Now, opinions differ as to what is meant by this fire Some would
have, it to mean the glow of love kindled in believing hearts, and
others explain it by other human emotions or by the transformation
effected in the world by Christ's coming. But while these things are
the results of the fire kindled on earth, that fire itself means not
these effects, but the cause of them. It is _brought_ before it
kindles a flame on earth.
He does not kindle it simply in humanity, but He launches it into
the midst of humanity. It is something from above that He flings
down upon the earth. So it is not merely a quickened intelligence, a
higher moral life, or any other of the spiritual and religious
transformations which are effected in the world by the mission of
Christ that is primarily to be kept in view here, but it is the
Heaven-sent cause of these transformations and that flame. If we
catch the celestial fire, we shall flash and blaze, but the fire
which we catch is not originated on earth. In a word it is God's
Divine Spirit which Christ came to communicate to the world.
I need not remind you, I suppose, how such an interpretation of the
words before us is in entire correspondence with the symbolism both
of the Old and New Testament. I do not dwell upon the former at all,
and with regard to the latter I need only remind you of the great
words by which the Forerunner of the Lord set forth His mighty work,
in contrast with the superficial cleansing which John himself had to
proclaim. 'I indeed baptize you with water, but He shall baptize you
with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' I need only point to the
Pentecost, and the symbol there, of which the central point was the
cloven tongues, which symbolised not only the speech which follows
from all deep conviction, but the descent from above of the Spirit
of God, who is the Spirit of burning, on each bowed and willing
head. With these analogies to guide us, I think we shall not go far
wrong if we see in the words of my text our Lord's great symbolical
promise that the issue of His mission shall be to bring into the
heart of the world, so to speak, and to lodge in the midst of
humanity which is one great whole, a new divine influence that shall
flame and burn through the world.
So, then, my text opens out into thoughts of the many-sided
applications of this symbol. What hopes for the world and ourselves
are suggested by that fire? Let us stick to the symbol closely, and
we shall then best understand the many-sided blessings that flash
and coruscate in the gift of the Spirit.
It is the gift of life. No doubt, here and there in Scripture, fire
stands for a symbol of destroying power. But that is a less frequent
use than that in which it stands as a symbol of life. In a very real
sense life is warmth and death is cold. Is not respiration a kind of
combustion? Do not physiologists tell us that? Is not the centre of
the system and the father of all physical life that great blazing
sun which radiates heat? And is not this promise, 'I will send fire
on the earth,' the assurance that into the midst of our death there
shall come the quick energy of a living Spirit which shall give us
to possess some shadow of the immortal Being from which itself
flows?
But, beyond that, there is another great promise here, of a
quickening energy. I use the word 'quickening,' not in the sense of
life-giving, but in the sense of stimulating. We talk about 'the
flame of genius,' the 'fervour of conviction,' about 'fiery zeal,'
about 'burning earnestness,' and the like; and, conversely, we speak
of 'cold caution,' and 'chill indifference,' and so on. Fire means
love, zeal, swift energy. This, then, is another side of this great
promise, that into the torpor of our sluggish lives He is waiting to
infuse a swift Spirit that shall make us glow and flame with
earnestness, burn with love, aspire with desire, cleave to Him with
the fervour of conviction, and be, in some measure, like those
mighty spirits that stand before the Throne, the seraphim that burn
with adoration and glow with rapture. A fire that shall destroy all
our sluggishness, and change it into swift energy of glad obedience,
may be kindled in our spirits by the Holy Spirit whom Christ gives.
Still farther, the promise of my text sets forth, not only life-giving
and stimulating energy, but purifying power. Fire cleanses, as many
an ancient ritual recognised. For instance, the thought that underlay
even that savage 'passing the children through the fire to Moloch' was,
that thus passed, humanity was cleansed from its stains. And that is
true. Every man must be cleansed, if he is cleansed at all, by the
touch of fire. If you take a piece of foul clay, and push it into a
furnace, as it warms it whitens, and you can see the stains melting
off it as the fire exercises its beneficent and purifying mastery. So
the promise to us is of a great Spirit that will come, and by
communicating His warmth will dissipate our foulness, and the sins
that are enwrought into the substance of our natures will exhale from
the heated surface, and disappear. The ore is flung into the blast
furnace, and the scum rises to the surface, and may be ladled off,
and the pure stream, cleansed because it is heated, flows out
without scoriae or ash. All that was 'fuel for the fire' is burned;
and what remains is more truly itself and more precious. And so,
brother, you and I have, for our hope of cleansing, that we shall be
passed through the fire, and dwell in the everlasting burnings of a
Divine Spirit and a changeless love.
The last thought suggested by the metaphor is that it promises not
only life-giving, stimulating, purifying, but also transforming and
assimilating energy. For every lump of coal in your scuttles may be
a parable; black and heavy, it is cast into the fire, and there it
is turned into the likeness of the flame which it catches and itself
begins to glow, and redden, and crackle, and break into a blaze.
That is like what you and I may experience if we will. The incense
rises in smoke to the heavens when it is heated: and our souls
aspire and ascend, an odour of a sweet smell, acceptable to God,
when the fire of that Divine Spirit has loosed them from the bonds
that bind them to earth, and changed them into His own likeness, We
all are 'changed from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the
Lord.'
So I think if you take these plain teachings of this symbol you
learn something of the operations of that Divine Spirit to which our
Lord pointed in the great words of my text.
II. And now I have a second thought to suggest--viz., what Christ
had to do before His longing could be satisfied.
He longed, but the longing wish was not able to bring that on which
it was fixed. He had come to send this divine fire upon the earth;
but there was something that stood in the way; and something needed
to be done as a preliminary before the ultimate purpose of His
coming could be accomplished. What that was, as I have already tried
to point out, the subsequent verse tells us. I do not need, nor
would it be congruous with my present purpose, to comment upon it at
any length. We all know what He meant by the 'baptism,' that He had
to be baptized with, and what were the dark waters into which He had
to pass, and beneath which His sacred head had to be plunged. We all
know that by the 'baptism' He meant His passion and His Cross. I do
not dwell, either, upon the words of pathetic human shrinking with
which His vision of the Cross is here accompanied, but I simply wish
to signalise one thing, that in the estimation of Jesus Christ
Himself it was not in His power to kindle this holy fire in humanity
until He had died for men's sins. That must come first; the Cross
must precede Pentecost. There can be no Divine Spirit in His full
and loftiest powers poured out upon humanity until the Sacrifice has
been offered on the Cross for the sins of the world. We cannot read
all the deep reasons in the divine nature, and in human receptivity,
which make that sequence absolutely necessary, and that preliminary
indispensable. But this, at least, we know, that the Divine Spirit
whom Christ gives uses as His instrument and sword the completed
revelation which Christ completed in His Cross, Resurrection, and
Ascension, and that, until His weapon was fashioned, He could not
come.
That thought is distinctly laid down in many places in Scripture, to
which I need not refer in more than a word. For instance, the
Apostle John tells us that, when our Lord spoke in a cognate figure
about the rivers of water which should flow from them who believed
on Him, He spake of that Holy Spirit who 'was not given because that
Jesus was not yet glorified.' We remember the words in the upper
chamber, 'If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you,
but if I depart I will send Him unto you.' But enough for us that He
recognised the necessity, and that here His baptism of suffering
comes into view, not so much for what it was itself, the sacrifice
for the world's sin, as for that to which it was the necessary
preliminary and introduction, the bestowment on humanity of the gift
of the Divine Spirit. The old Greek legend of the Titan that stole
fire from heaven tells us that he brought it to earth in a reed. Our
Christ brings the heavenly fire in the fragile, hollow reed of His
humanity, and the reed has to be broken in order that the fire may
blaze out. 'How I wish that it were kindled! but I have a baptism to
be baptized with.'