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 Gen.
18:23-33 records what at first appears to be a “con” game.
Abraham reminds God that it would be unjust to destroy the
righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah along with the wicked; and seems
to imply that since the cities are home to any who may be
righteous, the cities might be spared for their sake. Then God,
agreeing to spare the city for fifty righteous, is asked, “peradventure
there shall lack five-”and so on, until God had agreed to
spare the city for ten righteous men.
Before
rejecting this as a cheap ‘bargaining” with God, consider
Abraham’s unselfish concern for others, his humility (vs.
27,30,32), and most of all, the use of his God-given
privilege to plead, in his own style, with his Maker.
Apparently God listened as long as Abraham pled. Compare this
with the “importunity” and persistence with which Christ
urges to pray (Lu. 11:5-f; 18:1-8). When our children make
childish requests are we insulted, or do we appreciate their
confidence and faith that “my dad can do anything.” Abraham
may have shown us all an open gate. Study each phrase of the
following comment.
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Delitzsch
observes (K.&D., Vol. 1, p. 231): This “seemingly
commercial kind of entreaty is... the essence of true prayer. It
is the holy anaideia of which our Lord speaks in Lu.
11:8, the shamelessness of faith, which bridges over the
infinite distance of the creature from the Creator, appeals with
importunity to the heart of God, and ceases not till its point
is gained.
This
would indeed be neither permissible nor possible, had not God,
by virtue of the mysterious interlacing of necessity and freedom
in His nature and operation, granted a power to the prayer of
faith, to which He consents to yield; had He not, by virtue of
His absoluteness, which is anything but blind necessity, placed
Himself in such a relation to men, that He not merely works upon
them by means of His grace, but allows them to work upon Him by
means of their faith; had He not interwoven the life of the free
creature into His own absolute life, and accorded to a created
personality the right to assert itself in faith, in distinction
from His own.” (Re-read, carefully. rft)
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