If you have spent much time talking with people who are not yet Christians you will invariably get questions about God’s judgment. And these are important questions for us to consider. As people are introduced to the God of the Bible they are confronted with a worldview that is alien to everything they have previously encountered. “A God who judges . . . really?”
At the same time these questions are not new. They are as old as sin. In fact, in Genesis we read of variations of the same question within a few chapters. In a familiar passage, Abraham is praying to God about Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:22-33). In this passage we read about Abraham’s struggle to understand the depths of both divine justice and human depravity. His questions are, “How just is God?” and, “How bad are these people?” As he finds out the answer on both accounts is: “infinitely.”
The situation here is that God has a perfect standard, “the soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20). Like the command to Adam and Eve, “the day you eat of it (the tree) you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). In fact, the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The breaking of God’s law brings with it the consequence of God’s righteous wrath. We needn’t be varsity sinners, the junior varsity, or novice-level rebels to inherit God’s inflexible and unwavering justice (James 2:10). God requires perfection; failure to give him that (however large or small the font) earns the infinite penalty of sin.
Therefore, while it is sobering, it is not surprising to read God’s answers to Abraham’s persistent prayer in Genesis 18. As Abraham asks if God would sweep away the righteous with the wicked, God informs Abraham that he will not, and that there are actually no righteous people there.
Another passage that has the same type of question is in Genesis 20. In this narrative king Abimelech has a nightmare. God visits him to interrogate him. In short, Abraham has come down to stay in the area, and when he arrived he told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister (like he did in Gen 12 to Pharaoh). So Abimelech takes her for his wife. God, with great concern for the family of promise and the womb of Sarah in particular, visits the king with a dream. In the midst of God telling Abimelech that he is going to die if he does not give Sarah back, the king provides his defense. He maintains his innocence. He basically says, “I didn’t touch her. I didn’t do anything. I haven’t even tried!” With the ominous threat of divine judgment lingering in the air like a pesistent dark cloud, he follows this up with a sobering question, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people?” (Gen. 20:5).
What a great question.
The answer of course is: yes.
The caveat is more shocking: but only once.
There was only one time that God had in fact killed an innocent person. It was when the sinless Lord Jesus, the pure spotless lamb, was slain on Golgotha (Isa. 53:7). Indeed Christ was innocent, but he was killed.
This wraps in Abraham’s question from the previous chapter also. In Sodom the concern was whether or not God might sweep away the righteous with the wicked. “There is no problem with the judgment on the wicked, but let’s not sweep away the righteous too!”
But notice what happened at the cross. God swept away the righteous, not with, but for the wicked.
This is the shock of Calvary. With all of the concern in these chapters for the innocent we realize that in the shadow of divine righteousness none of us really is in a good place. We are all unrighteous; each and every one of us (Rom. 3:9-10, 23). But God, in his infinite love, satisfied his infinite justice through Christ’s infinite sacrifice. Jesus paid the tab that justice required, and God spared us because of it.
When we stand together under the shadow of divine righteous we’re uneasy. Frightened, we look for options, somewhere to hide. But as we see, in our running from God’s righteousness we run to God’s righteousness (Rom. 3:21-27). We are saved from God by God (Rev. 5:9-10). Oh, the blessed gospel whereby God saves sinners by means of his own beloved Son.
We ask with Abimelech, “Lord, will you indeed condemn the innocent?” And God answers us from the blood-stained cross, “Never, except once, so that I could pardon the guilty.”
Oh, this glorious gospel. May its ink never dry but be ever fresh before us.
