Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 75:298 (Apr 1918)
Article: An Inquiry As To The Nature And Reality Of Hell Fire
Author: Calvin B. Hulbert

BSac 75:297 (April 1918) p. 275

An Inquiry As To The Nature And Reality Of Hell Fire

C. B. Hulbert

Luke 12:49:”I have come to send fire throughout the earth, and what do I desire except that it be kindled” (Douay Version); “I came to cast Are upon the earth, and what will I, if it is already kindled” (Rev. Ver.); “And what will I? Would that it were already kindled” (Lange, Meyer).

Archbishop Trench expresses surprise that any interpreters should fail to explain the fire here mentioned as the fire promised by the Baptist: “He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

While Olshausen, Alford, Calvin, Stier, and others concur with the Archbishop that the primary reference here is to the fire of the Spirit, there is, they agree, not excluded a secondary reference, to divisions, disquietudes, revolutions, persecutions, wars, — “fire and sword,” — which this holy fire must, in the natural course of things, necessitate in destroying all that is opposed to it.

It is important here to notice that before our Lord “became flesh “and cast this spiritual fire on the earth, he had been wont all along the ages to cast, as its symbol, material fire. Scholars have claimed that, as a mark of his presence and approval, Jehovah cast from heaven the fire that consumed Abel’s sacrifice, a form of approval repeated afterward we know not how many times in private and public worship — signal instances of which are given, in inaugurating the covenant with Abraham when the flaming torch passed between parts of the sacrificial offerings (Gen. 15:17, 18), and in dedicating the tabernacle in the wilderness (Lev. 9:24), and the temple on Mount Zion (2 Chron. 7:1), and in the

BSac 75:297 (April 1918) p. 276

descent of fire on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:38). Similar is Judg. 13:19, 20. Many interpret “accept” in Ps. 20:3 as meaning “approve by setting on fire.”

And now what have we found? This: taking Abraham’s faith as our point of departure, and under its illumination, we have been marching down the patriarchal and prophetic ages not more guided on earth as by a pillar of cloud, than, under the heavens led, by the casting of fire down from the date of Abel’s sacrifice to that point in time when our Lord exclaimed: I am come not to destroy the law and the prophets...