Way Into the Holiest - 32: GOD A CONSUMING FIRE
By F.B. Meyer
"Our God is a consuming fire." (HEBREWS 12.29.)
THIS is one of the shortest texts in the Bible. It takes rank with those other three brief sentences which declare the nature of God, God is Light, God is Love, God is Life. But to many it is one of the most awful sayings in the whole of Scripture.
It rankles in the memory, recurs continually to the uneasy conscience, and rings its wild tocsin of alarm in the ear of the anxious enquirer. And yet there is an aspect in which it may be viewed which will make it one of the most comforting, precious passages in the whole range of inspiration.
Fire is indeed a word significant of horror. To be awakened from sleep by that one awful cry will make the flesh tremble and the heart stand still. A baby's cradle wrapped in flame, a beloved form suddenly enveloped in a burning fiery furnace, a ship on fire amid the wild expanse of the homeless ocean, and slowly burning down to the level of the waves - in any of these figures you have a suggestion of almost unparalleled horror.
And yet, for all that, what comfort and homeliness and genial blessedness there are in the kindly glow of firelight! There is no sign of more abject poverty than the fireless grate. And however warm the rooms may be in Russia or France, the traveller greedily longs for the blaze of the open fireplace of his native land.
Besides, what would we do without this strong, good-natured giant, which toils for us so sturdily? It draws our carriages along the metal track. It drives the machinery of our factories. It disintegrates the precious ore from its rocky matrix. It induces a momentary softness in our toughest metals, so that we can shape them to our will. The arts of civilised life would be impossible but for this Titan worker.
It is obvious, therefore, that whilst Fire is the synonym for horror and dismay, yet it is also full of blessing and goodwill. It is the former only when its necessary laws are violated. It is the latter when those laws are rigorously and reverently observed.
Yes, and are not destruction and ruin the strange and unnatural work of fire, whilst its chosen mission is to bless and beautify and enrich, consuming only the dross and thorns and rubbish, so that there may be a clearer revelation of the enduring realities over which it has no power.
When, therefore, our God is compared to fire, is it only because of the more terrible aspects of His nature, which are to be dreaded by transgressors? Is there not also, and perhaps more largely, a suggestion of those beneficent qualities which are needed for our purity and comfort? Surely there is a strong flavour of such characteristics in the assurance given to us by the prophet Isaiah, "The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day" (Isaiah 10.17).
Fire in the Word of God is not always terrible. When of old God came down on Sinai, its upper peaks were veiled with impenetrable folds of smoke, like the smoke of a furnace. And in the heart of the smoke there was the appearance of devouring fire. There is dread here! Bounds had been set to keep the people back, but a special message must be sent to warn them against breaking through to gaze, lest the fire should break forth upon them.
But there was no harm so long as they kept without the barriers, and when Moses entered into the very heart of it, it did not singe a hair of his head, and injured him no more than when it played round the fragile acacia bush, which burned with fire without being consumed, not a leaf shrivelled, nor a twig scorched.
It is quite true that in the desert pilgrimage there was much of the punitive aspect in the divine fire, as when there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men with censers who had joined in Korah's rebellion, and had spoken contemptuously of God's anointed servants. But, on the other hand, it did not hurt one other soul, and these were destroyed, awfully indeed, but almost too suddenly to feel the keen smart of pain. And surely that fire did a beneficent work in staying the further progress of evil, which would have honeycombed the whole nation and led to their destruction as a people.
