Chapter 8

The Fire of God—Purifying Love, Not Punitive Torture

A. Thesis and Context

If you grew up in the Western church, chances are good that the word “fire” in the Bible made you feel one thing: fear. Fire meant punishment. Fire meant hell. Fire meant God was angry and someone was about to get burned. I know that feeling. I carried it for years. Every time I read about the “consuming fire” or the “lake of fire,” my stomach tightened. The fire was the enemy. And on some level, so was the God behind it.

But what if we have gotten fire completely wrong?

What if the fire of God is not about punishment at all—but about purification? What if the same fire that terrifies us is actually the most powerful expression of God’s love in all of Scripture? What if the “consuming fire” of Hebrews 12:29 is not a threat but a promise—the promise that God’s love will never stop burning until everything that is not love has been consumed?

That is the argument of this chapter. And it is, in many ways, the central image of this entire book.

In the previous chapters, we have established that God is love—not as a sentiment, but as an unchanging reality at the core of who He is (Chapter 4). We have seen how Western theology distorted the character of God by turning Him into a wrathful judge whose honor must be appeased (Chapter 5). We have explored the true meaning of God’s justice—tsedaka (saving righteousness), hesed (steadfast love), and emeth (faithfulness)—and discovered that biblical justice is not about giving people what they deserve but about accomplishing salvation (Chapter 6). We have reexamined the “wrath of God” and found that it is not an emotional rage but the natural result of what happens when sinful hearts encounter a holy God (Chapter 7).

Now we come to fire.

Fire is everywhere in the Bible. It is one of the most common images God uses to reveal Himself to His people. And when we pay close attention to how Scripture actually uses the image of fire, a startling picture emerges. Fire is not primarily about destruction. Fire is primarily about God’s presence. And that presence, because it is the presence of perfect Love, purifies everything it touches—burning away what is impure and leaving only what is good, true, and beautiful.

This chapter is the bridge between the theological foundation we have been building and the detailed evaluation of hell’s competing views that will follow in Part III. If the argument of this chapter holds—if the fire of God really is His love—then the entire conversation about hell changes. The question is no longer, “How badly does God want to punish sinners?” The question becomes, “What happens when a sinful heart encounters the blazing, purifying, inescapable love of God?”

That question will take us to the very heart of the divine presence model.

B. The Case: The Fire of God Throughout Scripture

God Reveals Himself as Fire

The first thing we need to notice is something so obvious that most people miss it entirely: in the Bible, fire is how God shows up.¹

Think about the great moments when God reveals Himself to His people. What does He look like? He looks like fire.

When God made His covenant with Abraham, He appeared as “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch” that passed between the pieces of the sacrifice (Gen. 15:17).² When God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, He appeared in a bush that burned with fire but was not consumed (Exod. 3:2). When God led the Israelites through the wilderness, He went before them as a pillar of fire by night (Exod. 13:21). When God descended on Mount Sinai to give the Law, “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire” (Exod. 19:18). When Solomon dedicated the temple, “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple” (2 Chron. 7:1).³

When Elijah called on the Lord at Mount Carmel, fire fell from heaven (1 Kings 18:38). When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, the seraphim—a word that comes from the Hebrew saraph, meaning “burning ones”—surrounded the throne of God with wings of flame (Isa. 6:1–7).⁴ When Ezekiel saw his vision of God, he saw “an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal” (Ezek. 1:4). When Daniel saw the Ancient of Days, “His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before Him” (Dan. 7:9–10).⁵

And in the New Testament, when Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, “the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning” (Luke 9:29). When Saul encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, “suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him” (Acts 9:3). When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, He came as “tongues of fire” resting on each believer (Acts 2:3).⁶

Do you see the pattern? Fire is not an instrument of torture that God pulls out when He is angry. Fire is the way God reveals Himself. Fire is what God looks like when He draws near. As R. Zachary Manis observes in Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, the overlapping imagery of God as fire and hell as fire strongly suggests that “there is a singular reality that’s being depicted. To put the idea succinctly: hell = fire = the presence of God.”⁷

I want to linger here for a moment, because I think many of us have read past these stories too quickly. We learn them in Sunday school as isolated events—Moses and the burning bush, the Israelites and the pillar of fire, Elijah and the fire from heaven. But when you lay them side by side, a stunning picture emerges. Every single time God draws near to His people in a dramatic way, fire is part of the picture. Not sometimes. Every time. Fire is not one of many ways God appears. Fire is the way God appears. It is His calling card. His signature.

And notice something else. In most of these encounters, the fire does not destroy the people who encounter it. Moses was not burned by the bush. The Israelites were not consumed by the pillar of fire. Peter, James, and John survived the Transfiguration. The disciples at Pentecost were not incinerated by the tongues of flame. The fire of God’s presence, when it encounters people who are open to it, does not destroy. It reveals. It illuminates. It transforms. It empowers. The fire is only destructive when it encounters rebellion—like Nadab and Abihu, who came into God’s presence in an unauthorized way (Lev. 10:1–2), or Korah and his followers, who rebelled against God’s appointed leaders (Num. 16:35).

This observation is absolutely crucial for understanding the divine presence model of hell. The fire is the same fire in every case. It is the fire of God’s presence. And whether it illuminates or incinerates depends entirely on the posture of the heart that encounters it.

Fire is not something God sends. Fire is something God is.

“Our God Is a Consuming Fire”

This brings us to the verse that gives this book its title. Hebrews 12:29 declares, “Our God is a consuming fire.” The writer is quoting directly from Deuteronomy 4:24, where Moses told the Israelites, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”⁸

Notice: the text does not say God sends fire. It does not say God uses fire. It says God is a consuming fire. The fire is not a tool in God’s hand. The fire is God Himself. This is an identity statement. When you encounter the fire of God, you are encountering God.

Now, here is the question that changes everything: What kind of fire is this?

The Western tradition has almost universally assumed that this fire is punitive—that it is the fire of divine wrath, the fire of retribution, the fire of a judge who has been offended and demands satisfaction. If you have always read “our God is a consuming fire” as a threat, you are not alone. That is how most of us were taught to read it.

But ask yourself this: if God is love (1 John 4:8), and God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), then what kind of fire must this be?

It must be a fire of love.

If God never stops being love—if love is not something God sometimes feels but the very essence of what He is—then His fire cannot be anything other than love. A consuming fire of love. A love so intense, so pure, so blazing that it burns away everything that is not love. Not because God hates sinners. But because God loves them too much to leave them as they are.⁹

This is where the Orthodox tradition has preserved something that the West largely lost. As we will see in much more detail in Chapter 15, the Eastern church has always understood the fire of God as the fire of divine love. Alexandre Kalomiros, in his powerful essay The River of Fire, captures this insight with breathtaking clarity. Reflecting on the icon of the Last Judgment, he writes:

“In the icon of the Last Judgment we see Our Lord Jesus Christ seated on a throne. On His right we see His friends, the blessed men and women who lived by His love. On His left we see His enemies, all those who passed their life hating Him, even if they appeared to be pious and reverent. And there, in the midst of the two, springing from Christ’s throne, we see a river of fire coming toward us.”¹⁰

A river of fire flowing from the throne of Christ. What is this river? Is it punishment? Is it vengeance? Kalomiros answers with one of the most beautiful passages in all of Christian theological writing:

“No, nothing of the sort. This river of fire is the river which ‘came out from Eden to water the paradise’ of old (Gen. 2:10). It is the river of the grace of God which irrigated God’s saints from the beginning. In a word, it is the out-pouring of God’s love for His creatures. Love is fire. Anyone who loves knows this. God is Love, so God is Fire.”¹¹

Love is fire. Anyone who loves knows this.

Think about that for a moment. If you have ever loved someone deeply, you know that love burns. Love is not a gentle, passive warmth. Real love is fierce. It is consuming. A mother’s love for her child is a fire—it would burn down anything that threatens her child. A husband’s love for his wife is a fire—it will not rest until everything that harms her has been destroyed. And God’s love for His creatures is the fiercest fire of all—a love so intense, so unquenchable, so relentless that it will not rest until every trace of sin, evil, and death has been consumed.

That is the consuming fire of Hebrews 12:29. Not a fire of torture. A fire of love.

The Fire That Purifies: Malachi, Paul, and Peter

Once we understand that the fire of God is His love, the next question is obvious: What does this fire do?

Scripture answers that question again and again, and the answer is always the same. The fire purifies. It refines. It burns away what is impure and leaves only what is good.

The prophet Malachi gives us one of the clearest pictures of this in all of Scripture. Speaking of the coming of the Lord, he writes: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver” (Mal. 3:2–3).¹²

Notice Malachi’s image. God is not a torturer. God is a silversmith. He is a craftsman who sits patiently before the furnace, watching the molten metal, waiting for the impurities to rise to the surface so He can skim them off. The silversmith does not hate the silver. He loves the silver. He sees what it can become. He keeps the fire burning—not to destroy the metal, but to make it pure. The fire is not the enemy. The impurities are the enemy. The fire is the tool that removes them.¹³

An old legend says that a silversmith knows the refining is complete when he can see his own reflection in the surface of the molten metal. Whether or not that legend is literally true, the spiritual insight is unmistakable. God refines us with fire until He can see His own image reflected in us. The fire is not punishment. It is the means by which God restores us to what we were always meant to be—beings who reflect His glory.¹⁴

The other Old Testament prophets echo Malachi. Isaiah declares, “I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities” (Isa. 1:25) and “I have refined you . . . I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10). Zechariah writes, “This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold” (Zech. 13:9). Michael Phillips, drawing on George MacDonald, points to a key detail in Malachi that most readers miss: Malachi’s fire burns until its purpose is achieved. “He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord” (Mal. 3:3). The fire is not endless. The fire has a goal. And when the goal is reached—when the impurity has been removed and the gold is pure—the fire has done its work.

Phillips finds in this a crucial principle: “The fire does not burn forever. Malachi’s purifying fire burns until the sons of Levi present right offerings to the Lord . . . after which the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” In Scripture, Phillips argues, “healing always follows the fire of judgment and punishment.” The fire is not the last word. Healing is the last word. Restoration is the last word. The fire is the instrument; purification is the purpose.⁷⁰

The apostle Paul picks up this same theme in one of the most important fire passages in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 3:12–15, he writes:

“If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”¹⁵

This passage tells us several remarkable things. First, everyone will pass through the fire. The fire “will test the quality of each person’s work.” It is not optional. Second, the purpose of the fire is testing and revealing, not torturing. The fire separates what is valuable from what is worthless. Third—and this is the most remarkable part—even when the fire burns up everything a person has built, the person himself “will be saved, yet so as through fire.”¹⁶

Saved through fire. Not destroyed by it. The fire does not annihilate the person. It burns away the worthless things—the “wood, hay, and straw”—and leaves the person standing, humbled and stripped but alive. As Sharon Baker puts it in Razing Hell, “Because fire burns away impurities, any pure works built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ will remain, and the person will receive a reward. The impure works do not survive the fire. The person himself, however, will still be saved, yet only after going through the flames.”¹⁷

Manis also sees this passage as central to the divine presence model. He suggests that for some believers, the Day of Judgment will involve “a purgatorial experience, a completion of the process of sanctification,” in which the presence of the glorified Christ burns away the remaining impurities in a person’s life. But this purgatorial fire is not a second location separate from heaven. It is the same fire—the fire of God’s unveiled presence—experienced differently depending on what it touches.¹⁸

The apostle Peter says something very similar. He writes, “These trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Pet. 1:7).¹⁹ Again, fire is used as the image of purification. Gold is refined by fire. Faith is refined by fire. And the purpose of the refining is not destruction but beauty. The fire reveals the genuine article and burns away the counterfeit.

The pattern is unmistakable. In passage after passage, the fire of God is described as purifying, refining, testing, and revealing. It burns away impurities. It separates the precious from the worthless. It leaves what is good standing. The fire is not the enemy. The fire is God’s tool for restoration.²⁰

And notice that this is not limited to the Old Testament. The prophets saw it. Paul saw it. Peter saw it. The writer of Hebrews saw it. The vision is consistent from Genesis to Revelation. Wherever God draws near, fire follows. And wherever that fire meets something pure, it illuminates. Wherever it meets impurity, it burns the impurity away. The Bible does not contain two different fire theologies—one about God’s presence and another about punishment. There is one fire. It is God’s fire. And it always does the same thing: it reveals what is truly there.

Christ Came to Bring Fire

Jesus Himself used this language. In Luke 12:49, He said something that most of His followers have never quite known what to do with: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!”²¹

What fire is this? If we have been paying attention to the pattern throughout Scripture, the answer is clear. It is the fire of God’s presence, the fire of divine love poured out upon the world. Jesus was not saying, “I came to start a forest fire of destruction.” He was saying, “I came to bring the purifying, transforming, all-consuming love of God into the world—and I can’t wait for it to begin.”

John the Baptist had said much the same thing. He told the crowds, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:11–12).²²

Notice that John does not say the fire will burn up the people. He says the fire will burn up the chaff. The chaff is not the person. The chaff is everything in the person that is not wheat—everything that is worthless, empty, dead. The fire separates the wheat from the chaff, the genuine from the counterfeit, the gold from the dross. This is purification language, not annihilation language.²³

Manis makes an important observation about this passage. He notes that John’s words “were not spoken only to John’s disciples; the most immediate addressees seem to be ‘many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing,’ whom he addresses as ‘You brood of vipers!’” It is possible, then, to understand John as teaching that everyone will be “baptized” by Christ—immersed in the fire of His presence—but that for some it will be an experience of purification and renewal, while for others it will be an experience of burning and torment. The same fire. Two different responses.²⁴

And at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the early church, He came as fire. “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3–4). The Spirit of God is fire. And this fire did not destroy the disciples. It empowered them. It purified them. It set them ablaze with the love of God. The same fire that terrified the Israelites at Sinai now rested gently on the heads of believers at Pentecost.²⁵

The difference was not in the fire. The difference was in the hearts that received it.

The River of Fire: Kalomiros and the Orthodox Vision

This brings us to the central image that will carry us through the rest of this book—the image of the river of fire.

In Daniel’s vision, a river of fire flows from the throne of God (Dan. 7:10). In the book of Revelation, a river of the water of life flows from the throne of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). In the traditional reading, these are two completely different things—one a river of judgment and the other a river of blessing. But as Manis points out, “on the divine presence model, these two ‘rivers’ are identical; they are in fact one and the same reality, experienced very differently by those in communion with Christ (an experience of love, peace, rest, refreshment, and life) and those in disunion with him (an experience of wrath, judgment, restlessness, torment, and punishment).”²⁶

One river. Two experiences. The difference is not in the river. The difference is in the one who enters it.

Kalomiros develops this image with stunning power. He sees the river of fire flowing from Christ’s throne as the outpouring of God’s love. That river irrigates paradise for those who love God. And that same river burns and suffocates those who hate Him. Not because God changes—God never changes. But because the human heart determines how it receives the love of God.²⁷

Then Kalomiros gives us one of the most important images in this entire book:

“The very fire which purifies gold, also consumes wood. Precious metals shine in it like the sun, rubbish burns with black smoke. All are in the same fire of Love. Some shine and others become black and dark. In the same furnace steel shines like the sun, whereas clay turns dark and is hardened like stone.”²⁸

Read that again slowly. The same fire. The same furnace. The same love. Gold shines. Wood burns. Steel gleams. Clay hardens. The fire is the same for everyone. The outcome depends entirely on what the fire touches.

This is the heart of the divine presence model, and it is the central insight of this book. The fire of God is not selective. God does not send one kind of fire to the righteous and another kind of fire to the wicked. God sends the same fire to all—the fire of His love, the fire of His presence, the fire of His truth. And that fire purifies those who are open to it and torments those who are closed to it. Not because God is punishing the closed ones. But because that is what love does to a heart that hates love.²⁹

The Church Fathers on Fire as Love

This understanding of fire is not a modern invention. It goes back to the earliest centuries of the church. The Greek-speaking Fathers—the ones who read the New Testament in its original language—understood the fire of God as the fire of His presence and love long before the Western juridical tradition reshaped the conversation.

Saint Basil the Great, one of the most respected theologians of the fourth century, wrote: “I believe that the fire prepared for the punishment of the devil and his angels is divided by the voice of the Lord. Thus, since there are two capacities in fire, one of burning and the other of illuminating, the fierce and scourging property of the fire may await those who deserve to burn, while illuminating and radiant warmth may be reserved for the enjoyment of those who are rejoicing.”³⁰

One fire. Two capacities. Burning for some. Illuminating for others. Not because the fire changes, but because the recipients differ. Basil is making the same point Kalomiros would make more than fifteen centuries later. The fire is a single reality with a double effect, determined by the condition of the soul that encounters it.

Basil also wrote about the flaming sword that guarded the entrance to paradise after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden (Gen. 3:24). He described it as “terrible and burning toward infidels, but kindly accessible toward the faithful.”³¹ The same sword. The same fire. Terror for some. Welcome for others. The difference is in the heart, not in the blade.

Saint Isaac the Syrian, the beloved seventh-century mystic, gave us what may be the most profound statement on hell ever written: “Those who find themselves in Gehenna will be chastised with the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain.”³²

Chastised with the scourge of love. Not the scourge of wrath. Not the scourge of vengeance. Love. Isaac understood that the worst suffering imaginable is not physical torture. It is the realization that you have been loved perfectly, endlessly, unconditionally—and that you rejected it. That is the fire of hell. Not God hurting you. God loving you—and your own hardened heart turning that love into agony.³³

Saint Symeon the New Theologian, writing in the tenth century, put it in the simplest possible terms: “God is fire and when He came into the world, He sent fire on the earth.”³⁴ Symeon understood what Jesus meant in Luke 12:49. The fire Jesus came to send was not a fire of vengeance. It was the fire of God Himself—the fire of His love, His Spirit, His transforming presence poured out upon the earth.

Fr. Thomas Hopko, whose work has been endorsed by the Orthodox Church in America, summarizes the tradition with beautiful clarity: “According to the saints, the ‘fire’ that will consume sinners at the coming of the Kingdom of God is the same ‘fire’ that will shine with splendor in the saints. It is the ‘fire’ of God’s love; the ‘fire’ of God Himself who is Love. . . . Thus it is the Church’s spiritual teaching that God does not punish man by some material fire or physical torment. God simply reveals Himself in the risen Lord Jesus in such a glorious way that no man can fail to behold His glory. It is the presence of God’s splendid glory and love that is the scourge of those who reject its radiant power and light.”³⁵

I want you to read those last two sentences again. God does not punish with material fire. God reveals Himself. And the revelation of His glory and love is itself the scourge of those who reject it. The fire is not something God does to people. The fire is who God is. And encountering that reality is either paradise or hell, depending entirely on the condition of the heart.³⁶

Baker, the Fire, and the Story of Otto

Sharon Baker, in Razing Hell, brings all of this together in one of the most important chapters of her book. She begins by walking through the biblical evidence, listing text after text where fire and God are connected: God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). Fire flows from God’s presence (Dan. 7:10). God appears as fire in the burning bush (Exod. 3:2–3). A pillar of fire marks God’s presence (Exod. 13:21–22). God’s tongue, breath, eyes, and mouth are described as flames of fire (Isa. 30:27; Rev. 2:18). God sits on a throne of fire (Dan. 7:9; Rev. 1:14–15). Baker’s conclusion is direct: “Where there’s God, there’s fire! Fire comes from God, surrounds God, and is God.”³⁷

Baker then makes a crucial observation about what fire does in Scripture. It burns up evil and wickedness. It devours sin. It consumes what is impure. But it does not destroy what is righteous and pure. She points to the burning bush: the bush burned with fire but was not consumed, “because it wasn’t evil, wicked, or unrighteous, and therefore the fire did not devour it.”³⁸ She points to Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace: “they themselves were unscathed. Why? Because they were righteous before God, and the fire only burns evil, wickedness, and unrighteousness.”³⁹

The fire of God has a target. It does not destroy indiscriminately. It burns away evil and leaves good standing. It consumes the chaff and preserves the wheat. It refines the gold and destroys the dross.

Baker also makes a fascinating observation about the word “brimstone” that appears alongside fire in several key passages, especially in Revelation. The Greek word for brimstone is theion (the-on), which is spelled exactly the same as the Greek adjective meaning “divine.” In the ancient world, sulfur was not just a destructive agent—it was used in purification rituals. The ancient Greeks burned sulfur to purify and consecrate their temples. They used it in their incense as a cleansing scent. They believed the purity of the fire came from the gods. Baker writes that a first-century reader encountering the phrase “lake of fire and brimstone” would naturally think not of a torture chamber but of a place of divine purification.⁷¹

This is remarkable. The very word we translate as “brimstone”—the word that has haunted generations of “fire and brimstone” sermons—actually points not toward vindictive torment but toward divine purification. The “lake of fire and brimstone” is, linguistically and culturally, a lake of divine cleansing. That does not mean it is painless. Purification is never painless. But it means the purpose of the fire is transformation, not torture.

This understanding of fire sets the stage for Baker’s powerful fictional illustration of what the Day of Judgment might look like. She imagines a character named Otto—a terrible man, an international leader who has launched wars, terrorized nations, and caused the deaths of thousands. Otto comes before the throne of God expecting punishment, rage, and retribution. Instead, he encounters something far more devastating: God’s love.⁴⁰

As Baker tells it, Otto comes into the throne room and “glaring flames of fire, so bright and hot that he cannot see, confront him.” But as he moves closer to the flames, “he realizes that the blazing fire is God.” And instead of hatred and judgment, he feels “not God’s hatred or judgment, but God’s love. It is a love of such magnitude that, with its abundance, it acts as wrath, judging him for his deficiency, and with its purity, it serves as a hell, punishing him for his depravity.”⁴¹

Otto hears God say—not “You evil, vile murderer! I am going to get you now”—but rather, with sorrow born of love: “I have loved you with an everlasting love. But look at your life; what have you done?”⁴²

This is the fire of divine love doing its work. The fire does not torture Otto. The fire reveals the truth—to Otto himself—about what his life has been. And the revelation, powered by the overwhelming love of God, is more devastating than any physical torment could ever be. “With gnashing teeth and uncontrollable weeping, his heart breaks, and he cries out in utter remorse, in unmitigated repentance, knowing he can never undo the damage he has caused.”⁴³

Baker’s story of Otto is fiction. But the theology behind it is deeply biblical. The fire of God’s presence reveals truth. It exposes what is hidden. It forces the sinner to see himself as God sees him—not with rage, but with heartbroken love. And that love, experienced by a hardened heart, is the most painful thing imaginable. As Baker writes, quoting George MacDonald: “The fire of God, which is His essential being, His love, His creative power, is a fire unlikely in its earthly symbol in this, that it is only at a distance it burns—that the further from Him, it burns the worse.”⁴⁴

But here is the critical point. In Baker’s telling, Otto says yes to God. The fire purifies him, and he enters the kingdom, “tested by fire, forgiven by grace.”⁴⁵ But Baker is honest enough to acknowledge a second possibility: “The possibility exists, however, that Otto does not accept God’s offer of restoration, or that after the testing by fire, nothing remains of him at all. Nothing. In order to preserve human freedom, which God gave to us at creation, we must allow for the possibility that some people will still reject God. The fire does not eliminate the gift of human freedom.”⁴⁶

This is where the fire of God meets the question we will wrestle with throughout the rest of this book. The fire purifies some. Does it eventually purify all? Or can some hearts resist the fire forever? We will return to that question in Chapters 12, 13, 30, and 31. For now, the point is clear: the fire is love. The fire is God. And the fire does its work whether we welcome it or fight against it. The only question is what it leaves behind.⁴⁷

The Fire of God and the Burning Bush

I want to return to one more image before we move to the objections, because I think it is the most beautiful fire image in all of Scripture. And I think it holds a key that many people have missed.

In Exodus 3, Moses sees a bush that is on fire but not consumed. God speaks to him from within the flames. This is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, and most people focus on the words God spoke: “I AM WHO I AM.” But the fire itself is worth lingering over.

Baker asks a simple question: Why wasn’t the bush consumed? Her answer is beautiful in its simplicity: “Because it wasn’t evil, wicked, or unrighteous, and therefore the fire did not devour it.”⁴⁸ The bush was just a bush—a humble, ordinary desert shrub. But because there was nothing corrupt in it, the fire of God’s presence did not destroy it. Instead, the fire illuminated it. The fire made it radiant. The fire turned an ordinary, forgettable bush into the site of the most important encounter in the Old Testament.

I find that deeply moving. Because if the fire of God does not destroy what is pure, and if the fire of God illuminates and beautifies what is innocent, then the fire is not the enemy. The fire is what we were made for. We were made to burn with the love of God—to be lit up from within by His presence, like a bush blazing in the desert, alive with fire that does not consume.

Heaven is the burning bush. It is the experience of being filled with the fire of God’s love and not being consumed by it—because there is nothing left in you that the fire needs to burn away. You are pure gold, and the fire makes you shine.⁴⁹

Hell, on the other hand, is what happens when the same fire encounters a heart full of dross. The fire does its work—it always does its work—but what it finds is not gold. It is wood, hay, and straw. And those things burn. Not because God is cruel. But because that is what fire does to things that are not fire.⁵⁰

The Fire of the Spirit

One more connection is worth making here, because it ties together everything we have been discussing.

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is described as both fire and water. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, “The water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). He told His followers, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them,” and the gospel writer adds that “by this he meant the Spirit” (John 7:38–39). Yet John the Baptist said that Jesus would “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt. 3:11). And at Pentecost, the Spirit came as tongues of fire.⁵¹

The same Spirit is both water and fire. Living water to those who receive Him. Consuming fire to those who resist Him. This is the same pattern we have been tracing throughout this chapter. God does not change. The fire does not change. The water does not change. The Spirit does not change. What changes is the human heart that encounters the unchanging reality of God.⁵²

As Manis observes, this is exactly what we would expect if the divine presence model is correct. The river of fire in Daniel and the river of the water of life in Revelation are the same river, because they flow from the same throne. To those who love God, the river is living water. To those who hate Him, the river is fire. Same river. Same God. Same love. Two entirely different experiences.⁵³

C. Objections and Responses

Objection 1: “But the Bible says fire is punishment!”

Someone might object that the Bible uses fire language in clearly punitive contexts. God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24). Fire came out from the Lord and consumed Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:1–2). Fire consumed the followers of Korah (Num. 16:35). These are acts of judgment, not purification. Does this not prove that the fire of God is punitive?⁵⁴

It proves that fire can destroy. No one denies that. The question is why it destroys. The divine presence model does not deny that God’s fire brings judgment. It reframes the reason. Fire destroys because fire is the nature of God—it is His love, His holiness, His blazing purity—and when that fire encounters sin, sin cannot survive the encounter. Nadab and Abihu were not destroyed because God flew into a rage. They were destroyed because they came into the presence of the Holy One in an unauthorized way, and the holiness of God consumed what was unholy in them. The fire came “from the presence of the Lord” (Lev. 10:2)—not from some external punishment mechanism, but from God’s own presence.⁵⁵

The issue is not whether fire destroys. The issue is what kind of reality the fire represents. The divine presence model says the fire is God’s love—and that love destroys evil, not because God is vindictive, but because evil cannot survive in the presence of perfect goodness.

Objection 2: “Isn’t this just purgatory?”

A Protestant reader might object that this sounds an awful lot like the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which most evangelicals reject. If the fire purifies, are we saying everyone goes through purgatory?

Not exactly. The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory involves a specific intermediate state between death and heaven where believers are purified before entering God’s full presence. That is not what we are arguing here. What we are saying is that the fire of God’s presence—whenever and wherever it is encountered—is purifying by nature. For believers, this purification may happen at the moment of the resurrection and final judgment, when we stand before the glorified Christ and everything impure in us is burned away (1 Cor. 3:12–15). For unbelievers, the encounter with that same fire may be devastating, because there is so much more in them that cannot survive the flame.⁵⁶

The point is not to endorse Roman Catholic purgatory. The point is that the fire of God is inherently purifying—and this is exactly what we should expect if God is love.

Objection 3: “You’re making hell too soft.”

Some readers will feel that reimagining fire as love makes hell less serious, less fearful, less real. If the fire is love, is there really anything to be afraid of?

This objection reveals a misunderstanding. The fire of love is not soft. The fire of love is the most terrifying thing imaginable to a heart that has built its entire existence on hatred, selfishness, and self-deception. Think about it: if you have spent your whole life running from love, hiding from truth, constructing elaborate lies to protect your ego—what would be worse: a whip across your back, or having every one of those lies stripped away in a single moment of perfect, blazing honesty? The whip hurts the body. The fire of truth hurts the soul.⁵⁷

I sometimes ask people to try a thought experiment. Imagine someone who has spent decades pretending to be a good person while secretly destroying people behind closed doors—a con artist, a manipulator, a person who smiled at the very people he was betraying. Now imagine that person standing in a room where every lie is suddenly visible, where every victim can see exactly what was done to them, and where the person himself can no longer hide behind excuses or rationalizations. Imagine that the room is filled not with hatred but with love—a love so pure that it makes every deception look ugly beyond words. That is the fire of God’s presence. It does not torture. It reveals. And the revelation is unbearable for the one who has built his entire identity on lies.

The traditional view of hell imagines God as a torturer who inflicts pain on people because they deserve it. The divine presence model imagines something far more terrible: a love so real, so pure, and so honest that it strips away every pretense, every mask, every self-deception. For a heart that loves truth, this is paradise. For a heart that has made a home in lies, this is the worst thing that could ever happen. And the beauty of this model is that it does not require God to do anything cruel. God simply shows up as who He is. And who He is—pure, blazing, relentless love—is either the greatest joy or the greatest torment in the universe.

Isaac the Syrian understood this. He said that sinners in hell “undergo greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures.” Why? Because the suffering is not physical—it is the sorrow of a heart that has sinned against love. That is not soft. That is devastating. It is, in fact, far more terrible than the medieval images of pitchforks and boiling oil. Those images are gross and horrifying, but they are ultimately shallow. They hurt the body. The fire of God’s love hurts the soul at its deepest level—because it shows the sinner, with perfect clarity, what they have rejected.⁵⁸

As Vladimir Lossky, one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, put it: “The love of God will be an intolerable torment for those who have not acquired it within themselves.”⁵⁹ There is nothing soft about that. Love is the most dangerous force in the universe—because it demands everything, forgives everything, and exposes everything. You cannot hide from it, negotiate with it, or defeat it. You can only surrender to it or be consumed by it.

Objection 4: “This is too Eastern. What about the Western tradition?”

Some readers may feel that I am relying too heavily on Eastern Orthodox sources and not enough on the Western tradition. That is a fair concern, and I want to address it honestly.

It is true that the Western tradition, beginning especially with Augustine, moved in a different direction on the nature of hell. The juridical framework—God as offended judge, sin as a legal debt, punishment as retribution—became dominant in the West and shaped how Western Christians read the fire passages. We traced this development in Chapter 5.⁶⁰

But even within the Western tradition, there are voices that understood fire as purifying love. George MacDonald, the nineteenth-century Scottish preacher who profoundly influenced C. S. Lewis, built his entire theology around the image of the consuming fire. His sermon “The Consuming Fire” is one of the most important pieces of Christian writing on this topic ever produced. MacDonald argued that fire throughout Scripture is primarily an image of purification, that the purpose of fire is to destroy sin while preserving the sinner, and that the consuming fire of Hebrews 12:29 is the fire of God’s love. As Michael Phillips summarizes MacDonald’s view: “Fire is a symbol of purification and God’s own being which will have purity, and which will ultimately purify the whole universe in the consuming fire of his Love.”⁶¹

Lewis himself, though he never developed a full divine presence model of hell, wrote things that point strongly in this direction. In Mere Christianity, he observed: “God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies.”⁶² That is the divine presence model in miniature—the same God is both comfort and terror, depending on the condition of the heart that encounters Him.

And even in the Four Views on Hell volume, Robin Parry notes that “fire is a symbol of the divine presence” and traces this image through the burning bush, the pillar of fire, Mount Sinai, and Pentecost. He concludes: “God himself is a consuming fire. The fire that burns sinners is the holy divine presence itself.”⁶³

So this is not a purely Eastern insight. It is a biblical insight that the East preserved more consistently, but that Western Christians are now rediscovering.

D. Conclusion and Connection

We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter. Let me draw the threads together.

First, fire in Scripture is primarily an image of God’s presence, not His punishment. From the burning bush to the pillar of fire, from Sinai to the Transfiguration, from Pentecost to the river of fire in Daniel and Revelation, fire is how God shows up. Fire is what God looks like when He draws near.⁶⁴

Second, the fire of God is His love. God is love (1 John 4:8). God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). These are the same truth. The fire is the love, and the love is the fire. Love is not gentle when it encounters evil. Love burns. Anyone who has ever loved knows this.⁶⁵

Third, the fire of God purifies. It does not torture randomly. It burns away what is impure and leaves what is precious standing. The silversmith’s fire (Malachi 3:2–3), the testing fire (1 Cor. 3:12–15), the refining fire (1 Pet. 1:7)—all point to the same reality. God’s fire has a purpose: to make us pure.⁶⁶

Fourth, the same fire produces different effects depending on what it touches. Gold shines in the furnace. Wood burns. Steel gleams. Clay hardens. The difference is not in the fire. The difference is in what the fire encounters. This is the central insight of the divine presence model, and it will shape everything we say about hell from this point forward.⁶⁷

Fifth, this understanding of fire is not a modern invention. It is the testimony of the earliest Greek-speaking Fathers—Basil, Isaac the Syrian, Symeon the New Theologian—and it was preserved in the Orthodox tradition for nearly two thousand years. The West largely lost it under the weight of the juridical framework, but it is now being recovered by scholars like Manis and Baker, and by popular writers like MacDonald and Phillips.⁶⁸

What does all of this mean for the doctrine of hell?

It means that hell is not a place where God tortures people. Hell is what happens when the inescapable fire of God’s love encounters a heart that has hardened itself against love. The fire does not change. God does not change. But the heart determines how the fire is experienced. For the pure in heart, the fire is paradise. For the impure, the fire is agony. Same fire. Same God. Same love. Two radically different experiences.

Think of it this way. Imagine you have been living in a dark cave for your entire life. Your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You have built your world around shadows. Now imagine someone tears open the roof of the cave, and the full light of the sun comes pouring in. That light is good. That light is life. That light makes everything visible. But for eyes that have been living in darkness, the first experience of that light will be excruciating. Not because the sun is cruel. Not because the sun is punishing you. But because your eyes have been so long in the dark that the light itself is painful.

That is the fire of God. God is light (1 John 1:5). God is love (1 John 4:8). God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). And when the full blaze of that light and love and fire is revealed on the last day—when there is no longer any place to hide from God’s presence, no more shadows to retreat into, no more fig leaves to cover ourselves with—every human heart will experience the same reality. But those who have been walking in the light will experience it as the sunrise they have been waiting for. And those who have loved the darkness will experience it as the most terrible exposure they can imagine.

Kalomiros said it best: “The difference is in man, not in God. The difference is conditioned by the free choice of man, which God respects absolutely. God’s judgment is the revelation of the reality which is in man.” That is the heart of the divine presence model. God does not judge by inflicting pain from the outside. God judges by revealing truth from within. And the truth of who we are, exposed in the full light of who God is, produces either unspeakable joy or unspeakable sorrow—depending on what the light reveals.

In the chapters that follow, we will evaluate the four standard views of hell in light of this understanding (Part III). Then we will build the full case for the divine presence model (Part IV), work through the major biblical passages (Part V), and explore the questions of the intermediate state, the postmortem opportunity, and whether the final outcome is conditional immortality or universal reconciliation (Parts VI and VII).

But from this point forward, one thing should be settled. The fire of God is not His hatred. The fire of God is His love. And that love is both the most comforting and the most terrifying reality in the universe.⁶⁹

Our God is a consuming fire. And His fire is love.