“The law is spiritual” and the things that happened to the ancients “happened figuratively.” Let us see if perhaps Lot, who did not look back, is the rational understanding and the courageous soul. His wife here represents the flesh. The flesh always looks to vices. When the soul is going toward salvation, it looks backward and seeks pleasures. Concerning this, the Lord also said, “No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” He adds, “Remember Lot’s wife.” The fact that “she became a little statue of salt” appears to be an open indication of her foolishness. Salt represents the wisdom that she lacked.
Having used the example of the deluge, that no one might expect a future deluge by water, our Lord cites, secondly, the example of Lot, to show the manner of the destruction of the wicked, namely, that the wrath of God would descend upon them by fire from heaven.
He does not say that fire came down from heaven upon the wicked Sodomites before that Lot went out from them, just as the deluge did not swallow up the inhabitants of the earth before that Noah entered the ark; for as long as Noah and Lot dwelt with the wicked, God suspended His anger that they might not perish together with the sinners, but when He would destroy those, He withdrew the righteous. So also at the end of the world, the consummation shall not come before all the just are separated from the wicked.
“He that will be on the housetop, do not let him go down. He that will be in the field, do not let him turn back.” How may I understand what is the field unless Jesus himself teaches me? He says, “No one putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” The lazy person sits in the farmhouse, but the industrious person plants in the field. The weak are at the fireplace, but the strong are at the plough. The smell of a field is good, because the smell of Jacob is the smell of a full field. A field is full of flowers. It is full of different fruits. Plough your field if you want to be sent to the kingdom of God. Let your field flower, fruitful with good rewards. Let there be a fruitful vine on the sides of your house and young olive plants around your table. Already aware of its fertility, let your soul, sown with the Word of God and tilled by spiritual farming, say to Christ, “Come, my brother, let us go out into the field.” Let him reply, “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my vintage of myrrh.” What is better than the vintage of faith, by which the fruit of the resurrection is stored and the spring of eternal rejoicing is watered?
For this reason, the Lord says, “Remember Lot’s wife,” who because she looked back, lost the function of her own nature. Satan31 and Sodom are behind. Flee excess and shun extravagance. Know that not everyone can flee to the mountain. Remember that the one who did not return to his old pursuits, as if to Sodom, escaped because he came to the mountain. She, who was weaker since she looked back, could not come to the mountain. She remained, although her husband’s help supported her.
He rightly declares the deluge to have been caused by our sins, for God did not create evil, but our deservings found it out for themselves. Let it not however be supposed that marriages, or again meat and drink, are condemned, seeing that by the one succession is sustained, by the other nature, but moderation is to be sought for in all things. For whatsoever is more than this is of evil.
(Hom. 1, in Ep. 1. ad Thess.) For refusing to believe the words of warning they were suddenly visited with a real punishment from God; but their unbelief proceeded from self-indulgence, and softness of mind. For such as a man's wishes and inclinations are, will also be his expectations. Therefore it follows, they eat and drank.
In the days of Noah this preaching to them was futile because they did not believe when the patience of God waited for them for many years in which the ark was built. Its building was in a sense a kind of preaching. In the same way today, their imitators do not believe. They are shut up in the darkness of ignorance. They are like in a prison, looking in vain on the church being built throughout the whole world. Judgment threatens them as did the flood in which all the unbelievers perished. The Lord says, “As in the days of Noah, so will it be also in the days of the Son of man. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” Since this signified a future event, the flood also signified baptism for believers and death for unbelievers. There is also a symbol in what was spoken and not done, where it is written about the stone that signifies Christ. Two effects were foretold. It is a stumbling block for unbelievers and a building for believers.
Regarding the saying, “He that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of his house, and he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat,” it can be suitably taken in a spiritual sense. In all our trials, each one must take care not to be overcome or to come down from a spiritual height to a carnal life. He who had progressed should not look back by turning toward the past or failing to reach out to the future. This is true of every trial. How much greater care must be prescribed in a trial such as that foretold for the city as “Such as has not been from the beginning, neither will be”? How much more this is true for that final tribulation which is to come on the world, that is, the church spread through the whole world?
To show that he will appear unexpectedly and with no one knowing it, the Lord says that the end of the world will come and be as it was in the days of Noah and Lot. He says, “They were eating and drinking, and were taking wives and being made the wives of men. They were selling and buying and building,” but the coming of the waters destroyed the one, while the others were the prey and food of fire and brimstone. What does this signify? It signifies that he requires us to be always watchful and ready to make our defense before the tribunal of God.
The Savior … was speaking of the last day, that is, the end of this world.… Strengthening them to recall the last day and the end time, he commands them to disregard all earthly and temporary matters and look only to one end, the duty of everyone saving his soul. He says, “He that is on the housetop, do not let him go down to the house to carry away his goods.” In these words, he apparently means the one who is at ease, living in wealth and worldly glory. Those that stand on the housetops are always conspicuous in the eyes of those who are around the house.
He says, “Even if anyone is in the field, in the same way, do not let him turn back.” That means if anyone is found devoted to work and occupied in labor, earnestly desiring spiritual fruitfulness and gathering the wages of virtuous toil, let him hold firmly to this diligence. Let him not turn back. As Christ himself has again said somewhere, “No one that puts his hand to the plough and turns back is fit also for the kingdom of heaven.” It is our duty to maintain our religious exertions without wavering and to persevere in them with undaunted wills or else we may suffer the kind of fate that befell the woman at Sodom. We take her as an example because he says, “Remember Lot’s wife. For when she was rescued from Sodom, but would afterward have returned, she became a pillar of salt.” That means she became foolish and stonelike.
Whoever loses his life shall certainty save it. This is what the blessed martyrs did, enduring conflicts even to loss of blood and life and placing on their heads as their crown their true love for Christ. Those who, from weakness of resolution and mind, denied the faith and fled from the present death of the body, became their own murderers. They will go down to hell to suffer the penalties of their wicked cowardice. The judge will descend from heaven. He will call those who with all their heart have loved him and earnestly practiced a completely virtuous life, saying, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world.” He will pass a severe and overwhelming sentence on those who have led careless and unrestrained lives or have not maintained the glory of faith in him, saying to them, “Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire.”
The coming of our Lord, which He had compared to lightning flying swiftly across the heavens, He now likens to the days of Noah and Lot, when a sudden destruction came upon mankind.
Now Noah builds the ark mystically. The Lord builds His Church of Christ's faithful servants, by uniting them together in one, as smooth pieces of wood; and when it is perfectly finished, He enters it: as at the day of Judgment, He who ever dwells within His Church enlightens it with His visible presence. But while the ark is in building, the wicked flourish, when it is entered, they perish; as they who revile the saints in their warfare here, shall when they are crowned hereafter be smitten with eternal condemnation.
Passing by the unutterable wickedness of the Sodomites, He mentions only those which may be thought trifling offences, or none at all; that you may understand how fearfully unlawful pleasures are punished, when lawful pleasures taken to excess receive for their reward fire and brimstone.
For He who in the mean time though we see Him not yet sees all things, shall then appear to judge all things. And He shall come especially at that time, when He shall see all who are forgetful of His judgments in bondage to this world.
Now mystically, Lot, which is interpreted 'turning aside,' is the people of the elect, who, while in Sodom, i. e. among the wicked, live as strangers, to the utmost of their power turning aside from all their wicked ways. But when Lot went out, Sodom is destroyed, for at the end of the world, the angels shall go forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and cast them into a furnace of fire. (Matt. 13:49.) The fire and brimstone, however, which He relates to have rained from heaven, does not signify the flame itself of everlasting punishment, but the sudden coming of that day.
For when Antichrist has come, then shall men become wanton, given up to abominable vices, as the Apostle says, Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. (2 Tim. 3:4.) For if Antichrist is the dwelling-place of every sin, what else will he then implant in the miserable race of men, but what belongs to himself. And this our Lord implies by the instances of the deluge and the people of Sodom.
According to these things will be the day when the Son of Man will be revealed. Beautifully He will be revealed, because He who now unseen sees everything, then seen will judge everything. However, He will appear to judge at the very time when He will see all forgotten of His judgments, given over to this world. For although the end of the world is set to come at a predetermined time, yet with the love of many growing cold towards the end, the iniquity of the human race will increase so much that it must deservedly be destroyed along with the world it inhabits. Even now we see countless people so devoted to revelry and drunkenness, buying and selling, and other worldly matters, that it’s clear they provoked the wrath of the strict judge, but we fear that worse things are yet to come, things which no wise person can even think about without grave sorrow. For what was once said about one sinful nation to be destroyed: The sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure (Genesis 15), undoubtedly must be understood concerning the entire mass of the wicked to be condemned.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Luke 17:26-33