Readings: Genesis 19.15-
It’s the shortest saying of Jesus and the second shortest verse in the Bible, “Remember Lot’s wife!” (Lk 17.32)
This saying recalls the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom was where Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had chosen to live. But God had declared to Abraham that He would destroy these cities because “their sin is so grievous” (Gen. 18.20). Abraham then prayed that the city be spared “if there are fifty righteous people in the city” (v. 24), or “forty” (v. 29, or “thirty” (v. 30), or “twenty” (v. 31) or “ten” (v. 32). God’s promise to hm was “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (v. 32).
Yet when the angelic messengers went to Lot’s house in Sodom, the riotous degraded actions of the men of the city made it quite clear that their heart was turned against the Lord God. There were not even ten!
The city would not be spared the divine judgment! They must escape while they could! So Lot and his wife and two daughters set out for safety. Among the instructions given to them was, “Don’t look back!” (19.17). “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (v. 26). The apocryphal book of Wisdom (10.7) makes this comment, “The pillar of salt stands monument to an unbelieving soul.”
When Jesus said, “Remember Lot’s wife”, he was warning against the temptation to turn back to the old life. As he stated it elsewhere, “No one after putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is for for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9.62). Before we think about this temptation, however, let us think about the nature of the old life and the new.
One of the most marked characteristics of the old life is selfishness. Paul speaks
about walking “according to the flesh”, fulfilling its desires, considering our chief
responsibility to be towards ourselves, This has always led to the greatest blot
on the image of God in us – sin. We see this right back in Genesis – it was through
the temptation to be equal with God that Adam and Eve fell into sin. Paul writes
that “the mind set on the flesh is death: but the mind controlled by the Spirit is
life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law,
nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Rom.
8.6-
In the fate of two cities in Genesis, Jude sees a pattern of all who sin, when he
writes, “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual
immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment
of eternal fire” (Jude 7), We find Peter also, in his second letter writing about
how God “condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and
made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and rescued Lot,
a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men... The Lord
knows how to rescue godly men from trials – and to hold the unrighteous for the
day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those
who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority” (2 Pet. 2.6-
The greatest offence in sin is not that it corrupts our nature, nor that it is often against others, but that it is against God, and the old life is characterised by separation from God. On the surface there may be superficial happiness, but the deadly disease of sin is at work. Whatever the appearances, the old life was rotten deep down and leading the person who trod it to destruction. So we find Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking of the old life with all its glamour, Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Mt. 7.13).
In contrast, the new life is the life “in Christ”. Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3.20).
It is only through Christ that the new life is possible – it is supremely through his sacrificial death that God’s grace has become available to us. From our side, no efforts at righteousness could bridge the gap between us and God. God has taken the initiative, and the new life is a gift requiring only to be accepted by faith. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5.17).
The very inner principle of our lives has been changed. Compare a petrol engine
with a diesel. There are significant differences, but a basic common principle. On
the other hand, the electric motor is powered by a different principle. Paul describes
the Christian as the person who no longer lives “according to the sinful nature
but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8.4). And God’s grace, now active in our life
through faith, is directed towards good works – “for we are God’s workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.
2.10). So the new life will express the “fruit of the Spirit” – “love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-
Our sins are washed in the blood of the Lamb; our lawlessness is overcome by obedience
to Christ the Lord of all; our self-
There was a time in the ministry of Jesus – when he had been teaching the absolute necessity of each person receiving for him/herself the benefits of his atoning death – when we read, “From that time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (Jn 6.66).
There are those who take offence at the cross, who are interested in different aspects of Christianity but baulk at the Gospel itself. Our concern here, however, is with those who have set out on the race of faith – it is, if you like, with Lot's family, not with the people who chose to stay behind in Sodom. Of such disciples Paul wrote (1 Tim. 5.15), “Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.” He spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20.30 about those who would “arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.”
Quite obviously, since the evil one is the enemy of the Lord, we can expect him to take delight in leading astray, by one means or other, those who are Christ’s.
For the young Christian, the keenest temptations come along the line of the old life.
They are temptations to “turn back”, or at least to “look back” with longing on the
old life we have left. We try to supplement the joy we have in Christ. Although we
know that Christ died for all the world, we revel in our own personal salvation.
We become “conformed to the pattern of this world” rather than “transformed by the
renewing of our mind” (Rom. 12.2). We fill our minds and lives with so-
It is not enough to enter the small gate, if we will not walk the narrow road. At
one stage in Jesus’ ministry we are told that, as Jesus spoke, many put their faith
in him. “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching,
you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set
you free’.” Later in the same passage we read, “… they picked up stones to stone
him” (Jn 8.31-
“No one,” Jesus said, “who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for [service in] the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9.62).
Surely then, we must be in earnest when we come to Christ – not trusting ourselves,
but with our confidence fixed on him. We need to learn to say with the humility of
the great apostle Paul, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold
of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is
ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward
in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3.13-
“Remember Lot’s wife.” We seem to need that warning – we can all go through periods of slackness! But we need to get into gear and positively fix our mind on what Paul says here. We have to forget what is behind. When those things are confessed and forgiven, we are not to waste our time brooding over them. Rather, straining toward what is ahead, we must press towards God’s goal.
© Peter J Blackburn 2012
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984.
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