II.
Part One
We arrive at the perfect Fallen Flesh examples: Sodom and Gomorrah.
Recall we began our section talking about humanity wanting everything NOW!!!!
Look at Lot again.
He knew Abram was blessed. he hung around. perhaps his flaw was that that was the only reason he was really hanging around. Abram loved him but Lot was there for the money. The nephew hoping to inherit from the rich uncle. But he got rich himself and his men wee a poor choice, were trying to have fights with Abram's trained men. One you realize that, you see Abram was also concerned one of his men might kill one of Lot's. He was equally concerned for his men as he was for his relationship with Lot. Perhaps he also finally realized that Lot was not the man he hoped, that he was revealing his character through his choice of workers now that he had some money.
Lot waited for Abram to receive his gift of land but now went to the rich watered land.
Make no mistake: Lot is the prodigal here. Like the son in Jesus' parable, Lot takes his inheritance, one that he had from his time with his uncle/father and went on his way. He could have realized his blessings were from his time with Abe and said, "I see you have a special blessing from God and I turn my possessions over to you and let my men go so we can be at peace and I can share in the destiny God has for you." Instead, like the Prodigal, Lot took his share and went toward the debauchery of Fallen Flesh.
Later, after the kidnapping, Lot could have returned with his uncle, left the possessions to the king of Sodom, "come to his senses" as Jesus said of the Prodigal. Come to his uncle and sought refuge and forgiveness, offered to tend the flocks and serve the prophet of God.
Instead, the rescued nephew returned to the place of evil. Worse, that tent that was staked outside the city has been replaced by a house IN the city. The king has noticed that Abram will rescue his nephew so he has taken the man into the city to protect himself in case Abe wants to take his wealth with those fighting men who serve the prophet. He also knows he will be able to call on Abe if the city is threatened on the excuse of protecting Lot.
And Abe will do what it takes to protect Lot.
Matt Henry's opening:
INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS CHAPTER 18
We have an account in this chapter of another interview between God and Abraham, probably within a few days after the former, as the reward of his cheerful obedience to the law of circumcision. Here is,
I. The kind visit which God made him, and the kind entertainment which he gave to that visit, Ge 18:1-8.
II. The matters discoursed of between them.
1. The purposes of God's love concerning Sarah, Ge 18:9-15.
2. The purposes of God's wrath concerning Sodom.
(1.) The discovery God made to Abraham of his design to destroy Sodom, Ge 18:16-22.
(2.) The intercession Abraham made for Sodom, Ge 18:23-33.
Genesis 18:1 Now the Lord came to him by the holy tree of Mamre, when he was seated in the doorway of his tent in the middle of the day;
2 And lifting up his eyes, he saw three men before him; and seeing them, he went quickly to them from the door of the tent, and went down on his face to the earth;
3 And said, My Lord, if now I have grace in your eyes, do not go away from your servant:
4 Let me get water for washing your feet, and take your rest under the tree:
5 And let me get a bit of bread to keep up your strength, and after that you may go on your way: for this is why you have come to your servant.
And they said, Let it be so.
6 Then Abraham went quickly into the tent, and said to Sarah, Get three measures of meal straight away and make cakes.
7 And running to the herd, he took a young ox, soft and fat, and gave it to the servant and he quickly made it ready;
8 And he took butter and milk and the young ox which he had made ready and put it before them, waiting by them under the tree while they took food.
9 And they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife?
And he said, She is in the tent.
10 And he said, I will certainly come back to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And his words came to the ears of Sarah who was at the back of the tent-door.
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was past the time for giving birth.
12 And Sarah, laughing to herself, said, Now that I am used up am I still to have pleasure, my husband himself being old?
13 And the Lord said, Why was Sarah laughing and saying, Is it possible for me, being old, to give birth to a child?
14 Is there any wonder which the Lord is not able to do? At the time I said, in the spring, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a child.
15 Then Sarah said, I was not laughing; for she was full of fear.
And he said, No, but you were laughing.
16 And the men went on from there in the direction of Sodom; and Abraham went with them on their way.
17 And the Lord said, Am I to keep back from Abraham the knowledge of what I do;
18 Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?
19 For I have made him mine so that he may give orders to his children and those of his line after him, to keep the ways of the Lord, to do what is good and right: so that the Lord may do to Abraham as he has said.
20 And the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and their sin is very evil,
21 I will go down now, and see if their acts are as bad as they seem from the outcry which has come to me; and if they are not, I will see.
22 And the men, turning from that place, went on to Sodom: but Abraham was still waiting before the Lord.
23 And Abraham came near, and said, Will you let destruction come on the upright with the sinners?
24 If by chance there are fifty upright men in the town, will you give the place to destruction and not have mercy on it because of the fifty upright men?
25 Let such a thing be far from you, to put the upright to death with the sinner: will not the judge of all the earth do right?
26 And the Lord said, If there are fifty upright men in the town, I will have mercy on it because of them.
27 And Abraham answering said, Truly, I who am only dust, have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord:
28 If by chance there are five less than fifty upright men, will you give up all the town to destruction because of these five?
And he said, I will not give it to destruction if there are forty-five.
29 And again he said to him, By chance there may be forty there.
And he said, I will not do it if there are forty.
30 And he said, Let not the Lord be angry with me if I say, What if there are thirty there?
And he said, I will not do it if there are thirty.
31 And he said, See now, I have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord: what if there are twenty there?
And he said, I will have mercy because of the twenty.
32 And he said, O let not the Lord be angry and I will say only one word more: by chance there may be ten there.
And he said, I will have mercy because of the ten.
33 And the Lord went on his way when his talk with Abraham was ended, and Abraham went back to his place.
(BBE)
Patrick/Lowth/Whitby/Lowman Commentary:
The Lord appeared unto him The glory of the Lord, or the Divine Majesty, which the Jews call the Shechinah, as it had done lately Ge 17:1. And as the Lord then appeared to establish his covenant with him by circumcision, so some of the Jews imagine he again appeared to visit, comfort, and heal him, now that he was very sore of his circumcision: or rather, I should think, to testify, by his illustrious manifestation of his glory (ver. 2), his high approbation of Abraham’s ready obedience to so harsh a command. So the Jews themselves esteem it, and therefore think that, by receiving it, Abraham fulfilled that precept which goes just before it Ge 17:1, “be thou perfect.” Which may have some truth in it, if rightly understood: for his faith and obedience grew more perfect by submitting to this command; and was completed, when he sacrificed his son.
However this be, I think it is plain from verse 10, that this appearance of the Divine Majesty was not long after the former.
In the plains Or, the oaks of Mamre, mentioned before Ge 13:18. This place continued famous till the time of Constantine; both Jews, Gentiles, and Christians, meeting here once a year, not only for traffic, but for religion: Christians here calling upon God; and there being an altar here also, on which the gentiles sacrificed, and invoked the angels. Of which superstition Constantine being informed by his mother, he caused that altar to be demolished, and a church to be built in its place. (See Sozemen, lib. 2 cap 4 Euseb. In vita Constant, lib. 3 cap. 53.)
And he sat in the tent door To observe what strangers passed that way.
In the heat of the day; In the afternoon, when travelers sought for places of refreshment.
Note: Our concern in a discussion of our fallen nature leads us over a significant section of Abe's development to be discussed after this section as contrast to Lot's "life style choices"
Spurgeon:
Ver. 3-5 Abraham here became an example of hospitality, and thereby entertained angels unawares. He ran to meet the strangers, he saluted them respectfully, welcomed them heartily, and even made a favor to himself of their resting near his tent. Ungenerous spirits who never entertain either God's servants or the poor, miss many a blessing. May we never be a churlish household.
Matt Henry on the angels:
God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.
2. God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.
Again, I suspect one WAS the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ. Some suggest it was a materialization of the Trinity but the Holy Spirit has never taken physical form in any Scripture and we here have them all eating so it seems likely only one was Jesus and, yes, again, Abraham recognizes Him.
We already mentioned time has passed since that kidnapping and Abe must have heard rumors about his nephew, may even have had his men track down stories from caravans and other travelers and traders. He knows Lot hasn't quite lived up to whatever promise Abe once saw in him. He knows, too, that God hasn't mentioned one thing about Lot being in Sodom.
So. instead of pleading for Lot specifically, Abe pleads for the righteous people in the city. He seems certain there are other righteous ones there. There must be, right? it's a big city, plenty of humanity. Surely there are others there to save...
God gave Abraham a chance to plead for mercy for the lost. And Abe pleaded for mercy for he righteous. We need to see that. We need to realize Abe pleaded for the righteous so Lot might be saved, that Peter later calls Lot "righteous" because he WAS saved. We need to see Abe din't ask for a delay in the taking of evil from the world. he wanted mercy for those who God would love.
We live in a Society where we call for mercy for all because Christ made that call. Called for us to delay to harvesting for the staves from the wheat, to let God decide who was to be saved, who is actually saved and his Chosen. But we've given that mercy so long it has become misinterpreted, seen as a call for mercy because all will be saved or all are to be redeemed. We see delayed judgement as a sign there will be no judgement at all.
God has always delayed judgement. The Sodoms of the world go on for a long time. We have a Hollywood once referred to as Babylon. We have Sin City in this country, a now seldom used nickname for Las Vegas. Artist and comic creator Frank Miller used it as the name of an evil city in a graphic novel that became a movie with major stars engaged in a worship of debauchery both on the "good" and "bad" side. Actually, it engaged in the noir and now popular notion that we all have failings but we should root for the ruthless killers who have hearts of gold, who are capable of seeing all the evil around them and fighting evil with their own evil as heroes. The notion that your political candidate can be a ruthless insulter of minorities, an abuser of women and accused of defrauding thousands but he's better than the other person running. There's mercy and then there's pure foolishness. The reaction to each new fact as an excusable fraud. Denial.
Abe loved Lot but he had none of that denial thing. He would not plead for the man's life nor would he presume to saddle up his men and go to the rescue. When we begin to discuss the other events of
Abe's life below, we'll see how the Fallen Flesh can at least learn repentance and humility,
One other thing comes up: Sarah's faith. She has done some things she is ashamed of in trying to help God along with His plan. She has offered Hagar as the surrogate and gotten Ishmael out of the deal. There were no Petri dishes for sperm storage and no syringes for fertilization back then so Abraham had to violate his vows to her to produce that first son.
Ge 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had given him no children; and she had a servant, a woman of Egypt whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said to Abram, See, the Lord has not let me have children; go in to my servant, for I may get a family through her. And Abram did as Sarai said.
3 So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram for his wife.
4 And he went in to Hagar and she became with child, and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for her master's wife.
5 And Sarai said to Abram, May my wrong be on you: I gave you my servant for your wife and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for me: may the Lord be judge between you and me.
6 And Abram said, The woman is in your power; do with her whatever seems good to you. And Sarai was cruel to her, so that she went running away from her.
7 And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur.
8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife.
9 And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority.
10 And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered.
11 And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow.
12 And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers.
13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
14 So that fountain was named, Fountain of Life and Vision: it is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar gave birth to a child, the son of Abram, to whom Abram gave the name of Ishmael.
16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.
(BBE)
But Ishmael was a problem, brought up as the son but born out of place. Because god had one other condition for his covenant with Abraham.
Ge 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord came to him, and said, I am God, Ruler of all; go in my ways and be upright in all things,
2 And I will make an agreement between you and me, and your offspring will be greatly increased.
3 And Abram went down on his face on the earth, and the Lord God went on talking with him, and said,
4 As for me, my agreement is made with you, and you will be the father of nations without end.
5 No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham, for I have made you the father of a number of nations.
6 I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring.
7 And I will make between me and you and your seed after you through all generations, an eternal agreement to be a God to you and to your seed after you.
8 And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
9 And God said to Abraham, On your side, you are to keep the agreement, you and your seed after you through all generations.
10 And this is the agreement which you are to keep with me, you and your seed after you: every male among you is to undergo circumcision.
11 In the flesh of your private parts you are to undergo it, as a mark of the agreement between me and you.
12 Every male among you, from one generation to another, is to undergo circumcision when he is eight days old, with every servant whose birth takes place in your house, or for whom you gave money to someone of another country, and not of your seed.
13 He who comes to birth in your house and he who is made yours for a price, all are to undergo circumcision; so that my agreement may be marked in your flesh, an agreement for all time.
14 And any male who does not undergo circumcision will be cut off from his people: my agreement has been broken by him.
15 And God said, As for Sarai, your wife, from now her name will be not Sarai, but Sarah.
16 And I will give her a blessing so that you will have a son by her: truly my blessing will be on her, and she will be the mother of nations: kings of peoples will be her offspring.
17 Then Abraham went down on his face, and laughing, said in his heart, May a man a hundred years old have a child? will Sarah, at ninety years old, give birth?
18 And Abraham said to God, If only Ishmael's life might be your care!
19 And God said, Not so; but Sarah, your wife, will have a son, and you will give him the name Isaac, and I will make my agreement with him for ever and with his seed after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have given ear to your prayer: truly I have given him my blessing and I will make him fertile and give him great increase; he will be the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation.
21 But my agreement will be with Isaac, to whom Sarah will give birth a year from this time.
22 And having said these words, God went up from Abraham.
23 And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all whose birth had taken place in his house, and all his servants whom he had made his for a price, every male of his house, and on that very day he gave them circumcision in the flesh of their private parts as God had said to him.
24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he underwent circumcision.
25 And Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he underwent circumcision.
26 Abraham and Ishmael, his son, underwent circumcision on that very day.
(BBE)
The flesh was fallen and god made it clear that He had to put His mark on that flesh: Circumcision. Ishmael was Abe's son, but born before that branding. He received it at 13 which would become the age of adulthood for every son of Abraham afterwards as circumcision would become the ritual scarring of the infant. But Ishmael was not born under the mark of the pact. God agreed to bless him, but withheld the honor seemingly due any firstborn. Ishmael was loved and blessed, but he didn't have the special place of the firstborn under the completed pact.
A. W. Tozer in Voice of the Prophet, writes of the opening verse 17:1:
"...I feel unworthy, because here is found the beating heart of living religion. Abram had no Bible, no church, no religious conviction, no Bible teacher, no evangelist, no hymnal, no Bible school. He had only his empty, hungry heart and god. This goes back to the roots of true religion from which sprung all denominations, all churches, all forms of worship, all thise things we take for granted-organs and pianos and seers and preachers. Abram had none of those things.
"Abram was a man who met God.
"Father Abraham stands fr every man, and he is the father of all those who believe. He had no religious problems, or if he did, he took them straight to god. he talked to God. (How many people are in Hell today because they fooled themselves into thinking they had a religious problem, when it was a sin problem and they had no desire to get rid of it.)
"Abram met god in a living encounter. Notice that God stepped over the threshold into Abram's experience, into his cognitive experience. God met Abram face to face."
This next paragraph explains why I have been stressing so much the point that Jesus appears in the OT, especially in the beginning, in genesis when God is revealing His Plan.
"With every man of God, especially the prophet, it all begins by consciously being aware of God. This is the starting point. It begins with a divine encounter where God steps across the threshold into our experience."
It appears that the Holy Spirit acted differently toward humanity at that time. Jesus himself stepped into the picture, here referred to as God, then later seen as angel but still, the same person, the same one Abe saw when he was much younger, the same one who launched him on his trip to Cannan.
Our Fallen Flesh can find not safety outside of god but we refuse to seek One we can't perceive so He always makes the first move. As Tozer later puts it :"The living, vibrant, audible Word of lord came to Abram."
Tozer sees it as the Spirit speaking, and it may be the case, but the word "appeared" makes me want to add the other word "visible" to Tozer's sentence in Describing the "Word" here.
The man of God takes the mark on the flesh, one that hurts, hurts, hurts. He will remember so long as he lives that the flesh carries the memory of falling, that we are scarred for life by that fact, that Abraham's people are set aside to live holy lives and to follow God.
But, for now, we need to see where that fallen state leads without repentance. So our next stop is Sodom.
Part One
We arrive at the perfect Fallen Flesh examples: Sodom and Gomorrah.
Recall we began our section talking about humanity wanting everything NOW!!!!
Look at Lot again.
He knew Abram was blessed. he hung around. perhaps his flaw was that that was the only reason he was really hanging around. Abram loved him but Lot was there for the money. The nephew hoping to inherit from the rich uncle. But he got rich himself and his men wee a poor choice, were trying to have fights with Abram's trained men. One you realize that, you see Abram was also concerned one of his men might kill one of Lot's. He was equally concerned for his men as he was for his relationship with Lot. Perhaps he also finally realized that Lot was not the man he hoped, that he was revealing his character through his choice of workers now that he had some money.
Lot waited for Abram to receive his gift of land but now went to the rich watered land.
Make no mistake: Lot is the prodigal here. Like the son in Jesus' parable, Lot takes his inheritance, one that he had from his time with his uncle/father and went on his way. He could have realized his blessings were from his time with Abe and said, "I see you have a special blessing from God and I turn my possessions over to you and let my men go so we can be at peace and I can share in the destiny God has for you." Instead, like the Prodigal, Lot took his share and went toward the debauchery of Fallen Flesh.
Later, after the kidnapping, Lot could have returned with his uncle, left the possessions to the king of Sodom, "come to his senses" as Jesus said of the Prodigal. Come to his uncle and sought refuge and forgiveness, offered to tend the flocks and serve the prophet of God.
Instead, the rescued nephew returned to the place of evil. Worse, that tent that was staked outside the city has been replaced by a house IN the city. The king has noticed that Abram will rescue his nephew so he has taken the man into the city to protect himself in case Abe wants to take his wealth with those fighting men who serve the prophet. He also knows he will be able to call on Abe if the city is threatened on the excuse of protecting Lot.
And Abe will do what it takes to protect Lot.
Matt Henry's opening:
INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS CHAPTER 18
We have an account in this chapter of another interview between God and Abraham, probably within a few days after the former, as the reward of his cheerful obedience to the law of circumcision. Here is,
I. The kind visit which God made him, and the kind entertainment which he gave to that visit, Ge 18:1-8.
II. The matters discoursed of between them.
1. The purposes of God's love concerning Sarah, Ge 18:9-15.
2. The purposes of God's wrath concerning Sodom.
(1.) The discovery God made to Abraham of his design to destroy Sodom, Ge 18:16-22.
(2.) The intercession Abraham made for Sodom, Ge 18:23-33.
Genesis 18:1 Now the Lord came to him by the holy tree of Mamre, when he was seated in the doorway of his tent in the middle of the day;
2 And lifting up his eyes, he saw three men before him; and seeing them, he went quickly to them from the door of the tent, and went down on his face to the earth;
3 And said, My Lord, if now I have grace in your eyes, do not go away from your servant:
4 Let me get water for washing your feet, and take your rest under the tree:
5 And let me get a bit of bread to keep up your strength, and after that you may go on your way: for this is why you have come to your servant.
And they said, Let it be so.
6 Then Abraham went quickly into the tent, and said to Sarah, Get three measures of meal straight away and make cakes.
7 And running to the herd, he took a young ox, soft and fat, and gave it to the servant and he quickly made it ready;
8 And he took butter and milk and the young ox which he had made ready and put it before them, waiting by them under the tree while they took food.
9 And they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife?
And he said, She is in the tent.
10 And he said, I will certainly come back to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And his words came to the ears of Sarah who was at the back of the tent-door.
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was past the time for giving birth.
12 And Sarah, laughing to herself, said, Now that I am used up am I still to have pleasure, my husband himself being old?
13 And the Lord said, Why was Sarah laughing and saying, Is it possible for me, being old, to give birth to a child?
14 Is there any wonder which the Lord is not able to do? At the time I said, in the spring, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a child.
15 Then Sarah said, I was not laughing; for she was full of fear.
And he said, No, but you were laughing.
16 And the men went on from there in the direction of Sodom; and Abraham went with them on their way.
17 And the Lord said, Am I to keep back from Abraham the knowledge of what I do;
18 Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?
19 For I have made him mine so that he may give orders to his children and those of his line after him, to keep the ways of the Lord, to do what is good and right: so that the Lord may do to Abraham as he has said.
20 And the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and their sin is very evil,
21 I will go down now, and see if their acts are as bad as they seem from the outcry which has come to me; and if they are not, I will see.
22 And the men, turning from that place, went on to Sodom: but Abraham was still waiting before the Lord.
23 And Abraham came near, and said, Will you let destruction come on the upright with the sinners?
24 If by chance there are fifty upright men in the town, will you give the place to destruction and not have mercy on it because of the fifty upright men?
25 Let such a thing be far from you, to put the upright to death with the sinner: will not the judge of all the earth do right?
26 And the Lord said, If there are fifty upright men in the town, I will have mercy on it because of them.
27 And Abraham answering said, Truly, I who am only dust, have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord:
28 If by chance there are five less than fifty upright men, will you give up all the town to destruction because of these five?
And he said, I will not give it to destruction if there are forty-five.
29 And again he said to him, By chance there may be forty there.
And he said, I will not do it if there are forty.
30 And he said, Let not the Lord be angry with me if I say, What if there are thirty there?
And he said, I will not do it if there are thirty.
31 And he said, See now, I have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord: what if there are twenty there?
And he said, I will have mercy because of the twenty.
32 And he said, O let not the Lord be angry and I will say only one word more: by chance there may be ten there.
And he said, I will have mercy because of the ten.
33 And the Lord went on his way when his talk with Abraham was ended, and Abraham went back to his place.
(BBE)
Patrick/Lowth/Whitby/Lowman Commentary:
The Lord appeared unto him The glory of the Lord, or the Divine Majesty, which the Jews call the Shechinah, as it had done lately Ge 17:1. And as the Lord then appeared to establish his covenant with him by circumcision, so some of the Jews imagine he again appeared to visit, comfort, and heal him, now that he was very sore of his circumcision: or rather, I should think, to testify, by his illustrious manifestation of his glory (ver. 2), his high approbation of Abraham’s ready obedience to so harsh a command. So the Jews themselves esteem it, and therefore think that, by receiving it, Abraham fulfilled that precept which goes just before it Ge 17:1, “be thou perfect.” Which may have some truth in it, if rightly understood: for his faith and obedience grew more perfect by submitting to this command; and was completed, when he sacrificed his son.
However this be, I think it is plain from verse 10, that this appearance of the Divine Majesty was not long after the former.
In the plains Or, the oaks of Mamre, mentioned before Ge 13:18. This place continued famous till the time of Constantine; both Jews, Gentiles, and Christians, meeting here once a year, not only for traffic, but for religion: Christians here calling upon God; and there being an altar here also, on which the gentiles sacrificed, and invoked the angels. Of which superstition Constantine being informed by his mother, he caused that altar to be demolished, and a church to be built in its place. (See Sozemen, lib. 2 cap 4 Euseb. In vita Constant, lib. 3 cap. 53.)
And he sat in the tent door To observe what strangers passed that way.
In the heat of the day; In the afternoon, when travelers sought for places of refreshment.
Note: Our concern in a discussion of our fallen nature leads us over a significant section of Abe's development to be discussed after this section as contrast to Lot's "life style choices"
Spurgeon:
Ver. 3-5 Abraham here became an example of hospitality, and thereby entertained angels unawares. He ran to meet the strangers, he saluted them respectfully, welcomed them heartily, and even made a favor to himself of their resting near his tent. Ungenerous spirits who never entertain either God's servants or the poor, miss many a blessing. May we never be a churlish household.
Matt Henry on the angels:
God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.
2. God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.
Again, I suspect one WAS the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ. Some suggest it was a materialization of the Trinity but the Holy Spirit has never taken physical form in any Scripture and we here have them all eating so it seems likely only one was Jesus and, yes, again, Abraham recognizes Him.
We already mentioned time has passed since that kidnapping and Abe must have heard rumors about his nephew, may even have had his men track down stories from caravans and other travelers and traders. He knows Lot hasn't quite lived up to whatever promise Abe once saw in him. He knows, too, that God hasn't mentioned one thing about Lot being in Sodom.
So. instead of pleading for Lot specifically, Abe pleads for the righteous people in the city. He seems certain there are other righteous ones there. There must be, right? it's a big city, plenty of humanity. Surely there are others there to save...
God gave Abraham a chance to plead for mercy for the lost. And Abe pleaded for mercy for he righteous. We need to see that. We need to realize Abe pleaded for the righteous so Lot might be saved, that Peter later calls Lot "righteous" because he WAS saved. We need to see Abe din't ask for a delay in the taking of evil from the world. he wanted mercy for those who God would love.
We live in a Society where we call for mercy for all because Christ made that call. Called for us to delay to harvesting for the staves from the wheat, to let God decide who was to be saved, who is actually saved and his Chosen. But we've given that mercy so long it has become misinterpreted, seen as a call for mercy because all will be saved or all are to be redeemed. We see delayed judgement as a sign there will be no judgement at all.
God has always delayed judgement. The Sodoms of the world go on for a long time. We have a Hollywood once referred to as Babylon. We have Sin City in this country, a now seldom used nickname for Las Vegas. Artist and comic creator Frank Miller used it as the name of an evil city in a graphic novel that became a movie with major stars engaged in a worship of debauchery both on the "good" and "bad" side. Actually, it engaged in the noir and now popular notion that we all have failings but we should root for the ruthless killers who have hearts of gold, who are capable of seeing all the evil around them and fighting evil with their own evil as heroes. The notion that your political candidate can be a ruthless insulter of minorities, an abuser of women and accused of defrauding thousands but he's better than the other person running. There's mercy and then there's pure foolishness. The reaction to each new fact as an excusable fraud. Denial.
Abe loved Lot but he had none of that denial thing. He would not plead for the man's life nor would he presume to saddle up his men and go to the rescue. When we begin to discuss the other events of
Abe's life below, we'll see how the Fallen Flesh can at least learn repentance and humility,
One other thing comes up: Sarah's faith. She has done some things she is ashamed of in trying to help God along with His plan. She has offered Hagar as the surrogate and gotten Ishmael out of the deal. There were no Petri dishes for sperm storage and no syringes for fertilization back then so Abraham had to violate his vows to her to produce that first son.
Ge 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had given him no children; and she had a servant, a woman of Egypt whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said to Abram, See, the Lord has not let me have children; go in to my servant, for I may get a family through her. And Abram did as Sarai said.
3 So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram for his wife.
4 And he went in to Hagar and she became with child, and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for her master's wife.
5 And Sarai said to Abram, May my wrong be on you: I gave you my servant for your wife and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for me: may the Lord be judge between you and me.
6 And Abram said, The woman is in your power; do with her whatever seems good to you. And Sarai was cruel to her, so that she went running away from her.
7 And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur.
8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife.
9 And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority.
10 And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered.
11 And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow.
12 And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers.
13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
14 So that fountain was named, Fountain of Life and Vision: it is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar gave birth to a child, the son of Abram, to whom Abram gave the name of Ishmael.
16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.
(BBE)
But Ishmael was a problem, brought up as the son but born out of place. Because god had one other condition for his covenant with Abraham.
Ge 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord came to him, and said, I am God, Ruler of all; go in my ways and be upright in all things,
2 And I will make an agreement between you and me, and your offspring will be greatly increased.
3 And Abram went down on his face on the earth, and the Lord God went on talking with him, and said,
4 As for me, my agreement is made with you, and you will be the father of nations without end.
5 No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham, for I have made you the father of a number of nations.
6 I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring.
7 And I will make between me and you and your seed after you through all generations, an eternal agreement to be a God to you and to your seed after you.
8 And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
9 And God said to Abraham, On your side, you are to keep the agreement, you and your seed after you through all generations.
10 And this is the agreement which you are to keep with me, you and your seed after you: every male among you is to undergo circumcision.
11 In the flesh of your private parts you are to undergo it, as a mark of the agreement between me and you.
12 Every male among you, from one generation to another, is to undergo circumcision when he is eight days old, with every servant whose birth takes place in your house, or for whom you gave money to someone of another country, and not of your seed.
13 He who comes to birth in your house and he who is made yours for a price, all are to undergo circumcision; so that my agreement may be marked in your flesh, an agreement for all time.
14 And any male who does not undergo circumcision will be cut off from his people: my agreement has been broken by him.
15 And God said, As for Sarai, your wife, from now her name will be not Sarai, but Sarah.
16 And I will give her a blessing so that you will have a son by her: truly my blessing will be on her, and she will be the mother of nations: kings of peoples will be her offspring.
17 Then Abraham went down on his face, and laughing, said in his heart, May a man a hundred years old have a child? will Sarah, at ninety years old, give birth?
18 And Abraham said to God, If only Ishmael's life might be your care!
19 And God said, Not so; but Sarah, your wife, will have a son, and you will give him the name Isaac, and I will make my agreement with him for ever and with his seed after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have given ear to your prayer: truly I have given him my blessing and I will make him fertile and give him great increase; he will be the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation.
21 But my agreement will be with Isaac, to whom Sarah will give birth a year from this time.
22 And having said these words, God went up from Abraham.
23 And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all whose birth had taken place in his house, and all his servants whom he had made his for a price, every male of his house, and on that very day he gave them circumcision in the flesh of their private parts as God had said to him.
24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he underwent circumcision.
25 And Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he underwent circumcision.
26 Abraham and Ishmael, his son, underwent circumcision on that very day.
(BBE)
The flesh was fallen and god made it clear that He had to put His mark on that flesh: Circumcision. Ishmael was Abe's son, but born before that branding. He received it at 13 which would become the age of adulthood for every son of Abraham afterwards as circumcision would become the ritual scarring of the infant. But Ishmael was not born under the mark of the pact. God agreed to bless him, but withheld the honor seemingly due any firstborn. Ishmael was loved and blessed, but he didn't have the special place of the firstborn under the completed pact.
A. W. Tozer in Voice of the Prophet, writes of the opening verse 17:1:
"...I feel unworthy, because here is found the beating heart of living religion. Abram had no Bible, no church, no religious conviction, no Bible teacher, no evangelist, no hymnal, no Bible school. He had only his empty, hungry heart and god. This goes back to the roots of true religion from which sprung all denominations, all churches, all forms of worship, all thise things we take for granted-organs and pianos and seers and preachers. Abram had none of those things.
"Abram was a man who met God.
"Father Abraham stands fr every man, and he is the father of all those who believe. He had no religious problems, or if he did, he took them straight to god. he talked to God. (How many people are in Hell today because they fooled themselves into thinking they had a religious problem, when it was a sin problem and they had no desire to get rid of it.)
"Abram met god in a living encounter. Notice that God stepped over the threshold into Abram's experience, into his cognitive experience. God met Abram face to face."
This next paragraph explains why I have been stressing so much the point that Jesus appears in the OT, especially in the beginning, in genesis when God is revealing His Plan.
"With every man of God, especially the prophet, it all begins by consciously being aware of God. This is the starting point. It begins with a divine encounter where God steps across the threshold into our experience."
It appears that the Holy Spirit acted differently toward humanity at that time. Jesus himself stepped into the picture, here referred to as God, then later seen as angel but still, the same person, the same one Abe saw when he was much younger, the same one who launched him on his trip to Cannan.
Our Fallen Flesh can find not safety outside of god but we refuse to seek One we can't perceive so He always makes the first move. As Tozer later puts it :"The living, vibrant, audible Word of lord came to Abram."
Tozer sees it as the Spirit speaking, and it may be the case, but the word "appeared" makes me want to add the other word "visible" to Tozer's sentence in Describing the "Word" here.
The man of God takes the mark on the flesh, one that hurts, hurts, hurts. He will remember so long as he lives that the flesh carries the memory of falling, that we are scarred for life by that fact, that Abraham's people are set aside to live holy lives and to follow God.
But, for now, we need to see where that fallen state leads without repentance. So our next stop is Sodom.
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