just in his mercy because the end result will not be sinners who are merely let “off the hook” but sinners who are changed into a God-fearing, God-obeying people. This is still God's purpose in redemption. God effects salvation for the purpose of transforming us into people who do “good works.” This is God's merciful plan in salvation (Eph 2:8-10).
We are beginning to see how God is “vindicated” in his mercy toward sinners. But what about his justness in his wrath? What is to be done with that? At the end of the day, what wins out: God's wrath, or his mercy?
C. He responds to intercession on behalf of sinners.
The answer is found in our text (vv. 22-33). In an exchange resembling the bartering in a Near Eastern market, Abraham gets God to agree to spare Sodom if God can find 10 righteous people in the city.
God's mercy, then, seems to depend here on the intercession of one on behalf of another. Abraham is not only a prophet for God, but here he is acting as a priest mediating for the righteous in Sodom. This is the first time in Scripture that a man initiates a conversation with God.[5] And Abraham's boldness before God is stunning. Listen to his impassioned plea in verse 25: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Abraham begs God to be merciful in accordance with God's character and a sense of fairness: Surely God will not allow the fate of the righteous to be the same as the fate of the wicked. Surely the Judge of all the earth will do what is just!
But it is God who has invited Abraham to play the role of the righteous judge. In fact, it is possible that the text originally read in verse 22 that the LORD stood before Abraham rather than vice-versa; meaning that God is submitting to Abraham's decisions regarding the fate of Sodom. It is all part of the patriarch's learning to be as compassionate as he is righteous. How else will he teach his children to be this way? (v. 19).
So Abraham negotiates for God's mercy on Sodom. But why does Abraham ask for mercy on account of 50 righteous people? And why does he stop at 10? Some suggest that 50 was Abraham's starting point because that would account for half the population of a small city.[6] Perhaps he stops at 10 because it took at least that number to form a community. But probably the numbers are incidental to the main point: God will show mercy on the many because of the righteousness of the few. As one commentator notes: “Such an argument questions every caricature of God as the score-keeper and guardian of morality who is ready to pounce and judge and punish. No, God is more ready to celebrate, acknowledge, and credit for all the right-relatedness of a few.”[7] And here we find the theology that points us to Jesus. The city burned, but Lot is spared, and according to 19:29 Lot was spared because God “remembered” Abraham. Lot was not spared because of his biological relation to Abraham. Abraham's request was for God's mercy on the righteous not for God's mercy on his nephew. And who are the righteous? Already in Genesis we have learned that the righteous are those who are a part of the covenant of faith (Genesis 15:6).
And it is this covenant that ultimately demonstrates the justice of God's mercy. Let's consider again the words of Hosea 11:8-9:
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
The word recoils in verse 8 is the same word used in Genesis 19 referring to the “overthrow” of Sodom and Gomorrah. “It is not that God is indifferent or careless or no longer concerned about guilt, but that he turns those passions upon himself for the sake of the world.”[8]
Abraham's intercession for Sodom and God's subsequent mercy on Lot point us to the only hope of our own salvation from God's wrath. We must be counted righteous for God's mercy on us to be just. Is there anyone who will intercede for us who are also transgressors? Isaiah 53:10-12 has our hope-filled answer:
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
----
[1] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (BDB) (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1906), 426.
[2] http://shop.kingswaysongs.com/product_info.php?products_id=73
[3] Duane A. Garrett, Hosea, Joel in The New American Commentary, ed. E. Ray Clendenen, vol. 43a (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1997), 227.
[4] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, eds. R. K. Harrison and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. (Grand Rapids; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 18.
[5] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker, vol. 2 (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 52.
[6] Bruce K. Waltke with Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 270.
[7] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation, ed. James Luther Mays, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 172.
[8] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, 173.