The award winning contemporary Christian band, THIRD DAY, whose music and message I love, has a song "Consuming Fire" referring to the passage in Hebrews. It's a powerful song; a joy to worship with, but the lyrics seem irrelevant (my apologies to the author)to the passage in Hebrews:
"Did you ever realize, deep inside of you there is a flame.
Did you ever try, to let it burn, let it burn:
'Cause our G-D, HE is a Consuming Fire...
(words and music by Mac Powell, 1995 New Spring Publishing Inc)
G-D OUTSIDE THE CELESTIALARIUM
G-D reveals Himself in Scripture in a wide variety of descriptions, e.g He is the Righteous Judge (II Tim 4:8), and a Friend who sticks closer than a brother (Prov. 18:24)Dr. A. B.Badger in "TULIP: A Free Grace Perspective Part 2 Unconditional Election" (Journal of The Grace Evangelical Society, Autumn 2003), describes G-D in a way uniquely terrifying to me: He says that G-D is everywhere everytime all at once. Please bear with me while I stammer through this: HE created time. Time bears no restriction to HIM. Also HE always was going to do what HE was going to do. If I understand Dr. Badger, G-D being eternally Omniscient always knew what He would do, HE always knew what HIS creatures would do and there was never actually a deciding moment: HE has simply forever known absolutely everything: the creation, the fall, the incarnation, the cross, my thought thirty million years from this moment HE IS there now. He is outside of the Time-Space Celestialarium. It's not past, present, future for G-D: There is no before and after. HE is everywhere everytime present. Jesus said: Verily Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM. John 8:58. I never saw it that way before. The Universe: 15 billion light years across or whatever at whatever age it is, and forever after, in fact, The entire time space BUBBLE is less than a single droplet of water in all of the seas of all of the planets of the Cosmos compared to ALMIGHTY G-D. G-D has always known everything and has never decided anything. Deciding implies not knowing before. The thought process is so foreign to me that reading it agitated me. God became an alien to me: No. I mean like a Beheamoth Thick Darkness. WHOA Dude! How can HE interact with me since HE does not react, but all of HIS actions were foreknown by Him forever and ever, because HE always knew my reactions! My Savior G-D who is near, I suddenly seriously do not recognize. HE does not even obey time! How can this HOLY SPIRIT, Who makes the entire Universe look like a single spec of dust in a dust storm, relate to me? Suddenly, HIS incarnation is a much bigger deal than I even imagined. The Truth is, G-D IS here ETERNITY Past Present Future Forever is normalcy. We, locked in Time/Space are the anomally. Created for HIS Purposes.
With the Psalmist I proclaim "such Knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high. I can not grasp it. Psalm 139
In light of this what Does Hebrews chapter 12 reveal about our CREATOR,MASTER and LORD?
The passage in Hebrews 12, is speaking to we who have believed in Him: we who by virtue of His promise and His ability to keep His promise, are secure in Him forever:
JESUS THE AUTHOR AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH
Looking to JESUS, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before HIM, endured the Cross, despising the shame,and is set down at the right hand of the throne of G-D.
Consider HIM who endured such...lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not YET resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
FATHER G-D
V. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that speaks to you as unto children:My son despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by HIM. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and disciplines everyone he receives as His Child....v.9 Furthermore we have had earthly fathers who corrected us and we gave them reverence...[even though they] corrected us for their own purposes, but He [G-d corrects us] for our profit, that we may be partakers in HIS Holiness. No discipline seems joyful, but grievous at the time, but afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are corrected by HIM.
[to verse 18] For you have not come to that mount that can be touched... and burned with fire, nor unto blackness, darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet....v. 21 and so terrible was the sight that Moses said "I exceedingly fear and quake"
V22 But you are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the Heavenly Jerusalem, and unto an innumerable company of Angels [innumerable?]. To the General Assembly and the Church of the Firstborne, which are written in Heaven and to G-D the JUDGE of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect [all saints?]: and to JESUS the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not HIM that speaketh.
HOLY SPIRIT: G-D THE REFINER'S FIRE
V. 25b For if they escaped not who refused HIM who spake on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn again from HIM who speaketh from Heaven. Whose voice then shook the earth, but now HE hath promised saying "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also Heaven. And the word "once more" signifies the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made,that those things that can not be shaken may remain.Therefore we, receiving a Kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve G-D acceptably with reverence and G-dly fear.
v.29 FOR OUR G-D IS A CONSUMING FIRE.
Comments? Thoughts?
