Waiving any special effort to justify Paul’s argument from the singular number of the word “seed,” his testimony is certainly valid to the point for which I haveadduced it, viz. that Paul saw Christ in this prophecy. How much soever the principles of exegesis may reluctate, they certainly will not deny that he interprets the prophecy concerning Christ. Their complaint would be that he ties it down to Christ too exclusively.
It must be held therefore that the promises made to Abraham really include a prophecy of Christ. We could not infer from the record in Genesis how well Abraham understood the reference to the Messiah. But the allusions to this point in the New Testament give us light, our Savior most distinctly declaring—Abraham rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it—with great joy. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of Abraham and the patriarchs as not having received the promised blessings but as seeing them from afar and embracing them, has in mind specially their faith in the promised heavenly city (Heb. 11: 10, 13, 14, 16), yet not to the exclusion of him who prepares those mansions for his people (Jno. 14: 2, 3). His testimony is in point to show that Abraham looked beyond the earthly side of those blessings to the heavenly; rested not in the earthly Canaan, not in the multitude of his lineal sons and daughters; but reached out beyond these to the city that hath eternal foundations and to the blessings of the Great Messiah, good for all the nations of the earth. The nearer and lesser blessings had a power of suggestion, lifting his thought to the more remote and greater. A man who talked with God so intimately can not be supposed to have missed these grand ideas of the gospel age and of the heavenly state which we are sometimes wont to regard as the special, not to say exclusive, revelations of the New Testament.
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Involved in this history of Abraham, there occurs this ever memorable case of sudden and most fearful judgment upon the ungodly in this world—the overthrow of the cities of the plain. Sodom and Gomorrah only are mentioned by name in Gen. 13: 10 and 19: 24, 28); in several cases for brevity, Sodom only; but Moses (Deut. 20: 23) and Hosea (11: 8) speak of Admah and Zeboim as also overthrown. These were contiguousand (in Gen. 14: 2) confederate cities. The narrative sets forth their appalling and absolutely universal wickedness. Other references suggest the causes or occasions (Ezek. 16: 49, 50), and intimate that the better life and the reproving testimony of Lot were powerless (2 Pet. 2: 7, 8).
The narrative also makes prominent the immediate agency of God in this destruction. “The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven” (Gen. 19: 24). “When Abraham looked toward Sodom and all the land of the plain, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a great furnace” (v. 28).
The case became for all future time a standard illustration of God’s most sudden, fearful and utter destruction of the wicked. (See Deut. 29: 23 and Isa. 13: 19 and Jer. 20: 16 and 50: 40 and Amos. 4: 11 and 2 Pet. 2: 6 and Jude 7.) It classes itself naturally with the deluge of Noah’s time and with the fall of Pharaoh’s host in the Red Sea, and the swallowing up of Korah and his company in the wilderness—all combining to show that God never lacks the means or the power to begin his threatened retribution upon the wicked here in time whenever he deems it wise for the moral ends of warning.
The question of secondary agencies is of altogether secondary importance. It may well suffice us that God’s hand was there. It matters but little whether he made use of the agencies of the natural world—lightning and the combustible materials of that locality, or otherwise. That these natural agencies were employed is perhaps probable.——The locality of those cities is undoubtedly identified, viz. at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, now and for many ages submerged though in quite shallow water. The adjacent soil affords bitumen and other inflammable substances in abundance, indicating with great probability that a prodigious discharge of electricity ignited the whole region, fire from the Lord out of heaven gleaming and crashing; the atmosphere all ablaze with flames and the very ground on which the city stood burning with terrible fury. It might seem that the deep moral pollutions of its people had doomed that vast plain to be first purified by fire and then sunk from human viewfor all the coming ages by its subsidence beneath the waters of the Dead Sea.——In view of this appalling scene, how terribly significant become the words of Jude—“Set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire”! How easily and yet how fearfully can the Almighty execute the judgments written against guilty sinners who scorn his words of warning and dare his vengeance!
“The Angel of the Lord.”
Cases occur in Old Testament history in which the Lord appears in visible form and is called interchangeably “the Lord” and “the Angel of the Lord.” See the personal history of Hagar (Gen. 16: 7, 13); of Abraham (Gen. 18: 2, 16, 33 and 22: 11, 15–18); of Jacob (Gen. 31: 11–13, 16); of Moses (Exod. 3: 2, 4, 6, 7, etc., and 23: 20–23); of Gideon (Judg. 6: 11, 12, 14, 20–23) and of Manoah (Judg. 13: 18, 22). The term “angel” means in general a messenger; but is manifestly applied and therefore is applicable to the visible manifestations of God himself, supposably of the second person of the Godhead, i. e. God as made manifest to mortals. The cases above referred to are entirely decisive as to the usage of the phrase, “The Angel of the Lord” in some cases (not relatively many) to denote the very Presence of the Lord himself coming down to reveal himself to his people. In Gen. 18: first three men appear before Abraham; he entertains them. Two of them go on toward Sodom; one remains talking with Abraham. It is said “Abraham stood yet before the Lord”; then drew near and offered that remarkable prayer of intercession for Sodom; after which “the Lord went his way and Abraham returned to his place.”——In Gen. 22, when Abraham had stretched forth his hand to slay his son, “the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven.” Shortly after (vs. 15–18) “the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; etc.... Because thou hast obeyed my voice.” This can be no other than the very God.——The passages above referred to from the history of Moses are striking. In Exod. 23: 20–23 we read: “Behold I send an angel before thee to keep theein the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him” (i. e. not to offend him) “and obey his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him”—name, as usual in the sense of the very qualities of character of which the name is a significant indication.