“… and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.”
Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes
Let us take a survey of how God views sodomy in the Bible. “Sodom and Gomorrah” even today is an idiom for degradation. Sodom and Gomorrah were filled with homosexuality (Ge 19:4-5).
De 23:17-18, “There shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel, or a perverted one of the sons of Israel. 18 “You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.”
Biblically, a “sodomite” is a sexual pervert. The sodomite in verse eighteen is the “dog” (with all apologies to the dog). Dogs have no interest in marriage.
De 29:23, “The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.”
God destroyed four cities in anger because of sexual perversion.
Is 3:9, “The look on their countenance witnesses against them,
And they declare their sin as Sodom;
They do not hide it.
Woe to their soul!”
Isaiah tells of brazen, blatant homosexuals who have no shame. Today homosexuals want to come out of the closet.
Mt 11:20, 23-24, “Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: …. 23 ‘And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 ‘But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.’”
The Lord Jesus is the speaker here. He says that homosexuality is a sin of a greater degree. It is probably greater in the sense of social consequences.
Lu 17:27-30, “They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 “but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 “Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”
PRINCIPLE:
God views homosexuality as a perversion.
APPLICATION:
It is interesting how God thinks about depravity in contrast to how present-day evangelicalism thinks about it.
Ro 1:27, “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
1)Ezek.16:49 also tells about the sin of Sodom.”Behold,this was the iniquity of the thy sister Sodom,pride,fulness of bread,and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters,neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor & needy.”
2)A reason for delivering Lot:Gen.19:29.”And it came to pass,when God destroyed the cities of the plain,that God remembered Abraham,and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow,when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.”God had hinted Abraham about His intention to destroy Sodom & Gomorrah.(Gen.18:20,21)Abraham drew near God & made intercession & prayed.Gen.18:23-33.God has answered Abraham’s prayers & delivered Lot.
Well yes, I can see that the cities were destroyed and turned to ashes. That is what this verse clearly says. But the verse does not stop there. There is more. What about the second part? You still didn’t give an explanation to my question (or to Susannah’s question). And 2 Peter 2:6b doesn’t have any explanation for this part of the verse either. And yes, verse 1 mentions false teachers, but then it changes focus from verse 4.
2 Peter 2:6
God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them by burning them to ashes. > He made those cities an example to ungodly people of what is going to happen (μελλόντων) to them.
And I checked the original Greek at “biblehub- interlinear” to get the most accurate wording from this website. And the verse above is the most accurately worded verse that I could find. The most important Greek word in the verse is: μελλόντων. It means “what is coming on” or in normal English “is going to happen”.
Here is that same word used in Acts 26:22. > But all this time God has helped me, and I have preached both to the rich and to the poor. I have told them only what the prophets and Moses said “would happen” (μελλόντων).
So 2 Peter 2:6 is very clearly saying that the ungodly will be reduced to ashes. Then how could they possibly weep or gnash their teeth?
James, I hope you advanced to 2:6c, where I completed the study of 2:6. The specific illustration of Sodom and Gomorrah does not deal with hell, but with the physical destruction of those cities. It took place at a specific time and place in history, whereby God judged those cities for their perversion at that time. I have not implied that this passage is speaking of hell specifically, that would be to read something into the passage (eisegesis). The idea of judgment occurs previously and later in the context.
You have set up a straw man by trying to make me or this passage to say more than it is saying. What you have done is to convolute what I said in another verse with what this verse is saying. The subject of hell is explicitly set forth in many other passages such as the hell for angels in 2:4. This passage simply affirms (and no more) that the cities of S and G were destroyed to the point of being reduced to ashes. It was a temporal judgment for a specific time. the word μέλλων does not give specificity in itself; this has to be taken from the context.
“This passage simply affirms (and no more) that the cities of S and G were destroyed to the point of being reduced to ashes.”
No it doesn’t. > “He made those cities an example to ungodly people of what “is going to happen (μελλόντων) to them.”
You are still disregarding this part. I am not making a straw man argument. I am simply pointing out what this verse says directly.
You are still not addressing this part of the Scripture–AGAIN. “He made those cities an example to ungodly people of what “is going to happen (μελλόντων) to them.”
Can you please explain this part of the verse? You avoid it repeatedly. In the meantime, I have written to other websites in order to try to get a direct answer to THIS PART of the Scripture.
James, by the way, that is exactly what I said to Susanna.