Between Glory and Ashes 2: God Is a Consuming Fire - Episode 154

Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and in this episode I will be continuing tracking the theme of fire through Scripture. Of course, this is what we do quite often in biblical theology.

[00:00:27] We look at the text in its ancient original context, at least as best that we can, and we allow other things outside of the Bible to speak to that. We use things like archeology, we use things like other texts. And those are really helpful for us to set up the stage as to how the biblical people would have been thinking.

[00:00:52] And all of those things help us to set the stage to understand what the biblical authors are thinking and what they're trying to communicate in the text. But you don't always need external resources in order to do biblical theology. You really can just dig right into the text,

[00:01:11] You need some information about the setting and some basics, which are pretty easy to grasp. And all of that kind of historical data and cultural data is becoming more and more prevalent for everyone to understand it. And because of that, a lot of times we really can just dig into Scripture and see what the biblical text brings us. We don't always need to go outside of the text of the Bible. So that's going to be helpful for us in this little series of episodes. But basically, we're going to be digging into the biblical text just like we did last time.

[00:01:49] In last episode, we talked about Genesis three and the flaming sword at the boundary of Eden. I gave a few different ideas of what that might be and how that intersects with the theme of fire.

[00:02:04] I also talked about Genesis four, even though it doesn't explicitly bring up the theme of fire, we do have the idea of offerings and sacrifices. So fire was probably hiding in the background.

[00:02:17] Then I went into Genesis eight with Noah's altar and the burnt offering and how Noah is drawing near to God as he is doing that. And in giving God a burnt offering, and God accepting that burnt offering means that Noah is accepted in God's sight.

[00:02:37] Then I talked about Genesis 15 and that really weird story about the smoking fire pot and the torch.

[00:02:45] And we landed on Exodus three with the burning bush, which is one of the biggest stories about fire that might come to mind, and it's really very impactful as it should be.

[00:02:59] I talked about frame semantics last time. I'm gonna be talking more about frame semantics, and if you're not familiar with that term, don't worry. You can go and download some material for this episode to help follow along if that's going to be helpful. In the show notes here in this episode, I will leave the details of how to find my frame semantics study guide, first of all.

[00:03:23] But there will also be another resource and that will compare the conceptual frames that fire brings to mind for the biblical author as well as the frames of glory. Because fire and glory are very integrated in Scripture. They don't always mean exactly the same thing, so there's gonna be distinctions, but there's a lot of crossover. And so I thought it would be really helpful to create a little study guide for you to help you see that because this is just an audio podcast.

[00:03:56] If it wasn't just an audio podcast, it would probably be a lot easier for me to visually show you the distinctive differences and crossovers. But since we don't have that, I'll just give you a study guide and you can go look at that yourself or not. However you wanna do it.

[00:04:13] Last week when I brought up the idea of glory, I said that it's really hard for us to understand because glory really does cover a wide range of things that might not seem all that related to us necessarily. Glory is more than brightness. It's kind of God's weight or his gravity made perceptible. And that gravity both draws in and also overwhelms.

[00:04:41] So the instinct around glory in Scripture is not meant to be something like celebrity showmanship, but there is supposed to be a reverence to it. It's something we should stand in awe of. And so we see things like clouds, smoke curtains, protocols of cleanliness, and all of that is so that coming near to God doesn't turn lethal.

[00:05:09] Glory creates a kind of boundary by its very nature. It sorts out who can approach, how far they can come, and on what terms. And yet it also spreads out to the world. God is said to be a consuming fire, and that puts glory in the category of something like jealous love.

[00:05:32] It's not just that God is jealous in a way that is capricious, but he's jealous in a way that brings rightness and that's going to cast out things that are not right. And every human has things that are not right. So when we approach the glory of God, it's a dangerous prospect.

[00:05:55] And so glory shows why God is amazing and beautiful, but that same radiance is going to cut off what can't survive. It's going to refine who we are and what we do.

[00:06:10] So I wanted to begin today's episode by kind of drawing out some of these distinctions about glory and the ways that we see it in Scripture. There are very visible ways that it shows up. We have a moving pillar, for instance. In the wilderness. God's consuming fire is not just located in one single area, and that itself is pretty radical.

[00:06:35] God's glory also stands between threats and the people that God is protecting and it guides, and so that makes the boundary into something a little bit different. These boundaries are not just lines on a map. And there is a rhythm that happens with that as we'll see in the wilderness wanderings.

[00:06:58] So let's talk about God being a consuming fire, having jealous love, and how his presence will guard, guide, purify em power or expose, all depending on our posture and what God is trying to communicate to us.

[00:07:18] As I mentioned, the concept of glory has both the ideas of weight and radiance to it, so the glory and the light that accompanies God's glory is not just there to shine and be beautiful. It's also there to show God's gravity, his heaviness, his importance, and this is made perceptible as brightness.

[00:07:45] But also there is that attraction and that danger. So in, but also overwhelms things that are not supposed to be drawn in.

[00:07:57] So even though there is a visibleness to the glory, there's also a distance. We have veils and clouds and smoke and curtains and intermediaries, and these are meant to be seen as mercies that are going to provide an additional boundary for us so that we are not just in that realm of danger by accident especially. What's really fascinating about this is that it is embodied, it's an embodied effect, but it's not embodied in the same way that you will have a false national god embodied in an idol.

[00:08:38] It's embodied by real people like priests. It's embodied by God actually doing things so that his fame spreads. So the plagues or the signs that were done in Egypt before the people left and the things that the people did as they wandered and the incident at the Red Sea.

[00:09:00] All of those things spread around and other people learned about them. That is also part of God's glory. And when they learned about what God was doing and they saw the people of God show up on their doorsteps, that made people a little bit nervous and that also paved the way into the Promised Land.

[00:09:22] And again, it's really fascinating how this is not stationary. This is not something that the people did in order to enact it or to make it show up. So again, it's out of that realm of magic. But we do have the pillar and the cloud that moves and it shields and it leads and it protects. But it also is something that purifies and it refines and it is an ethical filter.

[00:09:52] And when glory leaves, it is a literal judgment.

[00:09:57] We will not get into the context of the incarnation today, but that is what we should be thinking of as well when we're thinking about this, because in Jesus we have the God- man, and his divine glory is veiled, but also revealed.

[00:10:16] So he's approachable, but he's holy. And we see things like the transfiguration and all kinds of things that happen in Jesus' life to point to what's going on in the Old Testament, and to also point forward to what God's still doing today.

[00:10:33] Glory aims to indwell a people. And that's not necessarily not the case in the Old Testament, but in the Old Testament, of course we don't have the incarnation yet. We don't have the spirit descending on Pentecost, all of these kinds of things here. But there is nonetheless a continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

[00:10:58] All right, so because I want you to be able to compare the idea of glory with the frames of fire that we're gonna talk about, I want you to have the idea in mind that glory isn't just a single thing. It's a whole family of meanings that Scripture is drawing upon.

[00:11:16] So if you wanna go ahead and find the study guide that I've linked in the show notes, or if you just wanna listen and follow along here, either way, I'm going to be drawing upon what is in that study guide for you.

[00:11:30] The first concept that we have with glory is that of gravity or weight. This is about glory having value or importance. There is intrinsic worth within the concept. Something that has glory is something that is worth something. It's valuable.

[00:11:51] Obviously, we have God who is the one who bears the glory, and because God is the source of glory, the value of it is infinite, and that is what we should stand in front of and have that awe response. This is why we have honor and reverence in the presence of God.

[00:12:12] So when you're reading Scripture and you come across words like glory or weightiness or honor or worthy, that's the kind of thing that we're talking about. So for you, when you're looking at Scripture and you're wondering if it is bringing up this concept, the question to ask is, does the scene evaluate worth or demand honor of some kind?

[00:12:39] Now, the tricky thing is, is that God is not the only one who has glory. I know that's going to disturb some people, but it's true, and it should not be surprising to be honest with you, because God shares his attributes with creation. God shares his attributes with his imagers especially, and the whole idea of the image of God is that we are to reflect him, so we are reflecting his glory.

[00:13:11] A second conceptual frame for glory is that of a radiance or brightness. This is the manifest visual appearance of glory as described in Scripture. So it's like a visible light, and this light is supposed to signal God's active presence. So we have God who is literally there. He is present, but of course he doesn't have a human body here and he doesn't have a statue.

[00:13:42] Usually what we'll see is fire or clouds or some sort of light. And often there is a mountain, a temple, and sometimes people will radiate the glory like Moses coming down from the mountain and his face is shining.

[00:13:59] There is a sense of intensity to these times, right? So here the things we should be looking at are the appearance, the idea of shining, brightness, something is like fire. This one's pretty easy to find in Scripture. And that's where we have the actual sensory descriptions. People see the light or perhaps they're overwhelmed by it or in awe of it.

[00:14:27] A frame that is related to that, but not always the same, is that of presence or indwelling the idea of God occupying a space or dwelling with his people. So God comes in glory and he also leaves at times.

[00:14:46] So here we have the idea of God either coming or already being present. We have some sort of space or host for that presence of God. We have the tabernacle, or we have the temple, or we have the burning bush, or we have the people themselves, right? That's what we get in the New Testament. And usually there is some sort of mediator. Even during the burning bush, we had the Angel of the Lord, don't we?

[00:15:15] And quite often there is some sort of time element to it. Where God is actively coming, he is filling a space. He is abiding in a space or he's withdrawing from a space. So the kinds of words we'll associate here are things like filled, dwelt, returned, departed, abiding. And the question you're gonna ask here is whether or not the verb is about being with or filling a place or a people.

[00:15:49] Another conceptual theme is that of boundary and holiness. This is about controlling access to God and not because he's mean or he's tired and he doesn't wanna see anybody, but because being in his presence is dangerous as we'll continue to see as we look at the different themes. So glory establishes graded nearness.

[00:16:15] Sometimes it has to be mediated, so there's a boundary. There's some sorts of limits, there's a veil of some sort, perhaps.

[00:16:24] And then we have the people who are wanting to approach, the people or the priests, and usually there's some sort of criteria. Moses had to take off his sandals in order to approach the burning bush. There is often a clean and unclean distinction, a holy and a common distinction. And there's an outcome. Either you're accepted and you're able to approach or you are not, and that is again, dangerous. So the words we're gonna find here are drawing near, standing, setting limits, or holy. So the question here is whether or not glory is sorting out who can approach and how they're approaching.

[00:17:14] The reason for that is because of the next frame we're gonna talk about, which is purification and consecration. This is often associated with the idea of the furnace. The contact with glory is a refining one, and it's refining for a purpose. So usually there is some sort of thing that is going to do the refining. It's a fire, it's a coal, perhaps. And then there's a target. There's the coal applied to the lips, or there's an altar, or there's the people who are directly affected.

[00:17:52] You will see a change here of some sort. You'll have the idea of atonement, the idea of becoming clean.

[00:18:00] Then after that there is a commission of some sort. There's a reason why you are doing this. So words we'll see here are purge, cleanse, atone, coal, refiners fire. The question we wanna ask is transformation for fitness central to the story?

[00:18:24] Next conceptual frame is that of guidance or protection. This is the concept of the shepherding presence. God as the shepherd. So glory is going to lead, but it's also going to protect and shield. And this can be mobile. So there's some sort of form, like the pillar or the cloud. There's a function for that form. It's either moving ahead or is moving behind the people, or it might be staying in place. So the words you look for here are went before, stood between, whenever it moved, things like that. So is movement and timing and obedience emphasized in the story?

[00:19:14] Okay. So I talked about the purification, right? But there's also a test. There's an evaluation or a judgment, and this is an exposure of what is there. Now, it can be something that is purifying, but if it's meant to primarily expose what's there, that's the frame we're calling up here. So glory is revealing something, either the works of somebody or the people. There is a verdict, again, they're either accepted or they're refused. And there's an effect. They're being consumed or they are remaining. This is the concept of the consuming fire, which again, is related to the purification, but it's got the element of testing. Being tested by fire and exposed. Does the scene that you're reading separate what endures from what burns? And is there something there that is meant to be a test?

[00:20:20] The last conceptual frame in regards to glory that we'll talk about is the honor- ascription frame. This is about reputation or response. So humans ascribe glory like recognition, praise, and obedience. And the ones who are ascribing the glory are described like nations or church or people. They do some sort of act, they worship, they do justice.

[00:20:52] There is a direction that this is towards. It is directed to God to give glory so that God's name will be hallowed and that he will be glorified and all of these ideas. So is the focus on our response to the perceived worth of God's glory? That's what this frame is bringing up.

[00:21:16] Now, as you'll notice, many of these conceptual frames will overlap or intersect, and often multiple of them will show up at the same time in a particular passage. But separating out the concepts, I think, is really helpful in understanding the idea as a whole.

[00:21:36] But there are again, some distinctive differences. Glory is unique because of its weight and valuation. It gives us the answer as to why there's boundaries and why purification has to exist. It is because of God's incomparable worth and his holiness.

[00:21:59] I really think it's important that we understand purification from this lens because it sets us into this world of understanding who God is and who we are in relation to Him. So glory is very much associated with God's holiness and who God is and why we need things like purification.

[00:22:23] Now, the fire comes in as being unique because it is a descriptor. Fire answers how the boundary or the purification, or the guidance or the judgment are enacted. It acts as a fence or a furnace. But I want you to notice that when we see this narratively, for example, in Korah's rebellion, the means of it will be varied. So it's described as fire, but it can show up as a different way.

[00:22:59] So it's not really a mechanism so much as it's a frame, a conceptual metaphor that has a broad range of underlying meaning. But the metaphor is a very useful one. And honestly, we talk like this all the time. It's just we don't really realize that we do that.

[00:23:20] So here's some diagnostics to look at your passages as you're reading when you come across things like fire or glory.

[00:23:29] First question is, does the text stress arrival, filling, or withdrawing? So here we can start in glory and and ask what the fire is doing. Is it appearing? Is it guiding? Is it purging?

[00:23:49] Second point is the focus on access rules? Here we have glory as a boundary and fire as a guard or a guardian.

[00:24:02] Point number three is someone changed to serve or fill a purpose. So here we have glory as purification or commissioning. And fire acts as a furnace. It's a test.

[00:24:19] Point four, is there movement or timing to the scene? Here we have glory as guidance and fire might be something like a pillar.

[00:24:31] Our last question is the emphasis testing or exposing? This is glory as evaluation and fire as judgment or test.

[00:24:43] Okay, so is all of that clear? It's a lot. This is a lot of information for you, but I think, and I hope it's going to be valuable. Because I really do think it's an important thing for us to start understanding better. it is a massive theme through Scripture and it is part of the very core of what the people we're doing in their sacrificial system, in their sacrifices and in their worship and relationship to God.

[00:25:16] So I think if we're missing out on all of these elements, then we tend to go a little bit too much towards the realm of looking at things primarily from a stance of dogma and doctrine.

[00:25:31] And please don't get me wrong, I do think doctrine is important. But what we have in Scripture are beautiful stories and it is a narrative we can read. And if we're not reading that narrative in structure and understanding these metaphors, then we're really missing out on some beautiful things here.

[00:25:54] And also not reading it correctly in a narrative way can give us bad perspectives and ideas about God. There are a lot of people who think that it's horrible that God is jealous, but if you see it from this structure, that his glory and his radiance is dangerous in the way that it is, I just think that's a much different way of looking at this.

[00:26:22] Alright, now let's dig into the text. First of all, we're gonna be looking at Deuteronomy 4 24, where God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. To give you a structure for this passage, Moses is teaching Israel on the brink of entering the land and the issue is loyalty in a land full of rival glories.

[00:26:49] Because the idea of glory is a little bit hard to hold, humans tend to prefer visible idols over something that is not under their control, and that God can either display when he chooses or not display when he chooses not to.

[00:27:09] Now again, I want to remind you of the idea that the consuming fire is about jealous love, which is a relational claim. It's not random, but it is a little bit dangerous.

[00:27:23] So our fire frame here is about boundary and guardianship. The glory frame is about boundary and holiness, but also about gravity and weight.

[00:27:37] And I want you to note that in the section I'll read here, the distinction between always visible idols and God's glory, which is at times visible in something they can see, but it's not necessarily a visible thing all the time, and I think that is important to realize.

[00:27:59] So I'm going to read Deuteronomy four 15 through 24, quote, "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

[00:28:40] " And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.

[00:29:10] " Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan. And that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and take possession of that good land.

[00:29:33] " Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and to make a carved image the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." End quote.

[00:29:52] So again, the context here is covenant renewal, warnings about idolatry. The idea of jealous is covenant exclusivity. We might think of it in terms of a marital metaphor. They're only supposed to have relationship with God. The threat that's in view is apostasy, which we know leads to exile eventually.

[00:30:20] This is one of those strong divine council worldview passages that show the division of people and potentially authorized worship of gods for the other nations. But we do need to be careful on that, and there's a few different ways you can see it.

[00:30:38] First, note the astronomical language that might be easy for us to skip over and not realize what it's referring to. The sun, the moon, and the stars. Those are skylights, right? They're a kind of radiance or fire. And this is in parallel with the heavenly host. And so this is talking about the divine council, talking about God's heavenly host. And these are going to be known to the people to be related to idols and idol worship.

[00:31:14] So Deuteronomy four frames worship in light of the Divine Council, the sun, moon, and stars, the heavenly host, they are allotted to all of the nations, but Yahweh takes Israel as his portion.

[00:31:30] Now it also says that at Horeb, Israel saw no form. They only heard a voice coming from the fire. So there was something visible and noticeable. They heard a voice. But this is not like an embodied appearance. It is not like an idol speaking to the people.

[00:31:52] The only authorized worship is to Yahweh alone, and it's word based. It's based on the voice, right, and based on their experience that they have just had of God saving them from Egypt.

[00:32:07] This is not based on idols, obviously, but in divine council worldview terms, other elohim, other gods of the nations were assigned to the nations. But Israel's covenant loyalty is to be exclusive to Yahweh. So they are not to bow to the host. They aren't to have idols. There should not be any syncretism. Zero. Right.

[00:32:35] So authorization isn't open-ended, like everybody can just worship something somehow, and it doesn't matter. But it is covenant specific. You worship me in this way, says Yahweh. And you heed his voice, you heed his word, you heed his teaching in the Torah, and you do that eventually when they get into the land at the place he chooses to place his name.

[00:33:03] So it is this exclusivity, which is why Moses names God a consuming fire and a jealous God. Jealous love guards Israel from rival claims and guards God's own mode of presence, which is heard, not really seen directly, and it's obeyed and not captured by an idol.

[00:33:27] But what about the authorized worship or not? Let's talk about that as an aside here for a moment. Here's a few main textually reasonable options that people propose for Deuteronomy four 19 with the sun and the moon and the stars and the host of heavens. What does it mean that God is allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven all of those things?

[00:33:56] Well, our first option that people have is that there is zero authorization at all, and maybe that those lights in the sky aren't really about gods at all, but maybe they're just about calendar or something.

[00:34:12] Well, the term allotted, first of all, just means given for use. So the sun, moon, and stars can be given for use for light, for seasons, and for calendars to everyone. They're not given there for worship.

[00:34:31] Now, that kind of relates to some things like in Genesis one with the sun, moon, and stars for being about signs and seasons, but it really doesn't explain the allotted to the nations, inheritance- type language, right? Because the people of Israel still did use the sun, moon, and stars for light and for their calendar. So it doesn't quite jive here.

[00:35:00] Option number two, acknowledgement of a real allotment of the nations to the lesser elohim as we read in like a divine council worldview kind of conception, but maybe there's no authorized worship of those deities. Like yes, God is allotting those lower elohim to the people, but the people aren't supposed to worship them.

[00:35:26] It does explain the allotted language to some degree. It's consistent with Deuteronomy 32. It matches the divine council worldview in a coherent way.

[00:35:37] But then we have to ask what is the point and why is it not describing anything? Because clearly in the context of Deuteronomy four, God is telling the people of Israel, I am your God. I am your covenant head. You worship only me.

[00:35:56] And the contrast is to the nations and their allotment under the heavenly host. So doesn't that kind of at least suggest that they are to worship those beings?

[00:36:11] Well, it can sound like that, but you can recall that Israel was to draw the nations to her. So we can note carefully that the passage allots, but does not tell the people outside of Israel to worship those other gods necessarily.

[00:36:31] They were given over to those other gods. Whether the gods were initially rebellious or not, it doesn't really matter. The fact is that the people were allotted those spiritual beings over them. And then you go and read Psalm 82, and those beings were judged because they did not provide justice.

[00:36:53] So here in this kind of a reading of Deuteronomy four, it's not about worship, and God didn't tell those other people over there to go worship any other deity. He just put them under other deities who were supposed to oversee the justice of the people. So I don't know. I don't know if that really kind of completely answers the question fully, but it does kind of help to navigate this route of, if the problem was worship of other deities and that was what made it wrong, then why isn't Psalm 82 calling that specifically out? Why is Psalm 82 about judging injustice rather than worship?

[00:37:45] So that moves into another kind of side idea here, in that the allotment was about judicial arrangement, not moral worship authorization. So allotment here means that God permits the nations to walk in their ways. This is what we see in, say, Romans one. It's a temporary arrangement and that will be judged.

[00:38:12] And Israel's warned don't follow them. Like God isn't saying, I'm going to force my lower elohim to do the right thing. They might do the right thing at times. If they don't, they're gonna be judged for it.

[00:38:27] Now this preserves kind of a core idea of loyalty ethic, and it explains why the nations are going to pursue their own way without God endorsing that.

[00:38:40] But of course we do have the option that God positively authorizes other people to worship the host, and he just reserves Israel for himself. This is kind of an easier reading of Deuteronomy four. It's a surface level kind of reading, and it reads better if the gods were initially loyal rather than already rebellious.

[00:39:04] Perhaps what we have here is that God authorized some form of worship, although not direct like, like there might be a lower kind of honoring that the gods could have had or something like that that was supposed to be passed on to God. Or another idea is that the gods of the nations were supposed to direct their people to God himself.

[00:39:31] But we don't actually have anything that explicitly says anything like that. So there's a little bit of weakness for that kind of a reading there.

[00:39:39] But if the gods were initially loyal and the people were given over to, quote unquote worship them, but you know, not really worship them. Then this is the kind of thing we might say.

[00:39:52] But there's a few problems with God authorizing worship because then we have to presume that there's these ideas that aren't directly stated and there is a critique of astral worship all over the place in Scripture and it kind of does seem to undercut Deuteronomy four's entire warning.

[00:40:13] All right, so I just gave you a whole bunch of ideas and I want you to think about it, but I know you're gonna be wondering where I land in all of that and how I think of it.

[00:40:24] Well, for myself, I used to be very convinced that the allotment under the gods had to be under loyal gods, like the gods of the nations were presumed to direct worship to Yahweh. But again, it's an argument from silence.

[00:40:41] We don't even have anything that says that. And I'm not really sure that the gods were initially loyal. After looking so deeply into ideas like God's wrath and judgment and things like that, where it's not always the case that wrath is about giving people over to what they desire, but it's so frequently the case that that is what we have going on, that it seems to me more an obvious thing, that the people were already worshiping the gods and God said, alright, you wanna be like that?

[00:41:20] I will divorce you for a time, just like he divorces the people of Israel for a time. I will hand you over to what you are already doing. I will allot you to those other gods because you're already worshiping them anyway. But have fun with that because when you go and do that, both you and the gods are going to be judged for it.

[00:41:44] So to me that kind of a reading is what goes along with the themes of Scripture rather than trying to proof text something. And rather than trying to just formulate a logical conclusion or rationale for it. I'm kind of biased towards biblical theology, tracing themes through Scripture, and if something goes along with all of those themes, that's the answer I'm going to kind of go with.

[00:42:14] What I do think is rather undeniable is that Deuteronomy four is in solid support of the divine council worldview and the idea of God allotting the nations under the other gods, and I think that we have a lot of questions about that, that we want to have answers to, that the Bible is just not going to give us. So to some degree, I think we need to hold these ideas with an open hand.

[00:42:42] So back to our frames of fire and glory. What we have at the end of the passage I read with God being a consuming fire. It's about boundaries. It's about guardianship. It's keeping the people safe. holy love polices access and allegiance, but it's meant to be for the good of the people. So that they can have a relationship with God. And that God can lead them into a life of holiness.

[00:43:11] God is worthy of our worship. Unlike all of the other people around them, they were able to worship the highest God. And that is an incredible distinction, honestly.

[00:43:24] This connects back to Eden and the boundary of the garden. We have limits on Sinai's approach. And then when we get into the land, we have the same kind of idea. So this idea of jealousy and consuming fire isn't about God's anger and temper. It is about fidelity to God so that you can have the life that you want. Because God can keep you in the land flourishing there. Your other options are you turn away from God or you turn to synchronistic worship and that's not gonna work out well for you. The land will spit you out , and not just because you turn to worship another being, but because by doing that, you are living a life of violence. And you are living a life that is going to end to your destruction because God will give you over to what you want.

[00:44:25] Okay, so let's look at a second passage this time in the Book of Exodus. We're gonna read about the mobile pillar. So the structure of the story here is that we have a covenant identity to an embodied presence that the people can actively see. And it's fascinating that this happens. Israel aren't going to self navigate through the land, so they need God to guide them. And the pillar is also going to show jealous love as a fence and a shepherd.

[00:44:59] So the fire frame that we have here is in guiding and protecting, and boundary and guardianship. There's a lot of crossover with the glory frame of guidance and protection and presence. We're gonna see danger crop up here as well.

[00:45:17] So let me go ahead and read Exodus 1321 through 22. This is before the Red Sea. Quote, "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people." End quote.

[00:45:48] Now I'm going to read Exodus 14, 19 through 20 here we will see the Angel of the Lord, and this is right before the Red Sea. Quote, "Then the Angel of God who is going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them. And the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness, and it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night." End quote.

[00:46:24] Now I want to actually back up a few verses from there because I want to point out God's glory. Exodus 1415 through 18. Quote, "The Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground and I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them. And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen." End quote.

[00:47:14] So this is interesting. You see how we have the pillar, we have the angel of the Lord and we have the glory, but they're doing different things here.

[00:47:26] The glory over Pharaoh and the Egyptians is that they are going to die in the sea and it's going to be gruesome. It's going to be an awesome display.

[00:47:38] So the pillar changes position from before them to behind them to give them a fence of protection. I think it's pretty easy to see the fire frame here. Guiding and protecting going ahead, boundary and guarding when it comes between the people and the Egyptians. And the glory frame is presence, guidance, and protection, but also destruction. And that destruction is going to be what ultimately protects them.

[00:48:09] You can bring that into the wider ancient Near Eastern world in the theme of the divine warrior theophany, which would combine storm, light, and movement. This was not unheard of in other texts, but Israel's twist is covenant guidance.

[00:48:28] They also had to keep pace with that pillar that was going along with them. They couldn't go run away from it, or they would lose the protection and the guidance. They had to stay right with it, and this is God choosing the position. No one else.

[00:48:45] Let's go ahead and look at Numbers nine 15 through 23 as well. This is that moving and stopping with the cloud and the fire. So they had the crisis at the Red Sea. Then they kind of get into a rhythm in the wilderness , and it's the pillar that is going to decide whether they move or stay.

[00:49:07] Again, we have guiding and protection, presence and dwelling. Nine 15 through 23 says, quote, " On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony. And at evening, it was over the tabernacle, like the appearance of fire until morning.

[00:49:30] " So it was always, the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, after that, the people of Israel set out and in the place where the cloud settled down, there, the people of Israel camped. at the command of the Lord, the people of Israel set out and at the command of the Lord, they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. Even when the cloud continued over the tabernacle, many days, the people of Israel kept the charge of the Lord and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle and according to the command of the Lord, they remained in camp.

[00:50:17] " And according to the command of the Lord, they set out, and sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning and when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out, or if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether it was two days or a month or a longer time that the cloud continued over the tabernacle ,abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out. But when it lifted, they set out. At the command of the Lord, they camped and at the command of the Lord, they set out. They kept the charge of the Lord at the command of the Lord by Moses." End quote.

[00:51:00] So here we have presence, we have guidance, we have necessary obedience. There's a rhythm to it.

[00:51:09] Okay, we're gonna look at one more passage for today. Let's look at Hebrews 1228 through 29.

[00:51:16] Here we have a new kind of mediation in the book of Hebrews, right, with Jesus now as our high priest. We still have glory, but now the access is through Jesus.

[00:51:29] The fire frames that we'll see here are evaluation and judgment and empowerment and commission, and this implies worship. The glory frames that we'll see here are boundary and holiness and honor- ascription.

[00:51:47] Hebrews 1228 through 29 says, quote, " Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." End quote.

[00:52:09] Okay, so obviously this is that same line calling back to Deuteronomy, but let me back up a little bit and read a few more verses in Hebrews.

[00:52:19] Hebrews 1222 through 26 says, quote, " But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

[00:52:54] " See that you do not refuse him who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on earth, much less will be escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens." End quote.

[00:53:17] So part of the context is contrasting Sinai with Zion. There is acceptable worship and that is to be in reverence and awe. We're calling back into Deuteronomy four, and so there is an evaluation and a judgment here.

[00:53:34] The implication being that in order to provide acceptable worship, we still need to be aware that God is a consuming fire. So when the author of Hebrews is bringing this phrase from Deuteronomy, he is pulling out a whole bunch of conceptual frames that the people are going to be picking up on when they're reading this.

[00:53:58] Remember the few verses before set things up as God still being the judge of all, still being the source of making righteous, making perfect. But now people are coming to Mount Zion. And to Jesus who is the mediator of a new covenant.

[00:54:17] So we go from Eden and that glory there, that is a boundary and a preventer from us to approach. We go into the context of Sinai. It's preventing all of the people to approach God at the center or the top of the mountain, and yet the people are still able to draw near because of the tabernacles filling of the glory, and God is still going to guide them and protect them.

[00:54:46] But then we come into the context of the New Testament, the incarnation of Jesus, and Jesus's new and to better covenant.

[00:54:55] I'm not gonna go ahead and read it, but you can go look at Acts two and many of the stories in the New Testament where the people who are following Jesus, the people of the church, are now the location of God's glory.

[00:55:09] So instead of more distance, there is an approach that is, on the one hand easier. But on the other hand, it was very costly because it came through what Jesus did.

[00:55:23] Okay. There's a whole lot of other verses I would like to get to, but let me go ahead and just kind of wrap this up for the moment. We will be getting into some more next week, but I just wanna make a point here, because God is a consuming fire, which remember we will consider that in the realm of jealous love.

[00:55:43] Then his presence is going to guard, guide, purify, empower, or expose, again, depending on our posture and what God is calling for us.

[00:55:57] And all of this is in my study that is seated in the goal of understanding baptism and baptism nests directly inside the water and fire framework. The flood uncreates, and then gives us a cleansed world. Baptism echoes that passage through judgment into life, which I'm sure we'll get more into first Peter three later.

[00:56:26] And then we also have the crossing at the Red Sea, and that is directly related to our baptism. Water drawing a hard line of who belongs to God's rescue and who is going to be destroyed because they're against what God is trying to do.

[00:56:43] So in other words, baptism is a kind of boundary marker that shows where we belong. It invites a new presence with us. So it's not just this thing that you do that's a symbol. That is a real thing that is supposed to happen in your life.

[00:57:02] And because glory sets value and boundary and fire, and we'll see this connection with Spirit as well in future episodes, fire is a thing that shows how that happens. And so baptism is more than just being washed from our sins and being saved from our personal sins. It's literal enrollment into a space where God's jealous love is going to guard and form us.

[00:57:32] The water separates us from rival allegiances and the Spirit, who also arrives as a distributed fire, begins a furnace of sanctification in the believer. It is to purify our speech, our desires, our practices, our behavior, so that we can live near holy love without being consumed. Baptism isn't just a finish line that you're gonna cross and say, I'm saved, or you're just gonna say it's a thing that we do that doesn't really matter.

[00:58:07] It is part of this narrative of fitness for nearness, where we live a life of confession, consecration, and communion with each other and with God.

[00:58:21] John's baptism of repentance prepared people that directly leads to what Jesus is doing, and Jesus's promise, where he baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. So that presence that stands between and ahead and guides and protects and purifies is now a thing that's within us.

[00:58:43] And it brings us together into his death and his resurrection. It shows the actual power of it in the church and the way that we do things, and we become the body of Christ. So viewed from that lens, baptism is a thing that shapes the church's worship and ethics and should be something that we see as highly important to the narrative of history and connecting us into that.

[00:59:14] And we approach God with reverence and awe because God does remain a consuming fire. But we can do that with joy and with praise because that fire is jealous love, which is for us and not against us. And baptized communities become mobile sanctuaries, guarded from idolatry, guided by the Spirit's timing, purified in trials and suffering, evaluated and tested in our works and our words, and we're empowered for mission.

[00:59:50] So water marks a crossing and fire sustains the living as we do that. This is part of our idea of sanctification and glory. God brings us into His glory as we are sanctified and as we are becoming His disciples more and more. Like, it's really important to see how Jesus impacts this as our priest who intercedes for us.

[01:00:17] And the gospel is the call to follow King Jesus. And it's a call to lead into baptism where we're gonna see how all of these themes are gonna land. So while I agree that baptism is a declaration of allegiance, it is also so much more than that. This is why I have been talking about covenant, about purification, about judgment and wrath and all of these things. It's all wrapped up in all of this beautiful picture that we get to participate in.

[01:00:51] I know this was a really big episode. I dumped a lot of information for you. This is not the kind of thing that you could just get in a single sermon on a Sunday because it would leave everybody dazed. But luckily for you, this is a podcast and I really think that a lot of you can take this information and run with it in a lot of ways. So hopefully the little study guide I've provided is helpful.

[01:01:20] And hopefully as we continue into the theme of fire and spirit, we end up in a much wider view and understanding of what baptism is and what it does, then that's going to lead us not into just saying, okay, I understand that and I get it and I can now put it on my shelf of things. I understand. But rather it's something that you are supposed to take and meditate on. And it is a lifetime of meditation that you can have here.

[01:01:54] There is so much here, and I hope you're enjoying the study just as much as I have been because when I thought about the idea of talking about baptism, you know, at first thinking in terms of, oh, I've gotta talk about what this tradition believes and how we think about infant baptism and believers baptism and all of that.

[01:02:17] And certainly those things are going to play their part. I just don't understand how we can make those decisions until we grasp the whole story, or maybe not the whole story, but a lot more pieces of it than we tend to grasp. Because the problem with doctrine and focusing there is we end up dismantling ideas to the point where they are disconnected.

[01:02:44] Like if you're understanding the gospel of Jesus as king, that's awesome, that's wonderful. We need to do that, but then how does that intersect with Jesus as our high priest? Those two things have to be joined together in our ideas of what's going on. So hopefully, even though this was a lot of information, I really hope it was helpful to you. Feel free to shoot me any questions. Hopefully my study guides and other things are going to be helpful as well.

[01:03:19] But at any rate, I will end the episode here and thank you all for listening to the episodes. Thank you for sharing them with other people. And a big shout out to anybody who is helping me financially and supporting me right now.

[01:03:36] I also want to remind everyone about my biblical theology community. Please come and join me there, if you're not already. I will have the link in the show notes. It's called On This Rock , and we're having good conversations. There's good people over there, so come and talk with us and come and pray with us and come and tell us what is on your mind. At any rate, I will wrap up for this week and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.