I agree with everything you have stated. When I asked for Scripture, I was referring to Genesis telling of the story of Sodom-Gomorrah. It only speaks of the sin being grievous but does not name what the sin is.
As I have mentioned, and you have also pointed out, other Scriptures do name the sin. As you pointed out, Jude mentions they indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice . But you can’t just take one verse according to Isaiah ( Isaiah 1:9-10; 3:9), it was a lack of social justice; Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:46-51) described it as a disregard for the poor, whereas Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:14) saw it as general immorality.
So you have a variety of reasons. It still remains however, that Genesis does not state the reason. What I was asking for was scripture in Genesis that states the sin.
Dear adrift,
Cordial greetings and hello again. My apologies for the misunderstanding but allow me to make a some observations.
First, dear friend, the Genesis narrative makes it clear that “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (13: 13), and that “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great…because their sin is very grevious”, which led to God being determined to investigate it (18: 20,21), and at length “overthrow those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities” (19: 25) by and act of judgment which was entirely consistent with the justice of “the judge of all the earth” (18: 25). Now whilst it is quite true that the Genesis narrative does not
explicitly state what the sin was that merited the obliteration, there are, notwithstanding, strong and compelling reasons for concluding from the narrative that it was homosexual deviant practices.
Lot received the angelic visitors into his house and at evening the men of the city surrounded his home and demanded to see his guests - “And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them” (Gen. 19: 5). Now it has been argued (Sherwin Bailey) that this demand to “know” the strangers was nothing more than a desire to get better acquainted with them; it was no more than a matter of a breach of hospitality. It was noted by Mr. Bailey that the word
yada (“know”) appears some 934 times in the O.T. and on only 12 occasions does it clearly denote “to have carnal relations with”; elsewhere it means “to get acquainted with” or "to have knowledge of ". However, Mr. Bailey’s case is not convincing for a number of reasons. The words of Lot to the men of Sodom, “I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly” (Gen 19: 7), hardly seem appropriate to describe a mere violation of the laws of hospitality. Moreover, does not the offer of women clearly imply that there is some sexual connotation to the episode? Whilst it is true that the verb
yada is used only ten times of carnal copulation, Mr. Bailey omits to mention that six of these occurences are in Genesis and one in the Sodom narrative itself (about Lot’s daughters who had not ‘known’ a man, Gen. 19: 8).
It it is quite true, dear friend, that the rest of the O.T. nowhere suggests that the nature of Sodom’s offence was homosexual acts of depravity. Instead, Isaiah implies that it was hypocrisy and, as you state, social injustice, Jermiah adultery, deceit and general wickedness and Ezekiel arrogance, avarice and indifference to the poor. However, it should be noted that the Ezekiel passage (16: 49-50) describes the conduct of the men of Sodom as an “abomination” - the same word that is used of homosexual sin in the Book of Leviticus (18: 22). Moreover, the passage in St. Jude which speaks of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah giving themselves up to sexual immorality and unnatural vice (v. 7) is quite unequivocal per se and provides an inspired commentary upon the Genesis narrative which cannot easily be dismissed. To be sure, homosexual behaviour was not Sodom’s only sin, but according to St. Jude it was certainly one of them.
Finally, dear friend, as bad as social injustice, greed and indifference to the poor are, it is hard to believe that any or all of them would warrant the complete obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities. However, homosexual vice - a vice against which even nature herself protests - would certainly qualify as an “outcry” and a “very grevious” sin (Gen. 18: 20). Indeed, we know from Leviticus that this nefarious sin is an “abomination” in the sight of God and one which defiled men and the very land in which they dwelt (see Lev. 18: 22, 24, 25). Therefore, this would explain why the inhabitants of Sodom and Gommorah had to be visited with such a dreadful and fearful punishment and why they could not be permitted to remain. For such a henious sin against nature God had to punish them most severely so that they could be “set forth for an example, suffering the vengenace of eternal fire” (St. Jude 7).
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
