TEXT — For our God is a consuming fire. — Heb 12:29
This is the crowning statement of one of the very best utterances in reference to Christian holiness. The book of Hebrews is a treatise on holiness — as are most of the other Epistles. This book begins with a statement of God's revelation of Himself to men through the ages and His permanent manifestation in these last days through Jesus Christ. Reference is then made to the way of Christian experience until Jesus brings His disciples into the Holy of Holies. The author then defines the way of faith and gives illustrious examples, telling of their transformed lives and triumphant death. Then he proceeds to say that God has "provided some better thing for us," referring to the baptism with the Holy Ghost, thus revealing in us the mystery "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He then discusses, and urges upon all Christians this "better thing." He shows how clearly it is testified to; urges the laying aside of all that hinders and the getting rid of the besetting sin — carnality. He shows how the faith for it, is wrought in us and perfected. He gives Jesus as an example of heroism in this matter. He shows how the Lord chastens His little children that they may be
"partakers of His holiness," declaring that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. He shows how he who neglects it becomes profane as was Esau — selling his birthright. He tells of its privileges and the way God leads, shaking men out of the world, and then the world out of them. He tells of the kingdom received which cannot be moved which enables us to serve God acceptably. Then we are told the procuring agency — "For our God is a consuming fire."
The subject really involved in this is the relation of the indwelling Holy Ghost to Christian life.
When we try to think of the infinite personality, and especially the work of this blessed Spirit in reference to us, we clothe Him in imagery. In His revelation of Himself to us He speaks of Himself through imagery. Thus we are told that God is light, love, fire, etc., etc. In this text we have Him in His work of transforming and filling the souls and lives of men, under the figure of fire. This figure is the more impressive because it was in connection with the appearance of fire that God had frequently manifested His presence.
When Abraham asked God whereby he should know that he should inherit the promised land, the Lord told him to take a certain sacrifice; this he did, and "laid each piece one against another." And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. When God led His people from Egypt to Canaan it was a pillar of fire that made the desert nights all glorious; and when he spake to them from Sinai, the "glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain." When God spoke to Moses at the back-side of the desert, it was out of the burning bush; and He answered Elijah's prayer on Mt. Carmel with falling fire. When Isaiah prayed for a clean heart, God's touch upon his soul was emblemized by the fire upon his lips; and the manifestation of the Divine Presence in the Holy of
Holies was the flame of glory between the wings of the cherubim upon the mercyseat. When, in that upper room, the great promise of the Father was fulfilled, the Holy Ghost was imaged forth by tongues of fire. The promise of God to His ancient people was, "I will be a wall of fire round about thee."
We need not wonder, then, that here in this vivid description of the saving of men up to the point where all sin is destroyed and the kingdom of heaven set up in the soul, that the Divine Presence, who doeth this work, is likened, or set forth, under the figure of fire. I would like that we might, fully see the meaning of this imagery; for that which it means in human experience is an abiding fact. This Divine Presence is connected with the kingdom which we receive. The fire manifestations in the Old Testament had to do with things which were more or less typical and were preparing the way for an abiding manifestation of the Divine Presence which is here referred to. In the beginning of the epistle, its author says, "God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." Jesus Christ continues in holy manifestation by the Holy Ghost, as a burning fire.
This brings us to consider, with a little more preparation, the relationship of the Divine Presence to Christian life. It brings us to emphasize that the salvation of God in Jesus Christ is a continual manifestation of God in love and power to the souls of men. But this burning Presence refers especially to the reception and the abiding, immovable glory of the kingdom, which we receive in connection with the cleansing from all sin — the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
It is evident that the incarnation of this kingdom has close connection with the fire. Now if we might only see, clearly, what it all means — what, the antitype of all the Old Testament figures and fiery manifestations! What, the real, permanent, fiery glory! That there is such a fact the New Testament clearly teaches — "Our God is a consuming fire." If our God is, and if He is present in the fulness of His salvation, He is evidently a consuming fire. If we go to the ushering in of the new covenant — the abiding covenant in Jesus Christ — we find the one fact declared of Him, by His forerunner, to be that "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire." This he said in connection with his own message to men, of repentance and cleansing from their sins. In connection with this he spoke of the further, deeper purification that should be accomplished by the Christ whose coming he heralded by his baptism. That there might be no mistaking his meaning, he illustrated by a threshing-floor.
A great deal precedes a floor filled with threshed grain — sowing, watering, reaping, threshing.
The figure here is of a harvest gathered and much that is worthless taken away; of humanity redeemed — who have heard the proclamation of divine favor and have repented of their sins and have had the bulky straw of their own sinning taken away. The converted heart is the Lord's threshing-floor — the chaff still with the wheat — that which has been closest about the life and which could not be raked away with the straw. Jesus is represented as coming to separate the chaff from the wheat. He comes with a separating instrument — not to separate the unrighteous from the righteous, but to His own people, to separate from them that which has been close about their hearts and lives, but which is now loosed. The winnowing fan can do nothing for wheat about which the enfolding chaff still clings. The supposition here is, that the truth of God has broken the embrace of
sin. God can do nothing toward sanctifying you wholly if your carnality holds you — if you are trusting to your own righteousness, or if you are looking to grow out of it, or to have it gradually taken away.
The threshing process may be somewhat severe, but God puts us under the tribulum until we so hate the carnality of our being that we give ourselves up to Him to be made holy. The truth, which is sharper than a two-edged sword, cuts to the dividing asunder between the soul and carnality; then the Holy Ghost, like the wind, can separate the chaff of inbred sin, and the presence of God as consuming fire destroys it.
What would God do with carnality? The very removal of it, by the breath of His presence, burns it up. This was the promise of the baptism; Spirit (wind) and fire under the two-fold aspect, the wind separates and the fire destroy's. This is a very strong figure — a threshing-floor of threshed wheat.
In the Bible, a threshing-floor is a place of special prominence. When Joseph and those who were with him went up to bury his father Jacob, they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, where they made great and sore lamentation. In the earliest history of Israel, the threshing-floor was a place of devotion, where was made the heave offering of the first fruits. It was sometimes a place of battle.
In David's early history the Philistines came down to Keilah and robbed the threshing-floor. It was sometimes a place of sacrifice. In the time of the Plague, the Lord, by His prophet Gad, told David to go to the threshing-floor of Ornan and build there an altar unto Him. David made known to Ornan his desire to buy the place of the threshing-floor that he might build an altar unto the Lord and the Plague be stayed. But Ornan said, "Take it, ... lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for meat offering. I give it all." David answered,
"Nay, but I will verily buy it for the full price; for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost." So David bought the place for six hundred shekels of gold by weight, and built there an altar unto the Lord and offered burnt and peace offerings and called upon the name of the Lord; "and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering."
It was also a place where mistakes were made. It was at the threshing-floor of Nachon that Uzzah put forth his hand to steady the ark, for the oxen shook it, "and there he died." This illustration of the threshing-floor is very striking — the Lord's threshing-floor, rendered up to Him by the man himself, and bought by the King at highest cost; full of wheat which the enemy has tried so hard to capture, where so many and often fatal mistakes are made, where the blood of the sacrificial offering flows.
To this floor the Lord is represented as coming, coming with a separating instrument in His hand.
This separating instrument is the gospel of holiness! The soul which becomes His own willing offering He holds up before high heaven, — as the man holds the grain with the shovel, up to the breath from the skies, and the wheat falls here clean and pure, and the chaff is blown yonder, — and he is thoroughly purged. The work is complete. "He shall thoroughly purge His floor." Jesus Christ does a thorough work of separation — not as we know, not after our pattern. but after His own ideal.
Then comes the destruction of the valueless stuff — "the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable." "Our God is a consuming fire."
The baptism of fire referred to by John is a very blessed work. It is clearly stated by him, and to make the statement other than is made by him is a perversion of the scriptures. Is this the end of fire in the experience of the Christian life? Oh, no; we have but just begun our close relationship to Him who is "consuming fire." He consumes carnality and continues to burn after all sin is destroyed. The same fire that burned up the offering and the wood on Mt. Carmel, found a way to burn in the acacia bush and yet not singe a leaf. The presence of God who burns up carnality, burns in a holy heart in unutterable glory.
Isaiah asked the all important question — "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" And answered it by saying — "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil. He shall dwell on high; his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks." His eyes shall see the King in His beauty.
The baptism with the Holy Ghost is the baptism with God. It is the burning up of the chaff, but it is also the revelation in us and the manifestation to us of Divine personality, filling our being. A man without this baptism is a man. A man with it is a divinely anointed, impelled, strengthened man, through whose voice God talks. His language may be broken and lame, his thought halting and weak, but somehow the Divine voice gets through him to men. He may err, both in thought and utterance, but some way the King of glory is in the crippled vehicle to scatter the golden coin to men.
It is true then — there is a baptism with fire. My friends, no man can have the baptism with God, which means the entrance of the Divine Presence into the soul as its abiding King, enthroned for two worlds, who does not receive the heart of the infinite fire into his being. Talk about a further baptism than the indwelling God! Oh, no: he who needs that needs all; he who could desire it does not know the billows of glory which His fullness of presence is.
SERMONS (Abridged)
By
Rev. P. F. Bresee, D.D.
Sermon 29