Posted by Lou Pilder on December 11, 2007, at 10:26:22
In reply to Lake of Fire » Lou Pilder, posted by Sigismund on December 8, 2007, at 14:49:48
> >Since he was speaking to Jews at that time, the symbol of {baptism with fire} was likely something that Jews could understand. As a Jew, I understnd what is meant and how it relates to {The Lake of Fire}
>
> Lou, what do you understand 'baptism with fire' to refer to?Sigismund,
You wrote,[...Lou,what do you understand 'baptism with fire' to refer to?...]
The phrase was spoken to Jews so it could mean that those Jews could have an understanding of what that means.
Let us look at some verses in the scriptures used by the Jews of that time that it was innitialy said to them.In Jeremiah 23 (29),
Is not my word like a fire?In Lamentations 1 (13)
From above, He has sent fire into my bonesIn Malachi 3 (2)
But who can undure the day of His comming? And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner's fireIn Ezekial 38 (19)
For in...My fire of My wrath I have spokenIn Zephaniah 3 (8)
All the earth shall be destroyed with the fire of my zeal
Here we have fire depicted in a spiritual sense. In a baptism of fire, if the baptism was literal fire, would not anyone baptzed with a literal fire burn?
Now God's fire is written as a {refiner's} fire, and does not a refiner's fire purify? And if God has sent fire into someone's bones, could that not be a spirtiual fire? If that fire was literal, the person that wrote about that happening to them could be dead, could they not?
In that it is written that His word is like a fire, a person reading His word , or hearing His word, if it spiritual like a refiner's fire, could not that person be purified?
More about the baptism of fire and The Lake of Fire...
Lou
poster:Lou Pilder
thread:798827
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20070227/msgs/800110.html