The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

The Message of the Herald:  Mt.3:7 - 12

^3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; ⁹ and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁰ The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove his sandals; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor; and he will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’

Fire is a scary thing.  This statement by John the Baptist kicks off a series of statements about fire, including hell as a divine fire (Mt.3:10 – 12; 5:22; 13:40 – 42, 49 – 50; 18:8 – 9; 25:41).  Fire makes us think that God is punitive, eager to inflict pain on people in a prison system from which people want to get out and be with god, but God will keep them in.  Not so. 

John the Baptist says, ‘Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (3:10).  And Jesus will later say, probably as an expansion of this statement, ‘Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  So then, you will know them by their fruits.’ (7:18 – 20)  Jesus does not do ‘behavior modification,’ as if we are ‘neutral’ trees who must choose to bear good fruit.  To Jesus, there are no neutral trees.  Hence, he transforms bad trees to be good trees, i.e. transforming human nature itself.  And when Jesus poured out his Spirit at Pentecost, the Spirit indeed came with ‘tongues of fire’ (Acts 2:1 – 13).

Fire represents God’s call that people allow Him to refine and purify them, and destroy the corruption in us.  To impure people, God has always appeared in the midst of fire.  Eden was a mountain of some sort (Ezk.28:13 – 14), where God’s presence once was, but a fiery sword barred the way (Gen.3:24).  Later, Jesus is said to be the fiery one whose teaching is represented by a sword coming out of his mouth (Rev.1), meaning that he is the way back to the garden with God, but he burns and/or cuts something impure away from us.  God spoke to Moses through a burning bush (Ex.3:2), symbolizing His desire to dwell in the midst of a sinful people.  At a new mountain, Sinai, God became present in a unique way, inviting Israel to pass through His fire to meet with Him on the mountain face to face (Ex.3:12; 19:13; Dt.5:4 – 5).  Since Israel quailed in fear, Moses went up for them ‘while the mountain was burning with fire’ (Ex:24:12 – 18; Dt.9:15).  Moses received the physical pattern of the tabernacle so Israel could remember how he went through the fire and received the covenant on their behalf at the top of Mount Sinai.  In the tabernacle, the high priest would offer sacrifices through fire and smoke to uniquely enter God’s presence again (Lev.16).  Through the temple on Mount Zion, Israel erected that pattern in stone and gold, where for centuries they approached God through the fire and smoke of sacrifices, renewed the covenant, and remembered Moses entering the divine fire atop Mount Sinai for them (2 Chr.5 – 6).  Isaiah, however, envisioned that God’s renewal of the covenant and of Mount Zion would burst those temple boundaries and give Israel and the nations another chance at meeting with God face to face, through the purification of divine fire (Isa.4:3 – 5; 5:24 – 25).  Fire was an appropriate motif for Isaiah to use, since in Isaiah’s vision, God purified his impure lips by touching them with a fiery coal (Isa.6:6).  So when John the Baptist and Jesus spoke of that renewal, they used fire in its double sense:  joyful and painful purification for those who receive it, fearful torment for those who do not.  Paul and Peter both referred to the return of Jesus as having the effect of a purifying fire that reveals the true quality of each person (1 Cor.3:12 – 15; 2 Pet.3:10 – 16). 

Jesus also calls his disciples ‘the light of the world,’ ‘a city on a hill’ (a new temple presence of God; a new Jerusalem), and a ‘lamp’ lit by a flame (5:14 – 16; 25:1 – 12).  And Jesus, when he shines with light at his transfiguration, shows his disciples that he is the new temple presence of God on a mountain (17:2, 5).  So we see the complementary, positive motif of ‘light’ in Jesus’ sayings which involves ‘fire’ or divine fire (4:16; 5:14 – 16; 6:22 – 23; 17:2; 28:3).  Those connected to Jesus spiritually share his identity and vocation.  

Therefore, Jesus’ ‘fire’ sayings are nothing to be embarrassed about.  Fire is not an instrument of torture or retributive justice.  Fire does not reflect a dualism of attributes within God, as if He hates those who resist Him.  Rather, fire reflects His passionate determination to love us and love everything out of us that is unholy and unloving.  God made us partners with Him in the formation of our own human nature; we are not just human beings, but human becomings; and our choices shape our natures and our desires.  Fire reflects God’s purifying and refining work.  Whether we welcome Him or fear Him depends on us.  Either way, we can say with T.S. Eliot, in his poem Four Quartets:

The dove descending breaks the air

With flame of incandescent terror

Of which the tongues declare

The one discharge from sin and error.

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-

To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.

Love is the unfamiliar Name

Behind the hands that wove

The intolerable shirt of flame

Which human power cannot remove.

We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.