“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ . . .”
“In the beginning was the Word . . .”
This is where the gospel begins, at least in our minds. The good news of Scripture is not fully realized until the God-Man Christ Jesus comes to earth, and without Christ’s literal life, death, and resurrection, there is no good news. But even before Christ comes to earth, we get glimpses of this gospel.
Beginning in Genesis 3:15, God gives His people hope for redemption and rescue from the evil we brought upon His good world. We track the promises of God to His people throughout the Old Testament, just waiting for the day the Messiah appears, but along the way, God reveals snippets of the salvation to be realized in Jesus.
One of those snippets is seen in the story of Lot, or, more appropriately titled, the gospel of Lot. That gospel begins, “Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot” (Genesis 11:27).
Pretty forgettable.
But later on, after he settles in the city of Sodom, Lot’s life becomes a story of sin, rebellion, mercy, and good news.
I’ll encourage you to read all of Genesis 19, the chapter that deals extensively with Lot, but for the sake of brevity, let’s get right to the heart of Lot’s gospel:
As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
–Genesis 19:15-16
Lot did not deserve to survive the destruction of Sodom. In fact, he did everything he could to ensure he would burn in God’s wrath with the wicked.
When every resident clamored at his front door, begging to fulfill their every sexual desire on the two angels who had just entered, Lot did not rebuke his maniacal neighbors or close the door in their faces as would have been a proper response. Instead, he offered the innocence of his very own daughters. He offered up the most vulnerable loved ones he knew to hold his status in the eyes of the Sodomites.
Even as Sodom’s fiery punishment awaited, Lot made every attempt to please his wicked neighbors’ lusts—he wanted to belong to Sodom.
As the night progressed and morning broke, Lot showed a slight sign that the warning from the angels had wakened him from his sinful slumber. He tells his future sons-in-law to flee the city with him and his family, but the men also want to belong to Sodom, and they convince themselves that Lot is only joking.
Finally, Lot receives the final warning from the angels of the wrath coming upon the city, yet he lingered, proving that he had not truly hastened God’s call.
That’s when Lot’s story should end. That’s when sulfur and fire should have rained down on Sodom, consuming every inhabitant within its walls, including Lot and his family.
But God, “being merciful to him,” allows the angels to drag Lot out of the path of God’s righteous judgment.
This mercy from God is astounding, especially considering what happens next.
Lot escapes with his two daughters after his wife disobeys the angels’ command, looks back upon the city, and is turned into a pillar of salt. She too wanted to belong to Sodom.
But in another act of complete rebellion against God, Lot’s daughters devise a sick plan to get their father to drunkenly impregnate them. Their plan works, and they give birth to the fathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites, enemies of God’s chosen people who mistreat them for generations to come.
God knew all of this, yet He still saved Lot and his daughters, but why? What did Lot do to prompt a response from God that God would relent of ending Lot’s life?
Nothing.
Lot was only saved because God was merciful to him, and because God had a greater plan—a plan not just to save Lot, but to save His people through all of history.
From the Moabites, the people who came from Lot’s incestuous night with his firstborn daughter, eventually comes a woman named Ruth. Yes, that Ruth—the great-grandmother of King David, the ancestor of Jesus Christ.
The gospel of Lot strikes a chord that rings through the ages of time: God accomplishes His sovereign plan through the sinfulness of man so that He can rescue man from his sinfulness.
Lot was broken. He desired to please the lusts of his flesh. He wanted what the world had to offer, even when the world he knew was to be burned to the ground.
Lot is like us.
We were blinded by our sin. We lingered when salvation was offered.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
That is the gospel according to Lot.
That is the gospel for us.