Fr. Stephen De Young: Okay, we’ll go ahead and get started. When we get started in just a moment, we’re picking up at the beginning of Genesis 18. Last time… Well, two Bible studies ago, we talked about the covenant being cut with Abraham, where Abraham cut the—at that point Abram—cut the animals in half, and then God’s presence passed between the pieces to sort of ratify the promises that God had already made to Abraham with this kind of covenant oath form.

And last time, we talked about how Abram’s name was changed to Abraham; and he was given circumcision as sort of a visible sign of those promises; and that was going to be passed down from him to his sons; that all the males who were party to these promises and this inheritance were to be circumcised, and how women participated in that by being the wife or the daughter of a circumcised male, depending on their age; and how, in that context, God then sort of doubled down on the promise of, no, he and Sarah are going to have a son biologically despite him being 99 and her being 89, that this was going to happen even though Abraham was still like: “Well, hey, there’s Ishmael. We could just go with that, because this other doesn’t seem realistic.”

So that’s sort of where we left off last time, was God giving the sign of circumcision and doubling down not only on those promises but on exactly how, that they were going to be filled by—and he gave him the name Isaac to name his son, which means laughter, because Abraham had laughed when God told him that he and Sarah were going to conceive a son by the usual means at that age.

So unless there are any questions or comments or Canadian travelogues, we’ll go ahead and pick up in Genesis 18:1.

“Then God appeared to him at the oak of Mamre as he was sitting in the tent door during the noon hour.” So we’ve seen this pattern. In one sense, we’ve got these stories from these various parts of Abram and then Abraham’s life. And we’ve seen how we skip a few years in between a bunch of these. But each of these sort of larger episodes begins with what? God appearing to him. Not God speaking to him, not God—but God appearing to him, to have a conversation. So there’s lots of events of Abraham’s life that don’t get recorded here, obviously, of his day-to-day life. But the ones, the places where we come in on Abraham are the times when God appeared to him.

We’ve talked a bunch before about the tension in Genesis and in the Torah as a whole between the idea that God can’t be seen on one hand—no one can see him and live—and then on the other hand people see him all the time, see him face-to-face, see him in variously clearly bodily ways. This particular appearance and the events that follow in the next couple chapters, is pretty much as bodily as you can get. He’s going to walk and talk and eat and do a whole bunch of other things. So there’s sort of no way around, in the text— Like, the other times when it says God appeared to him, someone who wanted to do special pleading could say, “Well, it doesn’t directly say it was in human form. Maybe he saw a light or an image or something.” This one you can’t get around. This is God coming, appearing to Abraham, as we’re going to see, interacting with him, in a human body. But it’s God. But it’s clearly identified as God, as Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, not as “a god,” but God, capital-G.

And we’re even told the time of day, so this isn’t some kind of mystical vision; this isn’t: he’s off meditating somewhere and has a vision. This is: it’s noon, he’s sitting in the door of his tent, in the heat of the day, and God appears in front of him in the world, at this particular place, next to this particular, already ancient tree that’s on the land that belongs to Mamre. We already read about how Abraham had a sort of deal with this Mamre, where he was grazing his herds on Mamre’s land.

So we can’t prove that while Abraham was sitting there at the tent door at the noon hour, that he was playing the royal game of Ur, but I will just say he could have been, because it had already been around for centuries. And people in the Middle East like backgammon. That’s all I’m going to say. So he could have been.

Verse two: “So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold: three men stood before him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground.” He lifts up his eyes, physical eyes, and he sees three men standing there in the world. He prostrates himself, bows down to the ground.

Verse three: “And said, ‘O Lord, if I have now found grace in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let water be brought, and let them wash your feet while you cool yourselves under the tree, and I will bring bread for you to eat. After that, you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.’ They said, ‘Do as you have said.’ ” So there’s a couple things to notice here. He comes, offers them hospitality, which is the right thing to do, the good thing to do. I’m making an emphasis on this because of what’s going to happen in the next chapter. We’re going to get a counter-example. Offers these strangers hospitality. It’s not clear at this point if he recognizes one of them from other appearances. It’ll become a little more clear later. But what’s translated there as “O Lord” can just mean, like, “Sir.”

Q1: So that’s not an explicit—

Fr. Stephen: Not an explicit, not there. It’s not explicit yet. But the other thing to notice here is “they said,” not “one of them said” or “the leader of them said” or “the one in the middle” or whatever. It’s “they said.” So this is part of why this appearance of God is going to be taken as an image of the Holy Trinity. Emphasis on image! This is not— These three men are not the Holy Trinity in human form, and we’re going to see that very clearly later. But this is why—the fact that there’s three of them; they speak with one voice—this is taken as an icon, an image of the Trinity. So this is God and two angels standing in as symbolic of the Holy Trinity. This is why Andrei Rublev’s icon, the Holy Trinity icon, which is the one that’s canonical, which is the big one we have hanging in the narthex, depicts this: depicts the three visitors to Abraham, as an image of the Trinity, whereas we are not supposed to do the icon of the Christ, the old man, and the bird. [Laughter] Not saying it doesn’t happen; I’m saying it’s not supposed to happen.

Verse six: “So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, ‘Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.’ Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a young calf, tender and good, gave it to his servant, and he hastened to prepare it. He also took butter and milk and the calf he prepared and set it before them. And he stood before them under the tree as they ate.”

This is laying out the spread. We have to remember in our modern culture, we have factory farms and stuff, meats and everything, meat’s cheap. When you’re a herdsman and your wealth is measured in animals, which Abraham’s is, and especially when you go and kill a young calf that was going to grow into a cow or a bull that was going to be the basis for that, but you kill it as a calf, this is the equivalent of grabbing a bundle of money and setting it on fire for your guest. This is a major— He is sacrificing something in order to show hospitality to strangers, in order to show kindness and love to these people.

And you notice, he’s not even— It’s not: he sits down and eats with them. He stands by the tree. So this is just for them. This isn’t like: “Oh, Sarah’s cooking something. Why don’t you pull up a chair, grab a bowl.” This is just for them. Just for them.

Verse nine: “Then he said to him, ‘Where is Sarah, your wife?’ He replied, ‘Here in the tent.’ ” Now notice: “Then he said to him.” Well, there’s three of them. The previous sentence was “they.” So who’s the “he”? Well, the “he” goes back, all the way back— Well, not the original, but the “he” goes all the way back to verse one: God appeared to him. So one of these three is God; that’s what we’re establishing here. So we know the identity of one of these is God; the other two we’re going to find out for sure here. Spoilers: angels. But it’s going to be made explicit later.

Verse ten: “Again he said, ‘I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.’ Sarah was listening in the tent door behind him.” This should be the big tip-off, if Abraham didn’t already know, as to who this is, because who, a few months before this, told him they were going to have a son? God. [Laughter] The last time he appeared to him. And Sarah’s back, listening at the tent door, so she’s kind of peeking out, seeing what’s going on with these visitors.

“Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well-advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘I have not yet had a child until now, and my lord is old also?’ ” So notice this is in her head; this is inner monologue. This isn’t: she bursts out laughing and they hear her. This is what she’s thinking.

Verse 13: “Then the Lord”—so this is even more specific, because in the original, in the Hebrew, it’s “Yahweh,” about who the “he” is. “Then Yahweh said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh within herself, saying, “Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?” Is anything impossible with God? At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.’ But Sarah denied she had laughed, for she was afraid, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’ but he said, ‘No, but you did laugh.’ ” [Laughter]

So obviously, being God, he knows what Sarah’s thinking. But does this remind you of anything that happens in the gospels? Over and over again in the gospels, Christ will say something, and somebody in response to what he said will think, “Who is this who thinks he has the power to…? Surely…” and then Christ responds to what they were thinking! Over and over again, in St. Matthew’s gospel, in St. Luke’s gospel. “Why do you say within yourself…?”

Q2: I always read that as they actually asked that out loud.

Fr. Stephen: No!

Q2: Oh! [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: No, and it’s directly paralleled with this. It’s using this same kind of language, because notice how it’s phrased. She laughs within herself and thinks this, and he says, “Why do you—?” That’s that same language that Christ is going to use. “Why do you say this?” And then answers it.

Q1: And she says she didn’t laugh, but she couldn’t get away with it.

Fr. Stephen: Right. [Laughter] But it says she said that because she was afraid. She’s like: “Oh, ah, uh…” She’s called out. Yeah.

So why do the gospels use that phrasing? Because they’re trying to communicate to us that this is the same Person. This is the same Person. This is God made man. And that’s why, as we’ve talked about before when we were talking about Abraham seeing God— How do you resolve this issue that no one can see God, and then people see God all the time? [Laughter] “No one can see him and live”: they see him and live. So how do you resolve that? Well, the way St. John resolves that in the prologue to his gospel is: “No one has seen God at any time, but the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known,” so that that was Christ all along they were seeing. They didn’t understand; they couldn’t figure out exactly how that worked. Then when Christ is born of the Theotokos and they encounter him: “Ohhh!” Then the pieces come together. Not actually when they see him; actually after Christ rises from the dead and explains it to them. [Laughter] Then they go: “Ohhh!” But so that’s when it’s made plain; that’s when: Oh, now it all comes together. There’s the Father and the Son, both of whom are Yahweh the God of Israel, and that’s why you can see the Son; no one can see the Father and live. It sort of comes together.

Despite what a lot of 18th- and 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, especially German scholars will want to tell you, because they’re like: “Well, look, the gospels just never come out and say”—except for St. John’s gospel—“or have Jesus say, ‘By the way, I’m God, everybody.’ ” [Laughter] It doesn’t just come out and spell that out. So they say, “Oh, well, they didn’t think he was God.” People were capable of literary subtlety in the first century AD, and one of the ways, over and over again, that the gospel writers reveal that Jesus is God is by describing who Jesus is and what he does in the way that God is described and the things that God does are described in the Old Testament.

So if you’re a reader, if you’re very familiar with this story, of God appearing to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, because it’s in the Torah and you read it at least once a year as a Jewish person, so you’re familiar with this story—when you read St. Matthew’s gospel and you see Jesus doing the same thing that God as man does in what we now call Genesis 18, in that same Torah portion, doing the same thing, you’re going to make the connection: “Oh, this guy is saying that Jesus of Nazareth is God as man.” You’re going to piece that together. A little too subtle for some German scholarship, but…

But notice here— And I may seem to be beating this dead horse, but I don’t care. [Laughter] Dead horses don’t move around, so they’re easy to keep beating. But notice here, this isn’t just— So some of the other times when God appears and it’s described, even when it’s described in kind of a human form, you get descriptions of his legs and you get a lot of descriptions that involve precious metals and precious gemstones and this kind of thing, like in the visionary bodily appearances of God in the Old Testament when they do see God. But that’s one of the reasons why this one is very important, because this one is, first of all, identified as being: he looks like a man. And number two, he comes, he sits, he eats. Someone washes his feet: he has feet. There’s dirt on the feet that can be washed off. Eats food… And this very clearly is pointing us directly to Christ, and I’m not going to—I know people’s brains exploded when we spent a whole night doing Genesis 12:1 because of this, so we’re not going to get into the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff again and go through all that again; people can rewind and listen to that previous Bible study.

But this is one of the key texts, because remember what Christ says after the resurrection, too, how he eats in front of them to show that it’s still him and he’s resurrected. And here the divine Man eats. So don’t mistake what the New Testament authors are saying just because we find it confusing. They’re saying that this is Jesus of Nazareth. I’ll put a finer point on it: This is Jesus of Nazareth sitting down and eating with Abraham. And Christ actually says this at one point, that he met Abraham.

Okay, dead horse officially beaten. For now. We’ll come back to it, I’m sure. Now we’re going to move forward into the completely non-controversial part of these chapters and start talking about Sodom and Gomorrah! [Laughter]

Verse 16: “Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham went along and escorted them on their journey.” So again, in terms of human form, they’re walking, and Abraham is walking with them on their way towards Sodom and Gomorrah, which, as we talked about, are two of what are called cities of the plain. Lot, the last time we saw him, was living down there near Sodom. It’s going to be closer than that when we see him next, but he was nearby the city.

Q1: Is it along the shores of the Dead Sea? I have all these pictures.

Fr. Stephen: It’s where the Dead Sea is now. So there are a lot of traditions, and potentially some archaeological evidence, that this is how the Dead Sea became the Dead Sea, is that there was some kind of destruction that happened there. Of course, if you’re a atheist and a materialist, you’re like: “Was it a meteor? Was it some kind of environmental catastrophe? Volcano or something?” [Laughter] But, whatever. So, yeah, that’s the region if you’re thinking of a modern map, although it’s heavily implied here that the map would have looked a little more different at the time.

Q1: Plains.

Fr. Stephen: Cities of the plain, yeah.

Verse 17: “Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am about to do? But Abraham shall surely become a great and populous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. For I know he will order his sons and his house after him. They will keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that he has spoken to him.’ ”

So this should impress you as a little strange, because it says, “Then Yahweh said.” Who’s he talking to?

Q1: Maybe the other two?

Fr. Stephen: He’s not talking to Abraham, because he’s referring to Abraham in the third person. But here’s the other interesting thing. Notice, he talks about—Yahweh talks about Yahweh in the third person.

Q2: Did he just break the fourth wall?

Fr. Stephen: In 19, right? [Laughter] “They will keep the will of Yahweh to do righteousness and judgment, that Yahweh may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.” [Laughter] So this is another place that’s understood to be God the Father and God the Son interacting. That’s going to continue to play out through this story. So this is, strictly speaking, Yahweh the God of Israel talking to Yahweh the God of Israel about Abraham in front of Abraham.

But this text is also a text that, again, the gospel writers had in mind. How many times do we see Christ publicly praying to his Father? And even saying, “I’m not saying this to say it to you, because you know; I’m saying this for their sake,” especially in St. John’s gospel, where Christ actually says, when he’s talking to his Father, that he’s talking to his Father publicly so that they can hear it. God talking to God in front of Abraham, or in front of the Galileans in St. John’s gospel. So, again, this is a pattern that the gospel writers are seeing happening with Christ and happening with this here in the Old Testament, who they’re identifying him as: as Christ.

Verse 20: “Then the Lord said—” So this is to Abraham. He’s decided through this discussion, “Yes, I am going to tell Abraham what is about to happen.” [Laughter] “The Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah has been completed, and their sins are exceedingly great. Therefore I will go down now and see whether or not they are carrying out the outcry coming to me concerning them.’ ”

A couple of points. Yet again, possibly because of what month it is, I see one of the dumbest quasi-theological arguments I have ever seen, over and over again on the internet, which is: “What is the sin for which Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed?” And what they’re always arguing about is what comes next in the story. Okay, at this point, before anything else happens, God’s already going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so the stuff that comes next in the story is not why. It’s examples of why, but Sodom and Gomorrah are already wicked and are already going to be destroyed, and it’s not for just one thing. It’s not like they just—well, they were doing okay, but they did this one thing and so now we’ve got to wipe out the whole city.

There’s lots of things! Many things. All kinds of sinfulness. All kinds of sexual immorality. All kinds of other immorality. All kinds of cheating, backbiting— We saw, even before this, remember? When Abram went and took his mighty men to rescue Lot, and the king of Sodom said, “Hey, let me give you a reward for rescuing my stuff.” Abram said at that point, “I don’t want any of your stuff,” to the king of Sodom. Like: “I—no. I don’t want your money. It’s tainted.” They’re super wicked. They’re guilty of all kinds of things! They’re going to be destroyed already. So arguing about what— anything that comes later as to whether this or that is why they were destroyed means you’re not reading the story! [Laughter]

But, number two, this argument is kind of dumb because—I’ll just get down to brass tacks—whether homosexual sex is wrong has nothing to do with this story. Read Leviticus 18. Leviticus 18 has the commandments concerning sexual immorality; it says homosexual sex is a sin, period, end of sentence. Same Torah. Sodom and Gomorrah doesn’t matter; it’s irrelevant to that, and that’s reiterated in the New Testament. It’s not like this is the only passage that you can interpret in some way to be negative about homosexuality. There’s plenty that are very clear, that talk about sexual immorality.

So you’re crafting an argument that’s based on not really understanding the story, and an argument with no stakes, that’s irrelevant. Because even if there was not a single person committing homosexual acts in Sodom and Gomorrah and they were destroyed for completely other reasons—say they were destroyed for human sacrifice; let’s just say that’s why: it was human sacrifice—that wouldn’t mean that: Okay then, the Bible says that homosexual sex is just fine. No, you just turn a few pages. Go to Leviticus 18, half a dozen places in the New Testament.

So this is one of those things that becomes a distraction. That’s why I’m bothering to talk about it. We talked about, back when we were in Genesis 1. People want to argue about how old the earth is. People want to argue about 24-hour days. People want to argue about this and argue about that. And those arguments become a distraction to actually reading what the Bible says and trying to understand what God is trying to tell us, because we’re so busy with our arguments. I’m going to have to reiterate this again when we get into Exodus, because everybody wants to argue about when the exodus happened—is it the early date, is it the late date, was it this pharaoh, was it that pharaoh?—and it’s like: Read the Story. God is trying to communicate things to us through this story. That stuff— Read the story.

So, all that to say, what I just said is all I’m going to say about that issue because, like I said, misses the point and is irrelevant. Sexual immorality gets laid out in the Torah and Leviticus 18, so this is irrelevant to that. And they’re already going to get destroyed, right now. God is going there with the two angels to destroy them. When he says he’s going to “visit,” he’s not a tourist. This is like— We’re not that many chapters past the Tower of Babel in chapter 11. Remember what God said at the Tower of Babel? “Let us go down and see.” This is the same language here, so if you’ve been paying attention to the Tower of Babel… Sodom and Gomorrah are in trouble when God is coming to see.

But so, now we’ve dispensed with that, what is the text telling us? This language here is important, the language he uses. The language here is about the outcry that is rising up concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. So this is not: God has a list of sins and he’s checking the list: “They did this one, they did that one; they did this one X number of times, they did that one this number of times. Okay, well, certain number of sins and now here comes the smiting.” That’s not how it’s portrayed. The way it’s portrayed is this outcry is coming from the victims. So again, go back to Genesis 4, not that long before this: Abel’s blood crying out—outcry, that same language—crying out from the ground, for justice, to God.

So this outcry against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the people who live there and what they’ve been doing has become exceedingly great, and so now God is going to act. This is important, because this is the beginning of something we’re going to see all through the Old Testament, all through the Hebrew Bible, and even in the New Testament. We talked about this a little when we were reading 1 Peter, would probably be the most recent time, when we were going through 1 Peter: that the way God’s justice and mercy is depicted is sort of like a balance scale. On one side you have the outcry, the calls for justice, of the victims of sin, the people who are being harmed, the people who are being offended against, the people who are being oppressed, who are being destroyed, who are being killed; you have their cries to God for justice. And on the other side, you have God’s mercy and his patience and his desire to see sinners repent rather than be destroyed in their sin. And that’s a balance.

But a point comes where that balance tilts. A point comes where the outcry, those calls for vengeance, from those victims overwhelms God’s mercy and his patience, and he steps in and he acts. And he brings about justice for those who are wronged; he brings about justice for the oppressed. And he’s the one who decides when that time is. We’re going to see references later in the Torah to a certain nation: “the cup of their iniquity is not yet full.” That’s that same kind of imagery. It’s going to get to a point, and then they’re going to be cut off, but until it gets to that point, God shows mercy and allows time for repentance.

So we see it here on kind of the macro scale, with cities, and later on in the Old Testament with nations. And St. Peter uses it for the whole world, in terms of when Christ will return. But it’s also true in terms of individual people. God’s mercy primarily takes the form of giving us time to repent. That’s why we don’t want to squander the time he gives us to repent and waste it on other things, because that’s a finite amount of time. And part of what should help us take our sin seriously is the fact that there are people whom we have harmed with our sin. And God loves those people just as much as he loves me, and he hears their prayers; he hears how they’ve been wronged and they’ve been hurt by what I’ve done. That should be part of what pushes me forward to repent of those things, meaning not just feel bad or say sorry, but go and try and make that situation right, and heal what I’ve done, what I’ve done with those people.

But it’s important that we have a good grasp of this, because a lot of especially the Torah’s going to depend on this. When we get to the actual commandments later, lots of commandments, even ones we normally don’t think of, like when the Torah says it’s a sin to evict someone— We’ll have a lot of interesting discussions when we get into the commandments! When the Torah says it’s a sin to evict someone, the language it uses is: “Do not evict anyone, because you were once strangers and sojourners, and because God will hear their prayers after you evict them.” That’s one of the scariest… the idea that the people I’ve hurt, the idea that the people I’ve wronged, that God will hear their prayers? That’s deeply frightening, and should be.

So that’s what’s going on here. God has heard the prayers of all those people who have been wronged by Sodom and Gomorrah—in any number of ways. Not just in one way, not just one time, but in any number of ways. And God’s not going to let that go on any further.

Q1: When God acts in this situation, is he setting things right primarily, or just vengeance involved? Is he saying, “You did bad; you’ve got to suffer”—

Fr. Stephen: No.

Q1: —or is he just trying to stop them?

Fr. Stephen: Right, he’s putting an end to evil. He’s putting an end to evil.

Q1: So he’s stopping?

Fr. Stephen: Yeah. Because we don’t read— You don’t get a lot of these gory details. I mean—spoilers!—fire’s going to come from heaven and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. We don’t read about people running around on fire. We don’t read about people being tortured. There’s no infliction of suffering or pain; it’s just—gone. It’s done. This can’t go on any more. And that understanding becomes really important, too—I’m not going to jump ahead and talk about it now, but when we get to Joshua and we get to the different clans and what they’re doing, where God says, “These abominations, these things they’re doing, have to stop.” And it’s sort of at the point where the things they’re doing are so horrible that it’s by any means necessary.

We live in very enlightened times, but I would submit that I don’t think that any of us are so enlightened that if we knew for a fact—not we thought, we suspected: we knew for an absolute fact—that if our next-door neighbor was abducting and sacrificing children, I don’t think any of us, no matter how enlightened, would be like: “Well, I will go over there and try to reason with him until he understands that it’s wrong,” or “I will stay in my house and pray for him, that he would see the light.” We would send someone—in the US at least, someone with a gun—to go and make him stop. And if in the process of that person going in there to make him stop, the murderer got shot, we would say, “Well, it’s a shame that that happened, but he had to be stopped.” None of us would think that was a horrible evil.

We think it’s horribly evil when God does it, for some reason. [Laughter] But it’s what any one of us with any moral sense would do. We don’t call the police on our neighbors for minor infractions, hopefully, unless you go, like, super-Karen. [Laughter] But something very serious like that, or something that reaches a certain point, you would, because you would say, “This has to stop; this isn’t right.”

So God does the same thing, because we have that sense from God. But that’s not the same thing as vengeance, anger, retaliation, inflicting suffering: “You made these people suffer, so I’m going to make you suffer.” We don’t see that, here or anywhere else, with God’s justice.

Verse 22: “Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained near the Lord.” So the two of them—two of the three—move on toward Sodom. We’re going to see, if you glance ahead to chapter 19, verse one, it’s going to refer and say, “Now the two angels came to Sodom,” just in case you hadn’t figured out yet that they were angels! [Laughter] But Yahweh, God, stays with Abraham.

“So Abraham drew near and said”—again, this is physical language: he draws near. “ ‘Will you also destroy the righteous with the ungodly?’ ” So Abraham is now going to intercede; this is intercession. He’s praying, because he’s talking to God. He’s just doing it more directly than we usually do. He’s saying, “Would you destroy the righteous with the ungodly.” Certainly, there’s a lot of wicked people down there. Abraham knows this; that’s why he refused to take the king of Sodom’s money and possessions and reward. But he says, “If you just wipe out the city, surely there’s some people there who aren’t that fully wicked that they need to be blown up.”

So he says, “ ‘Suppose there were 50 righteous within the city. Would you also destroy the place and not destroy it for the 50 righteous in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ ” So he’s kind of pleading with God. He’s like: “You would never do that! You’re the Judge of all the earth! You would never destroy the righteous with the wicked. So if there’s 50 righteous people there…” Notice, he doesn’t say, “Wouldn’t you spare the 50 righteous?”; he says, “Wouldn’t you spare the whole city for the sake of those 50 righteous people? Continue to show that mercy for the rest of them to repent, if there’s 50 righteous people in their midst.”

“Then the Lord said, ‘If I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.’ ” So he says: “Yep. If there’s 50 righteous people there, I won’t destroy the city of Sodom.”

Verse 27: “So Abraham answered and said, ‘Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord. But suppose there were five less than the 50 righteous. Would you destroy all the city for the lack of five?’ ” [Laughter] So he says, “Well, what if there’s only 45? Would you destroy a whole city just because there’s five too few?” [Laughter]

“He replied, ‘If I find there 45, I will not destroy it.’ Again he spoke to him and said, ‘But suppose there should be 40 found there?’ So he said, ‘I would not destroy it for the sake of 40.’ Then he said, ‘Let not the Lord be offended I will speak. Suppose 30 should be found there?’ So he said, ‘I would not destroy it if I should find 30 there.’ ”

Q1: He’s auctioning off Sodom.

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right, he’s working his way down! He’s working his way down. Well, because he also realizes whom he’s talking to. When God says, “Yeah, if there’s 50 righteous there, I won’t destroy it,” he’s going: “Okay, God knows there aren’t 50 righteous people there… That’s why he’s going to destroy it.” [Laughter]

“Again he said, ‘Since I have permission to speak to the Lord, suppose 20 should be found there?’ So he said, ‘I would not destroy it for the sake of 20.’ Then he said, ‘Let not the Lord be offended, and I will speak but once more. Suppose ten should be found there?’ So he said, ‘I would not destroy it for the sake of ten.’ So the Lord went his way as soon as he finished speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.”

He gets him down to ten—spoilers: there aren’t ten—but this language is important. This language is important, because this is another idea that’s going to carry through the rest of the Torah, the rest of the Old Testament, and even into the New Testament, and into Church history. And that’s the idea that God would spare a wicked place, would give it more time to repent, because of the presence of even a few righteous people. This is part of what Christ was talking about with the salt of the earth. The idea is that, for the sake of a faithful remnant, God holds off judgment on everyone.

In Jewish tradition, there are points where there are particular people who are identified: These are the righteous people in this era, because of whom judgment didn’t come yet. And this gets carried over generally into our idea of the saints, that in every era, in every place, there are those who are pleasing to God, and for the sake of whose prayers the world continues. St. Barsanuphios famously had revealed to him by God that he and two other people, he and two other monks, were the reason why the world didn’t end in their day, their prayers for the world.

And this is a premise that becomes important because we see this in the Church as being reflected particularly in the offering of the Liturgy, Liturgy being offered for the life of the world and for its salvation; that the Liturgy being continually offered by us with repentance, with our efforts toward faithfulness to God, that this is why we still have time to repent; that God’s grace and mercy is coming, not only to those in the Church, but to the world. His mercy in the form of giving more time to repent is coming to the whole world because of the intercession of the saints within the Church, because of the offering of the Eucharist as a pleasing sacrifice to God. That this is sort of what is keeping the world going.

This is the first place where we get a glimpse of this principle, that God steps in and judges when the salt loses its saltiness, when the light goes out.

Q1: So this would be the answer to people who say, “Well, I predict the last judgment. Hey, it hasn’t happened.”

Fr. Stephen: Right. Well, that’s what St. Peter said in 1 Peter. He said it’s not that God is delaying or forgot; it’s because he’s giving more time for repentance.

Q1: Because of...

Fr. Stephen: Yes. And so this is a call to us, an understanding to us, that, especially when you’re living in an evil age, especially when you’re living in a place that’s full of evil and darkness, it’s all the more important that we remain faithful, not to “win” against our enemies, but so that they have time to repent and not be our enemies any more, and they’re going to be able to do that because they’re going to have time and because they’re going to be able to see us.

Now, you notice in this case the light’s gone out. That doesn’t mean Lot— Lot gets called righteous Lot. You’re going to wonder why after we read the next chapter; we’ll address that. [Laughter] But he gets called righteous Lot. But you notice: he’s not going to get destroyed with the city. He’s not going to get destroyed with the city, even as compromised as he is. As we’re going to see, he’s moved into the city, he’s become an important man about town, and he hasn’t been doing that in the sense of “he’s been so righteous and a wonderful example.” [Laughter] Like everyone else, he’s kind of— We’ve seen over the course of the story he’s kind of been getting seduced deeper into Sodom, but he has not participated— He has not on the other hand participated in all the wickedness that’s been going on there that would make him liable to the judgment that comes upon Sodom.

So even though there aren’t enough righteous in Sodom for God to spare the whole city, he still isn’t going to let the handful of righteous people there suffer with the wicked. He’s still going to bring them out, which is the story we will now begin in chapter 19.