You prevail over all your enemies;
Psalm 21:8-9 NET
your power is too great for those who hate you.
You burn them up like a fiery furnace when you appear.
The LORD angrily devours them;
the fire consumes them.
In our human experience, fire generally does one of two things to something it encounters. The fire might be used as a refining process, separating the valuable from the impurities. Or the fire consumes what it touches.
Scripture makes use of both functions of fire. Peter refers to the suffering that believers experience as a refiner’s fire (1 Pet. 1:6-7). And in Malachi 3:2-4, the Lord’s return is described as a refiner’s fire, purifying the Levites and refining them like gold or silver.
But more often, fire describes God’s judgment against his enemies. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the most obvious example of a consuming fire of judgment. And the description here in Psalm 21:8-9 is found throughout the Psalms and the Prophets. God’s enemies are burned up and consumed.
This idea of a consuming fire is also found in the New Testament. Hebrews 10:27 refers to “a fury of fire that will consume God’s enemies.” And Jesus tells us to “fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).
Gehenna
When Jesus speaks of hell, the word translated as hell is Gehenna, a real place outside of Jerusalem. But he is referring to a reality only represented by the image of Gehenna, a place of judgment. And he describes it as a place where the worms do not die and the fire is not quenched.
Throughout much of church history, it has been common to view the fires of Gehenna as an eternal torment reserved for unbelievers rather than a consuming fire. But it is worth wondering what the earliest church understood Jesus to mean when he referred to the fire and worms of Gehenna.
You can find a multitude of articles claiming Jesus and the early church understood the fires of Gehenna as eternal torment. And just as many claim Jesus and the early church understood Gehenna to be a consuming fire. And that the concept of eternal torment was introduced later.
Over the past few years, I have come to understand the fires of Gehenna to be consuming rather than eternal torment. But I do not see this as something that should cause division within the body of Christ. Regardless of your view, our hope is the same, and our concern for the lost should be the same.
