Latest / Reformed Thinking / “Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right?”: Abraham’s Intercession and the Harmony of Divine Justice and Mercy (Genesis 18:22–33)

Transcript

“Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right?”: Abraham’s Intercession and the Harmony of Divine Justice and Mercy (Genesis 18:22–33) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. I'm so glad you're with us
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  today. Glad to be here.
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  We have a massive text to get into.
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  We are cracking open Genesis chapter 18.
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  A very familiar one. It is.
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  I mean, if you've spent anytime in church, you know the first
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  half of this chapter. It's that classic scene by the
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  irks of memory. Right with the three visitors.
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  Exactly. Abraham sitting there in the
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  heat of the day, these three men show up and there's this, you
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  know, this rush of hospitality. Sarah's making cakes.
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  Abraham is running to the herd to get a calf.
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  It feels very domestic, very intimate.
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  It's the scene where Sarah laughs at the promise of a son.
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  It's a stunning picture of Grace.
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  It really is. You have the Lord appearing to
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  Abraham, eating with him, renewing all these covenant
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  promises. It feels like everything is
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  right with the world. But then.
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  But then the scene shifts, the camera angle moves.
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  You could say the meal's over, the sun is setting and the men
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  get up to leave and all of a sudden we're not talking about
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  birth and laughter anymore. No, we're staring down the
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  barrel of total destruction. The whole text just pivots.
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  It pivots hard. The visitors who we know are
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  angels with the Lord in a temporary physical form, they
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  look down towards Sodom and this sets the stage for what I think
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  is one of the most misunderstood conversations in the entire
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  Bible. I would agree.
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  I have heard so many sermons that portray Abraham's
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  intercession here as a kind of negotiation.
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  The haggling metaphor. The haggling metaphor gets
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  framed like a flea market transaction.
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  I'll give you 50. No.
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  How about 40, you know? That's the standard Sunday
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  school take, isn't it? That this is a story about being
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  bold enough to bargain with God, right?
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  But when you actually study this, especially to the lens of
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  Reformed theology, that reading just falls apart.
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  It really does. This is not a marketplace, this
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  is a courtroom. It's a high stakes legal drama.
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  Abraham isn't haggling over the price of a rug.
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  He's acting as legal counsel in a capital case.
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  And the judge? And the judge he's addressing is
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  the judge of all the earth. Wow, that framing changes the
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  entire mood of the passage. We're moving from the Oaks of
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  Mamre, which stands for Life and Covenant Intimacy, to this
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  overlook facing Sodom, which is all about death and judgment.
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  It's a jarring shift, yeah. And the mission for our
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  discussion today is to really analyze what Abraham is actually
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  doing here. We want to look at this
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  intercession as a forensic appeal.
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  A. Forensic appeal.
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  Yeah, an appeal based entirely on God's character.
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  And in doing that, we need to see how this text harmonizes
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  justice and mercy. How it exposes the total
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  depravity of the human heart and why it proves that we need a
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  better mediator than Abraham. So let's get into the text
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  itself. The setup here is so crucial.
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  In verse 22 you see the spatial separation happening.
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  The men, the 2 angels, they turn and walk toward Sodom.
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  But the text says Abraham still stood before the Lord.
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  That phrase stood before is doing a lot of heavy lifting in
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  the original Hebrew. Tell us about that.
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  It's a mad lift me. This isn't just, you know,
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  loitering or waiting around in the ancient Near East.
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  This is technical language. It describes the posture of a
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  servant waiting for a command from his master, or more
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  specifically, an official standing in a Royal Court.
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  Abraham is taking a formal stance.
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  So he's assuming a position. He is a position of service and
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  attention, and then the text says he drew near.
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  The verb for that is nagash. Nagash I I feel like I've seen
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  that word before in the Joseph narrative maybe.
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  You did. That's a great catch.
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  It's used when Judah approaches Joseph, who he thinks is this
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  powerful Egyptian ruler, to plead for his brother Benjamin.
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  It's also used in priestly context for approaching the
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  altar. So it signifies stepping forward
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  for advocacy, the bold, deliberate movement into the
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  inner circle. So Abraham is not a bystander
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  just watching the world burn. Not at all.
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  He has been admitted into the divine counsel.
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  He's a friend of God. Which is just mind blowing when
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  you think about it. God actually pauses his plan to
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  reveal it to a human being. It is in verse 17 God asked this
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  rhetorical question, Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about
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  to do? It implies God debated it, or at
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  least he wanted us to see the question.
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  I mean, God is about to wipe a city state off the map.
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  He's sovereign. He doesn't need a permission
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  slip. So why tell Abraham?
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  It's certainly not because God needs advice, right?
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  The text gives us the reason God has chosen Abraham so that he
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  might command his children and his household after him to keep
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  the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
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  Ah. So that's the key.
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  That is the key. God reviews the judgment because
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  He is training Abraham. He needs Abraham, and through
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  him all of us, to understand what divine justice actually
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  looks like. So the destruction of Sodom
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  isn't some outburst of divine rave.
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  No, it's not God losing his temper.
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  It's a wholly calculated and necessary reaction to pervasive
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  sin. By bringing Abraham into the
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  loop, God is vindicating his own character before the gavel
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  drops. He wants Abraham to know that
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  the judge is just. But this brings up a huge
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  theological hurdle that I think a lot of people trip over.
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  The sovereignty question. The sovereignty question If God
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  is sovereign and if the outcry against Sodom has already
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  reached him, the verdict seems set.
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  So why pray? Isn't it just fatalism to say,
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  well God decreed it so my prayer is pointless?
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  That's a really lazy view of sovereignty, though.
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  Well, Vaidalism says the blueprint is drawn, so I'm just
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  going to take a nap. Biblical faith says God is the
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  architect, and he has graciously invited me to work on the site
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  with him. That's a great way to put it.
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  Abraham standing before the Lord completely contradicts fatalism.
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  He prays with the conviction that God actually hears and
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  responds, but it also contradicts presumption.
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  Meaning he doesn't just charge in.
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  Exactly. He doesn't storm into the throne
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  room demanding his rights. He waits.
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  He asks. He is active, but he's
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  incredibly reverent. He knows he's duffing in ashes,
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  yet he still steps into the legal chamber to present a
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  defense. And that defense, It begins with
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  a question that echoes through the rest of the Bible, verse 23.
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  Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
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  This is the absolute heart of his forensic appeal and we need
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  to be really precise with our terms here.
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  OK. When Abraham says righteous, the
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  Hebrew was Sadiq, he's referring to someone in right standing
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  with the law, someone innocent of the capital charges brought
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  against the city, and the wicked.
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  The wicked Rasha means the guilty, those characterized by
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  impiety and criminal looseness. And that verb sweep away Safa.
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  It implies indiscriminate destruction.
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  Like wiping a table clean without sorting the good from
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  the bad. Precisely.
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  So Abraham is not asking for amnesty.
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  He isn't saying God. Please ignore the fact that
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  these people are wool monsters. Not at all, and that's a vital
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  distinction. He isn't asking God to overlook
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  sin, He is asking God to distinguish between categories.
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  His argument is a moral 1. It's strictly moral, he is
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  saying in effect, God. If you drop fire on the the
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  whole city and kill the innocent along with the guilty, you will
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  look like the Pagan gods. The gods of the Canaanites or
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  the Babylonians? Exactly.
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  The gods of the surrounding nations were capricious.
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  They were unpredictable. I mean in the Epic of Gilgamesh
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  the gods fled the whole earth just because humans were being
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  too noisy and kept them awake. So Abraham is challenging
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  Yahweh, saying you are not like them.
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  Yes, and he uses incredibly strong language to do it.
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  In verse 25 he says far be it from you.
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  It sounds so intense in English. It's even more so in Hebrew.
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  The word is chalilah. It's an exclamation of horror,
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  essentially means profane. He's saying it would be a
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  profanity for you to act this way.
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  Abraham is acting as a theologian here.
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  He's arguing that for God to be unjust is a theological
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  impossibility. He's appealing to God's very
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  nature. Shall not the judge of all the
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  earth do what is just, or more literally do mish pat?
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  This connects to a classic philosophical problem, doesn't
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  it? The Euthyphra dilemma?
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  It does. Is something right because God
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  wills it, or does God will it because it's right?
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  And that's the battle between what's called volunteerism and
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  essentialism. Volunteerism is the idea that
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  good is just whatever God decided in the moment.
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  So if God decided tomorrow that hating your neighbor was good,
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  then hate would become. Good.
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  Under a strict volunteerist view, yes.
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  It suggests God's will is arbitrary, that is untethered to
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  any fixed nature or standard. Which is terrifying.
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  It makes God a tyrant who just makes up the rules as he goes.
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  It's a nightmare scenario, really.
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  It removes all stability from the universe, but this text
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  flatly refutes that view. How so?
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  Abraham is arguing from essentialism or realism.
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  He's saying that God wills what is right because He is, in his
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  very essence, eternally righteous.
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  So God is bound by his own perfection.
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  He is. He cannot act against his own
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  nature any more than he can cease to exist.
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  Abraham isn't holding God to some standard outside of God.
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  He's asking God to be consistent with himself.
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  He's asking the judge to be the rule.
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  Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?
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  It's a rhetorical question, but the answer has to be yes.
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  It must be yes. If the answer is no, then
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  gravity falls apart. Moral law falls apart.
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  Everything collapses. So he appeals to the standard of
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  the law that flows from God's nature.
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  Right. He isn't asking for a favor.
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  He's asking for Mishpat for justice.
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  And here's where the brilliance of the text really shines.
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  Because by asking God to apply strict justice to distinguish
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  the righteous from the wicked, Abraham is actually setting up a
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  devastating discovery. And this leads us to the
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  countdown. The countdown We start at 50.
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  Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city.
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  And God replies, If I find 50, I will spare the whole place for
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  their sake. Then Abraham goes to 45403020
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  and finally 10. This is the part everyone calls
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  haggling, right? But if we drop that metaphor,
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  what is actually happening here? OK.
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  Think of Abraham as a defense attorney.
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  He's probing the evidence during a deposition.
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  OK, I like that. He's testing the mercy of the
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  court, yes, but he's also testing the moral state of his
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  client, the city. He's trying to find the floor of
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  its depravity. He starts high with 50. 50
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  That's a respectable number. If there are 50 decent man in
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  the city, surely that city has a future.
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  And God agrees. But then Abraham pauses.
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  You can almost see him doing the math in his head.
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  He looks at what he knows of Sodom, and he realizes 50 might
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  be a stretch. It feels like a slow dawning
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  horror for him. He isn't negotiating the price
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  down. He's realizing the inventory
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  simply isn't there. That is it exactly.
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  And this brings us face to face with the doctrine of total
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  depravity. From the Westminster Confession,
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  yes. The confession describes
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  unregenerate humanity as wholly defiled in all the parts and
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  faculties. Now, we often think depravity
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  means every person is as bad as they could possibly be.
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  You know that every neighbor is a serial killer.
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  Right, but that's not what it means.
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  No, Technically it means that sins corruption has infected
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  every part of us. Our mind, our will, our
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  emotions. And in Sodom, that corruption is
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  total. This was a major city state.
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  It wasn't a tiny village. And yet Abraham realizes he
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  might not even find 10 men who aren't participants in its
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  wickedness. And 10 is a significant number
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  in Jewish tradition. Isn't it the minion?
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  It is. The term comes later, but the
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  concept is rooted right here. 10 is a quorum.
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  It's the smallest number needed to constitute a community.
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  If you have 10, you have a congregation.
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  If you have fewer than 10, you just have a few isolated
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  individuals. So he's looking for a remnant
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  that can preserve the corporate identity of the city.
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  He is, and this shows us what you could call the mathematics
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  of mercy. God is willing to spare the
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  whole place for the sake of just a few.
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  That's a staggering display of grace right there.
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  God was willing to let thousands of wicked people continue living
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  just so that 50 or even 10 righteous people wouldn't be
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  swept away. It is the remnant principle.
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  The righteous act as a preservative.
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  They're the salt holding back the decay.
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  But the terrifying part of this whole dialogue is what happens
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  at 10. And at the countdown.
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  Abraham asks. Suppose 10 are found there, and
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  God says I will not destroy it if I find 10.
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  Yeah. And then silence.
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  Abraham stops asking. He stops.
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  Why? Why not ask for five?
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  Why not just ask for Lot and his family specifically?
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  Because I think Abraham realizes he's hit the absolute floor.
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  If there aren't even 10 righteous men, the argument for
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  corporate preservation becomes legally invalid.
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  You can't ask a judge to save an entire city state for the sake
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  of two or three people who probably want to leave anyway.
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  At that point, the corruption is absolute.
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  It's absolute. The city is essentially dead
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  already. The fire is just the cremation,
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  so the. Silence that follows.
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  That's the verdict. That is the verdict, and this is
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  so crucial. Sodom is destroyed not because
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  God like mercy he agreed to spare it for just 10, but
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  because the 10 did not exist. It's the death knell for
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  Pelagianism. It is.
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  The idea that humans are inherently good or can fix
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  themselves if you just give them enough time.
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  Abraham probes the city for righteousness and the result is
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  zero. Well, nearly zero.
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  There's a lot, there is a lot, but as we see in chapter 19, Lot
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  has to be dragged out by his collar.
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  He isn't saving the city. He barely gets saved himself as
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  through fire, as the apostle would say.
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  It really refutes that modern notion that if we just educate
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  people enough or fix the economic structures, society
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  will perfect itself. Genesis 18 says no.
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  A culture can reach a point of moral 0 Wholly defiled.
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  It exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of man.
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  Abraham stops asking because he knows the defense has rested.
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  There's no more evidence to present.
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  This paints a pretty bleak picture of humanity.
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  We have a righteous holy judge and a city with 0 righteousness
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  to its name. If the story ends there, we're
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  all in serious trouble. We are, But as Reformed
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  thinkers, we know the Old Testament is always pointing
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  forward. So how do we connect this to
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  Christ? We have to view Abraham here as
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  a type, a shadow of the great high priest.
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  He's an intercessor. He stands between the wrath of
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  God and the objects of that wrath.
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  But he is an imperfect intercessor.
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  He is, as he admits, just dust and ashes.
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  So what's the primary contrast between Abraham's intercession
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  and Christ's? It's the basis of the plea.
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  Look at Abraham's logic. It's all conditional.
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  If I find 50. If I find 40, he is trying to
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  leverage human merit. He's trying to find something
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  good in the people. He is, he's saying God, there's
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  something good down there, so please hold back your hand.
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  He's looking for a reason in the Sinner to save the Sinner.
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  And he runs out of reasons. Precisely.
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  The countdown is 0. But Christ, Christ please, not
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  based on our merit at all. It's based on his own finished
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  work. He doesn't say Father forgive
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  them because there are 10 good guys among them.
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  He says Father forgive them, and he bases that petition on his
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  own perfect sacrifice. So Abraham counts down to 10 and
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  stops. He goes back to his place and
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  the fire falls. But Christ counts down to 0 to
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  the absolute moral zero of the human heart, and he doesn't walk
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  away. He steps in.
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  That is the shift Abraham seeks preservation.
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  Spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous, but Christ offers
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  substitution. That is the gospel logic in a
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  nutshell. Abraham asked, will you sweep
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  away the righteous with the wicked?
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  And the answer we get at the cross is no, I will sweep away
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  the righteous 1 instead of the wicked.
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  The judge of all the Earth did do right.
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  He did, he satisfied justice, but he did it by taking the
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  penalty upon himself and the person of the Son.
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  So in Genesis 18, Abraham hoped that Lot's righteousness,
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  whatever small amount there was, would shield Sodom.
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  But in the New Testament we talk about imputation.
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  Right. Lot's righteousness was barely
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  enough to shield Lot himself. It certainly couldn't cover the
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  city. But Christ's perfect
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  righteousness is imputed to the ungodly.
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  As Romans 4.5 tells us, it's a shield that actually works.
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  And it's permanent. It's permanent, unlike Abraham,
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  who is dust and ashes and eventually died.
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  Hebrews 7 tells us that Jesus holds his priesthood
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  permanently. He always lived to make
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  intercession. He never has to stop at 10.
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  He never has to return to his place in defeat.
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  He sits at the right hand of the Father, having secured the
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  verdict. The gospel answers the question
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  that Genesis 18 leaves hanging in the air.
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  Where is the righteousness? It isn't in US.
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  It's in Christ. That is it.
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  And that changes everything about how we view judgement.
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  The judge judge the mediator so that the defendants could go
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  free. So let's bring this home.
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  What does this mean for us today?
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  We have the theology. We have the typology.
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  How do we apply this? We usually talk about head,
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  heart and hands. Let's start with the head, then
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  the doctrine. This text must vindicate God's
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  justice in our minds. What?
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  Do you mean by that? We live in an age of theological
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  liberalism that wants a God of pure affirmation with no wrath
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  or open theism, which claims God doesn't know the future and is
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  just sort of negotiating as he goes, surprised by the outcome.
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  Genesis 18 completely shuts that down.
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  Completely. God knows the outcome.
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  He is the judge of all the earth.
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  We have to affirm the reality of hell and divine retribution.
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  If we don't believe God is just, we won't value the cross.
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  That's a strong connection. If Sodom didn't deserve to burn,
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  then Jesus didn't need to die. Exactly.
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  We have to have the theological backbone to say God's judgement
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  is measured and it is right. That's a hard truth, but a
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  necessary one. OK, So what about the heart?
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  Our affections? It's so easy to look at the
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  sodoms of our own culture and just get angry or disgusted.
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  It is. It's easy to slide into self
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  righteousness. Look at those terrible sinners
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  over there. But look at Abraham.
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  He stood there and he pleaded. He didn't celebrate the coming
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  destruction and Lot and Lot. Second, Peter 2.7 says he was
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  tormented in his righteous soul. He wasn't indifferent, but he
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  wasn't gleeful either. He was in agony.
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  Compassionate agony. We should be tormented by the
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  sin we see, not just annoyed by it.
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  We should fear the judgement enough to flee it ourselves and
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  love our neighbors enough to warn them.
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  If we truly believe what we said about the head, that judgement
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  is real and just, that our heart should break for the lost.
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  We shouldn't just be culture warriors destroying enemies.
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  We should be intercessors pleading for their souls.
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  Which leads us to the hands, the practice.
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  What do we actually do? Well, first, intercessory
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  prayer. We need to recover the art of
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  drawing near. We need to pray for the
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  restraint of evil in our cities. We need to pray for the
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  salvation of the elect. And we need to use Abraham's
• 18:27
  arguments. Pray based on God's character.
• 18:30
  Lord, for the sake of your great name, show mercy.
• 18:32
  And we also need to confront idols.
• 18:34
  The commentaries we looked at mentioned specific things,
• 18:37
  materialism, sexual anarchy. We can't be afraid to name the
• 18:40
  sins of the time. Sodom had specific sins.
• 18:43
  Our culture has specific sins. We need them not to condemn
• 18:47
  people to hell, but to offer the only remedy, which is Christ.
• 18:50
  But we have to be distinct. We must be distinct.
• 18:52
  You cannot intercede for Sodom if you're pitching your tent
• 18:55
  toward Sodom. That refers to Lot again,
• 18:57
  doesn't it? He got too close.
• 18:59
  He did. He hesitated when the angels
• 19:01
  told him to run. We cannot be indistinguishable
• 19:05
  from the world if we're just like the culture.
• 19:08
  We have no platform from which to warn the culture.
• 19:11
  We need to live as sojourners, just as Abraham did.
• 19:14
  And finally, that leaves evangelism.
• 19:16
  The countdown stopped. That's the haunting reality of
• 19:19
  this chapter. There is no safety in Numbers.
• 19:22
  People think, well, everyone else is doing it.
• 19:24
  Surely God won't judge us all. Genesis 18 says yes, he will.
• 19:28
  So we have to preach Christ before the clock runs out.
• 19:30
  We have to, we have to tell people that the only safety is
• 19:33
  not in the crowd but in the mediator.
• 19:35
  It's a heavy message, but in the end, it's a hopeful one because
• 19:38
  of Christ. That is the only hope.
• 19:40
  As we wrap up, let's look at how the narrative ends.
• 19:43
  Verse 33 And the Lord went his way, and Abraham returned to his
• 19:48
  place. It's so quiet, the session is
• 19:51
  over. The next morning the smoke rose.
• 19:54
  Abraham looked out and he saw the destruction.
• 19:57
  Very somber ending to the chapter.
• 19:58
  It does leave us with a final thought to chew on, though.
• 20:01
  It does. Genesis 18 leaves us with this
• 20:04
  haunting question. Where is the righteousness that
• 20:07
  can save a city? It wasn't in.
• 20:09
  Sodom. It wasn't in Sodom, and it
• 20:11
  wasn't even in Abraham. He was just a man of dust.
• 20:13
  The silence at the end of that chapter is deafening, and it's
• 20:16
  only broken centuries later by the voice of the Son of God.
• 20:21
  We survive the judgement not because we're one of the 50.
• 20:24
  And not because we're lucky. We survive because we're hidden
• 20:28
  in the one righteous man. That's the only place to stand.
• 20:30
  Thank you for walking us through this.
• 20:32
  It really transforms a familiar story into something so solid
• 20:36
  for our faith. It has been my pleasure.
• 20:38
  And to our listener, thank you for joining us on Reformed
• 20:41
  Thinking. We encourage you to go read
• 20:42
  Genesis 18 again with these fresh eyes.
• 20:45
  Rest in the Judge who is also your Savior.
• 20:47
  We'll see you next time.