Week Forty-Five: Transformation/Divinization/Fire. November 5 – God as Consuming Fire

Gregg’s Reflection

My inference from the journey is that nothing comes into God’s presence when we die that is not of God. The work we do in our lifetimes to let go of anything that is not of God will mean more of our true self will emerge, as we are transformed in death.

Growing up in the South, I often heard about fire only in the language of hell and damnation. Fire meant punishment, fear, and torment. Later, through contemplative writers and the mystics, I began to see fire in a new light: God’s fire is not about destruction, but about purification.

The forest service often does controlled burns in the Rockies to clear the underbrush and prevent catastrophic wildfires. In the same way, God uses the consuming fire of divine love to burn away what would ultimately destroy us — illusions, ego, fear, and sin — so that something new and beautiful can grow. 

This is why Scripture speaks of gold tested in fire. Faith is not strengthened by ease and comfort, but by passing through trials that strip away what is temporary. What remains is not less, but more — a heart purified, a faith refined, a soul drawn closer to God’s own fire of love.

Scripture

Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Jeremiah 23:29

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.

Malachi 3:2–3

Ancient Quotes

In the beginning there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God, and afterwards, ineffable joy. It is like those who wish to light a fire; at first they are choked by the smoke and cry, and by this means obtain what they seek. So we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work.

Amma Syncletica, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Benedicta Ward, p. 231

God is a fire whose property it is to consume sin and give warmth to the heart. Just as fire brings light, so too God illumines and purifies those who draw near.

Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms

Modern Quotes

God heals people by making them into what they are really meant to be. The prophet Ezekiel proclaims that when Israel sins, all God does is love them more. Their image for that love was a purifying fire. Often when the word fire is used in the Bible, it’s not a torturing fire, it’s a purifying fire.

Richard Rohr, Hell, No! 

God’s love is a consuming fire that transforms whatever it touches, for love cannot fail to change us into itself.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Journaling Prompts

• How has my image of God as fire shifted over the years — from punishment to purification, from fear to love?
  
  
• What “underbrush” in my life needs to be burned away so that something new can grow?
  
  
• When have I experienced trials that, though painful, refined my faith and left me stronger?
  
  
• Do I trust God’s fire as a gift that transforms me, or do I still resist it as something to be feared?

Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 45 Reflection: Transformation/Divinization/Fire