Chapter 11

Sodom and Gomorrah — A Test Case for Final Judgment

Introduction: The City That Became a Byword

If you grew up in church, you know the story. You probably heard it in Sunday school. Maybe you saw a flannel-board version of it, complete with fire raining down from the sky while Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most vivid, most dramatic, most terrifying stories in the entire Bible. It is the moment when God’s judgment falls with devastating finality on a city so wicked that its very name became a permanent synonym for evil.

And that is exactly why this chapter matters so much.

Sodom is the test case. If there is any city in the Bible that you would expect to be beyond the reach of God’s redemption, it is Sodom. If there is any group of people you would expect to be permanently excluded from God’s mercy, it is the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were destroyed by fire from heaven. They became the go-to illustration for what happens when you push God too far. For centuries, preachers have used Sodom as the ultimate warning: this is what happens to the wicked. This is what awaits those who defy God.

So here is the question I want us to wrestle with in this chapter: Is the story of Sodom really a story about God’s final, permanent, irrevocable rejection of a people? Or is it something else entirely?

What if I told you that the Bible itself — not some liberal theologian, not some wishful thinker, but the Bible — explicitly promises the restoration of Sodom? What if the city that became the ultimate symbol of divine judgment also turns out to be one of the strongest witnesses to the truth that God’s judgment is never His last word?

That is what this chapter will demonstrate. We are going to trace Sodom’s story from beginning to end — from Genesis through Ezekiel, from the words of Jesus through the letters of Jude and Peter. And what we will find, I believe, is one of the most powerful case studies in all of Scripture for the truth that God judges in order to restore. The fire falls. But the fire is not the end of the story.

The Judgment of Sodom: What Actually Happened

Abraham’s Intercession and God’s Heart

Before we get to the fire, we need to pay careful attention to what happened before the fire. Because the prelude to Sodom’s destruction reveals something remarkable about the heart of God.

In Genesis 18, the Lord appears to Abraham and tells him that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great that He is going to investigate and, if the reports are true, bring judgment. What happens next is one of the most extraordinary conversations in the entire Old Testament. Abraham begins to intercede. He begins to bargain with God.

“Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham asks. “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really destroy the whole place and not spare it for the sake of fifty righteous people?” (Gen. 18:23–24).¹

And God says yes — if there are fifty, He will spare it.

Abraham presses further. What about forty-five? What about forty? Thirty? Twenty? Finally, Abraham gets all the way down to ten. “May the Lord not be angry,” he says, “but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” And God answers: “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (Gen. 18:32).²

Now, think about what this conversation reveals. God was not eager to destroy Sodom. Abraham did not have to twist God’s arm. The whole conversation reveals a God who is more than willing to show mercy — a God who would have spared the entire city for the sake of a tiny remnant. Abraham stopped asking at ten, but there is no indication that God would have stopped there. The limiting factor was not God’s willingness to spare. The limiting factor was Abraham’s courage to keep asking.³

This matters enormously. From the very beginning, the story of Sodom is not a story about a God who delights in destruction. It is a story about a God who is searching for any reason — any reason at all — to show mercy.

And here is something I find deeply moving about this exchange. Abraham was interceding for people who were not his family, not his tribe, not his responsibility. He was bargaining with God on behalf of strangers — wicked strangers at that. He cared more about the people of Sodom than we might expect. And God responded to every single request with a yes. Every time Abraham lowered the number, God agreed. Fifty? Yes. Forty-five? Yes. Forty? Yes. All the way down to ten.

Now ask yourself: does Abraham love the people of Sodom more than God does? Is Abraham more compassionate than the God who made those people in His own image? Is the creature more merciful than the Creator? The obvious answer is no. Abraham’s compassion for Sodom was a tiny reflection of God’s own compassion. If Abraham could not bear to see Sodom destroyed, how much more does God grieve over the destruction of people He created and loves?⁶⁵

This is the same God who, centuries later through the prophet Ezekiel, will promise to do for Sodom what Abraham could not: to restore its fortunes completely. Abraham stopped at ten. God does not stop at all.

The Fire Falls

The destruction itself is swift and total. Genesis 19 describes it with devastating simplicity: “Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities — and also the vegetation in the land” (Gen. 19:24–25).⁴

The next morning, Abraham looked out toward Sodom, and “he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Gen. 19:28).⁵ The cities were gone. The people were gone. Nothing remained but ash and smoke and silence.

I want to be very clear about something: the universalist does not minimize this. The destruction of Sodom was real. It was horrifying. It was judgment in its most devastating form. The fire was real fire. The death was real death. The suffering was real suffering. I am not going to pretend that what happened to Sodom was somehow gentle or pleasant or easily explained away.

But here is what I am going to insist on: the fire that fell on Sodom was not God’s final word about Sodom. To read Genesis 19 as the last chapter in Sodom’s story is to stop reading too soon. And if there is one thing I have learned from years of studying these questions, it is this: we must never stop reading too soon.

Imagine you are reading a novel. A beloved character falls into a terrible crisis halfway through the book. If you close the book at that moment, you would conclude that the story ends in tragedy. But you have only read half the story. The author has hundreds of pages left. The crisis is not the conclusion — it is the turning point. It is the moment from which the author will build toward resolution.

The Bible works the same way. The destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 is real and devastating. But Genesis 19 is not the end of Sodom’s story. Sodom reappears throughout the Old and New Testaments, and when we follow all of those appearances to their destination, we arrive at a conclusion that most readers never expect.

Sodom’s Sin: Worse Than You Think, More Common Than You Realize

Before we move forward, it is worth pausing to consider what exactly Sodom’s sin was. Most people immediately think of the sexual violence described in Genesis 19, where the men of the city demanded to assault the angelic visitors. And that was certainly part of it. But the Bible itself identifies Sodom’s sin as something much broader and much more familiar.

Ezekiel 16:49 spells it out: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”⁶

Pride. Excess. Indifference to suffering. Failure to care for those in need. These are the sins that defined Sodom in God’s eyes. Yes, the sexual violence of Genesis 19 was horrific. But according to Ezekiel, it was the tip of a much larger iceberg. The root sin was a kind of hardened selfishness, a proud refusal to care about anyone beyond themselves.

Why does this matter for our purposes? Because it reminds us that Sodom was not some uniquely monstrous alien culture. Sodom was a human city with very human sins. If you have ever been proud, or overfed, or unconcerned about the poor and needy — and who among us has not? — then the sins of Sodom are not as far from home as you might like to think. This is important because when we come to God’s promise to restore Sodom, we need to understand: the people of Sodom were deeply sinful, but they were not a different species from us. They were human beings, created in the image of God, who fell into terrible sin. And God promises to restore them.⁷

Sodom in the Prophets: The Promise No One Expects

Sodom as a Warning Throughout Israel’s Story

After Genesis 19, Sodom becomes a recurring reference point throughout the Old Testament. The name becomes shorthand for catastrophic divine judgment. Moses uses Sodom’s destruction as a warning to Israel: the land will become “a burning waste of salt and sulfur — nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah” (Deut. 29:23).⁸ Isaiah uses Sodom as a standard of comparison, calling Jerusalem’s leaders “rulers of Sodom” and its people “people of Gomorrah” (Isa. 1:10).⁹ Jeremiah, Amos, and Zephaniah all invoke Sodom as a warning of what God does to the wicked.¹⁰

All of this is familiar territory. Sodom as judgment. Sodom as warning. Sodom as the worst-case scenario. But then we arrive at Ezekiel 16, and the story takes a turn that no one is expecting.

Ezekiel 16: God Promises to Restore Sodom

Ezekiel 16 is a long, painful, graphic chapter. God is speaking to Jerusalem through the prophet, comparing her to an unfaithful wife. He recounts all the ways Jerusalem has betrayed Him, and He compares her unfavorably to her “sisters” — Samaria to the north, and Sodom to the south. Jerusalem, God says, has been worse than both of them. “You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they” (Ezek. 16:47).¹¹

This is already a striking statement. God is saying that Jerusalem — His chosen city, the place where He put His name — was worse than Sodom. But what comes next is the real bombshell.

“However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before.” (Ezek. 16:53–55)¹²

Read that again, slowly. God says — explicitly, by name — that He will restore the fortunes of Sodom. Not just Jerusalem. Not just Samaria. Sodom. The city destroyed by fire from heaven. The city that became a byword for divine wrath. That city will have its fortunes restored. Sodom and her daughters “will return to what they were before.”

The Old Testament scholar B. Maarsingh captures the power of this text beautifully. He observes that God Himself will intervene to grant a new future to Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem alike. All three — with their neighboring towns and villages — will regain their former status and fully conform to God’s original plan. Maarsingh calls it nothing less than a kind of resurrection from the dead: nothing is impossible with the Lord.¹³

Think about that for a moment. Sodom had been wiped off the face of the earth centuries before Ezekiel wrote these words. There were no survivors. There was no remnant. There were no descendants to carry on the name. And yet God promises to restore Sodom’s fortunes anyway. How is that possible?

The Only Honest Reading

The great conservative commentators Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch wrestled with this passage, and their conclusion is remarkable. They acknowledged that the restoration of Sodom cannot refer to any event in the present age, since the manner of Sodom’s destruction prevented any inhabitants from surviving whose descendants could be converted during the present era. The only honest conclusion, they wrote, is that the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s promise “points beyond the present aeon, and the realization can only take place on the great day of the resurrection of the dead in the persons of the former inhabitants of Sodom.”¹⁴

Let that sink in. Keil and Delitzsch — not universalists, not liberals, but conservative nineteenth-century German scholars — concluded that Ezekiel’s promise about Sodom must be fulfilled after the resurrection, in the persons of the actual former inhabitants of Sodom. They admitted that the punishments described in the Old Testament must not be viewed as eternal and that the possibility of a future salvation must be left open.¹⁵

This is a critical observation. The text does not allow us to explain away the restoration of Sodom as a return from exile or a metaphor for something else. Sodom had no exile to return from. Sodom had no descendants to convert. If this promise means anything at all, it means that the actual people of Sodom — the ones who were destroyed by fire from heaven — will one day be restored.¹⁶

Translation Troubles: When Theology Overrode the Text

It is worth noting a fascinating detail of translation history here. The promise of Sodom’s restoration was so shocking, so seemingly impossible within the traditional framework, that some translators actually altered the text to soften it. The translators of the King James Version (and the Dutch Statenvertaling) inserted the word “When” at the beginning of Ezekiel 16:53, rendering it as “When I restore their fortunes…” The effect of this insertion was to turn a straightforward promise into something more like a conditional clause — the way you might say, “When pigs fly, I’ll eat my hat.” In other words, it transformed a promise into an impossibility.¹⁷

Jan Bonda, in his important study The One Purpose of God, noted this problem directly. He observed that the otherwise conscientious translators of the Authorized Version here led their readers in a direction that differs from what Scripture actually says. The tradition, he argued, necessitated a change in the biblical text itself.¹⁸

I want to be clear that this was not some grand conspiracy. These translators, operating under the traditional model that God’s judgment is always final and irrevocable, genuinely could not fathom how Sodom could ever be restored. So they softened the text. But thankfully, most modern translations have removed the inserted word and restored the text to its original form, allowing readers to see for themselves what Ezekiel actually wrote.¹⁹

The “Captivity” Question

Some translations render the key phrase in Ezekiel 16:53 as “restore their captivity” rather than “restore their fortunes.” This has led some commentators to interpret the passage as nothing more than a return from exile. But this interpretation collapses when you think about it for even a moment. Israel might be “returned from exile.” But how does one return Sodom from exile? Sodom had no exile. Sodom was destroyed.²⁰

As scholars have pointed out, the Hebrew expression “to restore one’s captivity” is actually an idiomatic phrase that means to restore someone’s fortunes for the good, to release captive debt. Deuteronomy 30:3 uses the same construction: “The LORD your God will restore your captivity and have compassion on you.” This obviously does not mean “return you to exile” — it means “restore your fortunes.” The same is true in Ezekiel 16.²¹ Whether we translate it as “fortunes” or “captivity,” the meaning is the same: their fortunes will be restored.

The Larger Context: Ezekiel 16:60–63

The chapter does not end with verse 55. It pushes further. God continues:

“Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. So I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgiven you for all that you have done.” (Ezek. 16:60–63)²²

Notice: God says He will give Sodom and Samaria to Jerusalem “as daughters.” They will be brought into the covenant family. And the chapter ends not with destruction, not with annihilation, but with forgiveness: “when I have forgiven you for all that you have done.” The movement is unmistakable: judgment, then shame, then restoration, then forgiveness. This is the pattern. And notice that the punishment achieves its purpose — it brings about the repentance and humility that opens the door to restoration.²³

Sodom in the Wider Prophetic Witness

Ezekiel is not the only prophet who hints at restoration after catastrophic judgment. As we explored in Chapter 10, the prophets consistently follow a pattern: judgment, then restoration. Jeremiah, for example, promises restoration for Moab, Ammon, and Elam — nations that God had also judged severely (Jer. 48:47; 49:6, 39).²⁴ Isaiah promises that Egypt and Assyria — Israel’s historic enemies — will one day worship God alongside Israel, with God calling Egypt “my people” and Assyria “the work of my hands” (Isa. 19:21–25).²⁵ Zephaniah promises that after devastating judgment, God will “purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Zeph. 3:9).²⁶

Sodom fits perfectly within this larger prophetic pattern. God judges the nations. God judges even His own people. But God does not judge in order to destroy forever. He judges in order to restore. The prophetic trajectory always bends toward mercy.

Consider the striking parallel with Egypt in Isaiah 19. God smites Egypt — that is the judgment part. But the text says He smites them “smiting and healing,” so that “in the act of smiting the intention of healing prevails.” The great conservative commentators Keil and Delitzsch, writing about this passage, observed that Egypt is now under the same plan of salvation as Israel. God’s judgment is not the opposite of His love. It is the instrument of His love.⁶⁶

The same principle applies to Sodom. If God can respond to and heal Egypt — a nation that brutally oppressed the Israelites for four hundred years — then surely He can respond to the people of Sodom. If the judgment of Egypt serves a healing purpose, why should the judgment of Sodom be any different? The pattern is the same. The God is the same. And His purposes are the same: to bring all things to the place He intended from the beginning.

Ilaria Ramelli, in A Larger Hope, notes that Ezekiel 16:55’s promise to restore Sodom and Gomorrah to their original condition was read by patristic exegetes as a reference to the mystery of universal restoration and salvation.²⁷ The early church fathers who read these texts in the original languages saw what was there: a God whose judgment serves restoration, even for the worst sinners.

Origen, one of the most brilliant minds of the early church, saw the Sodom narrative as a key piece of evidence for the eventual restoration of all. He interpreted Job 5:18 — “He wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal” — as a statement about God’s character that applied universally, including to the people of Sodom. God wounds in order to heal. God destroys in order to rebuild.⁶⁷

Jesus and Sodom: Degrees of Judgment

Matthew 10:15 and 11:20–24

Now we come to Jesus Himself. How does Jesus use Sodom? Most people assume that Jesus invokes Sodom simply as the ultimate warning of destruction. And He does issue serious warnings. But look carefully at what He actually says.

In Matthew 10:15, Jesus tells His disciples: “Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”²⁸ He is speaking about towns that reject the gospel message brought by the apostles.

In Matthew 11:20–24, Jesus expands on this theme in one of His most striking pronouncements:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”²⁹

There are at least three things here that should catch our attention.

First, Jesus speaks of degrees of judgment. It will be “more bearable” for Sodom than for Capernaum. Judgment is not one-size-fits-all. There are levels of severity. This is a crucial observation, because degrees of bearability only make sense if judgment is experienced — if it is something that the judged party goes through, not simply a binary outcome that ends all experience. Think about it: if the final destiny of all the judged is the same — whether that is annihilation or permanent separation — then why would it matter that Sodom’s judgment is “more bearable”? More bearable than what? If they are all equally dead or equally separated, the comparison is meaningless.³⁰

Degrees of judgment make the most sense on a restorative model, where the severity and duration of purifying correction vary according to the depth of resistance to be overcome. A person whose sin is deep requires more painful correction. A person whose sin is relatively shallow requires less. But in both cases, the correction has a purpose and a goal.³¹

Second, Jesus acknowledges that Sodom’s guilt is mitigated by its lack of opportunity. He says that if the miracles done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, Sodom would have repented. This is extraordinary. Jesus is saying that the people of Sodom were not so hardened, so uniquely depraved, that they were beyond the possibility of repentance. Under different circumstances, they would have repented. Their destruction, then, was not because they were intrinsically incapable of turning to God. It was because they never received the revelation that would have moved them to do so.³²

R. Zachary Manis discusses this passage in his study of the problem of hell, noting that Jesus’ words suggest that some inhabitants of Sodom who were in fact lost would have been saved if they had witnessed certain miracles. This raises profound questions about the fairness of a system in which a person’s eternal destiny depends on circumstances entirely outside their control.³³

Third, Jesus’ language implies that Sodom will be present at the day of judgment. He does not say, “It would have been more bearable for Sodom, if Sodom still existed.” He says, “It will be more bearable.” The inhabitants of Sodom, in Jesus’ view, will stand at the day of judgment. They are not annihilated. They are not simply gone. They will be there, and they will experience judgment — but a judgment that is more bearable than what Capernaum faces.³⁴

The Significance of “More Bearable”

Let me push on this point a bit further. The word Jesus uses for “more bearable” is the Greek anektoteron, a comparative form meaning “more tolerable” or “more endurable.” It carries the sense of something that can be borne, endured, withstood. It implies a process that unfolds over time, not an instantaneous event.³⁵

The Triumph of Mercy gathers Jesus’ sayings about measured and proportional judgment and draws the logical conclusion: “Few” and “many” lashes indicate measured time and duration, not infinite punishment. Throughout Scripture, punishment is meted out with a just measure, proportional to the offense, not infinite in response to finite sin.³⁶ If judgment is measured and proportional, then by definition it has limits. And if it has limits, it has an end. And if it has an end, the question is: what comes after?

Ezekiel has already answered that question. What comes after is restoration.

Jesus and the “Renewal of All Things”

There is one more saying of Jesus that connects to the Sodom narrative, though it is not about Sodom directly. In Matthew 19:28, Jesus tells His disciples: “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”⁶⁹

The key phrase is “the renewal of all things.” The Greek word here is palingenesia — literally, a “new genesis,” a regeneration, a rebirth of the whole created order. Jesus is pointing forward to a time when everything will be returned to its original, pre-fall condition. This is the same vision we find in Acts 3:21, where Peter speaks of the “restoration of all things” (apokatastasis pantōn).⁷⁰

If “all things” are going to be restored to their original state, then Sodom’s restoration fits naturally within that larger vision. The palingenesia is not partial. It is not “the renewal of most things” or “the renewal of the lucky ones.” It is the renewal of all things. Sodom’s story — from creation to destruction to promised restoration — is a microcosm of the entire biblical story: creation, fall, judgment, and ultimately, universal renewal.

Jude 7: The “Eternal Fire” That Already Went Out

Sodom shows up in the New Testament letter of Jude, and this passage deserves careful attention. Jude writes:

“In a similar way, 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)³⁷

At first glance, this looks like a slam-dunk for the traditional view: Sodom suffered “eternal fire,” so the fire must be everlasting. Case closed. Except that it is not closed at all — and what is remarkable is that almost everyone, regardless of their eschatological position, already agrees about this.

The fire that destroyed Sodom is not still burning today. The ruins of the cities of the plain are not engulfed in flames. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus reported seeing the ashen remains visible in his day — not a raging inferno, but ashes and sulfur deposits near the southern coast of the Dead Sea.³⁸ The fire accomplished its purpose and went out.

So what does Jude mean by “eternal fire”? The word translated “eternal” is the Greek aionios, a word we have already explored in depth (see Chapter 6). As we saw, aionios does not necessarily mean “everlasting” in the sense of “never-ending.” When it is applied to God, it refers to something that belongs to God’s eternal nature. When it is applied to things in the created order, it often means something more like “belonging to the age to come” or “having to do with the things of God.”³⁹

Thomas Talbott explains this beautifully. He argues that the fire that consumed Sodom is called aionios not because it literally burned forever, but because it was a form of divine judgment whose causal source lies in the eternal God. The fire is “eternal” in the sense that it is God’s fire — it comes from Him and reflects His purposes. And its corrective effects endure forever, even though the fire itself does not burn endlessly.⁴⁰

Here is what is so interesting: the conditional immortality (CI) advocate already agrees with this reading of Jude 7. If you hold the CI position, you already believe that the “eternal fire” of Jude 7 does not mean fire that burns forever. You already believe that it refers to fire that accomplishes its purpose and then stops. You already read aionios here as referring to the quality or source of the fire, not its duration. In other words, you already have the exegetical tools to understand how “eternal fire” can refer to a fire that has a beginning and an end.⁴¹

The universalist simply takes this insight one step further. If the fire of Sodom was aionios — divine in its source, purposeful in its effect, limited in its duration — then the same may be true of eschatological fire generally. The fire of judgment is real and terrifying. But like the fire that consumed Sodom, it accomplishes its purpose and eventually gives way to something else. In Sodom’s case, Ezekiel tells us exactly what that something else is: restoration.

Notice also what Jude says in verse 6, just before the Sodom reference. He mentions angels who are “kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.” Even these “everlasting chains” have a terminus: they hold the angels until the judgment. The language of finality, when examined closely, keeps revealing limits and purposes rather than endless duration.⁴²

Sharon Baker, in Razing Hell, comes at this from another angle. She observes that if eternal life is defined by John 17:3 as knowing God — if it describes the quality of a relationship rather than mere duration — then “eternal fire” can similarly be understood as the fire that belongs to God, the fire that surrounds God’s presence. This fire purifies, convicts, and brings repentance. The word “eternal” applies to God Himself, the only truly eternal one, and the fire is eternal only because its source is the eternal God.⁴³

2 Peter 2:6: Sodom as an “Example”

Peter gives us another angle on the Sodom story:

“If he 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 …” (2 Pet. 2:6)⁴⁴

The word Peter uses for “example” is the Greek hypodeigma, meaning a pattern, a model, a sign of what is to come. And the word for “burning them to ashes” involves the Greek katastrophē, from which we get our English word “catastrophe.” Peter is saying that the physical destruction of these cities serves as a visible sign of God’s judgment on the ungodly.⁴⁵

But here is what we must notice: the katastrophē describes what happened to the cities — to the physical structures, the buildings, the landscape. It does not, by itself, tell us about the eternal fate of the inhabitants. Josephus himself could see the ruins. The cities were reduced to ashes. That is the catastrophe. That is the example. God judges wickedness, and He judges it severely.

But if Sodom is an “example” of what is going to happen, then the full Sodom story must be taken as the example — not just Genesis 19, but Ezekiel 16 as well. If the pattern of Sodom is the pattern of God’s dealings with the ungodly, then the pattern is not simply judgment. The pattern is judgment followed by restoration. God reduces Sodom to ashes, and then God restores Sodom’s fortunes. That is the complete pattern. That is the full example.⁴⁶

Robin Parry makes this connection powerfully in The Evangelical Universalist. He notes that even a city as paradigmatically sinful as Sodom — one that had experienced a punishment from which the very imagery of hell was developed — could later experience restoration. If Sodom is the paradigm of judgment, then Ezekiel’s promise of Sodom’s restoration makes it also a paradigm of hope.⁴⁷

Sodom and the Revelation Imagery

The imagery of Sodom echoes throughout the book of Revelation as well. The destructive fire from heaven, the burning sulfur, the ascending smoke — all of these connect back to the Genesis account (compare Rev. 14:9–11 with Gen. 19:24–28; Deut. 29:22). But Parry warns us not to let the fierce rhetoric of judgment close the door to restoration. He points out that the Old Testament background of Revelation’s judgment imagery consistently includes the possibility of restoration after judgment.⁴⁸

Consider the parallel with Isaiah 51:17–23, one of the texts behind Revelation’s imagery of the cup of God’s wrath. In that passage, Judah has drunk the cup of God’s wrath down to the dregs. The suffering is real and devastating. But then God says He will take the cup from Judah’s hand: “from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again.” One can drink God’s wrath and move beyond it to redemption. If this is true for Judah, why not for the nations? Why not for Sodom?⁴⁹

The pattern holds. Over and over, in text after text, the biblical writers use Sodom as a picture of devastating judgment — and then, when we look at the broader narrative, we find that the story does not end with the devastation. It ends with restoration.

The Universalist Logic: If Sodom, Then Who?

Now we need to step back and consider the cumulative force of what we have seen. The argument is remarkably strong, and it runs like this:

Sodom is the worst-case scenario in the biblical imagination. When the biblical writers want to describe the most extreme, most terrifying, most final-seeming judgment of God, they reach for Sodom. If any people are beyond redemption, it is the people of Sodom.

And yet God promises to restore Sodom.

The logic is straightforward. If God will restore Sodom, then there is no one beyond the reach of His restorative judgment. If the paradigmatic example of divine destruction turns out to be a story of judgment-followed-by-restoration, then we have every reason to believe that this is the pattern for all of God’s judgments.⁵⁰

Let me put it another way. When a teacher wants to communicate a principle, they often use the most extreme example they can find. If the principle holds in the extreme case, it holds everywhere. Sodom is the extreme case. Sodom is the example that everyone agrees represents the most severe, most devastating, most seemingly final divine judgment in the entire Old Testament. And God promises to restore Sodom. If the principle of restorative judgment holds even here — even for the people who were destroyed by fire from heaven — then it holds everywhere. There is no one beyond its reach.

This is not an argument from silence or from sentiment. It is an argument from the explicit testimony of Scripture. God does not whisper about Sodom’s restoration; He announces it through His prophet. He does not hint at it; He declares it by name. The God who rained fire on Sodom is the same God who promises to restore Sodom’s fortunes. And if this God — the God of Abraham, of Ezekiel, of Jesus — can restore Sodom, then the question is not whether He wants to restore all people. The question is whether we are willing to believe that His love really is that big.

As the Patristic Universalism text puts it: “If the Bible teaches that a wicked city such as Sodom will be restored, why should we doubt that all of God’s creation will be restored?”⁵¹

This is not wishful thinking. This is the plain testimony of Scripture. God names Sodom by name and promises restoration by name. Jesus Himself speaks of Sodom experiencing judgment in degrees — more bearable for some than for others — language that implies a process with a purpose, not a permanent dead end. Jude calls the fire of Sodom “eternal,” but the fire has already gone out. Peter calls Sodom an “example,” and the full example includes restoration. The entire biblical arc of Sodom’s story — from Genesis to Ezekiel to Jesus to the New Testament letters — points in one direction: God judges, and then God restores.

Addressing Common Objections

“Ezekiel 16 Is About Israel’s Shame, Not a Literal Promise of Sodom’s Restoration”

Someone might respond by saying that Ezekiel 16 is not really a promise about Sodom at all. The real point of the chapter, they would argue, is to shame Jerusalem by comparing her unfavorably to Sodom and Samaria. The mention of Sodom’s restoration is rhetorical, not predictive — it is there for the sake of the argument about Jerusalem, not because God actually plans to restore Sodom.

This objection sounds reasonable, but it does not survive careful examination. Yes, the passage is primarily addressed to Jerusalem. Yes, one of its purposes is to shame Jerusalem. But the mechanism by which the shame works depends on the restoration being real.

Think about it. God says to Jerusalem: “I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, so that you may bear your disgrace” (Ezek. 16:53–54). The shame comes from the fact that Jerusalem — who was supposed to be God’s special city — will be restored alongside Sodom. Jerusalem will have to stand there and watch Sodom receive the same restoration she receives. That is humiliating. That is the point.

But if Sodom’s restoration is not literal, the shame evaporates. If God does not actually intend to restore Sodom, then the comparison is meaningless. You cannot shame Jerusalem by threatening to restore Sodom if the restoration of Sodom is impossible. The rhetorical force depends entirely on the reality of the promise.⁵²

Furthermore, note that God’s promise here extends to all three cities equally: Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem. If Sodom’s restoration is not literal, then neither is Jerusalem’s. But nobody reads the passage that way. Everyone agrees that God really did promise to restore Jerusalem. By the same logic, He really did promise to restore Sodom.⁵³

“2 Peter 2:6 Says Sodom Was ‘Condemned to Extinction’”

Someone might respond by pointing to 2 Peter 2:6 and arguing that Sodom was condemned to extinction — complete, permanent, irreversible destruction. The Greek word katastrophē describes total overthrow. If God condemned Sodom to extinction, how can Sodom be restored?

The answer, as we noted above, is that the katastrophē describes what happened to the physical cities. The buildings, the fields, the infrastructure — all of it was reduced to ashes. That is the catastrophe. That is the extinction. And that is what Peter says serves as an example.

But the example works on two levels. On one level, the physical destruction of Sodom is a warning: God takes sin seriously, and judgment is real. On another level, the full Sodom story — including Ezekiel’s promise — tells us that even the most devastating judgment does not put a people permanently beyond God’s reach. The cities were destroyed. But the people, as Jesus Himself indicates, will stand at the day of judgment. And as Keil and Delitzsch noted, the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s promise can only take place in the persons of the former inhabitants.⁵⁴

“These Are National Promises, Not Individual Ones”

Someone might respond by arguing that Ezekiel’s promise concerns the restoration of cities — political and geographical entities — not the salvation of individual people. Restoring the “fortunes of Sodom” might simply mean rebuilding the city, not saving its inhabitants.

But this objection fails for a simple reason: there is no one left to rebuild the city. Sodom was not conquered and depopulated like Samaria. Sodom was annihilated. There were no survivors, no remnant, no descendants. If “restoring the fortunes of Sodom” means rebuilding the city, who would live there? The promise is meaningless unless it includes the people.⁵⁵

Besides, nations are made up of individuals. When Paul quotes Isaiah’s universal texts — “every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess” — he applies them to individuals, not merely to political entities (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10–11). The prophetic promises about nations include the people who make up those nations. To restore the “fortunes of Sodom” is to restore the people of Sodom.⁵⁶

“If Sodom Is Restored, Doesn’t That Undermine the Seriousness of Judgment?”

Someone might respond by saying that if Sodom’s judgment was not final, then the judgment itself loses its seriousness. If fire from heaven turns out to be temporary, why should anyone fear God’s judgment?

This objection reveals a misunderstanding of what makes judgment serious. Judgment does not have to be permanent in order to be devastating. Ask anyone who has been through a terrible trial, a painful surgery, a period of suffering so intense they thought they would not survive it. The fact that they eventually recovered does not mean the suffering was not real. The fact that a patient heals does not mean the surgery was painless.⁵⁷

The destruction of Sodom was catastrophic. Real people died. Real suffering occurred. Real consequences unfolded. The universalist does not minimize any of that. What the universalist insists on is that the purpose of judgment is not mere punishment for its own sake. The purpose is correction, purification, and ultimately restoration. A judgment that restores is not less serious than a judgment that permanently destroys. If anything, it is more serious — because it actually accomplishes something. A fire that refines gold is doing more than a fire that simply burns a pile of rubbish.⁵⁸

“The CI Position Already Accounts for Jude 7 Without Universalism”

Someone from the conditional immortality camp might respond by saying: “I already agree that the fire of Jude 7 is not literally everlasting. I agree that the fire accomplished its purpose and went out. But I think it went out because the people of Sodom were annihilated — the fire consumed them completely. You don’t need universalism to explain Jude 7.”

Fair enough. The CI reading of Jude 7 is coherent on its own terms. But here is the problem: the CI reading of Jude 7 cannot account for Ezekiel 16. If the people of Sodom were annihilated — if they simply ceased to exist — then how can God promise to restore their fortunes? How can people who no longer exist be given back what they lost?⁵⁹

The CI position must either deny the literal meaning of Ezekiel 16:53–55, or redefine “restoration” in a way that does not actually involve the people of Sodom. But as we have seen, both moves are exegetically difficult. The text names Sodom by name. It promises restoration by name. And as Keil and Delitzsch acknowledged, the restoration can only be fulfilled in the persons of the former inhabitants.

The universalist reading holds the whole Sodom narrative together: Genesis 19 (real judgment), Ezekiel 16 (promised restoration), Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 and 11 (degrees of judgment for people who will be present at the final reckoning), Jude 7 (fire that accomplishes its divine purpose and stops), and 2 Peter 2:6 (Sodom as an example of God’s pattern). Every piece fits. Nothing has to be explained away or ignored.⁶⁰

“If Sodom’s Inhabitants Are Restored, Why Would Anyone Choose Righteousness Now?”

This is the pastoral objection, and it deserves a serious answer. If even the people of Sodom will eventually be restored, why would anyone bother living a righteous life now? Why not sin freely, since it all works out in the end?

The answer is simple: because the process of purification is agonizing. Jesus Himself said that judgment would be “more bearable” for Sodom than for Capernaum — implying that neither experience is pleasant. The fire of God’s purifying presence is real fire. It burns. The deeper the sin, the more painful the purification. No sane person would choose a longer and more painful road when a shorter one is available.⁶¹

Think of it this way. Suppose a doctor tells you: “If you take care of yourself now — eat well, exercise, avoid harmful behaviors — you will be healthy and happy. If you abuse your body for the next thirty years, you will still eventually be restored to health, but only after a long, painful, grueling process of treatment that you would not wish on anyone.” Would that make you say, “Great, I’ll take the thirty years of abuse”? Of course not. The promise of eventual healing does not remove the incentive for present care. It increases it, because now you understand what healing costs.⁶²

Besides, the Christian life is not motivated primarily by fear of punishment. It is motivated by love, by gratitude, by the beauty of knowing Christ. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The person who only obeys God because they are terrified of permanent consequences does not really know God at all. The person who obeys God because they have tasted His goodness and want more of it — that person has found the real motivation for the Christian life.

Sodom and the Postmortem Opportunity

Before we close, it is worth connecting the Sodom narrative to another conviction that many of us already hold: the postmortem opportunity. If you are reading this book, you probably already believe that God provides a genuine opportunity for salvation to people after death. You believe this on the basis of texts like 1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6, the descent clause in the Apostles’ Creed, and the theological logic that a just and loving God would not permanently condemn people who never had an adequate opportunity to respond to the gospel.⁶³

The Sodom narrative strengthens this conviction enormously. Jesus Himself said that the people of Sodom would have repented if they had seen the miracles performed in Capernaum. They never got that chance in this life. But if the soul survives death — if there is a conscious intermediate state, which we affirm — then the people of Sodom are not beyond God’s reach. Their story is not over. God, who is patient beyond our imagining, can still encounter them with the revelation they never received in this life. And Ezekiel tells us that this is exactly what God intends to do: restore their fortunes.⁶⁴

Think of it this way. The people of Sodom lived in a time and place where the full revelation of God’s character had not yet been given. They had no Moses, no prophets, no Scriptures, no gospel. They lived in spiritual darkness. And yet Jesus says they were not beyond repentance — they just never had the opportunity. If God is truly just, and if He truly desires all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), then it follows that He will provide that opportunity. The postmortem encounter is not a second chance; for many, it is a first chance — the first time they have ever truly encountered the living God in all His love and holiness.

And notice how the substance dualism that we affirm — the belief that the soul is a real, immaterial entity that survives physical death — is essential for making this work. If there is no soul, if human beings are purely physical, then at the moment of Sodom’s destruction its inhabitants simply ceased to exist. There would be no one for God to encounter. No one to restore. No one to love back to wholeness. But if the soul is real, then the people of Sodom are still people after the fire falls. They are still bearers of God’s image. They are still the objects of His love. And God’s love does not stop working simply because the body has died.⁶⁸

The universalist case simply follows this logic to its conclusion. If God provides a postmortem opportunity, and if God is infinitely patient, and if God’s love never fails (1 Cor. 13:8), and if every person bears the indelible image of God — then the question is: will God’s love eventually succeed for everyone? The Sodom narrative says yes. God’s judgment is real. God’s fire is real. But God’s restoration is also real, and it extends even to those we thought were beyond hope.

Conclusion: The Story That Doesn’t End Where You Think

I began this chapter by saying that Sodom is the test case. If universal restoration is true, it should be true even for Sodom. And that is exactly what we find.

In Genesis 18, we see a God who is reluctant to destroy, who searches for any reason to show mercy — a God whose compassion is deeper than Abraham’s own. In Genesis 19, the fire falls — devastating, terrifying, total. The cities are reduced to ash. The smoke rises like smoke from a furnace. In the prophets, Sodom becomes the byword for judgment, the name you invoke when you want to describe the worst thing that can happen to a people who defy God. But in Ezekiel 16, God drops a bombshell: “I will restore the fortunes of Sodom.” Not Sodom’s descendants. Not Sodom’s memory. Sodom itself. The actual city. The actual people. The very ones destroyed by fire from heaven will have their fortunes restored and will be brought into the covenant family alongside Jerusalem.

Jesus confirms the picture by speaking of Sodom at the day of judgment, experiencing judgment in degrees, with the implication that they were capable of repentance all along. He tells us that the people of Sodom would have repented if they had been given the chance — and the universalist believes that God, in His relentless, patient love, will give them that chance. Jude calls the fire “eternal,” but everyone agrees the fire went out. Peter calls Sodom an “example,” and the full example is judgment-then-restoration.

The story of Sodom is not a story about the limits of God’s mercy. It is a story about the limitlessness of God’s mercy. It is a story about a God who judges — really, truly, terrifyingly judges — and then restores. A God whose fire is real but whose fire has a purpose. A God who does not destroy in order to be done with His creatures, but who destroys in order to rebuild.

If God can restore Sodom, He can restore anyone. And if He can restore anyone, the question is simply this: will He? The prophet Ezekiel says yes. Jesus implies yes. The early church fathers who read these texts in the original Greek and Hebrew said yes. And the whole tenor of Scripture — the relentless rhythm of judgment followed by restoration, the insistence that God’s love never fails, the promise that He will be “all in all” — points us toward the same answer.

The fire falls. But the fire is not the end of the story. Not for Sodom. Not for any of us. The same God who rained fire from heaven is the God who promises to restore what the fire consumed. That is who He is. That is what His love does. And nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth can stop Him from finishing what He started.