Genesis 18

¹⁶ Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. ¹⁷ The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸ seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹ For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” ²⁰ Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, ²¹ I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” ²² So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. ²³ Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” ²⁶ And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” ²⁷ Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹ Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” ³⁰ Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” ³¹ He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” ³² Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” ³³ And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

In either 1947 or 1948 (there is some debate about exactly when), one of the most provocative acts of racial reconciliation occurred on the baseball diamond. Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play major league baseball, had broken the color barrier in the major leagues when he was called up to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. While many defended him as a man and as a player, he faced innumerable challenges. On one occasion, opposing fans in either Boston or Cincinnati (depending on the date of the event) were angered at the presence of Robinson on the field and were shouting numerous inappropriate and racial things at the Dodgers. Robinson was standing in the infield hearing and receiving all of these hateful words. He felt dejected and discouraged. He then experienced something he did not expect. One of his teammates, Pee Wee Reese, came and stood by him in front of the crowd. In the most famous version of the story, Pee Wee puts his arm around Jackie and stands there. As Reese stood there with Jackie Robinson the largely white crowd silenced itself.

It was a powerful act. It was, to be sure, an act of racial reconciliation. It was also an act of challenge and rebuke to those in the stands. But what most interests me is that it was an act of intercession. In a general sense, intercession simply means the act of interceding, of one person going between two other persons or parties in a mediatorial role. And Reese certainly did that. When he stood there with his arm around Jackie Robinson he was interceding between Robinson and the angry crowd. He was standing between them, so to speak, and effectively saying something to the crowd about Jackie, namely, that he, Reese, saw Jackie as a human being, a man, a teammate, and a person of worth and dignity who was undeserving of their behavior. It was an act of intercession. 

The word also has a distinctly Christian connotation and it is, in fact, a very important theological concept in scripture. The New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality says of the word intercession:

Intercession is from the Latin intercedere, to ‘go between,’ ‘to intervene on behalf of another,’ or in relationships simply to ‘exist between.’ In intercessory prayer we stand on behalf of another, ‘between’ another and God, calling God’s attention to another and, no doubt, calling another’s attention to God.

Well before this famous act of intercession on the baseball diamond, Abraham interceded for Sodom. The record of this is in the latter half of Genesis 18. Abraham stands between wicked Sodom and a just God and pleads for mercy. In so doing, and in God’s response to Abraham’s intercession, we learn something about the character of God. What is more, we see the stage set for the greatest act of intercession the world has ever seen.

Abraham offers intercession for Sodom.

We begin with Abraham’s act of intercession for Sodom. Sodom was a wicked city and Lot, Abraham’s nephew, lived there with his family. Now, after the amazing meeting with the Lord and the angels at the oaks of Mamre, Abraham learns than God intends to visit the city and assess the situation in preparation for divine judgment. We read of this in Genesis 18.

¹⁶ Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. ¹⁷ The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸ seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹ For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” ²⁰ Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, ²¹ I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” ²² So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.

That phrase, “but Abraham still stood before the Lord,” speaks of the posture of intercession. There are always three parties involved in intercession and here the parties are: (1) a righteous and rightly offended God, (2) Abraham, and (3) a wicked city that had offended God. The “but” in “but Abraham still stood” shows that his act of intercession is intended, he hoped, to stop the sweeping judgment to come. Now we see the form of Abraham’s intercession:

²³ Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” ²⁶ And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” ²⁷ Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹ Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” ³⁰ Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” ³¹ He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” ³² Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” ³³ And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

This is an astonishing scene. First, note that Abraham roots the hope of his intercessory work not in his own sense of humanitarian concern, or his own sense of forgiveness. Rather, he roots it in the just character of the God he is beseeching: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

This is most telling. It is telling because it removes any notion of God as ill-tempered and destruction-minded and of Abraham as good and virtuous and cool-headed. That is most decidedly not what is happening here. Rather, Abraham knows that it is God who is cool-headed, steady, calm, and able to assess the situation rightly. Also, it is God who is just. Abraham is appealing to God on the basis of God’s character, not Abraham’s character. There is no bad-God-but-good-Abraham dynamic at work here. Abraham knows that God is good and just.

Secondly, we see here the very important principle that God will not judge His own people with the wicked: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked!” Those who are God’s, those who dwell under His protective wing, need never fear that divine wrath will fall upon them. Abraham, in voicing this, is simply stating a fact: the good God who made heaven and earth is just in His judgments and does not treat His own children like the wicked and the rebellious of the earth.

Thirdly, we must be struck by God’s reaction to Abraham. God does not condemn Abraham. God does not grow impatient with Abraham’s many efforts to call Him to mercy. God does not dismiss Abraham. God does not laugh and shoo him away. Rather, God effectively affirms the assumptions undergirding Abraham’s arguments. Furthermore, God shows that He is patient, eager to save, merciful, faithful to His people, and, in fact, that He loves intercession. He honors Abraham’s sincere intercession.

Let us note this: God is a God who loves merciful intercession for others.

Yet human intercession has its limits.

God’s love for intercession is evident in many places throughout scripture. Even so, there are limits to human intercession. God may yet call for an end to human intercession when the time for judgment has come. An amazing example of this can be found in Jeremiah 7. It is amazing because here God calls for an end of intercession for His people because of their exceedingly great wickedness. It is Jeremiah the prophet himself who is silenced by God. Listen:

¹⁶ “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸ The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. ¹⁹ Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? ²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

There are few more terrifying verses in scripture. God’s people had turned from Him and were offering worship to pagan gods. In addition to this, they had corrupted their own children: “The children gather wood…to make cakes for the queen of heaven.” They had, in other words, abandoned God. As a result of this, God was going to discipline them. This discipline was just and right and ultimately it would prove to be life-saving for His people. For all of these reasons, God told Jeremiah, “I will not hear you.” God anticipates Jeremiah playing the part of Abraham, anticipates Jeremiah interceding for God people.

God loves merciful intercession, but human intercession has its limits. God is not mocked. God is right to judge when He chooses to do so. God’s judgment is not like our own. It is not limited by arbitrariness or by insecurity. He is utterly just in all that He does. 

Yes, human intercession has its limits. As a boy I was a pretty bad kid. I received a lot of spankings from my dad, all of them deserved. I remember on one occasion just before my dad was going to spank me that the door opened and my oldest brother David was standing there. He said, “Dad, Wyman is always getting spankings. I feel bad for him. Why don’t you spank me instead of him.” For a brief moment hope sprang up in my heart! It was, I thought, a beautiful idea! “Yes,” I wanted to say, “spank David! Honor his act of intercession! Put my punishment on him.”

Make no mistake, that was an act of intercession. Three parties: (1) a rightly offended father, (2) my interceding brother, and (3) guilty me!

What happened? What happened was that my father had apparently been reading Jeremiah 7! He rejected my brother’s intercession, said, “I will not hear you!” and wore my behind out! 

Yes, sometimes human intercession has its limits. You might cry out to God on behalf of, say, a wayward child. You might say, “God spare my child the consequences he deserves!” And God might agree. God might relent of His anger. God might honor your intercession. On the other hand, God might not. God might say, “Your son needs the discipline he is about to receive. I have deemed that this is the time for judgment. I will not hear your request.”

Human intercession has its limits.

But there is one intercession that God will never say “no” to: Jesus’ intercession for us.

I am saying that quite intentionally: human intercession has its limits. That is true and that is only right, for human beings rarely see everything that is really going on. But why did I say “human intercession”? What other kind is there? Let me show you what other kind there is. It is a short statement of intercession and it is found in Luke 23:

^34a-b And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

What other kind is there? There is divine intercession. There is God interceding. With who? With God! God interceding with God! There is one intercession that God will never say “no” to: Jesus’ intercession for us. Why? Because Jesus is one with the Father. Jesus is God! For God to reject Jesus’ intercessionary words and work would be for God to reject God! And that He will never do.

Imagine this: imagine God interceding with God on your behalf! This is the ministry of intercession and this is exactly what is happening for you through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Scripture tells us that Jesus is constantly making intercession for His followers. We see this, for instance, in Hebrews 7. In these versions, the writer of Hebrews is talking about how Jesus is different from all the other priests in that there were necessarily many of them but only one of Him. He writes:

²³ The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, ²⁴ but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

So here is a difference: all the other priests died and were buried and had to be replaced. But not Jesus. He “hold his priesthood permanently.” How? “Because he continues forever.” Jesus is eternal! He is no mere mortal man. His priesthood does not end. But what does Jesus do in His priesthood? Watch this:

²⁵ Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

He saves “those who draw near to God through him” because (or “since”) “he always lives to make intercession for them.” This is the good news of the gospel! Jesus “always lives to make intercession for” us. And God will always honor the intercession of God! God will never say “no” to Jesus’ intercession and Jesus “always lives to make intercession for” those who “draw near to God through him.” 

I ask you, is there any more secure place than this, any safer position to be in than this? No! There could not be! When you give your life to Jesus Christ you enter into genuine relationship with Him. Jesus “lives to make intercession” for you. Jesus is at the very right hand of God speaking your name into God’s ear. And this is not because the Father is angry or bent on destroying you and has to be placated and talked down. No! Jesus’ intercession is itself a reflection of what the Father feels for you. ““Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19).

Paul, in Romans 8, made the same point about Jesus’ intercession for us in one of the most beautiful passages in the whole of scripture:

³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The heart soars in hope and joy on the wings of Christ’s intercession! See how Paul says, “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Here are the foundations of your salvation: the person of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the intercession of Jesus. And what are the results of these? What does the fact that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father interceding for you mean for you? It means that nothing—tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword…neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation—will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! 

Jesus lives to make intercession for you! He never tires of making intercession for you! When you repent of your sins and put your life in His hands He nurtures you and loves you and speaks your name without fail before the Father. 

God may say “no” to our efforts to intercede. He will never say “no” to His own efforts to intercede.

When you come to Jesus, you are safe in the arms of Jesus, forever!