Fire of God
God said it three times, in three different chapters, about the same thing. Burning children in fire was not something He commanded, not something He mentioned, not anything that ever came upon His heart.
Jeremiah 7:31
They have built the high places of Topheth in Ben Hinnom Valley in order TO BURN THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS IN THE FIRE, a thing I did not command; I NEVER ENTERTAINED THE THOUGHT.
Jeremiah 19:5
They have built high places to Baal on which TO BURN THEIR CHILDREN IN THE FIRE as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I NEVER ENTERTAINED THE THOUGHT.
Jeremiah 32:35
And they built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters TO PASS THROUGH THE FIRE to Molech, which I had not commanded them, NOR HAD IT COME UPON MY HEART THAT THEY SHOULD DO THIS ABOMINATION, to cause Judah to sin.
God did not command this practice, did not mention it, and it never came upon His heart. The name He puts on it is abomination. What He calls abomination is what many have been told He does forever.
God Does Not Change
Malachi 3:6
Because I, the LORD, have not changed…
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
What never entered His heart in Jeremiah's day does not enter it now. So any fire Scripture speaks of from God cannot be the very thing He said He could not imagine.
Then what is His fire?
The Fire Is His Word
Jeremiah 23:28-29
Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but LET HIM WHO HAS MY WORD SPEAK MY WORD FAITHFULLY. What has straw in common with wheat? says the LORD. IS NOT MY WORD LIKE FIRE, says the LORD, and LIKE A HAMMER WHICH BREAKS THE ROCK IN PIECES?
God makes the comparison Himself. His Word is both the fire and the hammer that breaks the rock. The fire in Jeremiah has a source, and the source is His mouth. The fire is what His speech does when it leaves Him.
The Fire Refines
Isaiah 1:25
I will turn my hand against you and will BURN AWAY YOUR DROSS COMPLETELY; I will remove ALL YOUR IMPURITIES.
Psalm 12:6
The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver REFINED IN AN EARTHEN FURNACE, purified seven times.
Malachi 3:2-3
But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will be able to stand when he appears? For he will be like a REFINER'S FIRE and like launderer's bleach. He will be like a REFINER and purifier of silver; he will purify the sons of Levi and REFINE them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.
Isaiah 48:10
Behold, I have REFINED thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the FURNACE of affliction.
Dross is burned away. Impurities are lifted out. The silver that goes into the furnace comes out purer than it went in. The sons of Levi in Malachi do not end as ash in the refiner's fire; they end presenting offerings to the LORD in righteousness. The sons who go in and the sons who come out are the same people.
A fire whose end is sacrifices in righteousness has finished a work on the one who passed through it.
The Fire Is Jealousy and Love
Song of Songs 8:6-7
Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death; JEALOUSY is as unrelenting as Sheol. LOVE'S FLAMES ARE FIERY FLAMES- AN ALMIGHTY FLAME! A huge torrent cannot extinguish love; rivers cannot sweep it away.
Love has a flame. Jealousy has a heat. Rivers cannot put either of them out. The poem names what a lover already knows: fire is the language of a love that will not let go.
Zephaniah 3:8-9
Therefore wait for Me, says the LORD, Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations To My assembly of kingdoms, To pour on them My indignation, All My fierce anger; ALL THE EARTH SHALL BE DEVOURED WITH THE FIRE OF MY JEALOUSY. For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, That they all may call on the name of the LORD, To serve Him with one accord.
The fire of His jealousy devours the whole earth. The sentence does not stop at the devouring. The next clause says what the devouring leaves behind: a pure language, peoples calling on His name, service in one accord. The fire devours what kept the peoples from speaking His name in one accord.
That is what His jealousy was burning toward the whole time.
Fire Salts Everyone
Mark 9:49
For EVERYONE will be salted with fire.
Everyone means everyone. The disciples who were hearing Jesus say it were in the sentence. So is every reader who has heard it since. Salt in the Old Testament covered every offering that went before God. Without salt the offering was not acceptable. Jesus takes that same salt, makes it fire, and puts it on every person without an exception named.
A fire that makes every person acceptable before God is not the fire God said never entered His heart.
The Fire Finishes Something
Luke 12:49
I came to bring FIRE ON THE EARTH, and how I wish it were already set ablaze!
Jesus wants the fire already burning. His own coming is the kindling.
Matthew 13:41-43
The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the fiery furnace; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
The passage does not end in the furnace. It ends with the righteous shining as the sun. The word that joins the two halves is then. The fiery furnace is followed by sunshine, because of what the fire has done.
Stumbling blocks are gathered out of His kingdom. Lawlessness is gathered out. What the fire gathers out is what was never supposed to stay, and what remains shines.
What the Fire Is
God said burning His children to destroy them never entered His heart, and He does not change. His fire is His Word. That Word refines like silver. His jealousy ends with peoples calling on His name in one accord. Everyone is salted with that fire. The furnace in Matthew's parable ends with the righteous shining like the sun.
What He calls abomination is what many have been told He does forever. What He calls fire is almost the inverse of what they have been taught fire is. Tradition's fire is punishment for some; Scripture's fire salts everyone. Tradition's fire destroys; Scripture's fire is His Word refining. Tradition's fire is God's last resort against His children; Scripture's fire is what Jesus wished were already burning when He came. The fire burns away dross, not His children.
The Father of All
In Athens, Paul stood before the Areopagus and spoke to philosophers who had not believed a word of his gospel. He told them what they were.
Acts 17:24-26
THE GOD WHO MADE THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT is the Lord of heaven and earth... From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth.
Acts 17:28-29
For in him we live and move and have our being... WE ARE HIS OFFSPRING.
Paul called unbelieving pagan philosophers the offspring of God, before any of them believed a word he said to them.
Ephesians 4:6
ONE GOD AND FATHER OF ALL, who is above all and through all and in all.
One Father. All children. Every person in reach of this sentence is a child of the God whose fire is His Word.
The fire in Jeremiah, the fire in Malachi, the fire in Zephaniah, and the fire in Matthew's parable are all the same fire, from the same mouth, on the same children. It is a Father's fire on His own, for their refining. And the thought of burning them to destroy them never came upon His heart.