How do we find our way from "sacker-of-cities" to a God of infinite holiness and good?
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I'm attempting to share answers to some of the "hard" questions Christians struggle with, even after they have come to Christ. Or to answer some of the main questions that prevent people from knowing God, loving Him, and trusting Him. I'm not an apologist or scholar—just someone who has journeyed to answer them for herself.
For some, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a stumbling block of injustice. They cannot fathom worshipping a God who destroys entire cities, likely because they see it as a Hitler-esque move at worst or vengeful at best. Often, I hear the judgment in their words: It seems wrong to destroy the innocent along with the wicked. (Some would take issue with the destruction of anyone, while others would be fine, as long as they were sufficiently wicked. This demonstrates a lack of knowledge about 1) the rights a Creator has with their creation and 2) the perspective a holy God has toward sin. But that's for another day.)
This journey is a part of the "How could a loving God _______________?" series of questions. I've heard some of the greatest thinkers refuse to dialogue further about Christianity based on this exact episode in the Bible and their perceptions around it.
This is a very human response, and exactly how Abraham responded when God told Abraham His plans to destroy the two cities. Here is Abraham’s immediate, indignant response:
“Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked…Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (vs. 25)
The answer to those who would seek to know why God would destroy the cities is found in three main parts.
All three answers are provided in Genesis 19, starting in verses 17-21:
“Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.' Then the Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.’"
The First Answer
The first answer for why God brings destruction to Sodom and Gomorrah (and also why He told Abraham about His plans) is found in the latter part of the verses above: so that Abraham will direct his children and his household after in the “way of the Lord” by doing what is “right and just.” God clearly plans to demonstrate this right-ness and just-ness in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is reiterated throughout the Old Testament, perhaps most clearly in Psalm 78, which lists many of the “praiseworthy deeds of the Lord” and refers to the “established law”—both of which He commanded them to teach to their children so they:
would put their trust in God
would not forget His deeds, and
would keep His commands.
Clearly, to God, the plans to destroy the two cities and His sharing those plans with Abraham is meant to demonstrate God’s righteousness and justice to both Abraham and generations to come. From God’s perspective, His actions leave no doubt of His righteousness and justice. It's not some Machiavellian (end justifies the means) plan to destroy purely for the sake of instruction but to demonstrate what is right and just, from God's perspective.
The Second Answer
The second answer is also the answer that has galvanized God into action. It is found in verses 20-21:
“Then the Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.’” (vs. 20-21)
What kind of an environment would be rampant with sin so grievous that the outcry of those suffering—the innocent—would warrant the God of the Universe to come down to see it for Himself? Historians have much to say about the hedonism of the Canaanites, ranging from wanton child sacrifice and accepted orgies to glorified violent, homosexual rape (which we later see when the mob demands to rape the two angels/guests of Lot and try to break down Lot’s door to do so). It is hard to imagine such a world.
No matter how bad we complain about our Western Civilization’s shortcomings, we’re nowhere near this level of evil…yet. We see glimpses of it when young men gang-rape a young woman and record themselves, laughing as they do so. Or the abortion doctors who callously counts the harvested brains and hearts of live babies. Or child predators who desire their craven lusts to be celebrated. Still, because these acts make (most of) us recoil in disgust, we know our collective conscience is on this side of hedonism, not yet crossed over to that of the Canaanites.
However, in other countries, the suffering of the innocent is profound. I have a friend who heads a branch of a missionary organization in India. She tells a story of a day when she was late for a meeting, driving a little faster than the normal break-neck speed through a narrow side street. She saw a bundle in the road and slammed on her brakes, stopping just in time. She said, normally, you don’t stop for bundles in the road in India but this time she felt certain the Lord had caused her to stop. She looked around and immediately spotted a woman, crouching on the side of the street, desperately sad eyes glued to the bundle.
My friend discovered the bundle held a newborn girl. She was able to rescue it and the woman, who had lived a life of abuse for not carrying a son, was likely facing a life of prostitution, and feared for the life her daughter who would likely face the same. She would rather choose death for her daughter than life in that city under those circumstances.
That is nothing compared to the level of suffering of the innocent at the hands of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah that must have cried out to God to avenge, but it begins to give us an idea of it.
Yes, more innocent would die in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but their lives would have been likely worse if they had been allowed to grow up—either as perpetrators of evil or as innocents who suffer at their hands. The innocent who had already suffered required justice and that justice would also, out of necessity, fall on innocent infants, children, and women—the historically weakest. But delaying justice was no longer an option. To delay further would have been unjust.
A holy God in whom there is no evil is the only one who can be trusted to mete out such justice properly, weighing the balance of citizens who had already lost their lives against the innocent citizens still alive. We can wisely comfort ourselves in the understanding that He did not take their death lightly—as evidenced by His coming to hear for Himself—and would know the innocent from the wicked, gathering them to Himself in eternity.
The Third Reason
Which brings me to the third reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that God reveals in His exchanges with Abraham. When Abraham negotiates with God for the cities, God promises that if there are even ten righteous, He will spare the cities.
A cursory reading might lead us to believe that Abraham changed God’s mind or at least influenced it. However, we know that God does not change—He is immutable. He declares it many different times in many different ways throughout the Bible. The exchange between Him and Abraham as he negotiates does not show God changing—indeed, He destroys both cities. It does not even show God “relenting” or being influenced—He destroys both cities. God obviously knew what Abraham did not and what He wanted Abraham and his generations to know: there were not even ten righteous men in the cities.
When the angels practically drag both Lot and his family from the city, we find out the truth and what God knew all along: there was only one righteous man in the city, and he was removed.
This is important because there are no righteous guides to be found. 2 Peter tells us that Lot was righteous and he was distressed by the wickedness around him, but he did not leave and he did not pass on the fear of the Lord to his own wife or children. The lack of righteous guides is mentioned several times in the Bible, and always prior to God’s wrathful chastisement.
Isaiah 51:17-20 says this about Jerusalem before it was destroyed for the umpteenth time:
“Awake, awake! Rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes people stagger. Among all the children she bore there was none to guide her; among all the children she reared there was none to take her by the hand. These double calamities have come upon you— who can comfort you?— ruin and destruction, famine and sword— who can console you? Your children have fainted; they lie at every street corner, like antelope caught in a net. They are filled with the wrath of the Lord, with the rebuke of your God.
While this latter part of Isaiah 51 talks specifically about the cup of God’s wrath, the first part of Isaiah talked of a cup of blessings or salvation. It seems that over each city, people group, country, or even church (if you consider Jesus walking amongst the church lampstands in Revelation) is a cup of blessing/salvation and a cup of wrath. When one is full, then the inhabitants drink from it—either salvation or destruction. They drink their own folly or wisdom.
In this case, Sodom and Gomorrah no longer have righteous leaders to “instruct” them in the way of the Lord. Had they been killed? Driven off? It was not terribly long before this that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah recognized Abraham’s God as the True God.
Did God send a “Jonah” to offer them a chance to repent? It seems very likely, mostly because God consistently says He wants all to come to Him, giving plenty of space to repent. He consistently sends men and even women prophets throughout the rest of the Bible to preach the way of the Lord and bring people to repentance, if they are so inclined. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Repentance stays the cup of wrath, as in the case of the city of Ninevah. Continuing with their diabolical sin wrecks them, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah.
In a sense, Sodom and Gomorrah were already wrecked. The only answer to cleanse the world of the grievous suffering they had perpetrated on others was destruction. As in the case of the Great Flood, a holy God had contended with them long enough.
Where Does That Leave Us?
Considering the three reasons I’ve given above for the destruction of the two cities, we are left asking ourselves, “What does this entire exchange and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reveal about God?” How do we find our way from sacker-of-cities to a God of infinite holiness and good? What does God want to reveal about Himself here?
It must be something more than just the destruction of two cities for their sins—God will do that many more times to come, sometimes with an announcement and other times never even mentioned. It must be something more than the cries of the innocent who need justice—God will bring justice many more times to come, again, sometimes with an announcement and other times without. It must be something more than the completion of the cup of wrath, from which the cities’ inhabitants drink to the dregs—this too will happen again and again.
I believe what God is revealing in this entire exchange (and quite frankly everything God does) is found in these same verses. There is a contingency clause in the statement “so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what He has promised.” Perhaps it’s not so much a contingency clause but more of a dependency clause: if Abraham and his descendants do what is right and just, God will be able to give all that is promised. They won't rot from the inside, leaving God nothing to work with.
Just as Abraham is singularly focused on a long-awaited son, God is focused on the coming of His own Son as the promise He gave Adam and Eve and each righteous man after them: a Savior.
The “what” that God promised Abraham was not just a son or a lineage that lives on, it was the One who would reunite heaven and earth and rescue us from willful rebellion and our rogue state. The whole Bible is woven with this promise because He wants to be our God, for us to be His people, and to dwell in our midst.
This Tripartite Promise was never just for the Jews…it was always so that all nations and all peoples would be restored to our relationship with God prior to the fall. It was the Jews, however, that He chose to set apart, calling them back to holiness, justice, and righteousness again and again, so He could bring a Savior through them.
The reason God had to bring justice to Sodom and Gomorrah by destroying it, was so that Abraham’s generations to come would know the ways of the Lord, so He could have a people of His own—holy and set apart. He did this not because He had given up on the rest of the world, but so that He could send a Savior, and thus rescue the entire world from its rebellion and reunite it with Heaven, just as it was in the Garden of Eden.
Rescuing us was always His plan.
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