This text, when rightly understood, will, we think, like that in Mark 9, be found to convey just the opposite meaning from that popularly given to it. The first great error in the interpretation of this text, lies, as we view it, in a wrong application of the tense employed. It is claimed that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, having been destroyed, were committed to the flames of hell, where they are now (present tense) suffering the vengeance of that eternal fire. But a moment’s glance at the text will show that it is the example set forth, and not the suffering, that is in the present tense. There are other facts mentioned in the same tense with the suffering; thus, “giving themselves over to fornication,” “going after strange flesh,” “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” If one of these expressions denotes something that is now going on, the others also denote the same. If they are now suffering the fire, they are now giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh; for all these declarations are in the same construction. But no one will claim that the Sodomites are now taking the course here described; neither, then, can it be claimed that they are now suffering the pain of fire. The sense of the passage appears to be very evidently this: That the Sodomites, giving themselves up to their wicked practices, and, as a consequence, suffering an eternal overthrow by fire rained down upon them from heaven, are thus set forth as an example to the ungodly of all coming ages, of the overthrow they will also experience if they follow the same course. Peter speaks of the same event, as an example to the wicked, and tells what effect that fire had upon the cities of the plain. It did not preserve them in the midst of the fire in unceasing torture, but turned them into ashes. He says, 2 Pet. 2:6: “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” This language is too plain to need comment. How are the Sodomites made an example? By being overthrown and turned into ashes for their open and presumptuous sins. It is God saying to the wicked of all coming time, Behold, how your sins shall be visited unless you repent. But those fires are not now burning. Seek out the site of those ancient and abandoned cities, and the brackish waters of the Dead Sea will be found rolling their sluggish waves over the spot where once they stood. Those fires are therefore called eternal, because their effects are eternal, or age-lasting. They never have recovered, nor will they ever recover while the world stands, from that terrible overthrow.