“You will be punished by the LORD of hosts with … the flame of devouring fire.” (Isa 29:6, NKJV)
The previous teaching opened with Isa 33:14 – “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
Many would, at best, consider this a rhetorical question, in other words a question which is asked but to which an answer is not expected; it is assumed that everyone already knows the answer. And if it were to be a rhetorical question, the answer would then obviously be – No one can dwell in the consuming fire of God’s judgment.
But it is important to note that it is not heathens who are addressed in this Scripture, but believers who have entered into a covenant with God – the verse starts with the phrase “the sinners in Zion”. Just a few verses earlier, in verses 5 and 6 of that chapter, we get this amazing promise: “The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, and the strength of salvation; the fear of the LORD is His treasure.”
The fire is part of the “strength of salvation”!
But not everyone buys into this. In his commentary on Isa 33:14, in his Exposition of the Entire Bible, the expert John Gill says the following about this verse: “that is, the wrath of God in hell, which is the fire that feeds upon and devours Christless sinners; which shall never be quenched, and is called everlasting fire, in which the followers of antichrist will be tormented for ever; and the smoke of which will ascend for ever and ever, and will be intolerable; none will be able to abide and endure it …”
Matthew Henry, another expert on Scripture, notes the following in his Concise Commentary: “Sinners in Zion will have much to answer for, above other sinners. And those that rebel against the commands of the word, cannot take its comforts in time of need. His wrath will burn those everlastingly who make themselves fuel for it. It is a fire that shall never be quenched, nor ever go out of itself; it is the wrath of an ever-living God preying on the conscience of a never-dying soul.”
Wow. I don’t think that’s what these portions of Scripture are in any way saying.
If the “sinners of Zion” know, as Isa 31: 9 states, that “the LORD, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem” which is a mōkedē ‘ōlam, an “eternal fire” – would the question of Isa 33:14 then still be a rhetorical question, with John Gill’s interpretation thereof still the standard answer?
No. We were alas never taught that fire is part of the strength of salvation. As Isa 29:6 makes beautifully clear: “You will be punished by the LORD of hosts with … the flame of devouring fire.”
- Selah: Ask Yahweh to show you his characteristic nature of fire.
- Read: Ezed 14-16
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: Ezek 14:20 (Tip: Ezek 18:20; Gal 6:5)
