Sodom and Gomorrah conjure up images of great wickedness. When Abraham encounters the three strangers of which two are angels and the other the angel of the Lord, his first reaction is one of fear but he then gets about being a host to them.
The first thing that is interesting in this passage is the conversation God has with himself about whether or not to share with Abraham what he plans to do. There must be some legitimate choice here on God’s part or the plain reading of God’s statement does not make any sense. For God’s words to be true there must have been a genuine decision by God to make. God is facing a lot of possibilities in how Abraham will react given that Abraham’s nephew Lot is in the city of Sodom. It appears that even God wrestles with the idea of who to trust. Freewill does have that effect even for Him.
The second thing of note in this passage is Abraham’s reaction when he is told what God’s intention is. Abraham does not accept that Sodom an Gomorrah’s fate is sealed in stone. He instead intercedes on their behalf for the sake of the righteous that might be in the city. He may have been thinking of his nephew’s household at the time but he also showing that he does not believe that God’s decisions cannot be altered and so he prays that they will be altered.
God’s reaction also plays into our understanding of God in that he actually listens to Abraham’s intercession and reacts to it positively. In the end, God agrees that if there be at least ten righteous in the cities then he will spare them. In the end though not even that saves them as the only righteous person in the two cities is Lot. We can’t even count his daughters because of their actions later.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the light of open theism makes more sense as well. God has seen great wickedness before and destroyed the whole earth with a flood to stop it. In this case we might view God’s actions as a preemptive strike to avoid doing that again. He is trying to stop the spread of wickedness and given freewill the only real way at times is to destroy the ones who have chosen to be evildoers. The wickedness of the two cities has become great according to the text of Scripture and so it must be stopped. Here is an example of God dealing with evil once again perhaps in the only way it can be dealt with given the freewill of human beings. It has gone past the point of simple persuasion in God’s estimation. God does not see in any of the possibilities in front of him for the two cities any type of repentance.
In many ways, determinism looks really silly at this point. God forces people to go into sin of great magnitude so he can destroy them as an example makes God into a monster. But if two cities have willfully gone into such great evil action that not even ten righteous people can be found, then perhaps a preemptive removal before it gets worse as both and preventative measure and example to others might be in order. God using persuasive means does not rule out the use of fear as a motivator for that time and the future.
In the end, Abraham has done all he can but the actions of people failed to live up even to the level of his intercession before God. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah made their choices and reaped the consequences.
Note: In my haste I skipped this episode of Abraham’s walk with God and went right to the testing of Abraham. I am going back a little here and I am glad I caught it early. This post falls between The Call of Abraham and The Testing of Abraham. I will keep this note up for a couple weeks so everyone will know what happened that has been reading this series then remove it. Just wanted to explain what happened to those currently reading.
Next: The Testing of Abraham