The Justice/Love Conundrum

The other men turned and headed toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham. Abraham approached him and said, “Will you sweep away both the righteous and the wicked? Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” [Genesis 18.22-25]

This passage of scripture is part of a section know as Abraham's intercession for Sodom. God had indicated that the wickedness of Sodom had reached the point that it required destruction. But Abraham's nephew Lot was living there and so Abraham reasoned with God about His own character in destroying the righteous along with the wicked.

Perhaps we all too often overlook all the accounts in the Bible of God's people being instructed to pray for one another in contrast to being told to pray for worldly people. In the case of this passage of scripture above, Abraham is praying specifically for the "righteous" of Sodom to be treated fairly. It could be argued that Abraham was indeed praying for all of Sodom, however, it was for the purpose of preserving the righteous. The concern was for justice for the few righteous ones in Sodom even though justice for the wicked was indeed utter destruction.

The idea of this makes me ponder my own life of prayer and intercession. Should I adjust my intercession to be focused only on believers? Here's a good question: should I intercede with God on behalf of wicked people so that His Just character would not be Just? That would be like asking God to be someone He is not!

Father, I realize that You have bound Yourself to Your character. I know You will be Just, but I also know You will be Loving. You proved this by Lovingly removing Lot from the Just destruction of Sodom. I know perfectly well that Jesus came to solve the Justice/Love conundrum that mankind struggles with. Help me in my own intercession to sort this out and pray more effectively!