God's heart

God's words to Abraham in Genesis 18:17–22 surprise me every time, 

And Jehovah said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grievous,

I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to me; and if not, I will know [it]. (Genesis 18:20–21)

God says something shocking here: the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great that it rises to Heaven, so I came down to see if it's really all that bad. It's like God is reluctant to judge, not because He doesn't hate sin, but because He loves sinners.

It makes us uncomfortable to say that kind of thing; maybe it should.  We tend to have a conception of God that leans to the placid, staid, and maybe even a bit sterile.  But scripture describes God's response to sin and judgment in terms of human emotions: He is angry (Psalm 110:5), wrathful (Hosea 13:11), even heartbroken (Ezekiel 6:9, ESV).  Verses like this show the brittle edges of our theologies: they show places where our understanding of what and who God is break down.

And just like scripture isn't afraid to describe God as angry, it describes Him as reluctant to judge. He "devises means" to avoid driving out His banished one (2 Samuel 14:14). Not even Ahab (1 Kings 21:25) is beyond God's compassion (1 Kings 21:29).

Newer translations use "relent" instead of "repent", but if you look in an older translation (I checked KJV, Darby, and ASV), you'll find the only person in the whole book of Jonah who repents is God (Jonah 3:9–10,  Jonah 4:2). It's surprising, because both Jonah and the Ninevites have a whole lot to repent of. But only God is said to repent in the book of Jonah.

We've talked before about our tendency to try to explain away verses that make us uncomfortable. We don't like the "if" passages in the Epistles: we'd rather jump into an explanation than to let them cut our consciences. In the same way, we don't like verses about God repenting, or about His heart breaking. We want to jump in and give an explanation. But it's wiser to listen. We should allow God's words to work in and on us, instead of diluting them with our own.

Genesis 18:20–21 is God's own description of His coming to down. He had heard the cry of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah in Heaven, because it was so great. And instead of pouring out judgment and wrath from Heaven in response, He came down to see if it was really that bad.

And maybe that explains Abraham's negotiations with God (Genesis 18:23–32).  Abraham begins to intercede on Sodom's behalf, and negotiates with God, if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom, will God still destroy it? No, God won't destroy Sodom if there are fifty righteous people there. And so Abraham talks God down to forty-five (Genesis 18:28), and then forty, and so on. He gets down as low as ten people, and then he stops (Genesis 18:32). 

An older brother I deeply respect – and I'll see him again some day (1 Thessalonians 4:14),  it'll be a big day – pointed out once that it's Abraham, not God, who ends the negotiations. God doesn't say, "that's enough, don't go below ten."  Scripture doesn't tell the story that way: God agrees to ten, and Abraham stops there.

I've often wondered how low God would have gone, if Abraham had pressed the issue. I think Jeremiah 5:1 gives us a hint. God tells Jeremiah, if you can find just one righteous man, I'll pardon Jerusalem. Of course we can't say for sure God would have pardoned Sodom for just one righteous man, but certainly that's the number He had in mind for Jerusalem.

 

When the children of Israel made a calf and worshiped it at Sinai, God sent Moses away. When Moses comes back into God's presence, he makes one of the most heartbreaking statements in Scripture, "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin, and they have made themselves a god of gold!" (Exodus 32:31). Apparently spending forty days and nights in God's presence had had an effect on Moses, and he saw the heartbreak in their idolatry.

I have found these passages fruitful for meditation. Psalm 107 exhorts us, "whoso is wise, let him observe these things, and let them understand the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah" (Psalm 107:43). We cannot be wise without fearing the Lord (Proverbs 9:10),  and we cannot be wise without meditating on His loving-kindness.

If I spent more time in God's presence, I might be more like Moses. Moses was angry, even violent in response to their sin. But then he went back to God's presence and said "Alas!"  It's possible to be angry with sin without any particular spirituality. The flesh is good at anger, and we're good at hiding it behind a veneer of supposed holiness.  But "Alas" seems to take more: it takes time in God's presence to react with an "Alas!"