God’s Goodness, Power, and Justice Grow on Us

In his book On the Trinity, Augustine examines the many biblical texts in which angels serve as meditators for God’s revelation. About this one in Genesis 18, he says,

“Scripture however does not begin the description of the episode by saying ‘Three men appeared to him,’ but by saying The Lord appeared to him (Gn 18:1). Then it proceeds to describe how the Lord appeared to him by introducing the story of the three men, whom Abraham invited in and entertained in the plural, but went on to speak to as one, in the singular … [and] This is how it continues: The Lord departed after he stopped speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his own place. But the two angels came to Sodom in the evening (Gn 18:33).”1

So, notice, ‘The LORD said’ (vv. 10, 13), and then directly following the rhetorical question, ‘Is anything too hard for the LORD?’ (v. 14a), He says, ‘I will return to you’ (v. 14b), speaking as the One who has this power. Whether all three appearances are angels representing the Trinity in the form of men, or whether two remain angels in an unbroken act of traveling to Sodom while the first was more temporarily, alone representing God, is less important.2 

What does matter are three divine attributes which Abraham’s growing faith finds pressing in upon him for rapid sanctification.

• God’s goodness grows on the true believer.

• God’s power grows on the true believer.

• God’s justice grows on the true believer.

Doctrine. God’s goodness, power, and justice grow on the true believer.

God’s goodness grows on the true believer.

To set the scene, once provisions had been made for the visitors,

“They said to him, ‘Where is Sarah your wife?’ And he said, ‘She is in the tent.’ The LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son’” (vv. 9-10a).

This is the verse Paul quotes from in Romans 9.

As with Abraham’s laughter from the previous chapter, so now Sarah:

“And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” (vv. 10b-12)

What is Sarah doubting? Two things, as we will see. But what is the one thing about God that she cares most about that she is doubting? His GOODNESS. And God’s goodness is often communicated in Scripture through His promises.

We may quickly gloss over the focus on Sarah at all. Was it simply to set her up to sin as Abraham had sinned in the previous chapter? I think not. It all starts with God saying, “Where is Sarah your wife?” (v. 9) Where is Sarah in all this? Is she just an extra on the set? Not at all. She is believing still, but barely. The Scripture says that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). The fact is that she only laughed because her heart was filled with the hurt of repressed hope. I’m not excusing her. I’m diagnosing her. And the Scripture is diagnosing us. How does that Proverb end? “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” This is the goodness of God. God delights in causing His children to hope again.

God’s power grows on the true believer.

Sandwiched in between the twice-repeated promise is this challenge: ‘The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD?’ (vv. 13-14a) We do not just neglect trust in God and prayer because we doubt His goodness, but because we doubt His POWER.

God’s power is invincible. The Scriptures tell us that, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3), or as Job confesses, “that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (42:2), or elsewhere it says, “none can stay his hand” (Dan. 4:35). In the eternal state God will be worshiped for this: “for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11)

We are just like Sarah in one more thing too: ‘But Sarah denied it, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’ for she was afraid. He said, ‘No, but you did laugh’ (v. 15). Now, as to whether this is the voice of God heard by Sarah, or else Abraham relaying the question to her, it matters little. God did hear her. We know this because the text reads that she ‘laughed to herself, saying’ (v. 12). So both the laugh and the words were inaudible, heard by God alone. God reads her mail for the sake of the reader. He is reading our mail. This reminds us that we are often in denial about our disbelief. We even scoff and deceive ourselves as if our doubt is about our own deficiencies. I am too old. I am too young. I am too simple. I am too weak. And so on—when, actually, God doesn’t need any of that human power anyway.

That means that when we doubt, it is God’s power that we are scoffing at.

God’s justice grows on the true believer.

Now there is another hint that Abraham and Sarah are to be considered growing believers here. The Apostle James tells us that, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God” (Jas. 2:23). Catch that same emphasis in the dialogue between God and the other two figures: ‘The LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do’ (v. 17). Now God roots His faithfulness to Abraham in His own covenant promises. Nevertheless, one of the implications of that is Abraham’s status is not just now “righteous” but also “friend.”

Note the connection between heaven and earth here, between the beginning of the curse coming out of Eden and this extent of the curse in this wicked city. Read carefully and listen carefully to these next words:

“Then the LORD said, ‘Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know” (vv. 20-21).

Outcry? What outcry? Whose outcry? Who is coming from “down” in that city to “up” where the LORD is, in order to bring a charge against these cities? We have already seen from the Tower of Babel incident in Chapter 11 that the God who is omniscient and omnipresent, does not need to literally “get a better” view of anything. So what is being highlighted here? We have already met the candidates for these heavenly actors. They are angels. And we need to remember this when we come to New Testament passages like Acts 17:30 and Romans 3:25, two passages which seem to present us with what theologians have called a “divine dilemma,” and you can bet that the angels must have felt the tension. What do those two passages say?

“The times of ignorance God overlooked [‘winked at’ KJV], but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).

“This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25).

So what is the difficulty here? I can tell you what the difficulty is for modern religion. Modern religion protests: “How can a good and loving God send anyone to hell?” But biblical religion asks: “How can a good and loving and just God spare anyone from hell?” The angels knew the problem. “You promised! You said, ‘in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Gen. 2:17). ‘You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors’ (Hab. 1:13)—for the honor of your holiness and the purity of your realm, tell us that you will not allow these traitors to trample upon your world. Look at what lengths they go to now to mock you!”

For this third attribute that grows on us, there are difficulties here too. The JUSTICE of God is something we often assume. Abraham did. Listen to his appeal:

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death 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?” (vv. 23-25).

Before we get to the progression of Abraham’s intercession for them, just notice the crucial words: ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ (v. 25) In one sense it is a rhetorical question.

The point of walking us through this process of elimination becomes clear. What Paul tells us in the first few chapters of his letter to the Romans was true about this city as well, and about every city down to the one we live in:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).

Abraham could have kept doing in his prayer. He could have said—What if there were only one? Would you spare it then? This raises the question of whether God would save a city on account of those declared righteous through faith in the righteousness of Christ. After all, the New Testament calls him “righteous Lot” (2 Pet. 2:7). The point would remain that God would be just to judge the city, as He has judged many cities that real believers in Christ have lived in.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. I have talked about how attributes of God grow on us. Messengers from God grow on us too. At first he calls him ‘Lord’ (אדני) in verse 3, which could be either an earthly “master” or used of God. I don’t really know how Abraham’s though developed as he spoke to these figures, or when it dawned on him that these were mediating the presence of God. You could say Abraham had an advantage on us. He had already heard directly from God in those previous chapters. The author of Hebrews says that “some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). Abraham started unaware, but he didn’t stay that way. As the voice of God became more familiar to him, the ways of God grew on him. That can’t happen if we pay no mind to His messengers.

C. S. Lewis’s statement that, “You have never met a mere mortal”3 was meant to draw attention to the eternal weight of each moment, each interaction, with souls that will either spend eternity in heaven or in hell, but here there is a more refined sense of gravity on the messenger whose moment with you is eternal.

Use 2. Consolation. Abraham laughed at God’s promise in Chapter 17. Sarah laughed at God’s promise in Chapter 18. We will see in Chapter 21 that the name of this promised child will be Isaac, because his name means “laughter.” This will not be God laughing the laugh of scorn at them, but rather His benevolent smile upon them.

How can it be that in the very path of our sin, the God of pure holiness so often shines His light and causes hope again?

“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

You know when someone says, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.” Between God and the growing believer, this is very much true.

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1. Augustine, On the Trinity (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2017), II.4.10.19, 11.21 [130, 131].

2. Richard Belcher comments: “Although they are called men in verse 2, one is Yahweh (the LORD) and the other two are identified as angels in 19:1” (Genesis, 139).

3. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 39.