But this negotiation is very much the same as the sort of negotiation as Henry Ford's when discussing the colour palette for the Model T.
I'm not really confident that that's a real Henry Ford quote. It's sort of apocryphal, and although it may not have been a thing Henry Ford may have said, it's a useful line to come up with when you're discussing that kind of negotiation. The kind of negotiation that will have only one outcome. The kind of negotiation where you can talk all you want, but there will only be one answer. There can only be one answer, and any kind of input you might want to give won't help that response.
So, again, take Abraham. Please. Abraham is pleading with God on behalf of the righteous people who may be in Sodom, starting with a relatively big number. This is partially because Abraham is aware that his nephew, Lot, is there in Sodom, and Abraham really doesn't want his nephew and his family to be swept away with all the wickedness of Sodom. So, Abraham starts out and says 'Lord, suppose there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the sake of the fifty righteous people who are in it?' God responds by saying 'If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.' Good start, for negotiation purposes. That is, Abraham has managed to have God admit that if there are a certain number of righteous people in Sodom, that God will spare it. Wonderful. Now, all Abraham has to do is to see how small that number can get. Abraham says 'behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?' And God said 'I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.' Perfect, all going according to plan. Abraham has leverage, and he will continue to use it. So he says 'Suppose forty are found there.' God responds 'for the sake of forty I will not do it.' Abraham continues, saying 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.' God answers 'I will not do it, if I find thirty there.' Then Abraham continues the negotiation, wondering just how low this number can get, 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.' God answered, 'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.'
But you all know how this story ends, don't you? You know what happens to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? What God does there is the origin for the perhaps a bit hackneyed expression 'Fire and Brimstone.' Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by God, who evidently, based on the results of what happened there, didn't find the ten righteous people that he and Abraham had agreed on. Obviously not. The twin cities were demolished with fire and brimstone from heaven, and even though Abraham had asked for clemency for the people of Sodom if ten righteous people could be found there, ten were not found.
Abraham could have had his model T in any colour as long as it was black. And he could have pleaded for any number of righteous people, as long as that number was zero. Because that was going to be the number of righteous people in the city of Sodom with or without Lot and his family. It's not as though Lot and his family are paragons of virtue either, you know. It's not as though Lot and his family have no problems. Some may argue that Lot and his family have even more of a messed up record than the people of Sodom who were obliterated. Think on this - Very soon after fleeing Sodom, Lot's daughters are convinced that it the end of the world, which I can understand, if you consider the severity of the devastation that they had just witnessed. And Lot's daughters get Lot drunk and seduce him, and bear him children, which is colloquially known as incest, and generally frowned upon by just about everyone. So even had Lot stayed in the city with his daughters, whom he offered up to the riotous men for them to have their way with, it seems unlikely that God would have spared the city. You can have any colour, so long as it's black, and you will find any number of righteous people, as long as that number is zero. Which it was.
This isn't news to Christians though. This isn't news to Christians, because we all know the reality of the book of Romans, where Paul helpfully details the number of righteous people that we could expect to find, not just in Sodom, but everywhere forever. "None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to decieve. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.' This isn't just Sodom or Gomorrah, this is global. This is literally everyone. If God were to destroy the world, and we were to bargain him down, saying to him, 'surely, God, for the sake of fifty people on earth? 45? 30? 20? 10? 5?' That number could go down and down, and the answer would be the same, which is that you can pick any number you want, as long as it's zero.
Or as long as it's one.
When the Bible talks about Jesus, it is as someone who actually was righteous in all he did here on earth. The book of Hebrews talks about him as 'holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.' Even the enemies of Christ, when they bring him to trial, say of him 'I find no guilt in him.' And if you think about it long and hard, the Christian faith is absolutely all about this interplay between Abraham and God, taken to its logical conclusion. For the sake of 50? 40? 30? 20? 10? 5? 1? If you can find just one righteous person on Earth, God, will you relent from sweeping us all away? And God responds by saying 'Yes. For the sake of only one righteous person, I will relent. If there can be found one righteous person, just one, in all of human history, I will save any who calls upon his name. If I can find only one righteous person, then I will spare all the people, and bring them to salvation. But it isn't enough to find one, I will send one. All who call upon his name, all who seek him while he may be found, and all who believe in his sacrifice for their sins can and will be saved.' The conversation with Abraham and God came to the only possibly conclusion for this seeking for smaller and smaller numbers. That God would be willing to spare us all for the sake of the one who was sacrificed for us.
Don't you love it when these Old Testament stories mean a little bit more once you've seen Christ in them? Me too.
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