The Divine Fire of God’s Love
Adapted from “The Divine Fire of God’s Love”, Chapter 19 of the book “Surprised by Christ: My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity” by Fr. James Bernstein (published by Conciliar Press in May 2008)
Light and fire are interconnected. Light radiates heat, and when focused produces fire; fire emanates light. Light illumines, and is life giving, but also burns.
Orthodoxy teaches that on a supernatural level, uncreated light, fire, energy, and grace eternally emanate from God’s divine nature. Like God’s love, they existed before the creation of the universe and time, and are called “uncreated”. We can see created light with our physical eyes, but uncreated light can only be seen with the eyes of the heart. This is why before the start of the Divine Liturgy, we sing “By Your light we see the light, Jesus full of light” (Psalm 35:10 OSB), as this refers to the reality that when we walk and live in God’s light, we experience the uncreated light that is beyond visible light. God’s Divine Essence is forever unknowable; yet God reveals Himself in us His divine energies and grace, in which He is knowable. For simplicity’s sake, this is like saying we cannot have a direct experience of the surface of the Sun without being immediately destroyed, but it is possible to encounter the Sun by means of its heat and light. In receiving its heat and light we actually do encounter the Sun, but in a form we can survive.
The divine light, fire, energy, and grace of God pervade and sustain the universe. This light/fire was present in the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It burned the bushed, but did not consume or destroy it. During Jesus’ Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor, the uncreated divine light of God’s presence revealed Jesus’ divine nature to St. John, St. James, and St. Peter. They were enabled by God’s grace to see this Light, but had others been present, they might not have seen it.
Our Church teaches that whether the divine light of God illumines or burns is determined not by the condition of the light or the action of God, but by the condition, nature, and perception of the person receiving the light. To the one who gladly receives the light, it illumines. To the one who resists the light, it burns. This holds true for both this life and the life to come. This explains how God can love man unconditionally forever, and yet be experienced as the source of anguish and suffering by those who seek to flee Him.
The Christian Faith holds that at the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time, the souls of the lost will be reunited with their raised incorruptible bodies. Many other Christian denominations view death as God’s legal punishment for sin, their view of the afterlife is that God actively continues and intensifies this punishment forever. In their resurrected bodies, the lost will suffer forever – physically as well as spiritually. In this concept, the bodies of the damned are specially designed by God to endure all the suffering and physical pain imaginable with no destruction or deterioration. This torment has no hope of ceasing or producing reconciliation. It serves no purpose other than the satisfaction of the “necessity of divine justice”. Therefore, those judged receive an infinite amount of punishment for a finite number of sins committed in a relatively short lifetime.
In contrast to both Roman Catholic and Protestant teaching, the Orthodox teach that hellfire is actually the presence of God for those who reject God’s love. This fire is not physical but spiritual, because it is uncreated. For those who love God and desire Him, His divine light and presence is heaven. For those who want to escape God’s presence, His light, purifying fire, and omnipotence make existence hell because the lost are unable to escape Him. St. Basil the Great wrote, “The evils in Hell do not have God as their cause, but we cause them”.
In the Nicene Creed, we confirm that God is the “maker of heaven and earth”, and do not mention a place called hell. The Creed summarizes all that we need to understand for our salvation, and as such affirms that there is no place called Hell and that, in fact, we are the cause of our own eternal suffering by the actions and decisions we do in our life.
Hell is commonly taught to be a place created by God for the express purpose of banishing the wicked for everlasting punishment. The damned are spatially cut off from God, His Kingdom, His people, and His love. But in the Orthodox Christian understanding, both heaven and hell are not spatial, but relational.
The goal of the Christian is not to “get to heaven” as to a locale, but rather to grow into deepening communion with God by acquiring the Holy Spirit, beginning in this life and continuing forever. Similarly, the Church does not see herself as sending people to heaven or hell, any more than God sends people there. Rather, the Church is the hospital for sinners, preparing people for the experience that all will have being in the presence of God. The only real question is what effect seeing God will have on us.
The Orthodox understanding is that heaven and hell are primarily states of the human soul. What makes them what they are is our individual response to God’s love, whereby God is either included or excluded from our being. In this present life, we can experience a foretaste of heaven as we live in communion with God, regardless of our physical circumstances. Jesus says, “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). We can also experience a foretaste of hell by excluding Him from our lives: “but he who does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). In either case, it is neither a change in our physical location nor a change in God’s attitude that determines our soul’s state; it is our own choice (free-will).
Jesus says that the unrighteous are to be cast into outer darkness (see Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30, which refer to She’ol). Orthodox Christianity speaks of hell as darkness; its fire is a dark fire. Though the fire itself is light and spiritually illuminating, it is not perceived as such by the lost because they are spiritually blind.
Thus, because of the willful blindness of the lost, the light appears as darkness. This provides insight into our Lord’s saying, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). Likewise, St. Anthony the Great of Egypt said, “Thus to say that God turns away from the wicked is like saying that the Sun hides itself from the blind”.
The Orthodox believes God never withdraws His love or ceases loving the lost. In resisting God, we do not change Him; we only change ourselves. Resisting the divine light of God’s love does not change God, but it has everlasting consequences for those in opposition.
When we sin but remain unrepentant, we begin to experience God’s love as fear and wrath. This is not because God has changed and become vindictive and wrathful, but because we have changed our relation to, and therefore our experience of God (John 1:5, 9-11; 3:19-21; 1 John 1:5-7). Jesus never turned away anyone who came to Him seeking forgiveness, healing and life.
An example of this divine fire is presented in the Orthodox icon of the Last Judgment, which depicts the river of divine fire proceeding from the throne of God. This river is presented as heaven for those on one side, and as hell for those on the opposite side. The fire prepared for the torment of the devil and his angels, is divided by the voice of the Lord, so that after this there might be two powers in it: one that burns, and another that illumines; the tormenting and punishing power of that fire is reserved for those worthy of torment; while the illumining and enlightening power is intended for the shining of those who rejoice. Therefore the voice of the Lord Who divides and separates the flame of fire is for this: that the dark part might be a fire of torment and the unburning part a light of enjoyment (St. Mark of Ephesus quoting St. Basil the Great, Homily on Psalm 27 OSB).
So the Scriptures and the Orthodox Church understand that it is not the absence or exclusion of God that makes hell. Rather, because He is everywhere present, it is the impossibility of completely excluding God that makes life hellish for the lost. Human freedom permits a certain degree of exclusion of God from one’s will and life, but total exclusion is impossible – even the continued existence of the lost is the gift of His grace and love.
It is a paradox that the same fire that purifies gold also burns and consumes wood. It is “like a refiner’s fire...a refiner and a purifier of silver” (Malachi 3:2,3). Previously we discussed the metaphor of the sword in the fire, where the sword represents Jesus’ glorified human nature and the fire the energy of God’s divine nature. The heated sword represents the indwelling and energizing of Christ’s human nature by His divine nature. When we bring the sword of our life or nature into contact with the energized sword of Jesus’ human nature by receiving His Body and Blood and living holy lives, our lives take on similar qualities, radiating spiritual energy, light, fire, and love.
Extending this metaphor, we can view God as the furnace a craftsman uses to temper a sword. When a properly prepared sword is placed within a fire, it is purified and strengthened, and takes on the properties of the fire by radiating heat and light. If the metal is properly forged and wrought, it will not be destroyed. However, this same fire will melt and destroy a sword that is not properly prepared. This metaphor illustrates those who desire God and His light/fire are purified, enlightened, and transformed, while those who abhor His light/fire experience destruction.
The fire of God’s furnace is a loving fire, for God is love and the divine fire of His presence is love. The divine light of God is also a two-edged sword. The surgeon’s sharp scalpel of healing can also be used as a dagger of death. For the one who permits the master surgeon to wield the knife, it removes the sinful spiritual tumor. In contrast, for the one who distrust the master surgeon and struggles and resists, the potentially healing and life-giving scalpel can be deadly.
This purging or burning of the Holy Spirit is purification for our good as we receive it in faith and love. The uncreated fire is both a spiritual and a loving fire, for God is Love and the divine fire of His presence is Love.
Several places in the Scriptures appear to say that God is the one who punishes and casts the sinners out of His presence. Examples include the parables of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35), the wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14), and the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). These imply that people were punished and cast out at the Master’s command. However, in every case the cause of the suffering is the people’s own actions. In general, being in the presence of the Master unprepared causes their suffering.
The Scriptures do represent God as a judge and the judged as suffering torment, but such passages should be interpreted in harmony with the whole Biblical teaching on the subject. The Fathers taught that such language communicates truth to those who are able to understand only at the most simple and basic level, which includes most of us. St. Basil the Great wrote that such representations of God are given because “fear … edifies simple people” (St. Basil the Great, “On the Human Condition”, Homily: That God is not the Cause of Evil, p.g. 7.98).
This life is either a foretaste of heaven or a foretaste of hell. Those who go to hell do not want to go to heaven; “going to heaven” is not a change of location, but drawing ever closer to the God who is repulsive and abhorrent to them. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Ultimately, there are only two kinds of people … those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’. All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. The doors of Hell are locked on the inside”.
Such is the nature of a loving God. God really is Love, rather than merely having love. On Judgment Day, as we stand naked before God, the penetrating divine light of His presence will open the “books” of our hearts. His light will reveal what these books contain. They will show whether our hearts are drawn to God or repulsed by Him, either foretasting heaven or foretasting hell. St. Simeon the New Theologian says that it is not so much what we believe or what we do, but what we are that will determine our future state.
Because heaven is primarily a state of being in which the redeemed are moving into an ever-deepening life in God, the experience of heaven is not static, but ever intensifying. Yet we are told that not all advance at the same rate. The greater our desire, love, and inclusion of God in our life, the greater is our capacity to receive the divine light and the fuller is our experience of heaven.
An everlasting rejection parallels an everlasting acceptance of God. Just as there exists the possibility of going from glory to glory drawing ever closer to God, going deeper and deeper into heaven, there exists the possibility of spiraling down into deeper degrees of hell. That is what the Scriptures mean when they speak of different levels of reward and punishment in the afterlife.
So the Orthodox understanding is that heaven is more than a place with an inside and an outside. Similarly, it is more that than an achieved condition that is static, never deepening or changing. Rather, it is a dynamic, living condition, moving from one degree or level of bliss to a deeper degree or level of bliss. It is an everlasting journey in which the redeemed go, as the Scripture says, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Of course, mere words are inadequate to describe judgment and salvation. Human language uses words based on our common understanding and experience. The saints and the prophets received glimpses or tastes of being in God’s presence, and then resorted to words and allegory to share these experiences in the Scriptures and their writings.
As St. Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 2:9 from the prophet Isaiah –
- "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
- Nor have entered into the heart of man,
- The things that God has prepared for those who love Him”
Adapted from “The Divine Fire of God’s Love”, Chapter 19 of the book “Surprised by Christ: My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity” by Fr. James Bernstein (published by Conciliar Press in May 2008)
