Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?
— Genesis 18:25
This week’s meditation focuses on Genesis 18:20–32, the alternate Old Testament reading for this upcoming Sunday, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Revised Common Lectionary, Year C).
The passage follows immediately after that mysterious encounter between Abraham and his three visitors—one of whom may well have been YHWH Himself. In that earlier passage, Sarah has just finished eavesdropping on the divine promise that she, at ninety, will bear a son within the year. The domestic intimacy of that scene—Abraham rushing to prepare a meal, Sarah listening from the tent entrance, the gentle divine rebuke of her laughter—gives way to something far more grave.
As the narrative unfolds, two of the men turn and head toward Sodom, while Abraham remains standing with “the LORD” (18:22). There’s tremendous subtlety in these transition verses. The anthropomorphic language in the text suggests divine deliberation, as if YHWH is weighing whether to share a troubling burden with Abraham. We know that Abraham has already been declared righteous, brought into covenant relationship with the Almighty. Because of that covenant intimacy, YHWH speaks confidentially to Abraham about righteousness—about the level of evil that exists within Sodom and Gomorrah. What follows is one of the most audacious theological exchanges in all of Scripture.
Before we witness Abraham’s remarkable intercession, it’s worth remembering that the Hebrew Scriptures not only permit but actually encourage this kind of theological wrestling with the Divine. Moses, after the golden calf incident, talked God out of destroying Israel by appealing to God’s reputation among the nations (Exodus 32:9–14). The book of Job contains page after page of a righteous sufferer’s direct challenges to divine justice. The lament psalms are filled with bold questions: “Why do you hide your face?” (Psalm 44:24), “How long, O God?” (Psalm 74:10).
Abraham is part of this tradition of audacious intercession. Abraham speaks with covenantal confidence, not as one demanding answers from a distant deity, but as one invited into relationship with a God whose justice is responsive, dynamic, and relational. The Divine doesn’t cut off the conversation but welcomes it, suggesting a God who values theological dialogue.
Abraham’s boldness emerges from trust, not arrogance. He dares to negotiate because he trusts God’s character enough to hold God accountable to it.
Abraham’s intercession begins with a question that digs deeply into the core of divine justice: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (18:25). The challenge is breathtaking in its directness. Abraham is, in effect, holding God accountable to God’s own revealed nature.
While not a verbatim quotation, Abraham’s challenge might be rendered this way: “God, will you allow the death of the innocent? Will you make the guilty and the innocent the same?” This captures the theological heart of his protest—the moral logic that innocent people should not suffer for the sins of others. Abraham systematically negotiates downward from fifty righteous persons to ten, each time invoking this principle of individual justice.
The conversation reveals something remarkable about both participants. Abraham persists not because he doubts YHWH’s justice, but because he trusts it enough to appeal to it. And remarkably, YHWH welcomes this challenge—listening, engaging, ultimately agreeing that even ten righteous people would be sufficient to spare the cities.
As readers who know the rest of the story, we understand that not even ten righteous were found in Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities’ destruction proceeded as YHWH had feared. Abraham’s bold intercession, for all its theological sophistication and moral urgency, could not save them. The innocent Lot and his family escaped—though even that came with tragic loss—but the principle Abraham fought for seemed to fail.
Or did it?
Abraham’s question—“Will you allow the death of the innocent? Will you make the guilty and the innocent the same?”—hangs in the air not just over Sodom, but over the entire biblical narrative. It echoes through the centuries, through the Psalms of lament, through Job’s protests, through the prophets’ cries for justice. How can a just God permit innocent suffering?
The answer comes not in theological argument but in historical event. At Calvary, God’s response to Abraham’s challenge is a resounding “Yes”—but in the most unexpected and grace-filled way imaginable. There, the truly innocent dies instead of the guilty. There, God makes the guilty and the innocent the same—not through shared condemnation, but through shared redemption.
Yet here is the mystery. Abraham successfully argued that it would be unjust for the innocent to perish with the guilty. Yet God’s greatest act of love involves precisely that—the innocent dying for the guilty. But this time, it’s not collateral damage or cosmic accident. It’s intentional, voluntary, redemptive.
On the cross, Jesus—who taught in parables—becomes the ultimate parable. For while God withholds Abraham’s son, Isaac, He does not withhold His own. The only truly innocent person in human history bears the weight of all human guilt. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” echoes from Calvary, not as protest but as fulfillment.
There’s no justice in that, of course—only grace. Through the blood of Christ, we the guilty are made the same as our Lord, not through punishment but through mercy. Abraham’s question about divine justice finds its answer not in explanation but in incarnation, not in theory but in sacrifice.
The God who welcomed Abraham’s bold questions about righteousness ultimately answers them by taking our unrighteousness upon Himself. The Judge of all the earth does indeed do what is just—but justice, it turns out, looks like a cross.
Abraham stood boldly before the Lord that day, wrestling with the tension between divine justice and mercy, between the fate of the guilty and the protection of the innocent. His question echoes still: “Will you make the guilty and the innocent the same?”
At Calvary, we discover that God’s answer was always “Yes”—but in a way that transforms justice itself into something unrecognizably beautiful. The innocent dies, but willingly. The guilty live, but only through grace. In the end, we are all made the same—not in condemnation, but in the beloved.
Abraham’s audacious intercession teaches us that God welcomes our hardest questions about righteousness and suffering, about justice and mercy. But the Cross teaches us that sometimes God’s answers come not in words but in wounds, not in explanations but in sacrifice.
Thanks be to God, from whom all blessings flow.
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