The Truth About God’s Fire
One of the most troubling things about the Bible is its tales of God setting people ablaze, from the story of the incineration of Nadab and Abihu to the horrific conflagration that overwhelms the wicked in Revelation. As a kid, these stories made quite a cataclysmic impression on me. I was repulsed by a God who would burn people alive. It took me many years to learn that I was mistaken about God.
Satan’s Lie About God’s Fire
The world has almost universally bought into a time-honored lie of Satan. It’s that the place where men least want to go is a place of eternal burning called hell. What he doesn’t mention is that this place of eternal burning is actually God’s very presence. It’s true! Listen:
“Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning? Those who walk righteously….” Isaiah 33:14-15 NIV
When I first read this I was dumbfounded. “No way!” I said. Satan’s hellish lie was so set in my mind that I had to do a lot of research and thinking before I could actually believe what Isaiah 33 said.
It’s Not Your Normal Campfire
Our God is, indeed, a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29), but His fire is unique. It doesn’t burn like a campfire.
- God talked to Moses from a bush that burned but wasn’t consumed (Exodus 3:2).
- Mount Sinai burned but didn’t melt down or even singe the whiskers of Moses (Exodus 24:17).
- Lucifer walked among the fiery stones in God’s presence without harm (Ezekiel 28:14,16).
- Innumerable men and women are standing in the rivers of fire that come out from the throne of the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9-10).
Yet not all can survive in the fire of God’s presence. The wicked are destroyed by the fiery return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
What an unusual fire. It’s a fire that is harmless to bushes, buildings, whiskers, and men—but not all men. What kind of a fire is this?
The Fire That Consumes Sin
This unusual blaze is a fire that consumes sin. Sin isn’t made out atoms and molecules. A flame thrower can’t destroy it. That’s because the root of rebellion is in the mind, not in the body. Two mindsets fuel rebellion: believing lies and worshiping self. When men embrace these two mentalities, it puts them at odds with God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and love (John 16:13, 1 John 4:8, Galatians 5:22), and what lie can stand before the truth? What selfishness isn’t ultimately destroyed by the irrational fear of love’s punishment —a fear based on lies?
A Tale That Tells the Truth
Probably the most impressive proof that God’s fire doesn’t burn like a Nazi oven is what happened with Nadab and Abihu when they offered strange fire before the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-5). Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them so that they died before the Lord, yet their cousins came and carried them out, still in their tunics. How much would be left of their tunics if they had been torched until they died?
As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried them in the violation of the law of God. The seductive temptations which they encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted, the messengers of God despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of mercy beaten back by the stubborn, unrepentant heart—all appear as if written in letters of fire. – Ellen White, The Great Controversy 666
God’s fire is surely not the fire of combustion. It is the action of truth being fully unveiled to a soul steeped in lies and selfishness. No lie or self-exaltation can live before that searching flame of God. Yet the righteous can live there. No one got burned when the Spirit settled on believers at Pentecost (Acts 2:3) in fiery, twin-forked flames of truth and love.
The Truth About God’s Fire
In light of the truth about God’s fire, who can believe Satan’s lies anymore? God does not arbitrarily torch those who rebel against Him. It is by rebelling against God’s offers to heal them from their sin-sickness that sinners make themselves unfit to live in the fires of truth and love. The place of eternal burning, a place delightful to the righteous, is a place of torture to those who have cherished sin. They cringe in terror before truth and love, crushed by the weight of “I” and Satan’s lie. If this is heaven—damn it all!—then they would rather die.
