What is the chief end of man?—yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But how ought man–and all creation–so glorify him? I propose a Theopolitan addition to the catechism, question and answer number 1.5, begun in the last question and answered as follows: Earth’s inhabitants were created to live within Yahweh’s glory flame in and through the Son, causing them to shine with the full luster of His glory, or else be consumed by God’s devouring flame. These truths are taught, developed, and expanded from Scripture’s earliest pages, and will be defended below.

First, Creation was meant to dwell gladly within Yahweh’s fiery glory.

Yahweh’s first act upon Creation was to envelope it with His glory (Genesis 1:3-5).¹ This act is bookended in Revelation where John details His glory-light enveloping Creation, once again without the Sun (Revelation 21:23; see Isaiah 60:19-20). The point is clear: Creation’s intended locale is within Yahweh’s glory-light from beginning to end. Like Moses’ burning bush, Earth was created to live within Yahweh’s fiery glory yet not be consumed.

We learn His glory-light is fiery when Day One’s role is delegated to Day Four’s fiery luminaries. These entities are tasked with keeping Creation fixed and stationed within His fiery glory, night and day. Beyond this, they serve to coordinate worship on Earth, “seasons” being the same word for Israel’s festivals, times, and place of worship (Genesis 1:14). Further, the Sun sets and rises in direct correlation with God’s House, which faces east, which means its most glorious section is the west (Numbers 3:38). The point: the Cosmos’ fiery luminaries station and fix Creation within Yahweh’s glory flame, facilitating its worship while within it.

This macro truth is taught on a micro level in that Eden itself was a fiery place. A portrait of Eden emerges from later authors who demonstrate it to be a gladdened inferno. Ezekiel describes it as having “stones of fire” upon which its inhabitants walked (28:14-16). Revelation’s New Jerusalem has streets made of purified gold like transparent glass incredibly refined by fire (21:21). Readers of Genesis are familiar with Yahweh stationing a fiery sword to the east of Eden, but Zechariah explains His intention to be “a wall of fire all around” Jerusalem, with He Himself being “the glory within her midst” (2:4-5). In this sense, reentering Eden wasn’t just to pass through fire but to reenter a fiery locale entirely. A tragic inverse of this is found in Nehemiah where Israel’s gates have been burned with fire but in judgment (1:3; 2:3,13,17; 4:2). While Yahweh represented Himself as “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch” in Abraham’s covenant ceremony, Zechariah details Yahweh’s intention that Israel themselves be a “blazing pot” and “flaming torch” (Genesis 15:17; Zechariah 12:6; see Isaiah 62:1; Obadiah 1:18). In this sense, Scripture’s later authors appear to envision Eden as being like a fiery Sinai, Adam and Eve alit within it, like Moses’ face descending Sinai (Exodus 34:30). The reader, then, is left with the impression that Eden was a fiery place, Adam and Eve being radiantly-lit personages within it: “Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed” (Psalm 34:5).

After the Fall, Yahweh wants to draw people back into His immediate fiery glory in and through the Exodus. He makes His intentions clear when He appeared to Moses in a bush that is on fire but not consumed (Exodus 3:2). There He illustrates for Moses the point of all Creation: to be like this bush, within His glory flame, yet not consumed.² This anomaly is then transposed upon Moses himself, who dwells forty days and forty nights within Yahweh’s flame—on the very same mountain of the bush—yet is not consumed (24:17-18). Significantly, Yahweh’s fiery appearance to Moses must not be seen as just a look at what He intended for Israel in the future but the regathering of an ancient truth taught at the beginning of Creation–when it, like the bush, was enveloped in Yahweh’s glory, yet not consumed.

From there, Yahweh makes Sinai mobile in the form of the Tabernacle, where He reinforces His intention of drawing Israel into His fiery Presence. He does this by presenting His House, where He intends to dwell with Man, as a house on fire. Among the first sights an outsider would observe upon entering Israel’s camp was an ash heap (Leviticus 4:11-12). Within the camp, the first thing an Israelite worshipper would see in approaching Yahweh’s House was a pile of ash stationed near the Tent’s entrance(1:16). These scenes coalesce with many Scriptural images related to repentance: dust, ashes, torn clothes, prostrating oneself on the ground, sackcloth, fasting, mourning. To enter His Tent rightly, one must enter with a spirit that’s poor, broken, penitent—ready to be disassembled, remade, and transformed by His flame: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

In entering the Tabernacle Complex, the first entity seen would be the ever-burning flame of the Bronze Altar—a flame never to go out (Leviticus 6:12). Worshippers are then called to enter that flame via a substitute (1:4). Transitioning from that flame into His actual Home, the worshipper would be received by Yahweh in the form of a pleasing aroma of smoke (1:3,7; 2:2). Symbolically, the worshipper is there represented as an anointed priest dressed in white. Within Yahweh’s House, the priest would see seven perpetually-lit flames (burning with oil like that which was upon him) enveloping twelve baked loaves of bread (having been surrounded by fire’s heat) representing Israel’s twelve tribes, with specific direction given that the light of the menorah be cast on these loaves (see Exodus 40:13; Numbers 8:1-3). In this sense, the cooked loaves are meant to be engulfed in His flame, as it were. Additionally, this room would be filled with smoke rising from the Golden Altar (Exodus 30:7-8). Finally, the entire complex was anointed with oil, illuminating the entirety of His Home with that which is itself flammable (Exodus 30:25–28). The point: Yahweh lived in a house on fire, intending for Man to dwell there with Him.

Other locales where Yahweh is found feature fire, nearly without fail. Israel’s liberation from Egypt to Yahweh was a liberation unto fire—them walking in direct proximity to a pillar of fire and cloud—with the cloud (like smoke) descending each time Moses and Yahweh spoke (Exodus 13:21–22; 33:10). Elijah was taken up to the Lord by “chariots of fire and horses of fire” (2 Kings 2:11). Later, Elisha prayed for his servant to see Yahweh’s protection, after which he saw “the mountain…full of horses and chariots of fire” (6:17). To be with Yahweh personally was to be with Him whose anthropomorphic anatomical Person is nearly entirely defined by fire: He’s referred to multiple times as a consuming fire (Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29), whose breath is fire (Psalm 18:8; Isaiah 33:11), tongue is fire (30:27), voice is fire (Psalm 29:7), arm is fire (Isaiah 30:30), fingers are fire (Amos 9:5), legs are fire (Micah 1:3), and His nose “burns” (Exodus 4:14).³ Isaiah’s throne room vision features a room filled with smoke and having burning coals within reach (Isaiah 6:4-6). When Ezekiel beholds the glory of the Lord he sees “fire flashing continually” and living creatures whose appearances were “like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches moving to and fro,” and among them “the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning” (1:4,13-14). Amos envisions Yahweh riding atop His fiery Altar (9:1). In summary, Yahweh dwells in a house on fire and is fire Himself—so to dwell with Him is to dwell within fire.

Significantly, because all the Earth is meant to be within Yahweh’s flame, there’s an additional sense in which His fire isn’t limited to His House but is found throughout the Earth among Gentile nations. As a result, Scripture demonstrates Israel’s exile as entrance into His altar flame via the nations. There, the righteous and wicked form two separate features of the same fire. The wicked among both Israel and the nations are like the wood burned in order to offer righteous Israel as a sacrifice unto Him, or where the righteous remnant are tried and purified as precious metal (see Zechariah 13:7-9): “I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in My anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever” (Jeremiah 15:14; see 17:4). Here in the land of exile, Yahweh’s anger is kindled in and through its inhabitants who are like fire themselves–being used to try and refine Israel. Just as idolaters burn wood to cast their idols, so Yahweh uses the wicked as wood for His fire to form, purify, and transform His actual images (see 10:3-4). In this sense, Israel’s being thrown into the Nations was to be thrown into His fire—to be formed properly into His images. Just as Isaiah’s mouth was purified by the coals of Yahweh’s Altar, so Israel was to be purified by His fire among the nations (Isa 6:5-10). Yet, God’s flame there tended to be much less gracious and much more painful than what His gracious altar afforded, where a substitute was supplied with which His people might identify (Jeremiah 4:4; 7:20; 17:27; 21:12; Lamentations 2:3; 4:8,11; Ezekiel 28:18).⁴

In summary, the point of all Creation is this: to dwell gladly within Yahweh’s glory flame, which can be done according to His gracious provision or in the (less gladly) form of painful testing and trying.

Second, having understood Creation’s intended locale, the question arises, “Who can withstand His heat?”

Nearly verbatim, Isaiah asks this very question, “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” (33:14). Nahum as well, after noting that Yahweh’s arrival dried up seas and melted mountains, asks, “Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the heat of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him” (1:6).

Because Scripture is so insistent Earth’s inhabitants are meant to dwell within His fiery glory flame, it offers potential answers as to how that’s possible:

1. Be like green wood. Eden was on fire, but it was also a garden bursting with fruit. Live wood doesn’t burn easily. Like Eden, the Tabernacle and Temple were filled with trees, cut and ornately stationed (1 Kings 6:29-32). Yet, it also was a fruitful place with tree blossoms, flowers, pomegranates, nuts, and gourds. Authors of Scripture recognized this: to be safe in the House of the Lord was to be alive: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green” (Psalm 92:12–15). Psalm 1’s tree is “planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (1:3). Worshippers envision themselves as being “like a green olive tree in the house of God,” trusting “in the steadfast love of God forever and ever” (52:8). They are like a “tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8). “Be fruitful” are the very first words spoken by the Lord to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28). Ezekiel’s Temple ground “will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing” (47:12). Noah built an altar and then planted a vineyard (Genesis 9:20). Abraham regularly built altars and was also found regularly near or under trees, even planting one himself (Genesis 12:6; 13:18; 14:13; 18:1; 21:33). Moses and Aaron’s staff dwelt within Yahweh’s flame forty days and forty nights and then within His fiery House, yet it also was the staff which “sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds” (Numbers 17:8). Israel was to be no different—alive with Yahweh’s life. To survive with Yahweh, one must be alive.
   
   The alternative is to “be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water. And the strong shall become tinder, and [Yahweh’s] work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them (Isaiah 1:30–31). Dried wood, unlike green, burns. Those who dwell apart from the Lord  “are like chaff that the wind drives away” or “thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire” (Psalm 1:4; Isaiah 33:12). Because all Creation is meant to dwell within Yahweh’s glory flame, all nations are susceptible to His heat (Jeremiah 29:22; 32:29; 34:2, 22; 38:17-18, 23; 43:12-13; 48:45; 49:2; 49:27; 50:32; 51:30, 32, 58; 52:12-13; Ezekiel 16:40; Amos 1:4,7,10,12,14; 2:2,5; 4:11; 5:6; 7:4). As a result of Israel’s idol worship, Jeremiah explains, “The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest He will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed” (11:16). This concept of Israel (or other nations) being like dried wood ripe for burning is carried throughout the prophets (Isaiah 6:13; 7:14; Jeremiah 5:14; 10:17; 11:16; 17:2-8; 21:14;22:7; 43:12; Lamentations 4:8; Ezekiel 20:47-49; Joel 1:19; Zechariah 11:1; Zephaniah 2:2). In their lifelessness, Israel became like dried wood: “people are like fuel for the fire” upon His fiery Altar (Isaiah 9:19; see Ezekiel 15; 21:31-32). Yahweh judged them “by a spirit of burning,” His fire being kindled in and through sieges of foreign nations, yet they themselves will also eventually be consumed (Isaiah 4:4; 29:6; 42:25; see 30:31-33; 34:9-10; 47:14). This is wholly ironic because what precipitated Israel’s “dryness” was actually time spent under leafy green trees worshipping idols (see 1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 16:4; 17:10; 2 Chronicles 28:4; Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah 2:20; 3:13; 17:2). In this sense, they are like green vegetation but that which quickly passes away (Psalms 37:2,35; 58:9). Christ states it frankly: “If anyone does not abide in Me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (John 15:6).

2. Be like salt. In Israel’s liturgical system, its offerings tell a story of Israel’s journey into Yahweh’s flame. The ascension offering retells their story from Passover to the Red Sea to ascending Sinai’s fiery summit. The grain offering depicts, in a zoomed-in sense, Israel’s entrance directly into Sinai’s flame by tracking the grain’s proximity to the fire’s heat.⁵ Each form of the grain’s preparation presents deeper and deeper movement into the flame’s heat: from uncooked, to baked, to prepared on a griddle, to boiled, to being placed directly within the flame—roasted (Leviticus 2:4-14). Significantly, a perpetual seasoning of every grain offering, never to be missing, even from all offerings, was salt (2:13). A unique property of salt is that it doesn’t burn. Additionally, bread or meat seasoned by salt causes the food to come alive in a fiery sense.⁶ 2 Kings 2 presents a spring with bad water, making both land and women unfruitful, but Elisha’s use of salt turns the water favorable, enabling life (2 Kings 2:19–22). Israel was to be no different. Paul writes, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6). “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?” (Matthew 5:13). Salt remains unharmed within the flame and is a sort of flame itself, enlivening that with which it comes into contact.
   
   The alternative to being salt is being like salt and brimstone, a place scorched by fire but in no way productive, leaving the ground entirely dead. In this way, Israel would become like a “whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and wrath” (Deuteronomy 29:23; see Judges 9:45; Zephaniah 2:9). Lot’s wife became an enshrined depiction of this lifelessness (Genesis 19:26). Jeremiah, the Lord’s voice, minces no words: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land” (Jeremiah 17:5–6). “But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matthew 5:13).

3. Be like precious metal. Israel was a silver people. Their census required them to give silver, which was then furnished by fire into bases, hooks, and overlay for God’s fiery Tent (see Exodus 30:13; 38:26–28; Joel 3:5–6). In this sense, God’s Home is made of a fiery, purified people. According to the Tabernacle economy, silver was an intermediary metal between Heaven (gold) and Earth (bronze). As such, Israel was to be an intermediary people, suspended between Heaven and Earth in order to unite them. Precious metal such as silver doesn’t burn away like its impurities but is perfected when refined by fire: “For You, O God, have tested us; You have tried us as silver is tried” (Psalm 66:10). The reparation/guilt/trespass offering directly equates Israel’s offering with silver (see Leviticus 5:15–16). As such, Israel was meant to be like shining silver refined in Yahweh’s altar flame: “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind,” David requests, employing two different terms for smelting (Psalm 26:2, emphasis added; see 139:23). Israel was to be like Him who Ezekiel saw seated on the throne

in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of His waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of His waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around Him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord (Ezekiel 1:26–28).

Israel was to be no different.

The alternative is to be like dross which is entirely burned away. Sadly, in Israel’s frequent rebellion, references to them being a silver people are much more prevalent in condemnatory contexts, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10). Yahweh commissioned Jeremiah to be like fire testing Israel, but he found no silver:

I have made you a tester of metals among My people, that you may know and test their ways. They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron; all of them act corruptly. The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed. Rejected silver they are called, for the Lord has rejected them (6:27-30; see 9:7; Ezekiel 22:17-22; 24:6-14).

Ezekiel, too, according to the Word of the Lord, finds no silver among His silver people, “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are dross of silver” (22:18). Whatever gold happened to be among Israel’s people, Jeremiah laments, are treated as nothing special, “The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands!” (Lamentations 4:1). Malachi asks, “Who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord (3:2–3). Paul explains,

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

Yahweh’s eventual House is to be a House of precious metals refined by fire, even to the point that its lowest, most common elements like pavement would be preciously purified “pure gold, like transparent glass” (Revelation 21:21). These precious metals are illustrative of His people who are called “living stones [which] are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).

These are the options which Israel faced: be alive like green wood or burn like dead; be seasoning salt that withstands heat and is, experientially, heat itself or be like a land made desolate by salt’s heat; shine, dance, and gleam like precious metal or burn like its impurities. Regardless, however, each will face Yahweh’s heat.

In summary, the ways to gladly dwell within Yahweh’s flame are these: by being a fruit-bearing tree, tasteful salt, or precious metal. Yet each of these have alternatives: dried wood, salt-ridden land, or dross. Additionally, His flame cannot be escaped—either enter it via a substitute at His Home or find His altar among the nations where His flame is more likely to be felt.

Yet even among pagan nations like Babylon where His fire shows up in forms such as Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, His grace and favor are still present. There His fire becomes the place where His sacrificial remnant, those “of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace,” like spotless lambs, are sacrificed. Yet, just like within the precincts of His House, this sacrificial remnant is spared from Yahweh’s flame while the pagan guards perish like chaff or dried wood fueling the furnace’s heat.

But how exactly did they survive within the flame? Found walking in the flames with them was One who had a striking appearance “like a son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25). Like animal sacrifices which entered Yahweh’s fire on behalf of the worshipper, so the fourth Man entered on these men’s behalf in the midst of Yahweh’s fire among the Nations.

Finally and ultimately, it is in and through the fourth Man that worshipers survive Yahweh’s fiery glory—green wood, salt, and precious metal all being mere pointers to Him. Outside of Him, there is no hope.

Isaiah’s query regarding who can dwell within Yahweh’s fire rings similar to David’s questions in Psalms 15 and 24 asking, “O Lord, who shall sojourn in Your tent? Who shall dwell on Your holy hill? …Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? (15:1; 24:3). These are fiery questions like Isaiah’s, even without it being mentioned. Staggeringly, Isaiah and David answer these questions with incredible harmony, the essence of each answer being total spotlessness and unblemished nature (see 15:2-5; 24:4-6; Isaiah 33:15-17). Green wood, salt, and precious metals then become metaphysical realities—symbols—of Isaiah and David’s spiritual qualifications. The Psalms of Ascent, sung by those trekking up into Yahweh’s fiery flame, ask, “If You, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3; see Nehemiah 6:11; Revelation 6:17). The answer is clear: no one. Enter Christ, for it’s in and through Him where “there is forgiveness” (Psalm 130:4).

Christ fulfills every symbol which withstands His Father’s heat. He’s arrested in a garden, sweats drops of blood like freshly picked olives in an olive press, hung like fruit on a tree, mistaken for a gardener, and is the Vine from which His followers grow like fruitful branches. Christ was separated from the world but came into the world, distinct like salt. Like seasoning with each of Yahweh’s offerings, He accompanied the three men within Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, keeping them from the slightest harm. He’s the foundation upon which the Father’s House of “gold, silver,” and “precious stones” is built (see 1 Corinthians 3:11).

In and through Christ, Isaiah’s words find fulfillment: “When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:2-3). Just as the Lord God walked in the fiery light of Eden, so Adam and Eve, by virtue of walking with Him, were kept safe (see Genesis 3:8). Green wood, salt, or precious metal become tangible depictions of the Savior necessary to withstand Yahweh’s ferocious heat. He is the entity to which all these realities point. Through Him, “[A] hair of [our] heads [will not be] singed, [our] cloaks…not harmed, and no smell of fire [will] come upon [us]” (Daniel 3:27).

Yet while Christ enables sinners to withstand Yahweh’s flame, He also is Yahweh’s flame:

The light of Israel will become a fire, and His Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour His thorns and briers in one day. The glory of His forest and of His fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. The remnant of the trees of His forest will be so few that a child can write them down (Isaiah 10:17–19).

With this in mind, John speaks, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10).

Psalm 19 paints a remarkable picture of “The sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, run[ning] its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat” (Psalm 19:4-6). Revelation demonstrates this to be not entirely personification. The Sun is like Christ’s face: “His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the Sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:17-19). Now is the time to come to the bridegroom, before His shining face comes closer. Later, for those not graciously found in Him, His arrival merits panic.

The Bridegroom baptizes “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11; see Daniel 10:6; Revelation 1:14).⁷ “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12; see Malachi 4:1-2). Of that day Peter writes,

The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! (2 Peter 3:10-12)

Peter exhorts Earth’s inhabitants to live as those prepared for Christ’s fiery intensification. The book of Acts gives an image of such individuals, “And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them” (Act 2:2-3). And Revelation gives a portrait of those around Yahweh’s fiery throne, “the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat” (Rev 7:16).

The Psalmist records Yahweh visiting the Earth in this way: “Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth” (Psalm 97:3-5). Just so, Jesus explains,

The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear (Matthew 13:39-43).

As seen in the exilic fire, so here: Hell’s fire fuels Heaven’s radiance.

In conclusion, we’re not meant to see Moses’ fiery bush as a new thought but as an old thought retold. Earth itself was created to live within Yahweh’s fiery glory flame. It does this in and through the Son who is both Yahweh’s fire and the keeper of those within it. It’s in and through Him that we become fruitful branches, fiery salt, and shining metal with the full luster of His glory. Dwelling within His flame causes us to become like fire, ourselves—longing for His flame to come more fully–as we shine with greater and greater glory (Psalm 140:10). The fearful alternative is to be consumed by His flame—like dried wood, scorched land, or precious metal’s dross—only useful for the benefit and purification of the righteous in Hell’s eternal flame (see Proverbs 13:22).

---

Ben Lovelady (M.A., MTS) serves as a pastor in northwestern Illinois, where he and his wife live with their six children.

---

NOTES

1. This is the first Day of the Lord. ↩︎
2. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 88. ↩︎
3. Several of these instances were drawn out by Peter Leithart in his book, Glory of Man (West Monroe, LA: Theopolis Books, 2024), 103. ↩︎
4. In addition to His flame being featured among the nations, so is His sword. Like the priests wielded a sword near Yahweh’s fiery altar, so His sword is featured near His fire among the nations. In pronouncing judgment upon the nations, Isaiah explains, “The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat” (Isa 34:6–7). And later, in speaking of judging all the nations: “For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many” (Isa 66:15-16; see Jer 5:14, 17; 9:7; 47:6; 49:27; 50:35–37; Eze 6:3; 12:14; 14:17; Hab 3:4, 11; Nah 2:13; 3:15; Zec 9:13, 15; 13:7–9). ↩︎
5. I gleaned this insight from Peter Leithart’s Theopolis Course on Levitical Offerings. ↩︎
6. I gleaned this insight from James Jordan’s Theopolis lectures on Leviticus. ↩︎
7. A second day of the Lord came in the form of the Lord God entering the Garden in the “daylight” after Adam and Eve’s sin (see Gen 3:8, see n. 1). ↩︎