and in like manner as took place in the days of Lot they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
The Lord sets a second picture beside the days of Noah: Sodom in the time of Lot, described not by its worst sins but by its buying, planting and building. Why picture a city on the edge of destruction by the most ordinary activities of life?
Genesis records the gross evil of Sodom, yet the Lord's summary here stays on the surface of daily routine. One writer notes that choice, and what buying and building show about the hopes of the people doing them.
We know from the history (Genesis 19:4-10) that Sodom was also guilty of the dreadful moral corruption of homosexuality. But the Lord spoke here only of their concentration on living for this life. He adds to the previous verse that they bought, sold, planted and built. These things show how they were preparing to go on living on earth, with no concern for eternity.
Lot's Sodom adds trading and building to the list of daily habits. That extra marks a step forward for the world, and the question is what the step was worth.
There was progress in the world. Civilisation had advanced. But was it any better morally? … People too easily forget that a far wider judgment is waiting for the world, following the pattern of these two judgments from God.
Luke alone records this comparison. Notice who is telling it.
Only this Gospel gives us this reference to Sodom in the days of Lot. And it is the Lord who tells us about the world before the flood, and about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Admah too, and of Zeboiim. He saw it all. He tells us the future too.
Eating, trading and building are not crimes. The question is how people use them, and whether they leave any room for God.
There is nothing wrong in these things of the world themselves. The right or the wrong lies in the use man makes of them. There is no conscience in these things, no spiritual affection in them, no moral good in them (they are all God's creatures, of course). The things are not evil… It is a world that is forming pleasures for itself out of what God did create; but it does not care for God, for it rejected Him.
The angels led Lot out in full daylight, and the city carried on. One writer fills in the ordinary scene behind the verse's short list.
They held their market. The exchange opened, traders met there, and farmers came in from the country with their produce. Housewives went out to buy the food for the day, and everybody was busy… Note this: God is not going to give the world one single bit of warning when He judges it, any more than He gave Sodom. Its only warning was the angels leading Lot out of the city, and that warning the people despised.
Sodom's routine ran right up to the moment Lot was outside the city. One writer traces how tightly the fire waited on him reaching the town of Zoar.
The sun had risen on the earth when Lot entered Zoar. And yet that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of burning sulphur and fire to fall. Nothing could happen until Lot reached the city; but once he was in it, nothing more held back the fire.
Many expect the world to improve until it is fit for Christ's return. One writer meets that hope head-on.
Scripture nowhere teaches that the time of the earth's blessing will come before Christ comes. It comes after… If you are not a believer, but someone who rejects Christ, that day may catch you by surprise, just as it caught the people of Sodom when they had opened their shops for another day's business and another day's sins.
- Ordinary. The charge against Sodom here is not its worst sins. It is a life wrapped up in this world, with no concern for eternity.
- Advanced. Buying, selling, planting and building show a world that had moved on: progress in civilisation, none in morals.
- Neutral. The things listed are God's creatures and not evil; the wrong lies in a world using them to enjoy itself without Him.
- Uninterrupted. Business opened as usual on the final morning. Sodom's one warning was the sight of Lot being led out, and the city despised it.
- Until. The fire could not fall while Lot was still inside, and nothing held it back once he was out. So Scripture promises the world no slow improvement before Christ comes.
but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven, and destroyed all [of them]
Jesus reaches back to the last day of Sodom, a city whose shops opened as usual on the morning it burned. He is not teaching history. He is describing the world He will return to judge.
Only Luke keeps this second illustration. Notice who gives it. The Lord who saw the cities of the plain burn is the One describing what is still to come.
So in the days of Lot, the people of the cities of the plain were living as if nothing but permanent life on earth lay before them… Fire and brimstone rained down on them from heaven and cut their work short. "So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed." Only in this Gospel do we have this reference to Sodom in the days of Lot. It is the Lord who tells us about the old world, and about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah… He witnessed it all. He foretells the future likewise.
The sky gave no hint. The city got one signal: angels leading a man out at dawn. It despised the warning.
They held their market. Their exchange was open, and business men met in it. In came the farmers with their produce from the country. The housewives went out to buy the day's food, and everybody was busy… Yes, quite true: "the sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar." Nothing looked different, in nature or in the city… Note this. God is not going to give the world one single bit of warning when He judges it, any more than He gave Sodom. Its only warning was the angels leading Lot out of it, and that warning they clearly despised.
The verse ties the fire to one man's departure. That rescue set the clock in both directions.
The One to whom vengeance belongs has settled the whole plan of safety… But a solemn scene of judgment goes with all this. After this, Lot entered Zoar, and the sun had risen on the earth. And yet that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of brimstone and fire to fall. Nothing could be done until Lot entered the city, but then nothing remained to be done before the fire came down.
The verse says sulfur; older Bibles say brimstone. It is a real substance, and it marks God's judgment right through Scripture.
Bitumen, pitch, or sulphur, which is still found in its crude state in Palestine. In God's judgment it was rained from heaven. Gen. 19:24; Ps. 11:6; Ezek. 38:22; Luke 17:29. It is symbolic of what will add to the torment and anguish of the wicked. Rev. 14:10; Rev. 19:20; Rev. 20:10; Rev. 21:8.
Sodom was a busy, advancing city. Kelly asks what that progress was worth.
"Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building." There was progress in the world; civilisation had advanced, but was it any better morally? "But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all." Men too easily forget the judgment that awaits the world. It will be beyond all comparison wider than these two, but it will follow their pattern… No delusion is more ruinous than the idea that Christendom will escape its doom because there is much good in it. The Lord lingers to save souls. When His own are gathered out, judgment will proceed all the more sternly, because the world saw His grace, saw its fruits, and heard His warnings in vain.
The Lord's two examples ended differently. A third ending is still ahead.
The days of Noah ended in a flood of water. The days of Lot ended in a flood of fire. The present age will soon end in a flood as well. It will not be providential or temporary. It will be the direct judgment of God.
Lot was pulled out, but he still had to keep moving. Wolston presses the same urgency on the reader.
Led outside the city, he and those with him are put on the road to safety. But being on the road is not enough. They must reach the place of safety… "Escape for your life," is the word. "Do not look back" — do not turn back. "Do not stop anywhere in the valley; escape to the hills, lest you be swept away."… Know this: there is nothing but judgment for those who stay in the valley. There is no safety except in Christ.
- Eyewitness. The Lord who watched Sodom burn is the One describing it here, and He tells it to show what His own return will be like.
- Ordinary. Buying, selling, planting, building: the fire fell mid-routine. The sky gave no sign, and the city laughed off its one warning.
- Timing. Nothing could fall while Lot was still inside; the moment he was clear, nothing delayed the fire.
- Pattern. Water in Noah's day, fire in Lot's — advancing civilisation changed the world's habits, not its end.
- Escape. A warning, or even a walk out of the city, is not the same as reaching safety. Safety is in Christ. Reach it now.
after this [manner] shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.
The Lord has just drawn two pictures: the flood in Noah's time and the fire on Sodom. They are not history lessons. They set a pattern, and this verse shows where the pattern lands — the day the world sees the Son of Man Himself. So what does "revealed" mean? Which judgment is in view? Who escapes it, and what should a person do now?
"Revealed" means an unveiling. The world cannot see the Lord now. On that day everyone will see Him, and the reversal will stun them.
There is a difference between the Greek words epiphaneia, meaning "the outshining", which we believe has to do with His glory, and apokalypsis, which means revelation. Then the One nobody can see will be seen in public: "every eye will see Him". What a reversal! I think the shock of it will grip the world. Suddenly the Man who was despised, rejected and refused will be seen as the glorified One.
Both of the Lord's examples end with living, busy people swept away. That settles what kind of judgment this day brings — and what it is not.
This is not about receiving the Church, and it is not about judging the dead. Judging the dead comes later, at the end; receiving the Church comes earlier. Here it is plainly the judgment of the living on the earth, a truth the Christian world has largely forgotten… This can only mean people alive on the earth, taken by surprise when the flood came… Men too easily forget that a far wider judgment, following the pattern of these two acts of God, awaits the world.
Kelly also rules out two common readings: the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the final judgment at the end.
This looks nothing like the releasing of Satan and the war of Gog and Magog in Revelation 20, or the past siege of Jerusalem by Titus in A.D. 70… It is not a general judgment in God's providence falling on everyone alike; verses 34 and 35 stand in sharp contrast to that. Nor is it the last judgment, which does not match it in a single feature. It is simply and only the Lord's appearing.
God did not cut either generation off in the middle of some spectacular crime. Both were eating, trading and planting — ordinary life, right up to the last hour.
First, it will take the world by surprise. It will find godless people busy with the common pursuits of life, with no thought for the future… So in the days of Lot, the people of the cities of the plain lived as if nothing lay before them but a permanent home on earth… Then fire and burning sulphur rained down on them from heaven and cut their daily work short. Only this Gospel gives us this reference to Sodom in the days of Lot. It is the Lord who tells us about the old world, and about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah… He saw it all. He tells us what is coming too.
The second picture also removes an excuse: that an advanced society must be safe. Kelly asks about Lot's world:
There was progress in the world; civilisation had advanced, but was it better morally?
In both stories someone escapes first: Noah came through the flood, Lot got out of Sodom. These are two different kinds of escape.
Taking the saints up means taking them out of the way of those judgments. By contrast, the Jews who stay on the earth, and some Gentiles too, must pass through those judgments when they come. Lot passed through in that way. He escaped everything that happened to Sodom, but only barely, as through fire, while Abraham looked on at the judgments that fell on the guilty cities of the plain. In the same way, Noah came through the flood safely, while Enoch was taken up to heaven. These two cases stand as pictures of what will happen at the coming of the Son of Man.
The warning then turns inward. It is not "run faster" but "hold nothing tightly." A heart tied to a doomed world will not let go in time.
The Son of Man would be revealed in judgment as suddenly as a flash of lightning, just as it was in the days of Noah and of Lot. They were to take care that their hearts were not held by anything they owned in the place under judgment. No one could escape this judgment, because it was God's.
- Hidden. The world despised and refused the Son of Man, and today He stays out of sight.
- Unveiled. On that day the covering comes off. Every eye will see Him — a complete reversal of how the world treated Him.
- Unready. In both pictures people eat, buy and build up to the last hour. Progress and civilisation change nothing.
- Rescued. Before the flood and before the fire, God secured His own — some taken out of the way, some brought through.
- Unattached. That day settles everything. So let nothing in a doomed world hold your heart.
In that day, he who shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not go down to take it away; and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
The Lord has just spoken of "the day when the Son of Man is revealed." Now He tells people caught in ordinary life at that moment to run and leave their belongings behind. Two questions press on the reader: which day this is, and why a man's goods become the test of his safety.
Commentators begin by clearing away three familiar readings of the verse.
This is not about the destruction of Jerusalem, any more than it is about the final judgment. It is absurd to apply it to death. But the mind of man is clever at finding ways to dodge the blows of the truth. It is a testimony that keeps the coming of the Lord Jesus to judge the inhabited world always hanging over the heads of careless people.
The Lord's own comparisons point the same way.
In Luke 17, He Himself compares the days of Noah and of Lot with the day when the Son of Man is revealed... When His day comes as a thief, it will overtake them eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building, marrying and giving in marriage. How strange to apply Luke 17:31 to the dissolving of all things! Or even to the destruction of Jerusalem! It is not a judgment in providence that falls on all alike — verses 34 and 35 stand in sharp contrast to that. Nor is it the last judgment, which it does not match at a single point.
Matthew records almost the same warning about the housetop and the field. Luke ties his version to the revelation of the Son of Man, and one writer uses that to date Matthew's warning too.
Here the language of the two writers is almost identical. But Luke is not speaking of the siege of Jerusalem here. He is speaking of the revelation of the Son of Man. This makes it clear, therefore, that Matthew is speaking of the same time.
The scene is a house with a roof, a room below, and a field outside. One writer reads those local details as a mark of who the warning is for.
Verse 31 shows how clearly Jewish and local this scene is. The unbelieving people would go on in a false sense of security, counting on things staying as they were.
The same writer sets this warning apart from the Christian's hope of being caught up to meet the Lord.
The point here is escape, because it is not safe to stay... It has nothing at all to do with the Christian's hope of going up to heaven to meet the Lord "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." What would be the point of telling a Christian not to come down from the housetop at that time? Would it matter whether he was at the top or the bottom of the house?
The order sounds strange: a man may not fetch his own property. One writer explains what that small errand would prove.
There must be no looking back; that would be to have the heart in the place of judgment. Better to lose everything, life itself, than to be associated with what is going to be judged.
Another writer states the test in one line, then adds that God's judgment still finds the ones it came for.
They were to take care that their hearts were not held by anything they owned in the place under judgment. Escaping that judgment would be impossible, for it was God's; it would take away the ones it came for, even if they were together in bed or at the grinding stone.
The Lord's next words point to the one person who did the very thing this verse forbids.
This is a moral touch for those who might seem safer than others, but are not saved. It is unique to Luke, and a most searching word for everyone whose face and heart are not steadily fixed on the Lord. She was, after all, very close to Lot and seemed to have passed beyond all reach of judgment. But her heart was in the city she looked back to. She paid no attention to the warning of God's messengers, and in her destruction she proved true the word she had not believed. ... There is no security, and no real happiness, except in faith; and faith is always obedient to the Word of the Lord.
- Day — This is the day the Son of Man is revealed. It is not the fall of Jerusalem, not the final judgment, not death.
- Suddenness — That day arrives while people are eating, buying, planting and marrying, just as judgment came in the days of Noah and of Lot.
- Escape — The command is to get out, not to gather up. The housetop and the field are real places with a real way out, so the warning fits people on the ground, not saints caught up to meet the Lord.
- Heart — The goods left behind are the test, because turning back for them shows the heart is still in the place marked for judgment.
- Warning — Lot's wife stands as the proof: outside the city in body, still inside it in heart, and lost for it.
Remember the wife of Lot.
Three words, and the Lord expects them to carry a whole history. He drops them into His description of the day the Son of Man is revealed. They sit between a command to flee without looking back and a saying about losing your life to keep it.
The verse sits inside a picture of sudden judgment, and the danger it names is not slow feet but a divided heart.
The day would be like Lot's day, and like Noah's day. Men would be at ease, busy with their worldly pursuits. They would be like the world that the flood overtook, and like Sodom that fire from heaven overtook... There must be no looking back; that would be to have the heart in the place of judgment. Better to lose everything, life itself, than to be associated with what is going to be judged.
One writer hears love in the warning, not only alarm:
"Remember Lot's wife." This short but weighty sentence shows the Lord's love for His own. It points to the danger His people must avoid on that day.
Commentators locate her failure not in the look itself, but in what the look revealed.
This is a moral touch for those who might seem safer than others, but are not saved. Only Luke records it. It is a most searching word for everyone whose face and heart are not steadily fixed on the Lord. She was very near to Lot, and she seemed to be out of all reach of judgment. But her heart was in the city she looked back to. She paid no attention to the warning of God's messengers. In her destruction she proved true the word she had not believed... There is no security, and no real happiness, except in faith. And faith always obeys the word of the Lord.
Her advantages were real, and there were many of them.
She was married to a true saint. Abraham, an eminent saint, prayed for her. Angels from heaven pressed her to leave. Yet she was lost. She had the unclean nature that loved the filthy garbage of Sodom. What upset Lot clearly had attractions for her.
Why would anyone turn round with fire falling behind them? One writer traces the thought that would explain it.
Nearly saved, but not quite! Near to the place of safety, but not in it... She lingered a little behind her husband. Then this thought came up: I do not think the Lord will judge the place after all. Although her body was outside Sodom, her heart was inside it. So she decided to take a little look, despite the word, "Do not look back." Just as she was entering Zoar, the place of safety, she disobeyed God. Judgment overtook her... Unbelief led to disobedience.
She did not die in the fire that fell on the cities. One writer reads the salt she became as a reversal of what she should have been.
The angels brought her out of Sodom, but she had left her heart there. She cared more about Sodom than about the word of God that the angels had spoken... To the disciples the Lord Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." Lot and his wife should have been "salt" in that way in Sodom. She should have been salt inside Sodom in a moral sense. Instead she becomes salt outside it in a literal sense, a memorial of "the goodness and the severity of God."
The next verse turns her story into a principle.
Men bury themselves in the things of earth trying to save their lives. The result is that they only lose them. The believer is to let these things go in favour of the far greater things that God reveals to him. He preserves his life, as will be very clear when the Lord comes. Lot's wife illustrated this principle. The angels pulled her body out of Sodom, but her heart was still there. She lost everything, and her own life as well.
One writer turns the command into a question about our own hearts.
To her, leaving Sodom was exile, not deliverance... And this raises a solemn, practical question for us. How do our souls think about separation from the world? In the judgment of our hearts, is it exile or redemption? Are we singing over that thought, like Israel at the Red Sea? Or are we like Israel later on, remembering the fish of Egypt, its onions, its leeks, and its cucumbers?
- Heart — Her body left Sodom but her heart stayed. The backward look only showed where she already was.
- Unbelief — She did not believe judgment was coming. That unbelief bred the disobedience that destroyed her.
- Nearness — A godly husband, an interceding relative, angelic hands on her arm: near to safety is not the same as in it.
- Memorial — She should have been salt inside the city. Instead she became a pillar of salt outside it, a lasting warning.
- Exchange — Grasping at life here loses it; letting it go keeps it. That is why three words are enough: remember her, and let go.