FIRE
The word “Fire” is employed in the Bible; sometimes it is to be understood literally, and at other times it is emblematic of God’s judgments.
It is made synonymous with punishment in Matt. 25. The wicked nations are sent into a fire that is called “everlasting punishment.” This “everlasting punishment” we shall hereafter show to be reformatory. The fire prepared for “the devil and his angels” is equivalent to the punishment to which they were sent.
“OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE.”
This language (Heb. 12:29) is usually misread thus: “God out of Christ is a consuming fire.” but it must not be supposed that the unchangeable God, he who is “the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever,” “without variableness or the shadow of turning,” is modified for better or for worse, in any mode of his manifestation to man. What God is in Christ he is, and ever must be, out of Christ. He “is a consuming fire” always and everywhere. But this fact does not render God forbidding, repulsive, when we understand it. There is no relation sustained by our heavenly Father, no figure by which he may properly be represented, that can be understood, without inspiring impulses of gratitude and joy in the mind that comprehends the truth presented.
“God is Love,” therefore is the consuming, unquenchable fire of infinite and divine love. He cannot, therefore, be anything else than love to his children, and what the fire of human love is in the heart of a human parent, the fire of God’s love is in him, only multiplied by infinity.
Trace this sacred element from its lowest manifestation in the heart of reptile or brute, up through its holy of holies in the breast of the human mother, and onward up to God himself, and it has but one purpose, and that is to cherish its object, and to destroy all that would harm that object. God is a consuming fire towards his children—but it is the fire of love and not of hate.
George MacDonald well says: “Nothing is inexorable but love. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed. ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’ It is the nature of love, so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship God, but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, that will go on within us, after all that is foreign to us has yielded to its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God.”
It is not because God hates us, but because he loves us, that he will burn towards us by all the disciplinary processes needful, until he has burned away that sin in us which is contrary to his nature and hurtful to us.
He Is A “Refiner‘s Fire.“
He burns to purify. “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” Could the melting metal feel, how might it misunderstand the process through which it is passing. The unrelenting fire burns beneath the crucible, and the dirty, unsightly ore becomes like liquid light, and circulates as useful coin, and sparkles on the fingers of happy brides, and shines on the sceptres of kings, and in the coronets of queens. And all because the severe and purifying fire of the refiner has tried it.
Inasmuch as the consuming fire of God is refining, we learn that it only destroys the dross of sin, and leaves the spiritual gold, the immortal soul, unscathed and pure when its blessed work is finished.
God’s Judgments Like Fire.
Many phenomena are feared because not understood. The savage thinks thunder the voice of an angry deity, when it is the rolling of God’s chariots as they carry health and life through the air. Because fire is sometimes the author of apparent calamity, its beneficent character is lost sight of. It is the right hand of civilization. Its chief office is not destruction, but service. In fact, it destroys nothing. It decomposes substances, releasing constituents from existing relations, but all the elements remain intact, undiminished. Every particle in a substance burned exists still, and is ready to be taken up again in new forms.
If we burn a stick of wood, and carefully preserve the smoke and the ashes, we shall find that they weigh a little more than the wood weighed—just as much more as the oxygen weighed that combined with the flame in the process of combustion. The ultimate particles are all preserved, not one disturbed or changed from its original form and size, and they are released by fire that they may go out into the great laboratory of nature, to be again employed in new forms of utility and beauty. Science declares that the ultimate particles of which all substances are composed are like microscopical bricks; they never lose form or identity, but, let loose from any combination by fire, or otherwise, they are ready to be again taken up in other forms. Destruction is a mere incident in the biography of fire—a preliminary process; fire is the great emblem of purity.
When, therefore, we read in the Scripture that God’s processes of dealing with his children resemble fire, or that he is a fire, we must remember these characteristics, and interpret the allusion in the light of scientific facts. If fire never destroys an atom of the material universe; if fire is only a process by which God is reconstructing his universe, why should men imagine that God’s moral fires are other than healthful and beneficial in the moral world?
It need not be claimed that the authors of the Scriptures were familiar with these facts, but we shall find that they so far perceived the office of fire as to use it accurately. Thus:
“For thou, oh God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us as silver is tried; we went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”—Ps. 66:10-12.
Silver is tried that its impurities may be purged away. The hotter the furnace, the more certain is the precious ore to be purified. Again:
“Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”—Mal. 3:2,3.
God’s consuming fire refines, purifies, and purges aways the dross of sin. Hence says the apostle:
“Every man’s work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.”—1I Cor. 3:13-15.
The exacting love of God, demanding purity, can do no less than destroy all that is opposed to the purity and happiness of its object.
Thus “everlasting fire,” the “furnace of fire,” “consuming fire,” “unquenchable fire,” and all the forms in which fire figures in the Bible as an emblem of God’s dealings with men, denote the severe but kindly and disciplinary character of God’s judgments. There is always a beneficent purpose in all God’s dealings with men. Divine love is seeking and securing by severe processes, sometimes as though by fire, the welfare of those towards whom the flame burns.
“The holy flame forever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.”
When Universalists say, “God is Love,” and others reply, “Yes, but he is also a consuming fire,” our reply should be, “No, he is Love and a consuming fire,” The two terms are not contradictory but synonymous. Nothing precious will perish or permanently suffer from the consuming fire of God. Sin, error, evil, will perish; but the soul will come forth from the conflagration purified as silver is purified, perfectly reflecting its Maker’s image as it never can until the impurities of time are consumed, and it returns to that purity it had when it came from the hand of that being in whose image every human soul is created.
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE.
“He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”—Matt.3:12 “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”—Mark 9:43,44.
Many suppose that the words “unquenchable fire” mean a fire of endless duration, whereas, it is a fire that cannot be quenched until its purpose is accomplished.
Says Dr. Paige: “When a house is destroyed by fire, the fire, strictly speaking, is unquenchable, because no effort that is made could extinguish it; but no one would allege that it would never expire of itself.”
Dr. Hammond, a very judicious commentator, says: “They put fire to the chaff at the windward side, that creeps on and never gives over, till it hath consumed all the chaff, and so is a kind of asbeston pur, here, a fire never quenchable, till it have done its work.”—Com. on Matt. 3:12.
The Old Testament shows the application of the figure of fire burning chaff: Job says, the wicked are “as chaff that the storm carrieth away,” 35:5, 21:18. See also Psalms. Isaiah 5:24; 17:13; 29:5; 33:14; 41:15. The Jewish nation, which was about to be destroyed, was represented by chaff, reserved for destruction, as it was in Matt. 3:10, by the tree which was to be hewn down and cast into the fire. The fire by which the Jews were destroyed was the fire of divine judgment: and as it did its work effectually, so it was unquenchable. It is for this reason that the punishment and destruction of the Jews are described in the Old Testament as being effected by unquenchable fire.
See Isaiah 66:23-24. “And it shall come to pass from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” The unquenchable fire here spoken of is in this world, as is evident from the phrase “new moon” and “Sabbath.” Again, Jer. 17:27. “But if you will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” Fire kindled in the gates of Jerusalem, which devoured the palaces of Jerusalem, is said to be unquenchable. Ezek. 20:45 “Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field; and say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord:—Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree, the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therin. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.”
Here the forests are devoured in an unquenchable fire. The meaning is, not that the fire was endless, but that it was not quenched,—it continued to burn—until all the material was destroyed. So the judgments of God on the Jews were effectually done—the nation was completely devastated and destroyed. They were like chaff of the Summer threshing floor in the consuming fire of God’s judgment.
The phrase unquenchable fire, is found in six places in the New Testament. Matt. 3:12. Luke 3:17. Mark 9:43,44,45 and 46. In all of these passages the phrase should be quenchless fire. The Greek word asbestos, unquenchable, inextinguishable, is the original term in all the passages, verses 44 and 46 in Mark having the verb form, sbennutai. What does it mean? That the fire was never to expire, literally, or that nothing could extinguish it till it accomplished its purpose? The usage of the word will determine. How did Greek authors at the time of Christ employ it?
Josephus says, [Jewish War, B. ii, ch. xvii: 6.] speaking of a fire that used to burn in the temple—though at the time he wrote [A.D. 80] it had gone out, and the temple was destroyed—”Every one was accustomed to bring wood for the altar, that fuel might never be needed for the fire, for it continued always unquenchable.”
Strabo, [A.D. 70} described the “unquenchable lamp” that used to burn in the Parthenon, though it has long since ceased to burn. [Lib. ix: p. 606.]
Plutarch, [A.D. 110] in Numa, [p. 262] speaks of places in Delphi and Athens, “where there is a fire unquenchable,” (asbeston) though in the same breath he describes it as having ceased to burn.
Eusebius, [A.D. 325, Eccl. Hist. Lib. vi, chap. 41] in his account of the martyrdom of Cronon and Julian, at Alexandria, says they were “consumed in unquenchable fire, asbesto puri,” though it burned only long enough to destroy their bodies.
In the Scriptures an unquenchable fire is one that cannot be extinguished until it has fulfilled its purpose.
Lev. 6:12-13, “And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.”
Now this fire was long ago extinguished, and yet it was “never to go out.” So we read in Isa. 34:9-10, “And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.”
This language is all figurative; the unquenchable fire has long since expired.
These passages and extracts suffice to exhibit the Biblical and common usage of this term. In all cases it denotes fire of temporal duration. Of course our Savior used the words in the same sense in which they had always been employed.
God’s judgments are denoted by fire in frequent passages: “For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon.” Num. 21:28. David represents the judgments of God upon the wicked in this life: “A fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about.” Psalms xcvii:3.
God is spoken of as a “consuming fire.” because he brought judgments upon the disobedient and sinful. In the prophecy of Isaiah, the destruction of Babylon is spoken of under the same figure: “Behold they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them: they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.” Isaiah 47:14. “He is a God that judgeth in the earth.” Psalms 57:11. Paul uses nearly the same language that Moses employed when addressing the children of Israel, Deut. 4:24. “For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.”
Stuart says: “In the valley of Hinnom (gehenna,) perpetual fire was kept up, in order to consume the offal which was deposited there; and, as the same offal would breed worms, hence came the expression—where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched.”
Dr. Parkhurst adds” Our Lord seems to allude to the worms which continually preyed on the dead carcasses that were cast out into the valley of Hinnom, (gehenna), and to the perpetual fire, kept up to consume them.”
The idea of endless duration was not in the minds of the authors of these terms. They used the language to denote either literal fire that should burn until its object was accomplished, or as an emblem of divine judgments, thorough but limited.
Canon Farrar, in “Eternal Hope,” “Consequences of Sin,” says: “The expression ‘quenchless fire,’—for the phrase ‘that never shall be quenched,’ is a simple mistranslation—is taken from Isa. 66:24, and is purely a figure of speech, as it is there, or as it is in Homer’s Iliad, xvi: 123.” In his Appendix to the volume he observes: “it was in answer to the bitter taunt of Celsus, that the God of the Christians kindled a fire in which all but the Christians should be burned, that Origen first argued that the fire should possess a purifying quality (katharsion) for all those who had in themselves any materials for it to consume. All, even Peter and Paul, must pass through this fire (Isa. 43:2) and ordinary sinners must remain in it till purged. It is in fact, a baptism of fire, at the resurrection, for those who had not received effectually the baptism of the spirit (Peri Arkon i:6, Cels. vi:26; Hom. in Psalm 3:1; in Jer. 2:3; in Ezek. 1:13). It was not a material fire, but self-kindled, like an eternal fever. It was in fact remorse for remembered sin, a ‘figurative representation of the moral process by which restoration shall be effected.'”
FURNACE OF FIRE.
The phrase “furnace of fire,” occurs in these passages in the old Testament:
Deut. 4:20: “But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace,even out of Egypt.” 1 Kings 8:51: “For they be thy people, and thine inheritance which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron.” Jer. 11:4: “Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace.” Isa. 31:9: “Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.” Isa. 47:10. “Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” Ezek. 22:18-21: “Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it, so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.”
The Savior had this usage in his mind, and conveyed the same thought, namely, the approaching woes on his country and race in the only places where we find the same language in the New Testament.
Matt. 13:41,42: “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Verse 50: “And shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
It is nowhere said that God has a furnace in eternity, in which to burn souls. His furnace was in Jerusalem, Isa. 31:9. At the end of that age, (aion) Jesus said: “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels (messengers), and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
This was all fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed.
ETERNAL FIRE.
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 1:7. 2 Pet. 2:6.
For an exposition of the phrase “eternal fire,” see hereafter in this volume. The cities referred to by Jude are a perpetual example. Their fire has long since expired, but their example still remains, it is one perpetually before the world. The fire is eternal, though it was long since extinguished.
By the phrase eternal fire, according to Rosenmuller we may understand a destructive fire, such as laid waste and annihilated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or we may understand by it a fire perpetually smoking. Philo, the Jew, who wrote in the time of our Savior, says, de vita Mosis, Lib. II. p. 662 A, that even then there were memorials to be seen in Syria of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; ruins, ashes, brimstone, smoke and lurid flames which were still emitted, indicative of abiding fire. With this agrees the Book of Wisdom, 10:7, which says: “Of whose wickedness even in this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony.”
Dr. Shaw (see Clarke’s Com. on Genesis 19:24), says that “the appearance of smoke and fire of which he speaks, and to which Philo and the author of Wisdom allude, is undoubtedly to be explained by the well known existence of bituminous matter in the bed of the lake Asphaltites, which now occupies the site of those cities. These considerations are sufficient to justify the language of Jude, without resorting to the idea that he had reference to the future world.”
Similar language is found in Matt. 18:8. “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.”
Similar to the foregoing is the use of the phrases:
“WHEAT AND CHAFF,” “AXE,” ETC.
“And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire….Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”—Matt. 3:10-12.
“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”—Matt. 7:19.
“And also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire….Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into the garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.”—Luke 3:9-17.
John here announces a calamity about to come on the Jewish people. The trees were the Jewish people, the axe the cause of their overthrow. Such is the use of these terms in the Old Testament. See Isa. 40:24; Jer. 10:2-3; 21:6-8. We need only quote the latter passage to illustrate the Old Testament usage.
“For thus saith the Lord unto the king’s house of Judah: Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. And many nations shall pass by the city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor. Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city?”
Ortrhodox commentators of all chuirches apply this language to this world.
“We risk little in referring this to the Roman power and armies, which, as an axe, most vehemently cut away the very existence of the Jewish polity and state.”—Calmet.
“By the axe being now laid to the root of the tree, may fitly be understood, first, the certainty of their desolation; and second, the nearness, in that the instrument of their destruction was already prepared, and brought close to them; the Romans that should ruin their city and nation, being already masters and rulers over them.”—Lightfoot.
“It was customary with the prophets to represent the kingdoms, nations and individuals whose ruin they predicted, under the notion of forests and trees, doomed to be cut down. See Jer. 46:22,23: Ezek. 31:3-11,12. The Baptist employs the same metaphor. The Jewish nation is the tree, and the Romans the axe, which, by the just judgment of God, was speedily to cut it down.”—Dr. A. Clarke.
“In this whole verse (the 12th,) the destruction of the Jewish state is expressed in the terms of husbandmen; and by the wheat being gathered into the garner, seems meant, that the believers in Jesus should not be involved in that calamity.”—Bishop Pearce.
“The Romans are here termed God’s fan, as in verse 10, they are called his axe, and in chapter 22:7, they are termed his troops or armies. His floor—does not this mean the land of Judea, which had been long, as it were, the threshing floor of the lord? God says, he will now, by the winnowing fan, (viz: the Romans,) thoroughly cleanse his floor—the wheat—those who believe in the Lord Jesus, he will gather into his garner—either take to heaven from the evil to come, or put in a place of safety, as he did the Christians, by sending them to Pella, in Cœlosyria, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. But He will burn up the chaff—the disobedient and rebellious Jews, who would not come unto Christ that they might have life.’—Dr. Adam Clarke.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE.
Fire and Brimstone, only mentioned in Revelation in the New Testament, though it is frequently found in the Old, is always used as an emblem of earthly calamities. Job 18:15: “Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.” Ps. 11:6: “upon the wicked he shall reign snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: and this shall be the portion of their cup.” Isa. 34:9-10: “and the streams thereof (Idumea) shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.”
The revelator says the beast and false prophet were cast alive into the lake, (Rev. 19:20), and that they were tormented day and night, showing that the calamities referred to are in this world. The “Lake” belongs with the “pale horse,” “the beast” and other imagery in this remarkable composition; undoubtedly it has reference to the destruction soon to befall the Jewish nation, of which Revelation seems to be a prophecy.
The distinguished author Chas. Kingsley, writes: (“Letters”) “Fire and Worms, whether physical or spiritual, must in all logical fairness be supposed to do what fire and worms do, viz: destroy decayed and dead matter, and set free its elements to enter into new organisms; that as they are beneficent and purifying agents in this life, they must be supposed such in the future life, and that the conception of fire as an engine of torture, is an unnatural use of that agent and not to be attributed to God without blasphemy, unless you suppose that the suffering (like all which he inflicts) is intended to teach man something which he cannot learn elsewhere. * * *
“Finally, you may call upon them to rejoice that there is a fire of God the Father whose name is love, burning forever unquenchable to destroy out of every man’s heart, and out of the hearts of all nations, and off the physical and moral world, all which offends and makes a lie. That into that fire the Lord will surely cast all shams, lies, hypocrisies, tyrannies, pedantries, false doctrines, yea and the men who love them too well to give them up, that the smoke of their basanismos (i.e.) the torture which makes men confess the truth, for that is the real meaning of it; (basanismos meaning the touchstone by which gold was tested) may ascend perpetually for a warning and a beacon to all nations, as the smoke of the torment of French aristocracies, and Bourbon dynasties, is ascending up to Heaven, and has been since 1793.”
It may be added that, if endless fire were taught, something more durable than “chaff” would be named as fuel.