And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also cause the righteous to perish with the wicked?
God has just told Abraham what He is about to do with Sodom, and instead of walking away he stays and pleads. His question raises two of ours: what gave Abraham the freedom to speak like this, and who did he mean by "the righteous"?
One writer reads the words "drew near" as the peak of Abraham's closeness to God. God had already trusted him with His plans.
Chapters 18 and 19 record a most elevated and striking example of the intimacy of Abraham's communion with God. There he is let into the secrets of God's governmental dealings with the cities of the plain, and the Lord Himself says, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" ... What in the Old Testament speaks of greater intimacy than the further record, "But Abraham still stood before the Lord, and Abraham drew near and said …"?
God shares His mind first, and intercession grows out of that.
With a friend I speak of what I have on my heart, not just of my business with him. And then, as he has received these messages from God, so he intercedes with God. He is a stranger in the place of promise, and on high in communion with Him. ... His faith associates him with the mind and character of God.
Earlier in the chapter God had promised Abraham a son. That settled matter leaves his heart free.
"He drew near" and says, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" Note this: it is no longer a question about himself, or about the son. The son was soon to come. All this was settled. He rests upon it, his heart is perfectly free. He has no longer a single want for himself; not one request remains to be spread before Jehovah. His heart is drawn out in a spirit of grace, which answers to the grace of the Lord towards himself.
Abraham names no one in his plea. So who are "the righteous" he is pleading for?
Like a genuine man of faith, he takes advantage of his place in the presence of God to intercede for a brother. That brother's worldliness had plunged him into the very middle of the place God was about to give over to everlasting destruction. "Then Abraham drew near and said, 'Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?'" (v. 23) "The righteous!" To whom can he refer? Can it be to the man who had so deliberately turned aside out of the path of faith to make his home at Sodom? Yes; he speaks of Lot — he calls him "righteous."
That verdict meant setting aside everything Lot had done to him.
How high above "the things that are seen" Abraham's soul must have been lifted! He could forget the strife and the departure, the worldliness and evil of Lot, and still plead for him as "a righteous soul."
One writer finds a doubt hidden inside the plea, and turns it back on us.
How strange the implied doubt here in Abraham's mind! ... An Abraham praying the Judge of all the earth to do right! Is it not a first principle that of course He must? How could he doubt? we say. Beloved, do we never? And how much more do we know of God than Abraham possibly could! How much of our praying, if we looked closely at it, comes down to this — asking God to do right!
The prayer ended because Abraham stopped, not because God did.
He intercedes on the ground that it is impossible to destroy the righteous with the wicked. So he pleads with God to spare the city if fifty righteous men are found in it. Then he comes down to forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and at last to only ten. Each time God, in His grace, grants what he asks. At last it is Abraham's faith that fails to draw on the grace of God — the grace that, where sin abounds, does much more abound.
Notice who is not praying: Lot, inside the city.
Lot could not intercede with God as Abraham did. He did not know what it was to draw near to God. He was too deeply involved in Sodom's affairs to have communion with God. We cannot intercede with God for evildoers unless we are separate from them and know the intimacy of communion with God.
- Draw near first. God confides in Abraham before Abraham pleads. Intimacy is the soil intercession grows in.
- Draw near empty. God had settled his own future, so he had nothing left to ask for himself. A satisfied heart is free to spend itself on others.
- Draw near for the undeserving. The "righteous" he pleads for is Lot, the relative who walked out on him and settled in Sodom.
- Draw near honestly. His question to the Judge of all the earth carries a hidden doubt — the same doubt that fills much of our own praying.
- Draw near further. God granted every step down from fifty to ten. The limit was Abraham's faith, never God's grace.
There are perhaps fifty righteous within the city wilt thou also destroy and not forgive the place for the sake of the fifty righteous that are therein?
God has just told Abraham what He is about to do to Sodom. Abraham stays and begins to plead. He starts at fifty righteous people who might be inside the city. His question is whether judgment sweeps away the good with the guilty. Can a few righteous people hold back destruction from a whole place?
Abraham stands unusually close to God. Notice what he does with that place: he asks nothing for himself.
How does Abraham use his favoured position? Does he use it to strengthen and secure the future of his own family? The natural heart would have pushed him at once to use his advantage that way... Instead, he gave not a thought to himself or his house. Like a true man of faith, he uses his place in God's presence to plead for a brother. That brother's love of the world had dropped him into the very middle of a place God was about to give over to everlasting destruction.
Another writer treats this as a pattern.
Whenever God reveals His plans to faith, it brings out the spirit of intercession... So here Abraham pleads with the Lord to spare the city.
Abraham never says the name "Lot." Commentators agree he means his nephew, who lived in Sodom.
Note how persistent Abraham is about Lot and Sodom. I wish we Christians were half as persistent! ... The Lord replies that if there are fifty righteous, the city will be saved. And if there are only forty, Lord? Yes! And if there are only thirty? Yes! And if there are only twenty? Yes! And if there are only ten, Lord? Yes! And then he stops. ... All the while he was thinking of Lot. The thought in his heart was: Lot is a righteous man, though in a wrong position, and there are sure to be a few more like him to make up the necessary ten.
Abraham's opening figure was not random.
As Abraham pleads with the Lord, we know he has Lot chiefly in mind. Yet he clearly could not bring himself to think that Lot might be the only righteous person in Sodom... He cannot imagine the Judge of all the earth making the righteous suffer along with the wicked. The Judge will surely do right. Fifty would be a very small share of the city. Yet Abraham probably remembered that God saved only eight people out of the whole world when He destroyed it by a flood.
Abraham's plea rests on a principle. Commentators apply it to the world today.
God had to provide for Lot before the fiery storm could fall... For the sake of the righteous, God spares the wicked. "You are the salt of the earth."... And God preserves the world today because His children are in it.
Another writer weighs what one godly life is worth to God — and how Sodom actually ended.
See how much weight one godly person carries with God. Here was this big wicked Sodom. Its sins were too terrible to speak about, crying out to heaven for vengeance. Yet ten godly people in that mass of sin and wickedness would have saved the guilty city. But there were not ten. The few in it were thrust out — four people in all — and one died just outside its walls. So the city was destroyed.
God says yes at every step down. What ends the conversation is not God's patience but Abraham's nerve.
Why "this once"? Sadly, our faith never reaches up to the grace of God. We grow weary and fail, not He. We receive enough, through His grace, for our blessing, but we rarely go deep into it... God's grace went far beyond what Abraham asked. It reached down after all to that one person who lay on Abraham's heart, though Abraham had not the courage to say so.
The ceiling on this prayer points forward to One whose pleading has no ceiling.
He said, "I will speak yet but this once," and there he stopped short. It was as if he feared he had drawn too large a sum from the treasury of infinite grace — or had forgotten that God's bank has never yet refused faith's cheque... He stopped asking, and God stopped giving. Not so our blessed Intercessor. Of Him it can be said, "He is able to save to the uttermost... since he always lives to make intercession."
- Nearness — Abraham used his closeness to God for someone else's rescue, not his own gain.
- Number — fifty was Abraham's hopeful guess. Behind every figure he named stood one man: Lot.
- Value — God would spare a whole wicked city for a few righteous people. That is how believers act as salt today.
- Answer — God said yes at every step down, from fifty to ten.
- Limit — the prayer stopped because Abraham's faith gave out, not God's grace. That ceiling points to an Intercessor who saves to the uttermost.
Far be it from thee to do so, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should be as the wicked -- far be it from thee! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Abraham stands before the LORD and pleads for a city already under sentence. He does not argue that Sodom deserves better. He appeals to what God is — and troubled people have asked his question ever since.
(Some quotes use an older translation, where "do right" stands for the ESV's "do what is just.")
Nothing in the world around Abraham showed God openly ruling it. The title he uses is something faith saw, not something the eye could see.
It was faith in Abraham that recognised God as the Judge of all the earth, for then, as now, God was not openly the Judge of all the earth. He was acting behind the scenes, yet dealing with evil in His government when He judged it necessary. The day is coming, in the world to come, when it will be shown openly that God is the Judge of all. He will not let evil raise its head as it has done down the centuries.
"Judge" here is not a picture of a final courtroom scene at the end of all things. It has to do with God's rule over the earth itself.
This surely does not refer to God sitting in formal judgment, as at the great white throne, but as the One who will govern the earth in righteousness. So Abraham speaks of God as Judge, when he says, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"… Under man's rule righteousness is too often separated from judgment. Under God, the Judge of all, righteousness will return to judgment.
The two sides of this conversation are not the same, and one writer sets them side by side.
Jehovah comes down in grace to find, if possible, some reason why mercy might still hold back justice. "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, and if not, I will know." Jehovah comes in grace, Abraham urges righteousness — "Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked? … far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Let not the Lord be angry."
The question is famous for its confidence. One writer noticed the opposite — that a man had to ask it at all.
How strange the implied doubt here in Abraham's mind! What poor weak questions do not these minds of ours raise! An Abraham praying the Judge of all the earth to do right! Is it not a first principle that of course He must? How could he doubt? we say. Beloved, do we never?… If we looked closely at our prayers, how much of them would come down to this — asking God to do right!… when everything on earth seems as if it were going wrong… has the bitter question never sprung up in our hearts, even if it never reached our lips?
Abraham lowered his number step by step, then closed with "let me speak but this once." He never named the one man he was really praying for.
Why "this once"? Alas! our faith never reaches up to the grace of God. We weary and fail, not He… Jehovah answered in full all that Abraham's faith and confidence in His grace attempted. Yet His grace went far beyond that, for it came down after all to the one person who lay on Abraham's heart, though Abraham had not the boldness to say so. But Jehovah knew it; and while He surely did not spare that wicked place — and His righteous government meant it had to stand as an example of divine judgment — He still rescued that righteous soul despite his faults.
Abraham's question has gone on steadying people long after Sodom.
Abraham had boldly said to the Lord, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" — words for which we have all been deeply thankful, words that give us peace of mind as to God's governmental dealings in this sad world.
- Right — recognised. Abraham's title for God was an act of faith. God was governing the earth from behind the scenes. One day that rule will be open for all to see.
- Right — not final. This is God's rule over the earth in righteousness, not the final courtroom. Under His rule, righteousness and judgment come back together.
- Right — invited. God came down in grace, looking for a reason to spare. Abraham pressed the standard of righteousness, and God met him at every step.
- Right — doubted. Even a man of faith had to ask the question. Much of our praying is the same request: that God would do what is right when life looks wrong.
- Right — exceeded. Abraham's faith stopped at ten. God's grace went lower still and rescued the one man he never dared to name.