25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Abraham’s proposition to the Lord is simple: since you are the Judge of everyone, exercise your judgment now. The innocent don’t deserve punishment, just the wicked. But Abraham’s logic is faulty because he thinks that there is the possibility of living righteously, of living in a way that would nullify the need for judgment. He stands on the hillside looking across the valley at a city about to undergo judgment and he is struggling with the mercy of God. This is not an academic exercise for him. His nephew and family are in that town. His own flesh and blood are living in the middle of all that mess. So Abraham begins to plead appealing to the justice of God’s upcoming act. He appeals to the character of God Himself. God is just. Surely He won’t act in an unjust manner. But there is that measuring rod of justice. Abraham thinks that at least his relatives are living justly in the middle of that corruption. How little he knows about the righteous requirements of the Lord. As the Psalmist writes that there is none righteous, no not one. So, Abraham needed to learn that message. We also need to learn that we are not righteous, and we never will be in this life. We will always be dependent on the mercy of God. We in ourselves continue, even as Jesus-followers, to choose unrighteousness. We continue to fail in meeting God’s standards. We need to appeal to God’s mercy not His justice. Justice killed Jesus, the innocent dying for the guilty. We should have died, but He died. He was punished although He was innocent.
The Arnold Journey 