Fire is associated with three major themes in the Bible: fire that indicates the presence of God, fire that God uses to consume evil, and fire that is used by God to refine and purify. Many have cited biblical language that suggests a connection between fire and torment, but these verses, if honestly read, are clearly about consuming fire. This leaves us with the three biblical themes.
Fire is something familiar to all of us. A little experience makes it clear that fire must be managed with care. We use fire to warm our homes, to heat water, and to cook food. In these ways, fire is a comfort and a great help. An uncontrolled fire, in contrast, can destroy forests, properties, and creatures of every sort, including humans. Most of us have little experience with fire’s use for refinement. Nevertheless, materials refined by fire, particularly metals, are ubiquitous in our lives. We might also reflect on how we routinely us fire to purify our foods through cooking. While most of us eat meat, it is unusual for us to eat it without cooking it first. The health benefits of cooking meat are clear.
With respect to making metals, let’s focus on one precious metal: gold. Gold does not ordinarily appear in nature in its pure form; it is bound up with other sorts of rock. This combination of materials is called “ore”. There are various ways to purify gold but an ancient and still practiced method is through the use of fire. The ore is mixed with a flux (a substance that promotes melting), plus lead or silver, then heated to a high temperature. The mixture separates, with the gold sinking to the bottom, along with the lead. The lead is then removed, leaving purified gold. This process was known to many writers of the Bible and they used it metaphorically to describe God’s work on his favored people.
I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, “They are my people”; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.” (Zechariah 13.9). Proverbs 17.3 says: The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. Proverbs 25.4-5 says: Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel;take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness.
Indeed, the entire purpose of creation can be explained in this light. Most Christian confessions declare that God has created the universe for his own glory. This is true, of course, but it begs the question as to how creation gives him glory. There is much in creation that seems destructive and even cruel. The key lies in the primary work that God is accomplishing: the generation of a nation of purified, glorified human beings.
Voltaire objected to the idea that our world is the best of all worlds. He wrote, “All’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” His remark was intended to be understood as satirical, as he had in mind the many natural disasters, wars, and cruelties of this world.
Christians don’t disagree with Voltaire, in terms of recognizing the brokenness of our present world. They counter, however, by pointing out that the world was a perfect place when there was a Garden of Eden. They add that it was sin that brought harm to our world. Women began to experience pain in childbirth, married people began to function at cross-purposes, thorns and thistles filled the earth, work that had been fun and fruitful became uncertain and burdened with drudgery. Worst of all, those who were born to live also became those who were born to die. Paul observed in the book of Romans that, “creation is subjected to futility” and is hoping to be “set free from its bondage to corruption”.
Christians might also point out that God has promised a glorious resurrection for his people in which they will occupy a new earth that is unbothered by the corruptions of sin and death. They might further explain that the new earth will be superior to Eden in that those who inhabit it will have pure hearts, knowing hearts, and hearts committed to loving God. There will no longer be a threat of falling into sin. Unlike Eden, it is a secure place for Christians.
But it is not clear that these answers actually address Voltaire’s complaint. The Fall came about because of human disobedience, human pride, and human distrust in God. Is the Fall something God did not anticipate? Is it possible that the God who is a Spirit, the God who lives outside of time, and yet maintains all that is bound by space and time, would not know that the Fall would happen?
If we believe that God is good, and we believe that he is omniscient, do we not also have to believe that he intentionally created a world that would become subject to sin and death? Do we not have to believe that he determined that those problems would ultimately result in something better than if they had not been present? Does not the drama of the cross, the crucial event of all history, confirm this idea? Is it not a pattern of God’s—his sovereign control over all history, to bring great good even out of great evil?
If this is so, this also explains how Paul can write, “For those who love God, all things work together for good.” Paul goes on to point out that those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. What does this mean? To image Christ is to have mastery over all those capacities God has given to humans and, more fundamentally, it is to have Christ’s character. This means that Christians are on a certain path to becoming other-centered, genuinely loving, and self-sacrificing beings.
Circling back to Voltaire’s statement, let us ask, “Is our present world the best of all worlds?” I think we can answer in this way: “No, the heaven God is preparing for us is the best of all worlds.” But we can also say, “The world we are presently living in is the best of all worlds for God’s purpose of preparing us for that perfect world.” Our present world is the perfect boot camp. Our present world is the perfect place for us to train, mature, and become sanctified. It is a hard world, but the difficulty of it is the necessary context for our opportunities to exercise the character of Christ. As it was necessary for Jesus to suffer in order to bring redemption, it is necessary for the entire world to suffer in order to participate in the redemption. We must pass through this hard world, like precious gold being refined, in order to be made like him.
Whether we are looking at fire as specifically indicating God’s presence, as indicating God’s work of refinement, or as indicating God’s consumption of evil, in all three cases fire always indicates God’s presence and activity. Consider how problematic this is for those who understand hell as a place of fiery torment and as a place that is outside the presence of God. If hell is a place of fire, it must be a place where God is dramatically present. If it is a place where God is not present, it cannot be a place of fire. The God of fire is intolerable to those who rebel against him. They must be either remade or they must be restored. Fire may torment for a moment, but it will not torment forever.
We should also not miss that these three implications of fire are rich in purpose. If the point of the fire is to demonstrate God’s presence, it is to make an impression. The one who experiences God as fire cannot help but see his power and his potential danger, even as they can understand that, by his grace, his fire is a blessing. (Note how the pillar of fire protected the Israelites from the Egyptians even as it presented a threat to the Egyptians.) God’s consuming fire serves the purpose of eliminating the impure, perhaps most dramatically illustrated in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s refining fire serves the clear purpose of eliminating “dross”. In a spiritual sense, the point is to change that which is unholy into that which is holy. A fire of everlasting torment has no claim to purpose. Ongoing injury with no hope for escape and no place for reform is an arrangement devoid of purpose, unless we think that giving joy to sadists is a kind of purpose. It is certainly no purpose that meets the approval of God himself.
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