Hall of Shame

The Bible is brutally honest about its characters. We hear that from Christian apologists. This is one of the marks of authenticity in the Scriptures, that other books do not have. Whether it is ancient mythology, so-called holy books, or even modern biographies—heroes are constructed and sides are taken. When narratives are written by mere mortals, they are embellished. They are “photo-shopped,” and all that seems inconvenient to the plot is carefully removed. The Christian knows that the Bible never does this.

But sometimes I wonder if we know all of the reasons why. Most of us here remember those daytime talk shows that began with Donahue and Oprah in the 80s, but which quickly degenerated in the 90s with the Ricky Lakes and Maury Poviches and Jerry Springers. It became a running joke that if you wanted to feel better about your life, all you had to do was watch the latest episode. The usual cast of characters became a point of comparison for shame.

Shame itself became banished. The Bible does not parade its disgraces before the reader so that we can react to them as we reacted to those on stage at 3 in the afternoon. Like sin in the last passage, shame also has a course to run. So it is in Genesis 19:30-20:18.

• Shame is the more shameful for its lack of resolution.

• Shame is the more shameful for our repeat offenses.

• Shame does not get the last or deciding word.

Doctrine. Only those utterly ashamed come to Christ, and those who come to Christ will never be put to shame.

Shame is the more shameful for its lack of resolution.

Remember how Lot was still making demands on God by asking the angels to make reservations and some other city in this world? Well, now that turns out to haunt him, and he feels that fear: ‘Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters’ (v. 30). Note that as the man on the run from God is more and more consumed with fear, trying to seize back control, the less he is in control.

Who makes the decisions for his disgrace? ‘And the firstborn said to the younger …’ (v. 31). Again, just as with Noah’s drunkenness, so with Lot—this does not exonerate them. They were the heads of their homes. Their loss of control was absolutely their responsibility. The words, ‘they made their father drink wine’ (v. 33) is not intended to shift any blame or make him a pitiable victim of fate. However, it does show the intoxication of sin. As the mob at Sodom was blinded by sin before being blinded by the angel, so Lot was drunk with depravity before becoming drunk with wine. Note that when the head of the home is taken out, all reason is subordinated to anxieties. The daughter’s reasoning was: ‘there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth’ (v. 31). Really? The cities they knew were wiped out, but were they that cut off from God’s world that the only men they could think existed were in that city of sin? Did they have no connection to their godly relatives under Abraham?

Consider Lot in the larger context of comparison with his more blessed uncle.  When we do, we get yet another footnote in our answer to that progressivist butchering of the judgment of Sodom passage. Hospitality was only on display as a contrast to Abraham having received the same messengers.

In one scene (Ch. 18), God and His ways are welcomed as the continuation of procreation by God’s design in the promised seed. In the next scene (Ch. 19), God and His ways would be driven out as sexual perversion cuts off the natural furtherance of Lot’s seed. He can now only have it restored by more unnatural and shameful means. What the two men were ultimately hospitable to (or inhospitable to) was the design of Eden more than the distortion of Sodom. Sodom is what happens when you reject your God-given identity, to the slightest degree, and that sin and its shame always gets worse. And its offspring wander further from God, as these two daughters were bear people notorious on the borders of Israel:

“The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day” (vv. 37-38).

As far as he was concerned, Lot could never show his face to Abraham’s side of the family again. Matthew Henry wonders that “it was strange that he did not return to Abraham, and put himself under his protection.”1 Strange is always the behavior of those under shame. He could barely show his face to the world. So this shame is all the more shameful when we fail to lead, when we fail to have a vision for something greater than something so pathetic.

Shame is the more shameful for our repeat offenses.

Where have we heard Abraham doing this to Sarah before? He did the same in Egypt back in Chapter 12.2 The Christian with a sensitive conscience naturally starts to wonder about their state when there are repeat offenses.

Abimelech rebukes Abraham. How often does God use the unbeliever to chastise the believer’s shameful behavior? Such “outside” rebuke is itself a shame. This pagan shames the believer in three ways. He takes the moral initiative, plays the role of moral instructor, and plays the role of conscience.

First, the unbeliever takes the moral initiative: ‘Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, ‘What have you done to us?’ (v. 9a). Abraham would have kept hiding out.

Second, the unbeliever shows him the seriousness of his wrongdoing, as a parent would have to do to a child: ‘And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done’ (v. 9b).

Third, the unbeliever turns to counselor, questioning down to the level of motives: ‘And Abimelech said to Abraham, ‘What did you see, that you did this thing?’ (v. 10) This is what our own conscience should do. This is that the Spirit inside us does do; but we can make ourselves deaf and callous.

The Bible is not embarrassed by the reality of Christians acting hypocritically. It holds the mirror up to us and exposes this shame. And it is a shame.

Shame does not get the last or deciding word.

Abraham is not only restored to Sarah again, but he remains reconciled to God. And he isn’t given a dunce cap in the corner of the kingdom. He is shown again to be ‘a prophet’ (v. 7) of God.

“Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife” (vv. 17-18).

If you are wondering, this curse seems to be more a fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 12 to Abraham and his seed. God had agreed with Abimelech’s “self-evaluation”3 where he said, ‘In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this’ (v. 5).

It is either this episode or the one from back in Chapter 12, alluded to by the Psalmist, where he says,

“When they were few in number, of little account, and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!’” (Ps. 105:12-15).

In any event, it is a testimony to those words of Paul—“if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13).

The moral of the story is not that God will clean up your whole mess if you are a Christian. Rather, it is that He restores our integrity.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

He does not guarantee that people will not still point and laugh. But he deals with the root of our shame: “Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness” (Jer. 3:22).

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. Speaking of the pair of Abraham and Lot, we may do well to consider the contrast between Peter and Judas as the Gospels draw to a close. What made the difference between them was not that while Judas did everything wrong, Peter did everything right. No! The sin that made Judas most notorious—namely, betraying the Lord Jesus—this Peter did as well. What made the difference was the sovereign grace of God. So it was between Abraham and Lot, except with this difference, that, as far as we can tell, Lot was just as saved as Abraham. Yet Abraham, being chosen to be the historical forerunner and type of the people of faith, was upheld in a more blessed state in this world than was Lot.

Use 2. Admonition. Matthew Henry reflects on that razor’s edge that Sarah’s chastity stood upon, and that only God’s restraint kept things from going over the edge. Henry said,

“As bad as things are in the world, they are not so bad as the devil and wicked men would have them … It is God that restrains men from doing the ill they would do … It is a great mercy to be hindered from committing sin.”4

If the depths of sin plunges us into shame, it is more important to awaken from that dangerous state than to wallow in that shame. God restrains the worst today; but He may not tomorrow.

Use 3. Consolation. Whoever loves someone laments any shame they feel and has a corresponding will to resolve it: “it is [one’s] glory to overlook an offence” (Prov. 19:11). When God calls us to bring our shame to Him, He also promises to help us see. It is a scary thing, because we want to remain hidden in the dark. If things come to light—if I come out into the light—I will be exposed. I will be turned away.

“I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:18-19).

“Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame” (Rom. 10:11).

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1. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 49.

2. As to the JEPD Theory and its classification of this passage as a “doublet,” along with Genesis 12:10-20, Hamilton points out the common sense, that, “Obviously, the two stories have many parallels, as well as differences. Those who accept these as doublets have to explain the differences as resulting either from oral variants or the literary process of redaction … Who is to say that an individual, caught in a potentially dangerous situation, is not capable of stooping twice to use other people?” The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50, 59.

3. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50, 61.

4. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 49, 50.