Even in its more general application to the divine nature, the same thing is to a large extent true.  The common impression is the reverse of this.  The interpretation which most readers unconsciously supply to the passages of Scripture where God is spoken of as flaming fire, is that God’s terrible wrath is revealed in them.  I am very far from denying that the punitive and destructive side of the divine character is in the symbol, but certainly that is not its exclusive meaning, nor does it seem to me to be its principal one.  The emblem is employed over and over again, in connections where it must mean chiefly the blessed and joyous aspect of God’s Name to men.  It is unquestionably part of the felicity of the symbol that there should be in it this double force—­for so is it the fitter to show forth Him who, by the very same attributes, is the life of those who love Him and the death of those who turn from Him.  But, still, though it is true that the bright and the awful aspects of that Name are in themselves one, and that their difference arises from the difference of the eyes which behold them, yet we are justified, I think, in saying that this emblem of fire regards mainly the former of these and not the latter.  The principal ideas in it seem to be swift energy and penetrating power, which cleanses and transforms.  It is fire as the source of light and heat; it is fire, not so much as burning up what it seizes into ashes, but rather as laying hold upon cold dead matter, making it sparkle and blaze, and turning it into the likeness of its own leaping brightness; it is fire as springing heavenwards, and bearing up earthly particles in its shooting spires; it is fire, as least gross of visible things;—­in a word, it is fire as life, and not as death, that is the symbol of God.  It speaks of the might of His transforming power, the melting, cleansing, vitalising influence of His communicated grace, the warmth of His conquering love.  It has, indeed, an under side of possible judgment, punishment, and destruction, but it has a face of blessing, of life-giving, of sanctifying power.  And therefore the Baptist spake glad tidings when he said, ’He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.’

II.  Christ plunges us into this divine fire.

I presume that scarcely any one will deny that our version weakens the force of John’s words by translating ’with water, with the Holy Ghost,’ instead of ‘in water, in the Holy Ghost.’  One of the most accurate of recent commentators,[2] for instance, in his remarks on this verse, says that the preposition here ’is to be understood in accordance with the idea of baptism that is immersion, not as expressing the instrument with which, but as meaning “in,” and expressing the element in which the immersion takes place.’  I suppose that very few persons would hesitate to agree with that statement.  If it is correct, what a grand idea is conveyed by that metaphor of the completeness