The Manifestation of God

Genesis 18

Into a scene of lavish Near Eastern hospitality (v1-8), comes a strange manifestation of God. Of the "three men" (v2) who visit Abraham, one seems to be the "LORD" (v1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 33). Is this a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus? The other two men are identified as "two angels" in Genesis 19:1. Not only does God appear in a human form, in this incident, we see three characteristics of God being manifested.

Firstly, we see the manifestation of God's Justice.

God is described by Abraham as "the Judge of all the earth" who shall "do what is just" (v25). Because He is fair and just, God will only judge Sodom if the city is actually as wicked as the rumours suggest (v20-21). This going "down to see" is not because God lacks knowledge, but because He is to be seen to be a just Judge who does not merely judge because of hearsay.

Secondly, we see the manifestation of God's Mercy.

The LORD does not "hide from Abraham" the judgment that He is about to bring upon Sodom, because God is allowing Abraham to intercede and ask Him to spare the whole place if 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10 "righteous" people can be found there. And God agrees to show mercy to the whole city if there are just 10 righteous people found there (v23-32).

And thirdly, we see the manifestation of God's Wonderfulness.

In verses 9-11, God promises that the barren and very old Sarah will indeed "have a son" (v10). Though the idea of a 90 year old woman and a 100 year old man being able to conceive is laughable (Genesis 17:17; 18:11-12), the LORD asserts that His works are wonderful and that "nothing is too hard for the LORD" (v13-14).

In fact, it is because "the Judge of all the earth" could not find even one righteous person on earth (Genesis 6:5; Romans 3:10, 19, 23), that He needed to start a saving line of believers through Abraham and Sarah that would eventually lead to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose birth of the Virgin Mary was the most wonderful of all, and whose righteous life, death and resurrection would save this wicked, unrighteous earth (Matthew 1).