Chapter 23B

The Fire of God: Biblical Fire Motifs and Baker's Case for Hell as God's Purifying Presence

Introduction

What if the Lake of Fire is not a place away from God—but the experience of standing in God's presence? What if the fire that Scripture so often connects with God's very being is not an instrument of sadistic torture, but the holy radiance of a loving God whose presence burns away everything impure while leaving everything good intact? And what if this fiery encounter, far from slamming the door on hope, actually represents the final opportunity for the lost to turn to God and be saved?

In the previous chapter (Chapter 23), I introduced the divine presence model of hell—the idea that heaven and hell are not two different places but two different experiences of the same reality: the full, unfiltered presence of God. In Chapter 23A, we dove deep into R. Zachary Manis's philosophical framework for this model, exploring how the unshielded divine presence could rationally account for both the blessedness of the saved and the torment of the lost. Now, in this chapter, we turn from philosophy to Scripture itself—and to one of the most creative and pastorally powerful developments of the divine presence model in recent theology: Sharon Baker's Razing Hell.

My thesis in this chapter is straightforward: a careful survey of fire imagery throughout the Bible reveals that fire is consistently tied to God's own presence, holiness, and purifying work—and Baker's accessible treatment of this theme, combined with a thorough biblical theology of fire, provides strong evidence that the Lake of Fire is not a place separate from God but the experience of encountering God's fiery presence. That presence purifies those who repent and annihilates those who finally refuse. This chapter will develop this argument in three main stages. First, I will build a comprehensive biblical theology of fire as God's presence—going well beyond what Baker herself covers. Second, I will engage extensively with Baker's own development of the divine presence model, including her famous narrative of "Otto" and her treatment of the Greek word theion (θεῖον, "brimstone"). Third, I will connect these findings to the postmortem opportunity thesis that runs throughout this book, showing that if the Lake of Fire is indeed God's purifying presence, then it is itself the final postmortem opportunity for salvation.

Part One: A Biblical Theology of Fire as God's Presence

Before we engage with Baker's work, we need to lay a solid scriptural foundation. One of the most remarkable patterns in all of Scripture—and one that most Christians have never noticed—is how deeply and consistently the Bible connects fire with God Himself. Fire is not just something God uses. In a very real sense, fire is something God is. Let me walk us through the evidence.

Fire as Theophany: God Appearing as Fire

A theophany is a fancy theological word for a visible appearance of God. It comes from two Greek words: theos (θεός, "God") and phainō (φαίνω, "to appear" or "to show"). When we trace God's theophanies through the Bible, one element appears again and again: fire.

Think of Moses and the burning bush. In Exodus 3:2–6, God appeared to Moses in a bush that burned with fire yet was not consumed. The angel of the LORD appeared to Moses "in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed" (Exod. 3:2, ESV).¹ This is a stunning image. The fire is God's presence—and yet the bush is not destroyed. Why not? As we will see, the fire of God does not destroy what is pure. It only consumes what is impure, evil, and opposed to God's holiness. The bush, being morally neutral, was not consumed. But notice: Moses "hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God" (Exod. 3:6). Even in the gentle form of a bush, God's fiery presence evoked holy fear.

Then there is the pillar of fire. When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He went before them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire (Exod. 13:21–22). The pillar of fire was God's guiding, protecting presence. It was not merely a tool God used; it was the visible manifestation of God Himself walking with His people.²

At Sinai, the connection between God and fire became even more dramatic. "Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire" (Exod. 19:18, ESV). Moses later reminded the people: "The LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire" (Deut. 4:12, ESV). And again: "Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?" (Deut. 4:33, ESV). God's very voice came from within the fire. The fire and God's speech were inseparable. In Deuteronomy 5:4–5, Moses recalled, "The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire." And in 5:22–26, the people themselves pleaded with Moses: "For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire as we have, and has still lived?" The experience of God's fiery presence was terrifying precisely because it was so intensely real.

And then comes the declaration that ties it all together—two of the most important verses in the Bible for our purposes:

Notice what these texts do not say. They do not say God sends fire, or that God uses fire, or that God has fire at His disposal. They say God is a consuming fire. Fire is not merely a tool in God's hand—it is a description of God's very nature.³ As Baker puts it memorably, "Fire comes from God, surrounds God, and is God."⁴

The prophet Isaiah deepens this further. In Isaiah 33:14–15, we read a remarkable question and answer: "The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: 'Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?'" And the answer? "He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly" (ESV). Stop and let that sink in. The question is not "who can escape the fire?"—it is "who can dwell in the fire?" And the answer is: the righteous. The righteous dwell in God's consuming fire and are not harmed. The sinners tremble at it. The fire is the same. The difference is in the person experiencing it.⁵

Daniel's vision of God's throne gives us another breathtaking picture: "His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him" (Dan. 7:9–10, ESV). God sits on a throne of fire, and a river of fire flows out from His presence. We will explore this "river of fire" image more fully in Chapter 23C, where we examine the Eastern Orthodox tradition. But for now, notice the consistency: wherever God is, fire is.⁶

Ezekiel's vision of God continues the pattern. In Ezekiel 1:26–28, the prophet describes seeing a figure on a throne: "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… Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD" (ESV). And in Ezekiel 8:2, God appeared again: "I saw a form that had the appearance of a man. Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of gleaming metal, like burning fire" (ESV). God Himself, in His visible form, looks like fire.

The New Testament carries this imagery forward seamlessly. In Revelation 1:14–16, the risen and glorified Christ appears to John with "eyes like a flame of fire… and his face was like the sun shining in full strength." Christ Himself, in His glorified state, radiates the same fiery presence that appeared at the burning bush and on Mount Sinai. George Hurd observes that "just a glance from the glorified Christ whose eyes are like a flame of fire (Rev 1:14; 2:18), will expose all that remains of the soulish self and the flesh."⁷ The fire of God's presence runs from Genesis to Revelation without interruption.

Ladislaus Boros, in The Mystery of Death, draws together many of these theophany texts and highlights the profoundly ambivalent character of encountering God's fiery presence. Moses veiled his face at the burning bush because "he was afraid to look on God." Elijah performed the same symbolic gesture on Mount Horeb. Isaiah, upon seeing God, cried out, "Woe is me! For I am lost." Daniel, beholding the fiery throne, "fell upon his face" in a kind of mystical agony. Boros comments that "the intensively experienced proximity of God is full of suffering and danger. It brings with it torment of soul, and a feeling of abandonment and night. To see God face to face is to look into God's eyes of fire. This shakes a man's whole existence, leading it through indescribable suffering."⁵³ And yet—and this is the paradox at the heart of the divine presence model—this same terrifying encounter is also the source of the deepest possible joy for those who are prepared to receive it. God's fire both wounds and heals. It both terrifies and transforms. Everything depends on the disposition of the person encountering it.

Manis captures this paradox beautifully in his discussion of the biblical concept of the Shekinah—the Jewish term for God's dwelling presence. He traces the Shekinah through the burning bush, the pillar of fire, the consecration of Solomon's temple (where "fire descended from heaven" and the "glory of the LORD" filled the temple; 2 Chron. 7:1–3), and notes that these passages "clearly are meant to convey some sense in which God's presence can be especially located or manifested—that is, located or manifested to a degree much greater than other places and times."⁵⁴ The final judgment, on this view, is simply the ultimate and most intense manifestation of God's Shekinah presence—a presence that has always been associated with fire.

Fire as Purification: The Refiner's Fire

The second great theme of fire in Scripture is purification. Fire does not merely reveal—it refines. It does not merely expose—it cleanses. And this theme is every bit as central to understanding the Lake of Fire as the theophany passages we just examined.

Malachi 3:2–3 gives us one of the most beautiful images in all of Scripture: "But 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" (ESV). Notice what the fire does: it purifies. The refiner does not put the gold in the fire to destroy it—he puts it in the fire to remove the impurities so that the gold emerges pure and beautiful. The process is painful. But the purpose is restoration, not destruction.⁸

Isaiah strikes the same note: "I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy" (Isa. 1:25, ESV). And again in Isaiah 48:10: "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction" (ESV). The furnace is God's instrument of purification—not annihilation.

Zechariah echoes the same theme: "And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God'" (Zech. 13:9, ESV). Here the fire leads directly to restored relationship. The end result is not ashes—it is a renewed covenant between God and His people.

The prophet Isaiah also spoke directly of fire's cleansing power in his own calling. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he cried out, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa. 6:5, ESV). Then one of the seraphim (whose name, as Baker observes, comes from the Hebrew word for "fire") took a burning coal from the altar and touched Isaiah's mouth, saying, "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for" (Isa. 6:6–7, ESV).⁹ The fire did not destroy Isaiah—it purified him. It burned away the sin and left the prophet clean and ready for service.

The New Testament continues this theme powerfully. Peter writes that our faith is "tested by fire" so that it "may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:7, ESV). Mark 9:49 states simply and strikingly: "For everyone will be salted with fire" (ESV). The word "everyone" (pas, πᾶς) is emphatic. As Burnfield notes in Patristic Universalism, the association of fire with salt—a purifying and preservative substance—"strongly suggests the fires of hell are to purify us and not destroy us."⁵⁸ The nineteenth-century commentator Ezra Gould wrote of this passage: "The object of all retributions, even of the penal retributions of Gehenna, is to purify."⁵⁹ If fire is purifying even in the context of Gehenna—the most frightening fire imagery Jesus uses—then the purifying interpretation of the Lake of Fire is not a stretch but a natural extension of Jesus' own teaching.

Numbers 31:23 provides an Old Testament precedent that links fire explicitly to ceremonial purification: "Everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean" (ESV). Baker picks up on this, noting that the principle applies broadly: "Everything that can withstand fire shall be passed through fire, and then it shall be clean."⁶⁰ The pattern is always the same: fire purifies, and what survives the fire is clean.

And then there is the crucial passage of 1 Corinthians 3:12–15, to which we will return in detail when we discuss Baker's treatment of it. For now, simply note the pattern: throughout the entire Bible, fire purifies, refines, and cleanses. It removes impurities so that what is good can shine. As we explored more fully in Chapter 22, the purpose of divine punishment is fundamentally corrective—and fire is the Bible's primary image for that corrective work.¹⁰

Fire as Judgment from God's Presence

A third theme in the biblical theology of fire completes the picture: fire as judgment that comes from God's presence. This is critical. When we read about God's fiery judgment in Scripture, we are not reading about an impersonal force separate from God. The fire of judgment is the fire of God's own presence encountering sin—and sin cannot survive the encounter.

Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven" (Gen. 19:24, ESV). The fire came from the LORD. It was not a natural disaster—it was a direct manifestation of God's presence encountering extreme wickedness.

Consider Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, who offered unauthorized fire before the LORD: "And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD" (Lev. 10:1–2, ESV). Manis draws attention to this text and others like it, noting that in every case, "those who die approached the Lord in an unworthy manner; their unrighteousness has something essential to do with the outcome."¹¹ The fire came from God's presence—and it consumed those who approached that presence in an unholy way.

Consider the rebellion of Korah: "And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men offering the incense" (Num. 16:35, ESV). Again, fire from the LORD's presence destroyed those in rebellion. Consider Elijah calling down fire from heaven (2 Kings 1:10–12). Consider the fire that consumed the people's complaints in Numbers 11:1: "The fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp."

And then there is the stunning text of Revelation 14:10, which is perhaps the single most important verse for the divine presence model: "He also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb" (ESV, emphasis added). Did you catch that? The torment occurs in the presence of the Lamb. Not away from Christ. Not in some dark dungeon removed from God's sight. The lost experience their torment in the very presence of Jesus Christ.¹² As we saw in Chapter 23's overview and Chapter 23A's philosophical treatment, this verse is one of the most powerful biblical supports for the divine presence model: hell is not separation from God but the agonizing experience of God's holy love by those who hate it.

Revelation 20:9 reinforces the point: when Gog and Magog surround the camp of the saints, "fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them" (ESV). The fire is divine fire—it comes from God. And in Revelation 20:14–15, "Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire." As Manis observes, "On the reading I am suggesting, the meaning of this claim is that death and Hades will be destroyed, and more specifically, destroyed by the presence of God."¹³

There is one more crucial text that ties the theophany, purification, and judgment themes together in a single striking image. In Matthew 3:11–12, John the Baptist declares: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 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" (ESV). Manis draws attention to this passage and observes that the most immediate audience for John's words was not his own followers but "many of the Pharisees and Sadducees," whom he addressed as "You brood of vipers!" (Matt. 3:7). Manis suggests that "it is thus possible to interpret John the Baptist as teaching that everyone will be 'baptized' by Christ," but that for some it will be an experience of burning while for others it will be an experience of living water flowing from within them.⁵⁵ The same Christ, the same Spirit, the same fire—experienced as life-giving refreshment by the repentant and as consuming judgment by the unrepentant. This is the divine presence model in a single verse.

Hurd makes a similar observation about John the Baptist's fire imagery, connecting it directly to the purifying purpose of the fire. The "chaff," Hurd argues, is not a separate class of people but rather the impurity that clings to the wheat—the outer shell that must be separated and destroyed by fire so that the grain can be preserved pure. "The wheat is saved, whereas the chaff is gathered and burned."⁵⁶ If this reading is correct, then even John the Baptist's terrifying warning about "unquenchable fire" is ultimately a promise of purification rather than a sentence of eternal torment.

The Fiery Furnace: Daniel 3 as a Prophetic Picture

Before we turn to Baker's work, I want to pause on one passage that deserves special attention because it brings together every theme we have discussed so far: the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).

King Nebuchadnezzar threw these three faithful servants of God into a furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. The fire was so intense that it killed the soldiers who threw them in (Dan. 3:22). And yet when the king looked into the furnace, he was astonished: "I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods" (Dan. 3:25, ESV).

Think about what is happening in this story. The fire destroyed the bonds that held the three men captive—but it did not harm the men themselves. The fire killed the wicked soldiers—but it left the righteous untouched. And a fourth figure, "like a son of the gods" (many Christians have understood this as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ), walked with them in the fire. The fire was not a place of God's absence—it was a place of God's presence. When the three men came out of the furnace, "the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them" (Dan. 3:27, ESV).

I believe this story is one of the most powerful prophetic pictures in all of the Old Testament for understanding the Lake of Fire. Manis agrees, noting that "the story from Daniel 3 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, consigned to the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, is a symbol of the experience of those who have been made holy: they stand within the fire of the divine presence but are not burned by it."¹⁴ Baker makes the same connection, observing that just as Daniel's friends were not consumed because "there wasn't anything impure to burn up," so the righteous in God's presence will not be harmed by the fire—because the fire only destroys evil, wickedness, and impurity.¹⁵

Here, then, is a picture of what the final encounter with God might look like. The fire is real and terrifying. It destroys everything unholy. The wicked soldiers—those who oppose God's people—are consumed. But the righteous walk through the fire unharmed, accompanied by God Himself. And the fire does not bind them; it frees them. Their bonds are burned away, but they themselves emerge more free than they went in. If this is not a picture of purifying divine presence, I do not know what is.

Baker captures the theological significance of this story beautifully: just as Isaiah 43:2 promises, "When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you" (ESV)—the righteous pass through God's fire and emerge not merely unscathed but liberated.¹⁶

Part Two: Sharon Baker's Development of the Divine Presence Model

With this biblical foundation in place, we are now ready to engage extensively with Sharon Baker's creative and pastorally powerful development of these themes in her book Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You've Been Taught about God's Wrath and Judgment. Baker is not writing as a technical philosopher like Manis (whose work we examined in Chapter 23A). She is writing for ordinary Christians—people who grew up being told that God would torture people forever in hell and who cannot reconcile that idea with the loving God they meet in Jesus. Her approach is accessible, imaginative, and deeply rooted in the biblical theology of fire we have just surveyed.

Baker's Central Argument: "Where There's God, There's Fire!"

Baker's argument begins exactly where our biblical survey did—with the overwhelming connection between God and fire in Scripture. She surveys the same passages we have examined and arrives at a single, memorable conclusion: "Fire comes from God, surrounds God, and is God."¹⁷ Or, as she puts it with characteristic wit, "You've heard the old adage, 'Where there's smoke, there's fire.' Well, we can say, 'Where there's God, there's fire!'"¹⁸

Baker catalogues the biblical evidence in Part 3 of Razing Hell (chapters 9–12), which she titles "A New View of Hell." Her list of fire-God connections includes God as a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29), fire flowing from God's presence (Dan. 7:10), God appearing as fire in the burning bush (Exod. 3:2–3), the pillar of fire as God's presence (Exod. 13:21–22), God's throne of fire (Dan. 7:9–11; Rev. 1:14–15), Malachi's refining fire (Mal. 3:2–3), and much more.¹⁹

From this foundation, Baker draws the crucial inference: if God is a consuming fire, and if every person will eventually stand before God at the final judgment (2 Cor. 5:10), then every person will stand in the fire. "If God is the devouring fire, then standing in the presence of God is to stand in the fire," Baker writes. "To stand in God's presence entails standing in the flames. To stand in the flames means burning away chaff, wickedness, and sinfulness."²⁰

This is Baker's central insight, and I believe she is exactly right. The question about the Lake of Fire is not whether we will encounter fire—everyone will, because everyone will stand before God. The question is how we will experience that fire. Will it be as purification that leads to restoration, or as destruction that leads to annihilation? The answer, Baker argues, depends on what is inside us when we enter the fire.

The Otto Narrative: What the Final Judgment Might Look Like

Baker's most original and memorable contribution is her imaginative narrative of "Otto"—a fictional character she creates to illustrate what the experience of the divine presence might actually look like for an unrepentant sinner at the final judgment.²¹ This is not Scripture, of course. It is a thought experiment—a way of taking the biblical theology of fire and asking, "What might this actually feel like?" And the result is one of the most pastorally powerful pictures of divine judgment I have ever read.

Otto, in Baker's telling, is an exceptionally wicked person—a cruel tyrant who has murdered, tortured, and oppressed countless people. He dies and approaches the throne of God at the final judgment. And here is where Baker's vision diverges radically from the traditional picture of hell.

Otto approaches God's throne expecting exactly what the traditional doctrine of hell would predict: he anticipates hatred, condemnation, and punishment. He braces himself for God's wrath to crush him. Instead, something completely unexpected happens. As Baker describes it, Otto encounters not fury but love—overwhelming, blazing, incomprehensible love. He does not hear, "You evil, vile murderer! I am going to get you now. Revenge, punishment, and torture forever and ever!" Instead, he hears God say, "with sorrow forged from love, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love. But look at your life; what have you done?'"²²

"Totally undone by God's unorthodox approach," Baker writes, "Otto falls to his face, still afraid but with his hatred replaced by remorse." Then comes the life review. As Otto's life flashes before his eyes, he sees all his victims—the mothers crying for lost sons, the children begging for their fathers, the dying soldiers crying out for mercy. He hears their screams. He sees their broken bodies. He feels the weight of what he has done.²³

And then God does something extraordinary. God makes Otto go to each of his victims and lay his hand on their hearts. As he does, Otto feels their pain—all of their fear, disappointment, and sorrow. He knows that he caused it all. Among the crowd of victims, the last one he touches is Jesus. When Otto places his hand on Jesus' heart, "he not only feels the pain, sorrow, and the disappointment he has caused Jesus; he also feels the unconditional love that Jesus has for him, Otto."²⁴

Baker then draws on George MacDonald to explain the mechanics of the fire: "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." The farther a person stands from God, the more painful the fire. As Otto repents and moves closer to God, the fire becomes less painful. "The more he burns, the closer he gets to God, until finally he stands next to God, purified, free from sin, and ready to hear God's words."²⁶

Finally, God offers Otto reconciliation: "I forgive you. Will you be reconciled to me and to those you have wronged?" The victims, who have already been "forgiven and embraced by the love of God," extend grace to Otto. And Jesus stands before him and says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I forgive you. Will you enter into my kingdom and be restored to God?" Otto accepts. Baker concludes: "He has been judged by the fire of love; he has walked through the fire of God's wrath; he has been purified by the fire of God's mercy. He receives forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration, and he enters the kingdom of God, tested by fire, forgiven by grace."²⁷

But Baker is careful to maintain the reality of human freedom. Immediately after telling Otto's story, she writes: "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."²⁸

I find Baker's Otto narrative to be one of the most profound and moving descriptions of divine judgment I have ever encountered. It takes the abstract theology of the divine presence model and gives it flesh and blood—showing us what it might actually look like for a wicked person to encounter the living God. And it achieves something remarkable: it portrays a judgment that is simultaneously terrifying and hopeful, that takes sin with full seriousness while never giving up on the sinner. The victims are vindicated—they see their abuser broken by remorse and genuinely repentant. And yet the abuser is not destroyed by hatred or vengeance—he is destroyed by love, and in being destroyed by love, he is remade.

Baker also imagines what the experience looks like from the other side—the side of the righteous. She tells a companion story about "Anne," a faithful Christian who has served God her entire life. When Anne comes into God's fiery presence at the judgment, she experiences not terror but joy. Baker describes Anne entering "the blinding light of God's presence" that "dazzled her, its burning heat encompassed her; and its boundless love embraced her." At first Anne feared the fire would consume her, "but as she experienced and then understood its inexpressible and excessive love, she hoped it would." Jesus speaks to her: "Come, faithful servant, into the fellowship of God's community." Baker writes, "Rather than the pain and the hellish work of repentance that unbelievers face in the fire, Anne experienced the intense joy of divine love."²⁹

This contrast—the same fire experienced as agony by one and as ecstasy by the other—is the heart of the divine presence model. The fire does not change. God does not change. What changes is the disposition of the person standing in the fire.

It is worth pausing to appreciate how Baker reframes divine wrath within this model. For Baker, wrath is not the opposite of love—it is a dimension of love. "At the same time that we encounter the wrath and judgment of God, we also encounter God's love," Baker writes. "Far from being vindictive, divine wrath is part of the reconciling activity of God as the fire of God burns away unrighteousness and leaves only the righteous parts of us behind." She describes wrath as love that "burns away the sin, purifying the sinner so that true reconciliation and restoration can take place." The wrath of God, on Baker's reading, "rather than anger, is love that burns away the sin."⁵⁷

This is an extraordinarily important theological move. It means that the traditional opposition between God's love and God's wrath—an opposition that has caused immense theological confusion and pastoral harm throughout church history—is a false dichotomy. God's wrath is God's love, experienced from the perspective of one who is resisting it. The parent who disciplines a child is not alternating between love and anger—the discipline is an expression of love. In the same way, God's fiery judgment is not the opposite of God's compassion. It is compassion in its most intense, most confrontational, most purifying form. As we explored in Chapter 22, the purpose of divine punishment is fundamentally reformative—and Baker's fire-as-love framework gives us a concrete picture of how that reformative purpose works in practice.

Baker's Theion Argument: Brimstone as "Divine Purification"

One of Baker's most intriguing arguments involves a linguistic observation about the Greek word for "brimstone" (sulfur). The Lake of Fire in Revelation is described as a "lake of fire and brimstone" (limnē tou pyros kai theiou, λίμνη τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ θείου; Rev. 20:10). The Greek noun for "brimstone" is theion (θεῖον). Baker observes that this word shares its spelling with the Greek adjective theion (θεῖον), which means "divine."³⁰

Now, I want to be careful here. Baker is not claiming that the noun and the adjective have the same etymology or that one derives from the other. They may share a form by coincidence. But Baker's point is not etymological—it is cultural and associative. She notes that the ancient Greeks used sulfur (brimstone) specifically as a purifier, a cleanser, and a preservative. "The ancient Greeks used it in order to purify and dedicate the temple or the people to the gods. They used it in their incense as a purifying scent. They also believed that the purity of the fire came from God, just as brimstone is a fire from heaven."³¹ Baker concludes: "So the people reading about the lake of fire would interpret it as a lake of divine purification, a lake of cleansing so that the purified object (in our case, a person) can be dedicated and restored to God."³²

William Harrison, in his book Is Salvation Possible After Death?, makes essentially the same observation. Harrison cites Thayer's Greek Lexicon, which notes that brimstone is "equivalent to divine incense, because burning brimstone was regarded as having power to purify, and to ward off contagion."³³ Harrison also quotes Homer's Iliad, in which Achilles commands, "Bring me sulfur, which cleanses all pollution," and the Odyssey, where Odysseus "thoroughly purified the cloisters" with sulfur and fire.³⁴ Harrison also cites Liddell and Scott's Greek lexicon, which gives brimstone the meaning "to fumigate and purify."³⁵

George Hurd offers a complementary insight. He examines the Greek word limnē (λίμνη), typically translated "lake," and notes that it can also mean "a pool" or "a pond." Strong's Concordance defines it as "a pond (large or small)." In certain contexts, Hurd observes (citing the Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek-English Lexicon), limnē can even refer to "the receptacle containing the pool"—that is, a vessel or crucible. Combined with the purificatory associations of sulfur, Hurd suggests that the "lake of fire and sulfur" could more accurately be understood as a refiner's crucible—a vessel for purifying precious metals.³⁶

I want to be honest about the strength of this argument. The theion connection is suggestive, not decisive. We should not build the entire divine presence model on a single word's double meaning. But when this linguistic observation is placed alongside the massive biblical evidence we have already surveyed—God is fire, fire purifies, judgment comes from God's presence—it becomes another piece of a very large and very consistent puzzle. The "lake of fire and brimstone" may well be better understood as "the lake of divine purifying fire"—and this fits perfectly with the divine presence model.

Baker's Hybrid Annihilationism: Two Possible Outcomes

One of the most important aspects of Baker's model—and the one that connects most directly to my own framework—is her insistence that the fire of God's presence allows for two possible outcomes, not just one. Baker is not a universalist. She states explicitly, "I am not a universalist."³⁷ She believes it is genuinely possible that some people will reject God even after encountering His fiery love at the judgment.

Baker presents these two outcomes by imagining two different endings to Otto's story. In the first ending, Otto repents, is purified, and is restored—as we saw above. In the second ending, Otto stands in God's fiery presence, goes through the purification process, but after the fire has burned off the wickedness, "there might not be much of Otto left. What does remain of him, however, still rejects God." In this case, Baker envisions two further possibilities, depending on how one understands the Lake of Fire. If the Lake of Fire is separate from God's presence, Otto would be thrown into it "and completely destroyed or annihilated." If the Lake of Fire is the same as God's fiery presence, then "the lake of fire tests, purifies, and puts death and evil to death. So Otto stands in the fire. It burns away impurities. But what if Otto has no good at all in him? The fire would burn all of him. It would completely destroy him. There would be nothing left of him, which means that he would be annihilated."³⁸

Baker's reasoning here is worth following carefully. She argues that a person who has been completely purified of evil would naturally choose God, because only something impure could reject God: "A purified, righteous Otto would naturally choose life with God. Because the fire destroyed death in Otto, only life, God's life, would remain."³⁹ But if there is nothing good in Otto at all—if his entire being is bound up with his rebellion against God—then when the fire burns away all the evil, there is simply nothing left. Annihilation is not a punishment God inflicts; it is the natural result of being entirely composed of evil when the fire of God's holy presence removes all evil.

Manis, in his evaluation of Baker in Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, correctly identifies Baker's view as "a hybrid of the divine presence model and annihilationism."⁴⁰ However, Manis also offers a fair and important critique. He notes that Baker's account "is imaginative and provocative, but lacking in precision" on exactly what kind of annihilationism she intends. Manis identifies at least two different versions that Baker seems to blend together. The first is "a version of natural consequence annihilationism: perhaps the fire of God burns up Otto so that 'nothing remains of him at all'—that is, perhaps Otto is annihilated by the experience of coming into the presence of God on the Day of Judgment." The second "is a version of free will annihilationism: perhaps the fire of God burns up everything in Otto except his free will… which Otto then uses one last time to reject God."⁴¹

I think Manis's critique is fair. Baker does not distinguish clearly between these two possibilities. But in Baker's defense, as Manis himself acknowledges, Razing Hell "is not intended to be a scholarly work" at the level of philosophical precision. Its purpose is "suggestive of the lines along which a rigorous hybrid model of this type might be constructed."⁴²

Baker on 1 Corinthians 3:12–15: Everyone Goes Through the Fire

Baker's treatment of 1 Corinthians 3:12–15 is another important element of her argument. Let me quote the passage in full:

"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, ESV)

Baker draws attention to the phrase "he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." She writes: "It seems that in the final judgment, everyone will go through the fire—through the fire that surrounds God, comes from God, and is God." She then makes the crucial connection: "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."⁴³

Baker acknowledges that "the passage in 1 Corinthians most likely refers to the judgment of Christians." But she argues that "the Bible talks elsewhere about a similar judgment of unbelievers" and that "every person will eventually stand before God, with or without Jesus, to give an account of his or her life (1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10–11)."⁴⁴ Her point is that if even Christians experience the fire at judgment—if even the saved must pass "through fire"—then the fire is clearly not exclusively punitive. It is, at its core, purifying.

Manis comments on this passage with characteristic care. He notes that "the ones who are referenced here are those who already have Christ as the 'foundation' of their spiritual lives prior to this Day," and that he finds "no support here for the idea that the Day of Judgment will be a purgatorial experience for any who do not already accept Christ as Lord." But he also acknowledges that the passage teaches "that the Day of Judgment does involve, for some people, a purgatorial experience, a completion of the process of sanctification that occurs after the resurrection."⁴⁵

I believe Baker and Manis are both partly right. Baker is correct that the fire imagery in 1 Corinthians 3 reinforces the broader biblical pattern we have traced: fire purifies, and even the saved experience the purifying fire. Manis is correct that the immediate context of the passage refers to believers. But I would push further than Manis does here. If the fire of God's presence purifies believers at the judgment—burning away their "wood, hay, straw" while preserving their foundation in Christ—then there is no reason in principle why that same fire could not also bring an unsaved person to repentance, if that person is willing to embrace Christ as Lord in the moment of encounter. The fire is the same fire. God's presence is the same presence. What differs is not the fire but the person's response to it.

David Burnfield makes a complementary point in Patristic Universalism. He asks what Paul means by "the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work" if not that "each person (yes, even believers) after they die will go through some type of 'testing' for the purposes of removing the 'hay' and 'straw.'" Burnfield argues that "the traditional view is so fixed on the idea that believers will never experience any type of punishment after death that passages such as 1 Cor. 3:12-15 get dismissed."⁴⁶ George Hurd extends the argument further, noting that "the straw burned is not the individual himself, but rather his dead works which will be exposed to God's consuming fire. If our works have been wood, hay or stubble, they will be consumed in the fire, yet we ourselves will be saved."⁴⁷

The testimony of all these scholars converges on a single point: fire in Scripture—even fire at the final judgment—has a fundamentally purifying purpose. It does not exist to inflict meaningless pain. It exists to remove impurity and leave what is pure. And this principle, consistently applied, supports the divine presence model of the Lake of Fire.

Part Three: Connecting Baker's Model to the Postmortem Opportunity Thesis

We have now built a comprehensive biblical theology of fire as God's presence and engaged extensively with Baker's creative development of that theology in Razing Hell. It is time to draw the threads together and ask the most important question: what does all of this mean for the postmortem opportunity?

The Lake of Fire as the Final Postmortem Opportunity

If the argument of this chapter is correct—if fire in Scripture consistently represents God's own presence, if that fire purifies the receptive while consuming the unrepentant, and if the Lake of Fire is best understood as the experience of encountering God's full, unshielded presence—then a remarkable conclusion follows. The Lake of Fire is not the end of hope. It is the last chance for hope.

Think about it. If the Lake of Fire is God's purifying presence, then being "thrown into the Lake of Fire" means being brought into the direct, unmediated, overwhelming presence of the living God. And if God's presence is inherently purifying—if it strips away pretense, illusion, and self-deception, and confronts each person with the full truth about themselves and about God—then the Lake of Fire is itself an encounter with God. And an encounter with God is, by its very nature, an opportunity for repentance.

This is exactly what Baker's Otto narrative illustrates. Otto enters the fire expecting hatred and destruction. Instead, he encounters love—blazing, overwhelming, undeniable love. The fire burns away his wickedness. It confronts him with the truth about what he has done. It brings him face to face with his victims and with Jesus. And in that searing encounter, repentance becomes possible—genuinely, freely, without coercion. Otto is not forced to repent. He is freed to repent—freed from the self-deception, the hardness of heart, the spiritual blindness that kept him from seeing God clearly during his earthly life.

As Baker herself writes, the fire of God's presence at the judgment means that "we either choose God during our lifetime on earth, or we can choose God at the time of judgment, after going through the fire that burns away impurities."⁴⁸ This is, in Baker's own words, a postmortem opportunity. The door does not slam shut at the moment of physical death. God's love continues to pursue. God's fire continues to purify. And as long as God's presence is working on a person, repentance remains possible.

Baker acknowledges what many might object to: "If God still redeems people even at the final judgment, that means those who rejected Jesus during their lifetime get a second chance at the end." But she also acknowledges that this objection has a ready answer: if God's love truly desires the salvation of all people (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9), and if God never forsakes or abandons those He loves—"ever," as Baker emphasizes—then it would be strange indeed for God to stop loving and pursuing the lost at the arbitrary boundary of physical death.⁴⁹

Integrating Baker's Model with Conditional Immortality and Postmortem Opportunity

Baker's hybrid model—divine presence combined with the possibility of annihilation—aligns closely with my own framework, which I develop more fully in Chapter 31. Let me briefly sketch how the pieces fit together.

I hold to conditional immortality: the unsaved do not live forever in torment, but are ultimately destroyed. But unlike most conditionalists, I believe the opportunity for salvation extends beyond physical death. God continues to pursue the lost through every stage of the postmortem journey: during the dying process, in the intermediate state (Hades), and at the final judgment. The Lake of Fire, on my view, represents the last of these opportunities—the final, most intense, most overwhelming encounter with God that any person will ever experience.

Baker's model provides the mechanism for how this works. The fire of God's presence at the judgment does three things simultaneously. First, it reveals: it strips away every illusion, every self-deception, every false belief about God and about oneself. Second, it purifies: it burns away evil, wickedness, and sin—everything in a person that is opposed to God's love. Third, it invites: it confronts each person with the full truth of God's love and offers them the chance to respond.

For those who respond with repentance—like Baker's Otto—the fire leads to restoration. They are purified, forgiven, and welcomed into God's kingdom. They have, in Manis's language, experienced a "purgatorial" encounter with the divine presence that completed their sanctification and brought them to saving faith.⁵⁰

For those who refuse—who even after experiencing the full, unfiltered blaze of God's holy love still cling to their rebellion—the fire continues its work. It continues to burn away everything evil. And if a person's entire being is constituted by their rejection of God—if there is genuinely nothing left of them apart from their "no" to God—then the fire's purifying work means there is simply nothing left. The person is annihilated. Not because God hates them. Not as a retributive punishment. But as the natural, tragic, heartbreaking consequence of being wholly given over to evil in the presence of infinite holiness.

This framework preserves everything that matters theologically. It preserves the seriousness of sin—sin is not brushed aside or ignored; it is confronted and destroyed. It preserves human freedom—no one is coerced into repentance or forced into God's kingdom against their will. It preserves divine justice—evil does not go unaddressed; the fire ensures that every wrong is exposed and every victim is vindicated. And it preserves divine love—God never stops loving, never stops pursuing, never stops offering the chance for restoration, all the way to the very end.

Responding to Potential Objections

I want to anticipate and briefly address several objections that might be raised against the argument of this chapter.

Objection 1: "The fire imagery is just metaphorical—you can't build theology on metaphors."

I agree that fire language in Scripture is metaphorical. No one thinks God is literally made of combustible material. But metaphors are not arbitrary. They are chosen because they point to something real. When the Bible says God is a "consuming fire," it is telling us something true about God's nature—something that cannot be fully expressed in non-metaphorical language. The consistent use of fire imagery across 66 books, written over more than a thousand years, by dozens of different authors, in multiple genres, tells us that the fire metaphor is doing real theological work. It is communicating something essential about the nature of God and about what happens when sinful creatures encounter God's holiness. The fact that fire is a metaphor does not make it meaningless—it makes it profound.

Objection 2: "Baker's Otto narrative is pure speculation—it has no biblical basis."

I would push back on this. Baker's Otto narrative is an imaginative retelling that draws together genuine biblical themes: the life review (which has parallels in near-death experiences, as discussed in Chapter 5), the encounter with God's overwhelming love, the purifying fire, the possibility of repentance, and the vindication of victims. Every element of the narrative has biblical roots. Is it speculative? Of course—any attempt to describe what the final judgment will actually feel like from the inside must be speculative, because Scripture does not give us a first-person account. But it is speculation firmly grounded in biblical theology, and it is far more consistent with the character of the God revealed in Jesus Christ than the traditional picture of a wrathful deity torturing people forever.

Objection 3: "1 Corinthians 3:12–15 applies only to believers, not to the unsaved."

This is a valid exegetical point, and I take it seriously. The immediate context of 1 Corinthians 3 does concern believers—specifically, how Christian leaders build upon the foundation of Christ. Manis is right that this passage by itself does not prove a purgatorial experience for the unsaved.⁵¹ But the passage does establish an important principle: even for the saved, the encounter with God at the judgment involves fire, and that fire purifies. Once we have established this principle, the question becomes: Is there any reason to think the fire works differently for the unsaved? I believe the broader biblical theology of fire answers this question clearly: no, the fire does not work differently. God's fire is always purifying. It always burns away impurity. It always leaves what is pure. The difference is not in the nature of the fire but in the disposition of the person encountering it.

Objection 4: "This makes the Lake of Fire sound like purgatory, which Protestants reject."

I address the relationship between postmortem opportunity and purgatory in detail in Chapter 29. But briefly: the divine presence model of the Lake of Fire is not purgatory in the Roman Catholic sense. Catholic purgatory is a place where already saved people undergo purification before entering heaven. What I am describing is fundamentally different: it is an encounter with God that can lead to initial salvation for the first time—or to final destruction. It is not a mechanical process of "working off" temporal punishment. It is a deeply personal, relational encounter with the living God. And it is an encounter that, because it involves the full revelation of God's love and truth, provides the most compelling possible context for genuine repentance.

Objection 5: "If people can be saved in the Lake of Fire, why bother with evangelism?"

This objection is so common and so important that I devote an entire chapter to it (Chapter 26). The short answer is: for the same reason we care about people's suffering now, even though we know God will eventually make all things right. The postmortem opportunity does not make evangelism pointless—it makes it even more urgent. Every day a person lives without Christ is a day of unnecessary suffering, alienation from God, and spiritual darkness. The fact that God's love extends beyond death does not diminish the importance of encountering that love now. If anything, it magnifies it: if God's love is so relentless that it pursues people even into the Lake of Fire, how much more should we—as bearers of that love—pursue them during this life?

The Fire That Purifies, the Love That Saves

As we bring this chapter to a close, I want to step back and see the big picture. We have traced the theme of fire through the entire Bible—from the burning bush to the Lake of Fire—and we have found a consistent, coherent pattern. Fire is God's presence. Fire purifies. Fire judges—not with arbitrary cruelty, but with the searing truth of holy love that cannot coexist with evil. The righteous walk through the fire unharmed, accompanied by God Himself (Daniel 3). The unrighteous experience the fire as agonizing torment—not because God hates them, but because their sin cannot survive the encounter with God's holiness.

Baker's accessible and powerful development of these themes in Razing Hell shows us what this might actually look like in practice. Her Otto narrative—however speculative in its details—captures the essential dynamic: God's love is not soft or sentimental. It is a blazing fire that will not rest until every evil is exposed, every victim is vindicated, and every sinner is confronted with the full truth about themselves and about God. And in that confrontation, repentance remains possible. The fire does not eliminate human freedom. It illuminates human freedom by stripping away every illusion that might prevent a person from freely choosing God.

Baker's theion argument—while not decisive on its own—adds another suggestive layer: the "brimstone" of the Lake of Fire carries ancient associations with purification and dedication to God, not merely with destruction. And Baker's treatment of 1 Corinthians 3:12–15 establishes that even for believers, the encounter with God at the judgment involves a purifying fire that burns away impurity while preserving what is good.

Manis's philosophical critique of Baker is helpful in sharpening the precision of the model—particularly in distinguishing between natural consequence annihilationism and free will annihilationism. But as Manis himself acknowledges, Baker's work is "suggestive of the lines along which a rigorous hybrid model of this type might be constructed."⁵² And that is exactly what I am trying to do in this book: construct a rigorous model that integrates the divine presence understanding of the Lake of Fire with conditional immortality and an explicit postmortem opportunity for salvation.

The result, I believe, is the most biblically faithful, theologically coherent, and pastorally satisfying account of the Lake of Fire available. It takes the biblical fire imagery seriously—more seriously, I would argue, than the traditional view, which treats the fire as merely a tool of punishment rather than as a manifestation of God's very being. It preserves divine justice, because sin is not ignored but destroyed. It preserves human freedom, because repentance is offered but never coerced. It preserves the seriousness of final judgment, because those who irrevocably reject God do face destruction. And it preserves the hope of the gospel, because God's love—which is the fire—never stops burning, never stops pursuing, never stops offering the chance for restoration.

In the next chapter (23C), we will turn to the Eastern Orthodox theological tradition and Alexandre Kalomiros's landmark essay "The River of Fire," which provides the ancient patristic roots for the divine presence model we have been developing. If Baker gives us the accessible, popular-level treatment and Manis (Chapter 23A) gives us the rigorous philosophical treatment, the Eastern Orthodox fathers give us the historical and theological depth—showing that the understanding of hell as God's love experienced as torment by the unrepentant is not a modern innovation but an ancient Christian conviction rooted in the earliest centuries of the Church.