The salvation of Sodom.
That the notoriously wicked cities of the plain should come under the saving grace of God would seem to be one of the greatest paradoxes of redemption, and the more so as those cities had been utterly destroyed and the very sites of them obliterated. A reference to such an event opens up to us a marvellous vista in the deep possibilities of the future.
I. THEY WHO ARE EQUAL IN SIN WILL BE EQUAL IN REDEMPTION. There is even some comfort to us in the sight of the great wickedness of the Jews, or rather in what is based upon it. We read of repealed promises of restoration for Israel. Now, if the chosen people had been exceptionally virtuous, or but mildly culpable in comparison with the rest of the world, it might well have been surmised that the salvation which was possible for Israel could not be stretched to reach others of greater wickedness. But if the "Jerusalem sinners" are equal to the worst of the world's wicked people, if Jerusalem is sister to Samaria and Sodom in evil, the salvation which touches the one class of sinners may extend to the other. God is no respecter of persons. He has no favouritism. Redemption is as wide as sin.
II. CHRIST'S REDEMPTION AIMS AT EMBRACING ALL SINNERS. His redemption is universal in two respects.
1. In extent. As the Lamb of God, he came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), not the sins of a certain nation, or those of one section of society. He commanded that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all nations" (Luke 24:47). If the gospel is to be offered to all, it must be that the salvation is effective for all. Nothing less could satisfy the heart of Jesus, and "he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11).
2. In intensity. Not only are sinners of all nations and of all sections of society included in the redeeming love of Christ; sinners of blackest guilt are also within its merciful and mighty embrace.
III. CHRIST'S REDEMPTION SHOULD BE APPLIED TO ALL SINNERS. It is not sufficient that he has died for the sins of the whole world, nor that he is willing to save all—Jerusalem, Samaria, Sodom, the very worst. For only they are effectually saved who have personally partaken of the grace of Christ.
1. It must be offered to all. Herein lies the duty of universal missionary agency. The gospel should be preached to the most remote nations, to the most degraded savages, to the most abandoned sinners. It is not for us to say that any are beyond its saving grace. But how of the heathen dead? how of Sodom, that has been utterly destroyed? how can Sodom be redeemed? Sodom may stand typically for the.worst contemporary sinners. Yet the truth of the text will be most completely satisfied if we deem it possible that Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison extended to the men of Sodom (1 Peter 3:20).
2. It needs to be taken by all. Christ died to redeem all, even the worst sinners, yet none share in his redemption save through penitence and faith.