Vision (10.18.24): Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

 

Image: Rembrandt sketch, Abraham and the Angel, creative commons.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 18:16-33.

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25b).

This is one of the most striking scenes in all of Scripture. Abraham audaciously intercedes with the sovereign LORD on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (really for his nephew Lot, and Lot’s household). John Currid observes, “It is one of the most remarkable examples of intercession in the Bible” (Genesis, Vol. 1, 333). It includes the back-and-forth bartering or bargaining that would have taken place in the ancient bazaars or marketplaces and that continues to this day in many places.

Abraham was a man who had amassed great wealth (see Genesis 12:5; 13:2, 5-6; 14:14). He knew “the art of the deal” and, no doubt, was an excellent negotiator, humanly speaking. But what standing did he have to bargain with God?

This account is not put forward, however, to show us how to deal with God. We do not bargain with Him. He knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). This interaction is here to show forth the compassion and mercy of God.

Abraham asks, “Wilt thou also destroy the wicked with the righteous?” (v. 23), and then, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (v. 25). Abraham asks if the LORD will spare the city for fifty righteous, and the LORD graciously agrees (vv. 24, 26). Abraham then asks the same for forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten, and each time the LORD agrees (vv. 26-32).

There is spiritual significance to the number ten. As one observed, “Ten is a round and complete number that symbolizes totality. Ten persons thus constitute the minimum effective social entity” (Currid, Genesis, Vol. 1, 336). There is great mercy and wide compassion in that final statement, “And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake” (v. 32).

When we look at Genesis 19, we will see, sadly enough, that there will not even be ten righteous in that city. Yet, even then, the LORD will provide for four to flee, Lot and his wife, and their two daughters (his sons-in-law take his warning as mocking, 19:14).

He is indeed a God of compassion and mercy. In the days of Noah, eight souls were preserved. In the days of Sodom, four souls were preserved.

Yet, He is also a God of righteousness whose eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13). The Judge of all the earth shall indeed do right!

Here is the final good news. For the sake of but one perfectly righteous man, the Lord Jesus Christ, this same God has saved a myriad of men who deserved destruction.

Recall 1 John 2:2, “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle