Finding the answer to my decades long question
- Kristina Trott
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
How good does it feel to find an answer in the Bible to a question you’ve asked since you were a child! Let me explain by posting this passage:
“20 So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are utterly evil, and that everything they do is wicked. 21 I am going down to see whether these reports are true or not. Then I will know.”
22-23 So the other two went on toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham a while. Then Abraham approached him and said, “Will you kill good and bad alike?
24 Suppose you find fifty godly people there within the city—will you destroy it, and not spare it for their sakes? 25 That wouldn’t be right! Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, to kill the godly with the wicked! Why, you would be treating godly and wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth be fair?”
26 And God replied, “If I find fifty godly people there, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”
27 Then Abraham spoke again. “Since I have begun, let me go on and speak further to the Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose there are only forty-five? Will you destroy the city for lack of five?”
And God said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five.”
29 Then Abraham went further with his request. “Suppose there are only forty?”
And God replied, “I won’t destroy it if there are forty.”
30 “Please don’t be angry,” Abraham pleaded. “Let me speak: suppose only thirty are found there?”
And God replied, “I won’t do it if there are thirty there.”
31 Then Abraham said, “Since I have dared to speak to God, let me continue—suppose there are only twenty?”
And God said, “Then I won’t destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”
32 Finally, Abraham said, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry; I will speak but this once more! Suppose only ten are found?”
And God said, “Then, for the sake of the ten, I won’t destroy it.”
33 And the Lord went on his way when he had finished his conversation with Abraham. And Abraham returned to his tent.” ( Gen. 18:20-33 TLB)
This Bible account tells the story of Abraham’s nephew, Lot, who had gone to live in Sodom, a place that was so excessively wicked that God planned to destroy it. When He revealed this plan to Abraham, Abraham bartered with God about destroying the city by posing the proposition about there being righteous people in the city. He suggests ever decreasing numbers of righteous people until he is told that even with only 10 righteous people in it God said He wouldn’t destroy it.
All my life I’ve wondered what the answer would have been if Abraham had pressed God further for 5, or 2 or 1 righteous person in it. Yesterday I found my answer!
“Roam back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, And look now and take note. And look in her open squares To see if you can find a man [as Abraham sought in Sodom], One who is just, who [has integrity and moral courage and] seeks truth (faithfulness); Then I will pardon Jerusalem—[for the sake of one uncompromisingly righteous person].” (Jer. 5:1 AMP).
God was prepared to spare this more significant city of Jerusalem if there was merely one uncompromisingly righteous person in the city. God would’ve spared Sodom, therefore, for just one uncompromisingly righteous person, BUT there was no such person.
Lot is said, however, to be righteous (2 Pet.2:7), but his life bears witness to the fact that even though the wickedness around him vexed his soul, he was unfortunately tainted with the wickedness of his surroundings.
So all that thinking about God’s incredible mercy towards a whole city full of wickedness (if there had been just one person full of integrity and righteousness) got me pondering the lesson there was for us in this.
It’s simply this. For the sake of one pure, upright, God-fearing, sin-free person God was prepared to spare all of humanity. Our world is full of sin and wickedness that more than rivals that of Sodom, yet for the sake of one man, the Lord Jesus Christ, God was prepared to pardon us and spare us the consequences of our guilt.
It’s good to have an answer to my decades long question but it’s even better to know that God saved me in my guiltiness by sending His sinless and pure Son to be one of us and live with us so we could all have the opportunity to be saved.
I’ll let Paul have the last word:
“12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all people [no one being able to stop it or escape its power], because they all sinned.
13 Sin was [committed] in the world before the Law [was given], but sin is not charged [against anyone] when there is no law [against it].
14 Yet death ruled [over mankind] from Adam to Moses [the Lawgiver], even over those who had not sinned as Adam did. Adam is a type of Him (Christ) who was to come [but in reverse—Adam brought destruction, Christ brought salvation].
15 But the free gift [of God] is not like the trespass [because the gift of grace overwhelms the fall of man]. For if many died by one man’s trespass [Adam’s sin], much more [abundantly] did God’s grace and the gift [that comes] by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to [benefit] the many.
16 Nor is the gift [of grace] like that which came through the one who sinned. For on the one hand the judgment [following the sin] resulted from one trespass and brought condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift resulted from many trespasses and brought justification [the release from sin’s penalty for those who believe].
17 For if by the trespass of the one (Adam), death reigned through the one (Adam), much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in [eternal] life through the One, Jesus Christ.
18 So then as through one trespass [Adam’s sin] there resulted condemnation for all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For just as through one man’s disobedience [his failure to hear, his carelessness] the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one Man the many will be made righteous and acceptable to God and brought into right standing with Him.
20 But the Law came to increase and expand [the awareness of] the trespass [by defining and unmasking sin]. But where sin increased, [God’s remarkable, gracious gift of] grace [His unmerited favor] has surpassed it and increased all the more,
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness which brings eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
(Rom. 5:12-21 AMP)