Was the LORD of the OT, the all-knowing God of the NT?

A thought struck me last night, when I was thinking about the story of Lot. Everyone keeps bringing up Sodom and Gommorah, in order to denounce homosexuality. I have read the posts and the Bible passages over and over, but I never really thought about the implications of what is said at the very beginning of the story in Genesis 18:20-21:

20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

Now if the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament, and the God of the NT is all-knowing, Why did the LORD need to verify that Sodom and Gomorrah were really sinning as badly as he heard? Shouldn't he have been aware of all their wrong doings already? It wouldn't have been a test, because an all-knowing God would already know what the results would be, so a test would be pointless.

I have never seen this question raised before, and would love to hear some of your thoughts on it.

It is curious, is it not? Of course, taken literally, you would have to assume that God is not all-knowing, and also can show his true form to humans, without humans having to die first. But this of course is not the case! As with most of the Bible, you have to really read the passages in CONTEXT to what else is being said. Here is an explanation I found that does a pretty nice job of summing it up:

The man, who is already identified as the Lord, decides to tell Abraham about the upcoming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason Abraham is made privy to God's plans is because he will be the head of a great nation and the Messiah will descend from him. As such an important patriarch, he will need to teach his descendants the ways of the Lord, including the reason why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and why it is critical to follow God.

God tells Abraham that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and the sin of which they are accused is grievous. God is going to see for himself if the reports are true. It is interesting how God worded this. One of the attributes of deity is being all-knowing. There is no need for God to go see what he already knows. However, if you remember the reason God gives for telling Abraham anything is so that Abraham can teach his descendants, then you realize that God is doing this inspection for Abraham and our sakes. God is demonstrating to mankind that He knows all that is happening and that severe punishment of the wicked is just and not arbitrarily made.

Two of the men continue on to Sodom while God and Abraham continue to talk. We know it was only two from Genesis 19:1, where we learn that the two men who had accompanied the Lord were actually angels.

Abraham has shown himself a man who is concerned about the welfare of others. When he learned that Ishmael was not the child of promise, he asked God for consideration of his son (Genesis 17:18). Now, when Abraham learns of the destruction of the city in which his nephew lives, he politely asks if the righteous will die along with the wicked. Abraham asks God to spare the cities if He finds 50 righteous people in the cities. However, we see that Abraham knows the reputation of these cities, for he carefully asks God to lower the limit, step by step, until the Lord agrees to spare the cities if 10 righteous people can be found in the cities. If you count Lot, his wife, at least two married daughters, at least two sons, and two unmarried daughters you come up with eight people. If you add in the married children's spouses, surely there are more than 10 righteous people in the towns.

God allows Abraham to bargain with Him so that Abraham, and we through Abraham, will realize that God is merciful. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah could have been prevented if just 10 righteous people lived in the city. Because the cities were destroyed, we fully understand just how wicked were these cities. Can you imagine a city today that doesn't have at least 10 righteous people living in the city? (from: www.lavistachurchofchrist.org...)

Also, Lot and his family, are the truely rightous people? As they are running away, the angels tell them not to look back, yet Lot's wife does, and get turned to salt- yearning for the City Of Sin they are leaving. And Lot's two daughter's, once hiding in the hills with Lot, also turn toward the sin in their heart's and get Lot drunk and have sex with him after he passes out. You see, the Evil in the town corrupted them. it's funny how the two children that come from this incest turn out to be the founders of two seperate tribes, who later on become problems for Isreal!

Also interesting is the fact that many people believe the main "Sin" of Sodom and Gommorah was Homosexuality, but in Ezekiel there is a better discription of the "Sins":

Ezekiel 16:49-51 "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done."

As a side note, the true site of where the towns once stood is to believed to have been found. The area is the only place on earth you can find an extreme concentration of brimstone, in the size of grapes, that show due to the formation of them that they were all once on fire. True archaeological fact. Fire and brimstone really did rain down on the towns. Of course, many people would explain this away as natural phenomenon...

Hope this helps you, Jezebel.

SevenAngels