“For our God is a consuming fire.”

                 Ever thought about how we’d communicate without words?  I mean, think about trying to say something important to your boss or spouse or friend without words.  Pointing, as if to say, “Pass the mash potatoes,” at the dinner table is understandable enough.  But try explaining why you didn’t finish your project on time, or how the kids’ day at school went, and you’ll see that even the game of Charades quickly becomes inadequate.  Imagine if we never had words to speak.  This tells us how important they are.

Years ago I read an article on how one word came into common usage that described shoppers.  It was “customers.”  Customers frequented certain stores or companies.  They made it their custom or habit to do business there.  That worked well enough until around the middle of the 20^th Century, where the word “consumers” replaced customers as the word-of-choice for shoppers.  “Consumers” has that idea of buying something to consume it.  It’s full of negativity, picturing a downward spiral, and connotes the idea of a food chain and harming the environment.  I wouldn’t be surprised if an overzealous environmentalist made the switch.  It’s not the same as your grandfather’s kinder and gentler “customer” who helped you turn a profit.  The older word gave birth to the slogan, “The customer is always right”.  The consumer, however, often is the bad guy, using up — sometimes squandering and wasting — precious natural resources.

So when God describes himself as a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), he means exactly that.  In fact, the Greek word is not just your everyday word for consuming, but an intensified form, emphasizing the point that the fire leaves little or nothing behind, depending on the substance being burned.  That’s how fire works.  But even this idea needs further examination or we’ll miss the lesson to be learned.

This description of God closes out a section recounting the episode of God meeting the Jews at Mt. Sinai (12:14-29).  Oftentimes fire is equated in the Bible with holiness (v. 14), and that was the main point he wanted the Jews to remember.  Life was not about them, but about God, his will and character.  To impress that upon their short attention spans, he had fire exploding atop the mountain and the ground quaking under their feet.  The point is clear: mess with this God of fire, and see how much is left of you!

However, this consuming fire doesn’t consume everything.  It didn’t burn up the bush Moses saw and spoke to (Exodus 3:2) on the very same mount before the exodus from Egypt.  Nor did he did burn up Moses, even when he asked to see his glory (33:18).  That tells us that this consuming fire has exceptions where is presence is concerned.  Exceptions point to his grace — grace to make promises of deliverance (to Abraham regarding his descendents and to us concerning salvation), and grace to make good on them.

Another exception, similar but not identical, was when Daniel’s three friends got sentenced to the fiery furnace for having the nerve to worship the one true God instead of a cheap image of gold (Daniel 3).  After they were tossed in, they weren’t burned or bothered at all by the furnace’s flames or heat.  In fact, it actually helped because the ropes that bound them burned off!  This after those who threw them in were killed by the very same flames.  Once again, the presence of God (“the fourth looks like a son of the gods”, v. 25) didn’t consume them. In fact, his presence prevented their being consumed by the manmade furnace!

Etymologically, the words “fire” and “pure” are connected.  If you don’t think so, remember that a pyromaniac is a person with an irresistible urge to start fires (some of my kids fit the description).  See the similarity between “pure” and “pyro”?  When a fire gets done burning up its fuel, all that remains is ash, unless what is burned is purified in and by the fire.  God permits no impurities in heaven.  Thus in 1 Corinthians 3 we see his consuming fire at work on our works in heaven.  The fire consumes everything that is not good, godly and holy.  The fire reveals and purifies what is really pure.  The rest turns into ash.  In fact, that’s all that remains after this fire reveals it on that “Day” (v. 13).

Men like Moses, Daniel and his friends, and Paul purified themselves by drawing near to this fire.  They knew they would not be consumed, and that their “Day” was coming.  Likewise, the consuming fire waits for us to draw near to be purified.  How near and how pure are you?  How big will your ash heap be?