Genesis 18:25 Daily Devotional & Meaning – The Judge of All the Earth Will Do Right
- Benjamin Michael Mcgreevy
- Apr 21
- 4 min read
Daily Verses Everyday! Day 78
“That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Here, Abraham speaks with a kind of bold reverence, appealing directly to the very nature of God. He is not accusing God of wrongdoing—far from it. Instead, he is acknowledging what he already knows to be true about the Lord. Abraham is essentially saying, “God, this is not who You are. You are righteous. You are just. You cannot do wrong.” Abraham understands a foundational truth of Scripture: God cannot act against His own nature. His character is the standard of goodness itself. This is not only Abraham’s view; it is a truth echoed throughout Christian history by some of the greatest minds the Church has ever known.
When Abraham says, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” he is making a theological statement long before theologians ever put it into writing. Abraham knows that God’s actions flow from His nature. He knows that righteousness is not something God merely does but it is something God is. And because God is perfect goodness, He cannot act unjustly. This is the very thing Augustine would later articulate so clearly. Augustine taught that evil is not something God creates or does; rather, evil is the absence of good—something created beings fall into when they turn away from the goodness of God. In Augustine’s view, God cannot do evil because evil is, by definition, a privation of the good, and God lacks nothing. He is complete goodness in Himself. Abraham is appealing to this very reality: God cannot “slay the righteous with the wicked” in the sense of treating righteousness and wickedness as morally equal. To do so would be contrary to who He is.
Aquinas later developed this truth even more deeply in his teachings on divine simplicity. He argued that God is not made up of parts or conflicting attributes. He is not sometimes loving, sometimes just, sometimes merciful, depending on His mood. Instead, everything God is, His love, justice, mercy, power is perfectly unified in His essence. God is goodness. God is justice. That means God’s actions always align with His nature, and His nature is the perfect standard of right. Aquinas would say that Abraham’s question “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” is actually unnecessary, because the Judge of all the Earth cannot do anything but right. His nature makes injustice impossible. For Aquinas, God’s righteousness is not a choice; it is who He eternally is.
C.S. Lewis, many centuries later, echoes the same truth in a simple, imaginative way. Lewis often reminded readers that we do not define goodness on our own terms and then judge God by that standard. Instead, God is the source of all goodness, the very foundation by which we understand right and wrong in the first place. In Mere Christianity, Lewis argues that the moment we call something “good” or “bad,” we are appealing to a standard that ultimately comes from God Himself. We recognize moral goodness because it reflects the One who created us. Lewis would say that Abraham’s question is not a challenge to God’s morality but a reminder that morality exists because of God. Lewis might put it like this: “Of course the Judge of all the Earth will do right because the very idea of ‘right’ comes from Him.”
So when Abraham speaks here, he is demonstrating a deep theological awareness. He is not worried that God might suddenly become unjust. Rather, he is appealing to the integrity of God’s character. Abraham knows God will always act according to His nature, and His nature is perfect goodness. This is why Abraham can pray boldly. This is why he can intercede with confidence. His courage in prayer comes from his certainty about God’s character. He knows God is not arbitrary, unpredictable, or double-minded. He knows God is consistent and trustworthy. He knows God does not compromise righteousness or overlook evil, but He also never destroys the good with the wicked as if they were the same.
In this moment, Abraham is standing in agreement with the greatest theological minds in history. Augustine would say God cannot act unjustly because His very being is the fullness of goodness. Aquinas would say God must act justly because His essence is righteousness without division or change. Lewis would say our instinctive knowledge of justice comes from the God who created our moral conscience. And in Genesis 18, Abraham is living out all these truths long before they were articulated in theological language. He speaks to God on the basis of who God is, not on the basis of who Abraham hopes God might be.
This gives us a tremendous comfort today. We do not pray to a God whose character wavers. We do not trust in a Judge who might one day act against His own nature. We pray to the same God Abraham knew the God who is goodness itself. And because He cannot deny His own nature, we can approach Him with the same confidence Abraham did: the Judge of all the Earth will always, always do right.
If you would like to explore Genesis in a sustained, verse-by-verse way with space to reflect, journal, and trace how these foundational truths unfold through Scripture the Verse by Verse book expands these reflections into a unified reading experience. The book gathers these meditations into a structured journey through Genesis, designed to help readers linger in the text and engage God’s Word more deeply over time.
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