When the covenant was made between God and Abraham, upon which all the subsequent revelation reposed, the divine presence was represented by a smoking furnace, and a lamp of fire that passed between the divided pieces of the sacrifice.  When the great revelation of the divine Name was given to Moses, which prepared for the great deliverance from Egypt, the sign of it was a thorn-bush—­one of the many dotted over the desert—­burning and unconsumed.  Surely the ordinary interpretation, which sees, in that undying flame, an emblem of Israel undestroyed in the furnace of bondage, is less natural than that which sees in it a sign having the same purpose and the same meaning as the deep words, ‘I am that I am.’  The Name, the revelation proper, is accompanied by the sign which expresses in figure the very same truth—­the unwearied power, the undecaying life of the great self-existent God, who wills and does not change, who acts and does not faint, who gives and is none the poorer, who fills the universe and is Himself the same, who burns and is not consumed—­the ‘I am.’  Further, we remember how to Israel the pledge and sacramental seal of God’s guardianship and guidance was the pillar which, in the fervid light of the noonday sun, seemed to be but a column of wavering smoke, but which, when the darkness fell, glowed at the heart and blazed across the sleeping camp, a fiery guard.  ‘Who among us,’ says the prophet, ’shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’ The answer is a parallel to the description given in one of the Psalms in reply to the question, ’Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle?’ From which parallelism, as well as from the whole tone of the passage, the conclusion is unavoidable that to Isaiah ‘everlasting burnings’ was a symbolic designation of God.  And, passing by all other references, we remember that our Lord Himself used the same emblem, as John does, with apparently the same meaning, when, yearning for the fulfilment of His work, He said,’ I am come to send fire on earth—­oh that it were already kindled!’ The day of Pentecost teaches the same lesson by its fiery tongues; and the Seer in Patmos beheld, burning before the throne, the sevenfold lamps of fire which are ‘the seven spirits of God.’

Thus, then, there is a continuous chain of symbolism according to which some aspect of the divine nature, and especially of the Spirit of God, is set forth for us by fire.  The question, then, comes to be—­what is that aspect?  In answer, I would remind you that the attributes and offices of the Spirit of God are never in Scripture represented as being destructive, and are only punitive, in so far as the convictions of sin, which He works in the heart, may be regarded as being punishments.  The fire of God’s Spirit, at all events, is not a wrathful energy, working pain and death, but a merciful omnipotence, bringing light and joy and peace.  The Spirit which is fire is a Spirit which giveth life.  So the symbol, in the special reference in the text, has nothing of terror or destruction but is full of hope and bright with promise.