Right Separation and Wrong Settling
I mentioned that Genesis 12, 15, and 17 are those three main introduction passages to the covenant of grace. But this doesn’t mean that there are not other places where God unpacks the covenant promises to Abraham—and right here in Genesis 13:1-18 is an example. But the backdrop here that causes those promises to come to the forefront is important. Here there is a contrast between separation and settling, and what creates those who rightly separate from the world are promises that far exceed anything in this world.
The good of separating from worldly contentions.
The evil of settling for worldly comforts.
The consolation from the new and lasting world.
Doctrine. Since God has promised those in Christ the lasting world, we must look to separate from worldly contentions and comforts.
Obviously that’s going to create a tension of sorts. The point is not that comfort is wrong per se, and the point is not that there are no fights worth having. But this passage will help us start to think about what makes the difference between godly contention and comfort versus worldly contentions and comforts.
The good of separating from worldly contentions.
About the separation itself, we must make a distinction between the separation, which is good, and the contention, which is bad. Most cannot make this distinction. All they see is the division. They view it from afar, and they blame the dividing party rather than the root cause. But if we zoom in the lens, we can get a better view. First, Abram’s possessions and Lot’s possessions are described and it simply records:
“the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together” (v. 6).
Their wealth ultimately came from God. In and of itself there was nothing wrong with that. The very next words are always the problem: ‘and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock’ (v. 7a). Now why that parenthetical detail in the second half of verse 7—‘At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land’ (v. 7b)? Is it simply a time-marker for the reader? Or is it to suggest the evil of believers fighting for all the world to see? Or is it to give the backdrop of the two different choices of living among these pagans or living as these pagans? I think it’s the last option, and we’ll come back to that.
Abram’s words are those of the peacemaker—that is, the initiator of peace:
Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left” (vv. 8-9).
These are words, but these are more than words. They are also an action ready to back up the genuineness of the offer.
And this offer to separate teaches us five truths:
First, there is a godly separation that is utterly different than worldly contention. Even of the most saintly leaders of the first century church, Paul and Barnabas, we are told, “And there arose a sharp disagreement [over John Mark], so that they separated from each other” (Acts 15:39).
Second, worldly contention has temporal goods as its chief end. The source of strife was their herds, their territory. James tells us, “You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (Jas. 4:2).
Third, godly separation subordinates temporal goods to everlasting goods. Notice I said that it subordinates temporal goods—not that it eradicates temporal goods. But those who follow Abraham’s footsteps are, as Paul said, “those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:30-31).
Fourth, worldly contention would strive to death apart from separation. That is no exaggeration, according to James, in that same passage. He says, “You desire and do not have, so you murder” (Jas. 4:2).
Fifth, godly separation is ready to give first dibs to show its reasonableness. Paul said, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone” (Phi. 4:5).
The evil of settling for worldly comforts.
All of the words about Lot’s view and his action are carefully chosen:
“And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other” (vv. 10-11).
The land Lot that Abram was willing to concede to his nephew is compared to the Garden of Eden as well as to Egypt. What an interesting connection! As to the latter, Waltke comments: “After Abraham’s disastrous choice to go to Egypt, similarity with Egypt should be a warning.”1 Remember these two cities are paired for “the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8). So spiritual Babylon manifests as Jerusalem in the age of Christ’s First Advent, and Genesis 11 had shown Babel as the prototype—the first attempt to manifest spiritual Babylon in one place, on the spot where the Garden was. Now in Genesis 13, Lot takes his eyes off of the lasting city that his uncle Abram could see, and he is mesmerized by the same city of darkness, which to him looks like all lasting lights.
Notice the last words before the separation is finalized—AND LOT JOURNEYED EAST. There it is again: east. Abram was making his full separation from Babylon; Lot was settling into it. The text does not leave us to guess about what is to come in a few chapters. It doesn’t just so happen to go south. It says right here: ‘Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD’ (v. 13). The city was already notorious. But did you catch the wording? Sinners against the Lord. That is always the AGAINST. It is one or the other. To choose the company of sinners is to choose to flee the Lord’s presence:
“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” (Ps. 1:5).
This is the meaning of what John said in his epistle: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15).
I said we would come back to that detail about the current inhabitants of the land. Hamilton gives us another thing to contemplate about this. He says in his commentary,
“The irony is that Abram and Lot seem to be able to share the land with the Canaanites and Perizzites, for these peoples were also occupying or ‘dwelling’ … in the land, but there is not enough room for Abram and Lot to ‘dwell’ … adjacently.”2
So there is more than the danger of Christians fighting with each other in front of the world. It is also the tragedy that we would rather take the easy route of living within the world’s structures than working together to build Christian ones, which naturally involved subordinating many of our selfish desires.
The consolation from the new and lasting world.
When God speaks to Abram—‘after Lot had separated from him’ (v. 14a)—the same language of mannerism is used as of Lot looking into his land: ‘Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward’ (v. 14b). Two promises inherent to the original promise of Chapter 12 are unpacked here, regarding land and offspring:
“for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (vv. 15-17).
It may be objected: How do such promises relate to us? This is the Old Testament.
You may recall Peter’s words to Jesus, almost as if he was starting to doubt whether or not their separation from worldly goods to Christ was going to pay off: “See, we have left everything and followed you” (Mk. 10:28) And how does Jesus respond?
“Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mk. 10: 29-30).
Practical Use of the Doctrine
Use 1. Instruction. There is a doctrine of division forming in Genesis from the beginning, and it only gets more refined here in Chapter 13. And I mean the good and righteous division. Because Lot refused to separate from that outpost of spiritual Babylon called Sodom in a timely manner (as Abram did), Lot would be forced to separate from that city the hard way (Ch. 19). It’s like the old FRAM air filter commercials. You’re going to pay—pay now or pay later. You will believe in separation. You will believe in division. You can either do it peacefully early, or you can wait until things get messy. But separation between light and darkness is always inevitable.
Use 2. Exhortation. There is a second test here for Abram, on the opposite end of the spectrum from his previous test. Before going to Egypt, he was being tested with poverty; before Sodom he is being tested with wealth. Passing this test meant being more captivated by eternal realities than temporal ones.
Paul said,
“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Phi. 4:11-12).
Contentment, as the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs famously unpacked, is a Christian’s secret, but one that can and must be learned. Without it, we are slaves to our passions. With it, nothing in the world will knock us off the path.
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1. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 221.
2. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, 391.
