(7) Literal, material fire is the means by which the total and final destruction of the harlot-city, mystic Babylon, is eftected (18 passim). Nero Redivivus and his Parthian allies, to whom the burning of the city is attributed, are only the human instruments in God's hand for executing His judgment upon her {IS-"- -•» 19^).
(5) Supernatural fire is the agent by which the
nations, Gog and Magog, are consumed, and their attempt to capture ' the beloved city' frustrated (20*).
(6) Fire is the syvihol of God's future and final judgment on the wicked. — (a) In view of the near approach of the Parousia (He 10^^), those in danger of the wilful sin of apostasy from the Christian faith are reminded of the terrible consequences which await those succumbing to the great tempta- tion— 'a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries' (v.^^ RV). The solemn reminder is repeated in connexion with the declaration that the present transient order of things must give place to the new and eternal order (12^'). In con- trast with the material tire that manifested His presence at Sinai, God is Himself in His very essence what that consuming fire denoted — im- maculate purity which destroys everything in- compatible with it (V.21* ; cf. Dt i^-*).
(/3) Outside the Synoptic Gospels, there is only one explicit reference to the penal tire of the future world as the tire of hell (Gehenna). The Epistle of James traces to it as tiie ultimate cause the wide-spread miscliief caused by the tongue, which is compared to a spark setting tire to a gi'eat forest (3").
(7) The only parallel to the expression Eternal Fire, used in the Synoptic Gospels to denote the future punishment of the Micked, is found in Jude^, where the writer declares that the cities of the Plain are ' set forth as an example, suflering the vengeance (RV 'punishment') of eternal fire' (irvp alwi'iof). According to the renderings of AV and RV, which regard irvpds as grammatically de- pending on diK7]v, the burning of these cities is spoken of as still persisting. In favour of this idea Wis W is cited, and appeal is made to the volcanic phenomena in the region of the Dead Sea as likely to suggest the continued existence of subterranean tire. Further contirmation of the idea is sought in the Book of Enoch (Ixvii. 6f. ), where it is said that ' the valley of the angels burned continually under the earth.' An alternative rendering to that of the AV and RV, takes betyfxa Avith irvpds in the sense of ' an example (or ' testimony ') of eternal tire,' the punishment which began with the destruction of the cities, and still continues, fitting them to serve as such example. Whichever view be taken, it is evident that the example, in order to be efl'ective, must point to the fate which awaits the wicked after the Last Judgment. Whatever may be the condition of the impenitent between death and the Judgment, it is implied by the uniform teaching of the NT on the Last Things that the decisive sentence which determines their ultimate condition is not pronounced till the Last Judgment. The irvp al<I>viov would have little relevancy to the warning wliich the passage seeks to enforce if that expression had no relation to future retribution. That being so, the much- debated question as to the meaning of aldivios arises. ' This verse,' remarks Charles [Eschatology", 1913, p. 413), ' shows how Christians at the close of the first century A.D. read their own ideas into the OT records of the past. Thus the temporal destruc- tion by fire of Sodom and Gomorrah is interpreted as an eternal punishment by fire beyond the grave.' The attempts made to substitute the expression 'age-lasting' for 'eternal' as the meaning of the Greek adjective, so as to prove that it does not imply the idea of unlimited duration, are not particularly convincing. 'It is surely obvious,' says Moflatt (British Weekly, 28 Sept. 1905), ' that the NT writers assumed that the soul of man was immortal and that its existence beyond death, in weal or woe, was endless, when they used this term (aiuvio's) or spoke of this subject. How else could they have conveyed what corresponded in their minds to the idea of "eternal"?'. It
410
FIRE
FIRST-BORi^', FIRST-BEGOTTEN
must be admitted, at the same time, that the term takes us out into a region \s-here the categories of time and space do not apply, and where ' objects are presented in their relation to some eternal aspect of the Divine nature' (A. Bisset, art. 'Eternal Fire,' in DCG vol. i. [1906] p. 537^; see the whole article for a thoughtful and temperate discussion of the expression ' eternal fire ' in its eschatological bearings).