Fire is full of symbolic meaning in Scripture. Fire is used as a sign of God’s presence and as a sign of judgment, both of acceptance and rejection.
Fire is a sign of theophany, which is just a fancy way of saying a revelation of God, God’s presence. When God made His covenant with Abram, He appeared as a smoking firepot with a blazing torch, and passed through the midst of the sacrifices that Abram had set out (Gen 15:17). God appeared to Moses on Horeb in the burning bush (Ex. 3:2). God manifested Himself to His people Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21); throughout the entire travel through the wilderness, God led His people in this form. When He gave the Law to Moses, God descended to Sinai like a consuming fire upon the mountaintop (Ex. 19:18 and Ex. 24:17). And at Pentecost, God was manifest in the wind that filled the whole house and the tongues of fire that separated and rested on them (Acts 2:3). Fire signals that God is near.
And fire is a sign of acceptance of God. When Aaron made his first sacrifice as high priest, “Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offerings and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown” (Lev. 9:24). At Gideon’s calling, he prepared a young goat and unleavened bread as an offering. “With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread” (Jdg. 6:21). When Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, after he had water poured onto the sacrifice three times, “The fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench (1 Ki. 18:38). And St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 3:12–14, that our lives and faith will be tried in fire to prove their worth, and “If what [we] build survives, [we] will receive [our] reward” (1 Cor. 3:14). Fire is a sign of positive acceptance by God.
But fire is also a sign of the judgment of God. The same fire that tries one man and proves him true will try another man and prove him false and consume him. God sent fire and brimstone raining down upon Sodom and Gomorrah to consume them and make them uninhabitable (Gen. 19:24,28). Nadab and Abihu, immediately after their ordination presented unauthorized fire before the Lord, “So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD” (Lev. 10:2). In the wilderness, the Israelites complained to God about their hardships. “Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp” (Num. 11:1). When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against Moses’ leadership, “Fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering incense” (Num. 16:35). Ahaziah sent several companies of soldiers to force Elijah to come to him. But Elijah answered the captain of the soldiers, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men (2 Ki. 1:10). Despite fire’s signal of God’s presence and his approval, we cannot ignore its mark of judgment.
When I build a fire, if I’ve done it right, the fire gives off both light and heat. God’s fire gives light—truth. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). When God is present, there can be no darkness. Those things that you and I have done secretly, when we thought we were alone and nobody could see us, the hidden thoughts of our hearts that never reach the light of day, all of these are not hidden from God’s presence. When God comes to us—rather, when we are before Him—His radiance exposes all in us. Everything that we have done by night will be made known in the light of His day. He knows all that we have done, all that we wanted to do but were afraid to, and all that we hope to do. As we pray each Sunday, “Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” The fire of God brings truth. No falsehood can remain in His presence, because it will vanish like a shadow in the light.
God’s fire is not the cold starkness of streetlights, which cast a ghastly glow and provide no warmth, no comfort. When Satan casts the fires of Hell upon men, his fire provides that same kind of garish light. Satan’s “truth” shows failures. It does not cast out the darkness; his fire displays the areas where we have failed and fallen short, but it leaves deep shadowy recesses and tries to obscure God’s presence from our view. His light does not display the true colors of our lives, the vigor of men alive with the breath of life; his light casts a pallor that makes all men appear dead.
God’s fire does not just produce light (true light), it also gives off heat—heat that is love. When God’s fire goes into the dark recesses of our souls and unveils dark voids, it does so not to reveal the darkness, but to replace it with light. God casts fire to burn up the dross, so that there is more room for gold. When you clean up your house and you find something that you no longer need—clutter and garbage—you don’t just leave it there, you get rid of it. You don’t allow the garbage to pile up in the kitchen, all the food scraps and waste—you throw it out. If we don’t get rid of the trash, it will slowly accumulate: just a little at first, perhaps things that we were once attached too. And it will accumulate, and grow. And at some point, we’ll have more trash than treasure. And eventually we drown beneath the refuse that should have been thrown into the fire and burned up.
God brings His fire to consume those things that do not belong and make room for what does. And His fire cleans and purifies those things that should remain. When Moses took vengeance on the Midianites for seducing the Israelites at Baal Peor, the gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead had to be cleansed in the fire before they would be acceptable for use by God’s chosen people. Just as we first run a needle through flame before lancing a wound, God’s fire kills what is harmful so that the healthy can remain. Sometimes God’s loving fire hurts. This week, my sister caught my younger nephew hitting the dog with a piece of wood and—as you can imagine—her love for him and desire to raise him up as a godly man caused his little rump some pain. But if she didn’t punish him for such wicked behavior and allowed him to continue in his sin, to do so would be no love.
God judges us with his fire not to destroy, but with an eye to approving us. My sister punished Nathan not to make him cry, but to make him a good boy. We all know John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But who here can tell me John 3:17? “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God’s fire should scare those who are not righteous before Him. For the fire will consume all that stands opposed to God. || Nothing || will remain that is against God. “God exalted [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Php. 2:9–11). We, the saints, will fall before Jesus and place their crowns before Him to worship Him, full of love and adoration. But the wicked, who out of stubborn pride refuse to acknowledge Jesus, will have their knees broken and be thrown onto their faces and forced to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. All creation will make the same declaration, but one is made freely and the other grudgingly. One confession is that of worship, the other is concession by a defeated enemy of the cross.
“How I wish it were already kindled.” How are we to understand these words? Our New Testament reading helps shine light on this. The writer to the Hebrews says, “Let us throw off all that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Heb. 12:1). How do we know what hinders us? We make a judgment about it. We must judge what is beneficial and what is harmful. We cannot run the race marked out for us burdened down by sin. When we run (when some of us used to run), we don’t wear jeans and a flannel shirt, nor a suit and tie. We can judge whether what we’re wearing is going to limit our ability to run. So if I’m going to run, I’m going to take off all of these baggy clothes and put on shorts and a t-shirt and running shoes.
Jesus wishes that the fire of judgment were already kindled. He doesn’t want to find us sitting around wearing sweatpants like a couch potato, seemingly ready for exertion but having no intent to do anything. He wants us to be prepared for Him when he returns, like the wise virgins who brought extra oil for their lamps. We are to “endure hardship as discipline” (Heb. 12:7). God gives us trials to test us, to help us correct along the way, so that we don’t miss the grace of God. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned by the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). Being disciplined by God is a blessing. God is giving us a sneak preview. He’s stacking the cards in our favor! “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment” (1 Cor. 11:31). Do you see how much God loves us? He’s doing everything that He can to help us make the right decision, to bring us closer to Him, to perfect us in this world in preparation for the world to come.
Jesus wishes that the fire were already kindled. He wants us to heed his correction while we have time. There comes a time when we no longer have the chance to choose God, when all opportunities to willingly confess Jesus Christ as Lord are exhausted. Jesus warns us that we need to be sensitive to the signs of the times. The days are short. The next time that I have to choose to acknowledge the lordship of Christ, it may be my last chance. We spend our entire lives—or we should—preparing ourselves to be acceptable offerings to God. Every time that we say yes to God, we ready ourselves for the last day. And every time that we deny Christ, we suffer setback.
May Jesus find the fire of judgment kindled in us. May He see fruit borne out of the hardships that He’s given us as discipline. May we come to that day matured, perfected, ready—not lame, disabled, with feeble arms and weak knees, as those of a person not trained up for the race. May we stand before God with muscular arms and strong knees, prepared to run like stallions and leap like stags, as we run with our God atop mount Zion.
