Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 6:13
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
The fire shall ever be burning – This was a symbol of the never-ceasing worship which Yahweh required of His people. It was essentially connected with their acts of sacrifice.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lev 6:13
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar.
Divine fire humanly maintained
I. Divine endowments committed to the control of men. As in the instances of that fire, supernaturally originated on that altar, and then left in mans hands, so with–
1. Pure sympathies implanted within man.
2. Revelation in the Scriptures.
3. Quickened life in the regenerated soul.
4. Spiritual endowments to the believer.
5. Sacred affections in the Christian heart.
6. Holy enthusiasm firing an earnest nature. From God they come: but man has them in his hands.
II. Divine endowments entrusted to the preservation of men. The priests had to keep that fire alive, or it would expire.
1. Having received the gifts of God we are responsible for their maintenance.
2. How solemn the priestly office, which all are called to perform: feeding the Divine fire in our souls continually!
III. Divine endowments requiring the co-operative watchfulness of men. The priests eye would need to be often turned to the altar fire: every morning it needed care.
1. A watchful life is imperative if we would maintain godliness within.
2. Neglect will allow the extinction of the Divinest gift. Only neglect–
(1) daily prayer;
(2) daily reading of the Scriptures;
(3) daily fellowship with Christ;
(4) daily watching against temptation. Fail in these duties, and the fire will expire. Every morning bring wood to the fire!
IV. Divine endowments enduring only where actively maintained. That fire did expire! At the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar.
1. May the Divine life m a soul go out?
2. May the Christians first love become extinct?
3. May the holy aspirations of a child of God droop?
4. May all sacred ardour, in prayer, in consecration, die away?
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. See that ye make your calling and election sure. (W. H. Jellie.)
The fire upon the altar
The fire shall ever be burning. I take the words as typical of our common life, and its common duties and opportunities. It is only a shallow mind that can think without being awed of the privilege or the responsibility which belongs to us as custodians of a light that may be dimned or desecrated in our keeping, but cannot die; so much stronger is it and more enduring than ourselves. Yet the words suggest, too, that if our life be as the fire, it must be as the fire in its intensity and purity. It is not worth having if it is dull and cold and heartless, if it is not enkindled with zeal and generosity.
I. The fire of enthusiasm. It was said of Sir Walter Raleigh, He can toil terribly; and I think, if the great souls of the past could speak to you in tones that would command your interest, they would say that whatever good they did upon earth was achieved at the cost of strong resolve and strenuous effort.
II. The fire of indignation. It is not enough, right as it is, to love what is good. We must hate, we must spurn the evil. The wicked are always a discredited minority; and if the good had only the courage of their opinions, the wicked would never have the courage of theirs.
III. The fire of personal sanctity. The flame which consumes the dross of the world must itself be bright and beautiful. It must be a burning and a shining light. Yes, and it must be ever burning; it must never go out. It was the law of the Vestal Virgins in old time that night and day they should watch with sleepless care the everlasting fire upon the altar of the goddess. No calamity that could happen to the State was so terrible as if through their fault that fire should become extinct. But there was one essential condition of their watching: they must themselves be chaste; should any one of them break the Divine law of chastity, it was death for her and for him who made her break it. And oh! let us resolve that the fire shall ever be burning upon the altar of this school, which is so dear to us. Let it be bright, fierce, and lambent. Let it burn away the selfishness which lies at the heart of so many an one who knows it not. (J. E. C. Welldon, M. A.)
Habitual piety
I. Piety must be habitual to prove that it is real.
1. Whatever is chief in the heart will be ever showing itself in the life.
2. We shall thus surely and thus only verify and carry out the Scripture descriptions of godliness.
II. Piety must be habitual in order to be progressive.
1. The attainment of holy character is by degrees.
2. These advances can only be attained by constant well-doing.
III. Piety must be habitual in order to be useful.
1. If there be inconsistency or fitfulness, a painful sense of insincerity will he felt by those to whom the truth may be addressed.
2. With habitual piety, how much greater weight, pathos, and earnestness will there be.
3. An unconscious yet speaking power is in such godliness.
IV. Habitual piety gives dignity and elevation to the whole of life. It was a noble testimony that the son of J. A. James bore of his father: I never found in him anything inconsistent or unworthy. What a wreath to lay on that honoured tomb! Conclusion: See to it that the fire be ever burning. What Christian workers should we have then-lips touched with a live coal, because the heart is glowing with the sacred flame. What Churches should we have then–not formal and languishing, but strong in godliness and increasing in numbers. What households should we have then-where the younger members would prove their appreciation of devout sincerity and the attractiveness of lofty example. Individual influence would be benign as that of the Australian tree which destroys infection, and breathes health around; and the whole spiritual scene would be beautiful and fragrant, as a field that the Lord hath blessed. Cherish the sacred fire, if it is within. As the Parsees with the precious sandalwood keep alive the ever-burning flame in their temples, so with precious passages of Divine truth and prayer seek to keep alive and vigorous the name of love. (G. McMichael, B. A.)
The altar fire a symbol of regenerating grace
1. In its source or origin.
2. In its tendency.
3. In its nature and properties.
4. In its permanency.
5. In its perpetuity.
Lesson: Be diligent in the use of the means of grace–
1. Prayer: secret, family, social.
2. Study of Bible.
3. Meditation.
4. Attendance on the ordinances. (G. F. Love.)
Fuel for heart flames
Ill master it, said the axe, and the blows fell heavily on the iron; but every blow made his edge more blunt, till he ceased to strike. Leave it to me, said the saw, and with relentless teeth he worked backward and forward on its surface until they were all worn down or broken; then he fell aside. Ha! ha! said the hammer, I knew you would not succeed; Ill show you the way. But at his first stroke off flew his head, and the iron remained as before. Shall I try? said a flame of fire. They all despised the flame, but he curled gently round the solid bar, and embraced it, and never left it, until, under his irresistible influence, it was so melted as to take the form of any mould you please. If hard hearts are to be won for Jesus, they must be melted, not hammered. No power has been found so effective as love for taking self-trust and self-righteousness out of men.
I. Let us seek to fan the flame. Of the Baptist our Lord said, he was a burning and a shining light. Blessed eulogy! may it be earned by each one of us. Burning and shining–our very ideal of a minister; a hot heart with a clear head; impetuosity and prudence blended; zeal and knowledge linked in holy wedlock. The motto on David Brainerds banner, and the prayer in his heart, ever was, Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God. We have as our model Him who could say, The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up; and while we profess to be His followers, we dare not rest satisfied with the icy torpor and decorous coldness which are, alas! the usual temperature of too many professors. We do not wish to be for ever praying for the smouldering embers to be blown into a flame, for we covet a steady furnace heat, and no mere fitful zeal, which, like the fire from the horses hoof, dies in the moment of its birth. Most of us know the sad experience of preaching with the fire burning only amid grey ashes. We cannot expect much blessing while this is the case. If the gospel is to have a mighty effect upon the congregation, it must pass through the fire of an intense spiritual life in the preacher; and this life we feel we must have. And what a boon will it be to us also! What purifying force there is in consuming zeal and passionate love of souls I How it burns up all unworthy and selfish motives! This holy fire has also an educating force; by it the soul is transfigured, and made to enjoy a grand outlook. It awakens the intellect as nothing else can; it quickens the sensibilities of inferior minds, and makes them capable of achievements which, without it, they would never have dreamed of. John Howard had no commanding intellect, but what he had was illuminated with Divine light, and thus his name became immortal. Thomas Chalmers had always an intellect so commanding as to grasp a planet in its span; but it needed the grace of God to so illuminate the mind of Chalmers that he could write his astronomical discourses, and grasp, not a planet merely, but myriads of worlds as a boy handles his marbles, and move like a strong swimmer in a stormy sea. Divine fire in the soul kindles a light in the intellect, elevates every natural faculty, and makes it a handmaid to the Spirit of God; it burns every bond that Lies the tongue, and makes men orators who else were dumb. This, too, will give us the most attractive characters. It is said that the slopes of a volcano supply soil so fruitful that the richest vines flourish best upon them; when the heart is full of holy fire the life is sure to be adorned with the rich graces of the Spirit, productive of that fruit which glorifies our Father in heaven. And yet to have the heart throb with a might pulse of love–to have a holy passion thrilling and burning in every artery and vein will, in all probability, involve much trial. Every cherished idol of the heart must submit to the action of this fire. It will consume all that is consumable. Upon sin in the soul it will have no mercy. It will probably involve, too, the scorn of some whose friendship we fain would cultivate.
II. Let us now gather a few materials to feed it. Scientific men are asking, What is to be the fuel for coming ages? What will our great-great-great-grandchildren sit around instead of our household fire? One authority suggests as a source of heat, when coal is exhausted, the beating of the tidal wave on the shore. Happily the Christian Church need not trouble herself with any conjectures as to the fuel which is to feed her fires. The light and love invested in the covenant of graces ages back will never be exhausted until every elect soul glows with love to God, and every redeemed wanderer is lighted back to his Fathers home. Does not even Nature speak to us upon this mailer of earnestness in our Masters work? The sun is earnest: in his path he never lingers, in his course he never halts: the stars never falter in their race, never swerve from their round; the Sea is constant in its ebb and flow, unchanging in eternal change. All Nature says, The Kings business requires haste; and the man who is not in earnest when about the Kings business is out of gear with the universe, and is a blot in the creation of God. Our age speaks to us, we live in the cumulated light of succeeding ages. Our age, too, is telling upon ages yet to be–nay, upon eternity itself. Is there not inspiration, too, in the memory of our early vows? If we would be full of Divine energy, let us labour after a strong sense of the love of God in Christ. All the love of eternity meets here as in a focus, and if we only seek full and deep communion with it our lives will not lack the holy fire. There is one other thought which ought ever to arouse our spirits and inspire our hearts with zeal and courage in our holy warfare. We are on the winning side. Victory is surely ours. (W. Williams.)
The fire upon the altar
The term fire in Scripture language is commonly employed to express the judgment, f God upon sin (Heb 12:29; Psa 1:2; 2Th 1:1-12., &c.); and accordingly, when the Jewish worshipper (the veil being off his heart) contemplated the altars heaven-kindled flame, and bore in mind the Divine edict for its preservation, he was given to understand that the judgment of God was held in abeyance, that the Divine arrangements for turning aside that judgment from the contrite sinner though revealed to hope, were not consummated in fact, and, that as the fire, day by day, swallowed victim after victim, and burned still as fierce as ever, that victim had not yet been laid thereon whose blood should quench in mercy the fire maintained in justice. Well–God is the Lord who hath showed us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar–the victim has been found and accepted; He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; His blood is shed for many for the remission of sins, and the fire is gone out–God Himself hath put it out: for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and, through the offering of the body of Christ once for all, mercy and truth, righteousness and peace have met together, and like the wings of the mystic cherubim, they shadow the mercy-seat of God–the throne of Divine grace. Well, the fire is gone out–God Himself hath put it out, but in so doing He hath kindled another. Accordingly, when the fire of Divine justice died away in the offering up of Christ, the flame of Divine love shot upwards upon the altar-hearts of the Lords redeemed; it was and is kindled from above, for love begets love, and we love Him because He first loved us. This is the heavenly fire which kindles upon the altar of the heart, the sacrifice of the affections; it is the fruit of satisfied justice; it is the movement of Divine mercy, besprinkling the soul with the all-awakening, all-cleansing blood of Jesus, producing a responsive movement of the soul to God, by the drawings of the Spirit of grace, and lighting up a flame in its Divinely occupied recesses, not to be extinguished by the deepest waters of trial. It shall never go out.
1. In time of trial and affliction it shall not go out; for in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His Tabernacle shall He hide me.
2. In seasons of spiritual depression it shall not go out; O my God, my soul is cast down within me, &c.
3. In the hour of temptation it shall not go out; for God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
4. When life, too, is waning, and the night of death is setting in, and the blighting chill is paralysing the frame as it enters the deep and dark river, it shall not go out; for love is strong as death; and many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. (H. Hardy, M. A.)
The continual burnt-offering
This ordinance reminds us that Christ, as our Burnt-offering, continually offers Himself to God in self-consecration in our behalf. Very significant it is that the burnt-offering stands in contrast in this respect with the sin-offering. We never read of a continual sin-offering; even the great annual sin-offering of the Day of Atonement, which, like the daily burnt-offering, had reference to the nation at large, was soon finished, and once for all. And it was so with reason; for in the nature of the case, our Lords offering of Himself for sin as an expiatory sacrifice was not and could not be a continuous act. But with His presentation of Himself unto God in full consecration of His person as our Burnt-offering it is different. Throughout the days of His humiliation, this self-offering of Himself to God continued; nor, indeed, can we say it has yet ceased, or ever can cease. For still, as the High Priest of the heavenly Sanctuary, He continually offers Himself as our Burnt-offering in constantly renewed and constantly continued devotement of Himself to the Father to do His will. (S. H. Kellogg, D. D.)
The continual burning
Suppose the sin should cease, would the fire then be put out? Certainly not. The fire has a double significance; it is not there only to consume the sacrifice, it is there to express the continual aspiration of the soul. The fire still burns. There is an unquenchable fire in heaven. Aspiration is the highest expression of character. That is the permanent quantity in the text. Fire ascends; it speechlessly says, This is not my home; I must travel, I must fly, I must return; the sun calls me, and I must obey. A character without aspiration cannot live healthily and exercise a vital and ennobling influence. When religion becomes mere controversy, it has lost veneration; and whatever or whoever loses veneration slips away from the centre of things, and falls evermore into thickening darkness. There is a philosophy in this conception as well as a theology. To aspire is to grow. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. Then there are two things in the text–fire and altar. We may have an altar, but no fire. That is the deadly possibility; that is the fatal reality. The world is not dying for want of a creed, but for want of faith. We are not in need of more prayers, we are in need of more prayerfulness. If the little knowledge we have–how small it is the wisest men know best of all–were turned to right use, fire in its happiest influences would soon begin to be detected by surrounding neighbours and by unknown observers. Of what avail is it that we have filled the grate with fuel if we have not applied the flame? Does the unlighted fuel warm the chamber? No more does the unsanctified knowledge help to redeem and save society. We need the fire as well as the altar. What is needed now is a fire that will burn the altar itself–turn the marble and porphyry and granite and hewn soft-stone all into fuel that shall go up in a common oblation to the waiting heavens. We may have fire and no altar, as well as have an altar and no fire. This is also a mistake. We ought to have religious places and Christian observances, locality with special meaning, resting-places with Heavens welcome written upon their portals. There is a deadly sophism lurking in the supposition that men can have the fire without the altar, and are independent of institutions, churches, families, places, Bibles, and all that is known by Christian arrangement for common worship. We are not meant to be solitary worshippers. When a man says he can read the Bible at home, I deny it. He can partially read it there, he can see some of its meaning there; but society is one, as well as is the individual, in some degrees and in some relations. There is a religion of fellowship as well as of solitude. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together: there is a touch that helps life to gather itself up into its full force; there is a contagion which makes the heart feel strong in masonry. When a man says he can pray at home, I deny it–except in the sense that he can there partially pray. He can transact part of the commerce which ought to be going on continually between heaven and earth, earth and heaven; but there is a common prayer–the family cry, the congregational intercession, the sense that we are praying for one another in common petition at the throne of grace. It is not enough to kindle a fire: we must renew it. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. Did not some men burn once who are cold now? Have not some men allowed the holy flame to perish? and is not their life now like a deserted altar laden with cold white ashes? Once they sang sweetly, prayed with eagerness of expectation, worked with both hands diligently, were always open to Christian appeal, focalised their lives in one poignant inquiry–Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? I know of no drearier spectacle than to see a man who still bears the Christian name on the altar of whose heart the fire has gone out. That is a possibility. Lost enthusiasm means lost faith; lost passion means lost conviction. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Use of means
That fire on the altar was lighted originally from heaven; it was lighted, it is supposed, from the bright glory that was in the cloud, and ultimately dwelt in the Tabernacle between the cherubim; but while lighted from heaven it was kept burning by human appliances. God never dispenses with means; He gives grace, and expects us to use means. So that text that many pervert, My grace is sufficient for you, some people practically read as if it were, My grace is a substitute for you. Now it is not so; it is sufficient for you, but it never will be a substitute for you. God does not canonise indolence. He lights the spark that is in the heart from heaven, and He expects that, by prayer, by reading, by thought, you will keep it constantly burning. (J. Gumming, D. D.)
Conscientious performance of holy duties
Be conscientious in the performance of holy duties. A fire which for awhile shoots up to heaven will faint both in its heat and brightness without fresh supplies of nourishing matter. Bring fresh wood to the altar morning and evening, as the priests were bound, for the nourishment of the holy fire. God in all His promises supposes the use of means. When He promised Hezekiah his life for fifteen years, it cannot be supposed that he should live without eating and exercise. It is both our sin and misery to neglect the means. Therefore let a holy and humble spirit breathe in all our acts of worship. If we once become listless to duty we shall quickly become lifeless in it. If we languish in our duties we shall not long be lively in our graces. (S. Charnock.)
The perpetual fire
So careful is God of this continual burning, that, if you mark, it is reported over and over (see Lev 6:9; Lev 6:12). To this end, the priests care was to feed it with wood, and see to it day and night, and with no other fire might either sacrifice, or incense, be burned and offered to God. This fire was carefully kept upon the altar to the captivity of Babylon, and afterward found again of Neh 2:1-20., 2Ma 1:18-19. Of like from hence might grow that great honour and regard, which the heathens had fire in, whereof we read often. The Athenians in their Prytaneo, trod at Delphos, and at Rome, of those Vestal Virgins continual fire was kept, and of many it was worshipped as a God. The Persians called it Orismada, that is, holy fire; and in public pomp they used to carry it before kings with great solemnity. What might be the reason why God appointed this ceremony of continual fire upon the altar, and how may we profit by it?
1. First, there was figured by it the death of Christ from the beginning of the world; namely, that He was the Lamb slain from the beginning for mankind, and by this shadow they were led to believe that although as yet Christ was not come in the flesh, nevertheless the fruit of His death belonged to them, as well as to those that should live when He came, or was come; for this fire was continual and went not out, no more did the fruit of His passion fail to any true believer, even from the beginning. But they were saved by believing that He should come, as we are now, by believing that He is come.
2. Also this fire came from heaven (Lev 9:24), and so should Christ in the time appointed. This fire was ever in, and never went out, and so is God ever ready to accept our sacrifices and appointed duties, ever ready to hear us and forgive us, but we are slow and dull, and come not to Him as we ought.
3. No other fire might be used but this, and so they were taught to keep to Gods ordinances, and to fly from all inventions of their own heads. For ever it was true, and ever will be true, In vain do men worship Me, teaching for doctrines mens precepts. Our devices, seem they never so wise, so fit, so holy and excellent, they are strange fire, not that fire that came from heaven, not that fire that God will be pleased withal or endure. This fire coming first from heaven, and thus preserved, still preached unto them by figure, that as well did their sacrifices and services duly performed according to the law please God, as that did when first God sent His fire from heaven to consume it, in token of approbation, which surely was a great comfort to their consciences and a mighty prop to fainting, fearing weak faith.
4. This fire thus maintained and kept with all care, and not suffered ever to go out, taught them, and still may teach us, to be careful to keep in the fire of Gods holy Spirit, that it never die, nor go out within us. The fire is kept in by honest life, as by wood, by true sighs of unfeigned repentance, as by breath or blowing, and by meek humility, as by soft ashes. Oh, that we may have care to keep it in l what should I say? This continued fire taught then, and, though it be now gone and abrogated, may still teach us now, to be careful to keep in, amongst us, the fire of Gods Word, the true preaching of His truth, to the salvation of our souls.
5. For the fire hath these properties–it shineth and giveth light, it heateth, it consumeth, it trieth: so the preaching of the gospel. Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my path. St. Peter calleth it a candle in a dark place, and many Scriptures teach the shining light of it. The heat in like sort: Did not our hearts burn within us, whilst He talked with us, and opened the Scriptures? The fire kindled, and I spake with my tongue, saith the Psalm; and as fire it pleased the Holy Spirit to appear at Pentecost, to show this fruit of effect of the Word preached by their mouths, it heateth the heart to all good life, and maketh us zealous of good works. The dross of our corruption by degrees it washeth, the stubble of our fancies it burneth up and consumeth, so that we abhor the sins we have been pleased with, and hate the remembrance of evil passed.
6. Lastly, it trieth doctrine, and severeth truth from error; it trieth men, and discovereth hypocrites. All worthy motives to make us careful to preserve this fire perpetually amongst us whilst we live, and in a holy zeal to provide for it also when we are dead. So shall we live being dead; nay, so shall we assuredly never die, but with immortal souls, and never-dying tongues, praise His name that liveth for ever, and will have us with Him. (Bp. Babington.)
A fire easily perpetuated
At Kildare a memorial fire was kept up in honour of St. Bridget for seven hundred years, and extinguished in the thirteenth century by order of an Archbishop of Dublin. It is easier to keep up the outward fires of superstition than the Divine fire on the altar of the heart.
The constancy of religion
David Livingstone, who did so much toward opening up the dark continent of Africa, told the following story. When he was a boy, a faithful Christian man called him to his death-bed and said, My son, make religion the everyday business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts. Livingstones life shows that he followed the advice to the day of his death, even to his last hour, which was spent on his knees in prayer to Him to whom he had so often gone for comfort.
Keeping the fire burning
In Florence good housewives use cakes of vine-refuse to keep the fire in when they are away from home. These cakes cannot yield much heat or create a blaze, but they feed sufficient fire to save lighting it again. Do not many obscure, untalented, but quietly sincere believers answer just this purpose in our churches? In dull and dead times they preserve the things which remain and are ready to die; they detain the heavenly flame, which else would quite depart, and though the best they can do is but to smoulder in sorrow at the declension of the times, yet they are not to he despised. When, in happier days, the fire of piety shall burn with renewed energy, we shall be grateful to those who were as the ashes on the hearth, and kept the dying flame alive.
Need for constant piety
Some Christians are like those toys they import from France, which have sand in them; the sand runs down, and some little invention turns and works them as long as the sand is running, but when the sand is all out it stops. So on Sunday morning these people are just turned right, and the sand runs, and they work all the Sunday; but the sand runs down by Sunday night, and then they stand still, or else go on with the worlds work just as they did before. Oh! this will never do! There must be a living principle; something that shall be a mainspring within; a wheel that cannot help running on, and that does not depend upon external resources.
Rekindling the spiritual fire
Epiphanius maketh mention of those that travel by the deserts of Syria, where are nothing but miserable marshes and sands, destitute of all commodities, nothing to be had for love or money; if it so happen that their fire go out by the way then they light it again at the heat of the sun, by the means of a burning-glass or some other device that they have. And thus in the wilderness of this world, if any man have suffered the sparks of Divine grace to die in him, the fire of zeal to go out in his heart, there is no means under the sun to enliven those dead sparks, to kindle that extinguished fire again, but at the Sun of Righteousness, that Fountain of Light, Christ Jesus. (J. Spencer.)
Constant light
Many hypocrites are like comets, that appear for awhile with a mighty blaze, but are very unsteady and irregular in their motion; their blaze soon disappears, and they appear but once in a great while. But true saints are like fixed stars, which, though they rise and set, and are often clouded, yet are steadfast in their orb, and shine with a constant light. (Pres. Edwards.)
A constantly burning lamp
Any man or woman, however obscure, whose life is clean, whose words are true, whose intention is to help God in His world, kindles a light which never goes out.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. The fire shall ever be burning] See on Le 6:9 and Le 6:20. In imitation of this perpetual fire, the ancient Persian Magi, and their descendants the Parsees, kept up a perpetual fire; the latter continue it to the present day. This is strictly enjoined in the Zend Avesta, which is a code of laws as sacred among them as the Pentateuch is among the Jews. A Sagnika Brahmin preserves the fire that was kindled at his investiture with the poita, and never suffers it to go out, using the same fire at his wedding and in all his burnt-offerings, till at length his body is burnt with it. – WARD’s Customs.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar,…. This was what first fell from heaven, Le 9:24 and which in after ages was maintained by constant fuel put unto it, there being every day burnt offerings upon it; which was an emblem of the love of Christ to his people, which is ever in a flame and burning, and can never be quenched by the many waters of their sins and iniquities; nor by all the sufferings he underwent to atone for them; nor by all the meanness and afflictions they are attended with; his love is fervent towards them, and always the same: and also of their love to him, which is unquenchable by the persecutions of men, by afflictions by the hand of God, by divine desertions, by Satan’s temptations, or their own corruptions: it likewise may be an emblem of the graces of the Spirit of God in the hearts of his people, which have both light and heat in them; and though they are sometimes very low as to exercise, yet are in a wonderful manner preserved amidst great oppositions made unto them from within and from without; and may also be a symbol of the word of God, sometimes compared to fire for its light and heat, and may be signified by the fire on the altar for its perpetuity, which continues and abides, notwithstanding the attempts of men and devils to get it out of the world; and though the ministers of it die, that lives, and has been preserved in the worst of times, and will burn most clearly, and shine most brightly in the end of the world. This perpetual fire may also point at the prayers of saints, the fervency of them, and their perseverance in them; or rather to the efficacy and acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ, which always continues; nor may it be amiss applied to the afflictions of God’s people, which constantly attend them in this world, and they must expect to have while in it; and even to the wrath of God on wicked men to all eternity, and which is the fire that cannot be quenched:
it shall never go out; as it is highly probable it never did, until the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar; though the author of second Maccabees states that:
“For when our fathers were led into Persia, the priests that were then devout took the fire of the altar privily, and hid it in an hollow place of a pit without water, where they kept it sure, so that the place was unknown to all men.” 2 Maccabees 1:19)
pretends that some devout priests, who were carried captives into Persia, hid the fire of the altar privily in the hollow of a pit, where was no water, and in which it was kept sure and unknown to men, and was found and restored in the times of Nehemiah,
“20 Now after many years, when it pleased God, Neemias, being sent from the king of Persia, did send of the posterity of those priests that had hid it to the fire: but when they told us they found no fire, but thick water; 21 Then commanded he them to draw it up, and to bring it; and when the sacrifices were laid on, Neemias commanded the priests to sprinkle the wood and the things laid thereupon with the water. 22 When this was done, and the time came that the sun shone, which afore was hid in the cloud, there was a great fire kindled, so that every man marvelled.” (2 Maccabees 1)
but this is contrary to what the Jews always assert b, that the fire from heaven was wanting in the second temple; and yet from the account Josephus c gives of a festival called “Xylophoria”, or the feast of the wood carrying, it seems to have been then in being, and great care was taken to preserve it that it might not go out; for, he says, at that feast it is a custom for all to bring wood to the altar, that so there might never be wanting fuel for the fire, for it always remained unextinguished: as to, what some have observed out of Diodorus Siculus d, that Antiochus Epiphanes, when he went into the temple, quenched this fire, it appears to be a mistake; for Diodorus does not say that he put out the fire of the altar, but that he extinguished the immortal lamp, as it was called by them (the Jews), which was always burning in the temple; by which he plainly means the lamp in the candlestick, and perhaps what the Jews call the western lamp, which was always burning, and was the middle lamp bending to the west, and to which the rest bent: the Heathens in many places imitated this perpetual fire: the Brahmans among the Indians speak of fire falling from heaven, kept by them on everlasting hearths, or in fire pans e, for that purpose: the Persians had their perpetual fire, having a great opinion of that element: in the march of Darius against Alexander, it is observed by the historian f, that the fire which the Persians call sacred and eternal was placed on altars of silver, and he is said to adjure his soldiers by the gods of their country, and by the eternal fire on the altars, c. to rescue the Persian name and nation from the last degree of reproach g: the Grecians have many traces of this continual fire on the altar among them: at Mantinia, as Pausanias h relates, was a temple of Ceres and Proserpina, where a fire was kindled, and great care taken that it might not be extinguished and in the temple of Pan, a fire burned which was never quenched: and the same writer says i, with the Eleans was an altar which had fire continually burning on it night and day: and Aelianus k makes mention of an altar of Venus at Eryce in Sicily, which burnt night and day; and of which he says many things wonderful and fabulous: and it is well known that the Romans had their goddess Vesta, whom Velleius Paterculus l calls the keeper of the perpetual fires; and there were certain virgins, called the “vestal” virgins, whose business it was to take care that the fire never went out; and is by Virgil m called the eternal fire: and Vesta itself is thought by some learned men to be the same with – “Esh-jah”, the fire of Jehovah: now these were all satanical imitations of the perpetual fire on the altar of God.
b T. Hieros. Taaniot, fol. 65. 1. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 21. 2. c De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 17. sect. 6. d Eclog. 1. ex l. 34. p. 902. e Ammian. Marcellin. l. 23. f Curt. Hist. l. 3. c. 3. g Curt. Hist. l. 4. c. 14. h Arcadica sive, l. 8. p. 469, 516. i Eliac. 1. sive, l. 5. p. 316. k Hist. Animal. l. 10. c. 50. l Hist. l. 2. in fine. m “Vos aeterni igneis”, &c. Aeneid. l. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Fire was to be kept constantly burning upon the altar without going out, not in order that the heavenly fire, which proceeded from Jehovah when Aaron and his sons first entered upon the service of the altar after their consecration, and consumed the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, might never be extinguished (see at Lev 9:24); but that the burnt-offering might never go out, because this was the divinely appointed symbol and visible sign of the uninterrupted worship of Jehovah, which the covenant nation could never suspend either day or night, without being unfaithful to its calling. For the same reason other nations also kept perpetual fire burning upon the altars of their principal gods. (For proofs, see Rosenmller and Knobel ad h. l.)
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(13) The fire shall ever be burning.This fire, which first came down from heaven (Lev. 9:24), was to be continually fed with the fuel especially provided by the congregation, and with the daily burnt offerings. During the second Temple, this perpetual fire consisted of three parts or separate piles of wood on the same altar: on the largest one the daily sacrifice was burnt; the second, which was called the pile of incense, supplied the fire for the censers to burn the morning and evening incense; and the third was the perpetual fire from which the other two portions were fed. It never was quenched till the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed, we are positively assured that the pious priests who were carried captives into Persia concealed it in a pit, where it remained till the time of Nehemiah, when it was restored to the altar (2Ma. 1:19-22). The authorities in the time of Christ, however, assure us that the perpetual fire was one of the five things wanting in the second Temple.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar This altar-fire was of a supernatural origin, (Lev 9:24,) as the fire of love to God in a fallen soul is not spontaneously ignited, but is a spark dropped from above. The fire on the altar, as the symbol of Jehovah’s holiness and the instrument of his purifying or destroying power, was the only fire permitted to be used in the tabernacle. That obtained elsewhere for sacred purposes was called “strange.” Lev 10:1. According to the Gemera the sacred fire was divided into three parts, one for burning victims, one for incense, and one for the supply of the other portions. “According to the Jewish legends, this sacred fire was kept up without interruption till the Babylonian captivity, and, according to 2Ma 1:19 , till a period later.
The Talmud and many rabbins reckon it as one of the five things which were wanting in the second temple the fire, the ark, the urim and thummim, the anointing oil, and the spirit of holiness.” Kurtz. The injunction to keep the fire always burning enforces the duty of undying zeal in the service of Christ through the Holy Spirit ever abiding within as a refiner’s fire. The wood laid on the fire every morning typifies the means of grace daily used, the Holy Scriptures, prayer and praise.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lev 6:13. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar, &c. This fire, which was kept perpetually burning, was at first kindled from heaven, as we shall find, ch. Lev 9:24 to which we refer for a further account of it. If it be asked, how this fire could be preserved, when both the tabernacle, and the altar whereon it burnt, were in motion, as they evidently were when the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness? there seems to be no reason why we may not suppose, that upon these occasions there might be a certain portable conservatory of this sacred fire, distinct from the altar: and that there was some such vessel made use of, seems manifest from the injunction, Num 4:13 that at such times the ashes should be removed from off the altar, and a purple cloth spread over it.
Hence learn, 1. That they who are above stooping to the meanest offices for God’s glory, are unfit to minister before him. 2. As they attended the sacred fire upon the altar by night as well as by day, and never permitted it to go out: so if God has kindled the fire of divine love in our hearts, it becomes us day and night to feed it with the fuel of prayer and praise.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The Continual Burning
Lev 6:13
But may not the people cease to sin before morning, and the fire be put out in the night-time? Does it not assume too much about the frailty and sinfulness of man to keep a fire up always? Would it not be better to extinguish it sometimes, just to suggest to the observers that a great hope has sprung up in the divine heart that perhaps this day there will be no more need for sacrifice? If the fire were put out, would not that itself be a gospel? Such are the questions that force themselves upon us when we come face to face with decrees and fiats and laws that have about them the awfulness of eternity. It is the expressions, “for ever,” “evermore,” “never” terms which exhaust all time that the soul cannot peruse without shuddering and inexpressible distress. It would seem as if God had no hope for his people. There is no opportunity for the exercise of feeling on the part of man that God sees a way out of the continual sin which needs the continual sacrifice. There is no touch of grace in this command; it is stern, unrelieved by a tear of pathos, never trembling with the feeling which makes all things sacred. If a man should reason thus concerning this passage, his reasoning would be correct within the points which he has assigned as its scope; but the view is partial, the distances are not properly regulated, the whole idea has not been seized by the observant mind. Suppose the sin should cease, would the fire then be put out? Certainly not. The fire has a double significance; it is not there only to consume the sacrifice, it is there to express the continual aspiration of the soul. The fire still burns. There is an unquenchable fire in heaven. To love is to worship; to love rightly is to worship rightly. The choice of expression is left with us, the choice of posture and method; but where the spirit is right with God its action is best symbolised by the unquenchable fire, the aspiring flame.
It is instructive and partially distressing to hear many of the congratulations regarding the progress which has been made in the matter of divine worship; it is most pitiful. Christians congratulate themselves in profane complacency that they have nothing to do with altars and fires and sacrifices of the herd, and of the flocks, and of the fowls, whether of turtle-doves or of young pigeons: they have escaped all that complicated and expensive mechanism they have escaped more than that, or that fool’s boast would not be on their lips. The truly progressive man has escaped nothing; he is still where the Jew was, with new uses and higher disciplines, with keener penetrations into divine intent and purpose, and with a correspondingly severe and oppressive discipline. But the spirit is found also, not only as expressed in contrasts between Christianity and Judaism, but in contrasts between ancient Christian times and modern Christian usages the same selfishness of felicitation. Who has not heard modern flippancy, often misappropriating the garb of piety, congratulating itself that it does not live in Puritan times? Verily, we delight in setting down our escapes from discipline, and burden, and exaction, and training. Modern pietetic flippancy rejoices that it does not listen to the Puritan preacher, who, having preached the hour-glass empty, quietly inverted it in the sight of the people, and preached it empty again. Our felicitations are all of a most pitiful kind. We have escaped all the Jewish ceremony, all the Puritan tediousness into what liberty have we come? What is the practical result of all such escapes? A greater love of brevity, a keener sense of liberty, which really means in such lips licentiousness; we have nothing to do, nothing to give, nothing to suffer, all to enjoy, and just when we please, and as much as we please, and thus we have sunk into the idolatry of self. To suppose that discipline has ceased is to give up all that is worth living for. Our object should not be to escape discipline, but to make commandments pleasant, to turn statutes into songs in the house of our pilgrimage, to make obedience not a penalty but a delight Listen to Christian talk to-day, listen to the monologue of your own heart, and the chief delight is found in having escaped all things requiring military discipline, Spartan exaction, obedience that keeps nothing back. When that becomes the law of the family, the family is practically broken up, decentralised, because the altar of discipline is destroyed. When that becomes the law of the Church, there is no Church left; it is a broken-down temple; the owls, and the bitterns, and the satyrs may take possession of the deserted place. What then is there permanent in such commands as the one which is now before us? Let us allow that accidents, accessories, incidental complexions and postures, have all passed away; but the tree has not consummated its purpose when it has shed its blossom. What is the eternal quantity? The altar is the principal feature in the truly consecrated life an invisible altar, but not the less the place of worship, of meeting with the Divine One, of conference with Heaven, not a local altar: “neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem,” shall men exclusively “worship the Father,” but on every mountain and in every city, and in the unstable church of the sea. What then have we lost? A few pieces of stone, a certain construction in rude wilderness masonry; but that was not the altar: it was but the representation of the altar of the soul. The walls and roof we call the church are not the Church; the Church is within those walls and yet infinitely beyond those walls and that localising roof. We should live in a kingdom of symbols, hints, living suggestions a place awful by the vitality of its inspirations. How can this doctrine be taught to carnal men? It requires a century of millenniums to begin the great spiritual mystery. A misconception of the altar leads to idolatry to the idolatry of places, and to the idolatry of offices. What we can see is not the altar; the stone altar is a medium through which the soul may get swift glimpses of the altar beyond, where spirits kneel, where souls burn in ardent desire, where angels hover in wonder and in hope. No marvel that we become less and less in mind and affection if we have mistaken any building of stone for God’s house. It is the beginning of the house, the outward and visible form of the house, a halting-place where we may unloose the sandal for a time and set up the staff in the corner, and wait awhile, and get breath by praying. We must be up and on, seeking the house not made with hands, of which all good houses and hospitable homes are but dim hints and types.
Aspiration is the highest expression of character. That is the permanent quantity in the text. Fire ascends; it speechlessly says, “This is not my home; I must travel, I must fly, I must return; the sun calls me, and I must obey.” A character without aspiration cannot live healthily and exercise a vital and ennobling influence. When religion becomes mere controversy, it has lost veneration; and whatever or whoever loses veneration slips away from the centre of things, and falls evermore into thickening darkness. There is a philosophy in this conception as well as a theology. To aspire is to grow. It is an action full of meaning; it signifies, being expressed in many words, that we are not yet content: there is something in us which seeks completion; there is a spirit weary of solitude that yearns for fellowship, and that cannot be content with any communion of a human and visible kind; there is a soul in man that holds time and space in solemn contempt, and seeks rest in infinite liberties and harmonies. Without this aspiration man becomes a mere grub; he dwells upon the earth and accommodates himself to his little prison; no storm of anger rises within because of the poverty of the place; it is good enough to eat and drink in, ample enough to lie down in, and beyond these poor exercises the man so lost has no desire. Here is the place at which the Christian religion directs its most powerful appeal to human attention and confidence. It is a solemn religion, so solemn that many times it cannot argue; it will not criticise; it leaves the region of words and rises to the rapture of silence. Here, too, arises that marvellous pathos which will keep evangelical doctrine from desuetude and contempt. No religion that is not rich in pathos can live long or make itself world-wide in influence. Controversies perish in the air which separates one nation from another; pathos comes with every wind, shines with every rising day, and glows in every westering sun “makes the whole world kin.”
“Jesus wept” will be a power in human thought and human need when all critical questions have vexed themselves to death and perished in unholy and unprofitable abortiveness. We are conscious of a perpetual need; we cannot be satisfied. We mock one another sometimes in language not intended to be mischievous or reproachful when we ask if we cannot now rest and be thankful sit down and enjoy ourselves. We ought to do so with regard to things temporal and measurable, and if things temporal and measurable were all, then the inquiry would take upon itself a very high moral solemnity; but all this outreaching, striving, discontent all this aching, poverty, and burning desire lor more and more conquest and territory, wealth and influence, has a religious meaning, and that meaning being put into words is that the soul has not room enough in space, duration enough in time, but, by its discontent, expresses the magnificence of its origin and its destiny.
“The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.”
Then there are two things in the text “fire” and “altar,” We may have an altar, but no fire. That is the deadly possibility; that is the fatal reality. The world is not dying for want of a creed, but for want of faith. We are not in need of more prayers, we are in need of more prayerfulness. If the little knowledge we have how small it is the wisest men know best of all were turned to right use, fire in its happiest influences would soon begin to be detected by surrounding neighbours and by unknown observers. Of what avail is it that we have filled the grate with fuel if we have not applied the flame? Does the unlighted fuel warm the chamber? No more does the unsanctified knowledge help to redeem and save society. We need the fire as well as the altar. Magnificent altars we have built: we have brought stone from afar; we have hewn it in the field that there might be no noise near the temple; we have set it up and made ourselves proud in the contemplation of the skilful building. It is nothing; it is a lie; it is an imposition; it is the sign of self-idolatry; we have mistaken the means for the end, the process for the result. What is needed now is a fire that will burn the altar itself turn the marble and porphyry and granite and hewn soft-stone all into fuel that shall go up in a common oblation to the waiting heavens.
We may have fire and no altar, as well as have an altar and no fire. This is also a mistake. We ought to have religious places and Christian observances, locality with special meaning, resting-places with heaven’s welcome written upon their portals. There is a deadly sophism lurking in the supposition that men can have the fire without the altar, and are independent of institutions, churches, families, places, Bibles, and all that is known by Christian arrangement for common worship. We are not meant to be solitary worshippers. When a man says he can read the Bible at home, I deny it. He can partially read it there, he can see some of its meaning there; but society is one, as well as is the individual, in some degrees and in some relations. There is a religion of fellowship as well as of solitude. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together: there is a touch that helps life to gather itself up into its full force; there is a contagion which makes the heart feel strong in masonry. When a man says he can pray at home, I deny it except in the sense that he can there partially pray. He can transact part of the commerce which ought to be going on continually between heaven and earth, earth and heaven; but there is a common prayer the family cry, the congregational intercession, the sense that we are praying for one another in common petition at the throne of grace. It may be that one voice only is heard, but when that voice has been touched by the inspiration of Heaven, it will have priestly tones in it, great expressiveness, touching every known experience, and speaking in one great language a thousand otherwise unutterable desires.
It is not enough to kindle a fire: we must renew it. “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” Did not some men burn once who are cold now? Have not some men allowed the holy flame to perish? and is not their life now like a deserted altar laden with cold, white ashes? Once they sang sweetly, prayed with eagerness of expectation, worked with both hands diligently, were always open to Christian appeal, focalised their lives in one poignant inquiry Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? I know of no drearier spectacle than to see a man who still bears the Christian name on the altar of whose heart the fire has gone out. That is a possibility. Lost enthusiasm means lost faith; lost passion means lost conviction. Do not let us delude ourselves with the notion that if we are less enthusiastic and passionate, vehement and openly heroic, we are all the stronger and the more truly consolidated men. The devil there cheats us with long words; the enemy persuades us with false reasoning. We easily yield to the logic which bids us be quiet, be still, refrain. He has the easy task in life who pleads with men to be less and to do less, to think less, read less and act less. He has the heroic part the great hill to climb who calls to reluctant travellers, “Excelsior!” who bids men whose eyelids are heavy with sleep rise and renew the fire, for the midnight hour is near and the temperature is falling fast. That is the position assigned to the Christian teacher, to the Christian apostle, to the father of the family, to Christian Churches, to every man and every institution assuming and employing the name of Christ. We might be better thought of if our appeals were less persistent and tremendous in mortal agony; but the time of judgment is not yet. Re it ours to escape the fate of people who have lamps but no fire, beliefs but no faith, a bound book but no revelation.
Notes
Q. Curtius, giving an account of the march of Darius’s army, says: “The fire which they called eternal was carried before them on silver altars; the Magi came after it, singing hymns, after the Persian manner; and three hundred and sixty-five youths clothed in scarlet followed, according to the number of the days in the year.”
Burder.
The first fire upon the altar came from heaven ( Lev 4:24 ), so that by keeping that up continually with a constant supply of fuel, all their sacrifices throughout all their generations might be said to be consumed with that fire from heaven, in token of God’s acceptance. If, through carelessness, they should ever let it go out, they could not expect to have it so kindled again. Accordingly, the Jews tell us, that the fire never did go out upon the altar, until the captivity in Babylon. This is referred to ( Isa 31:9 ) where God is said to have “his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.” By this law we are taught to keep up in our minds a constant disposition to all acts of piety and devotion, and habitual affection to divine things, so as to be always ready to every good word and work. Though we be not always sacrificing, yet we must keep the fire of holy love always burning; and thus we must pray always.
Matthew Henry.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Lev 6:13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
Ver. 13. The fire shall ever be burning. ] The Gentiles, by an apish imitation hereof, had their vestal fire, salted meal, and many other sacred rites. Basil chargeth the devil as “a thief of the truth,” in that he had decked his crows with her feathers.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The fire. This fire was originally from heaven (9, 24), supernatural fire. Only this fire could be used to set fire to the incense on the golden altar. So only those who have atonement can pray or worship. Ever burning until rekindled by a special descent. [This is the origin of the perpetual light in Roman Catholic worship. ] It was preserved till the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar; was one of the five things lacking in the second temple.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The Fire
(See Scofield “Lev 1:8”). Here the fire expresses also the undying devotedness of Christ.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Continual Fire
Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually; it shall not go out.Lev 6:13.
Ancient religion spoke much by emblem and symbol. Words were not its sole medium of communication with men. Its faith did not come by hearing alone. All the senses were more or less employed as a door of utterance, and observances and ceremonies appealing to the imagination were used to awaken and direct devout feeling and thought. Its symbolism was no mere priestly invention and device; it sprang from and it met a real human need. Then, as now,
Words there are none
For the hearts deepest things,
and hence, of course, ceremony had its natural and legitimate place in the vocabulary of religion as of love. Then, as now, men could not live by the prophets message alone: the aspirations of the soul could not always be translated into the dialect of the understanding; spiritual passion demanded other vehicles of expression than the common forms of speech; carved wood and stone, altar and fire and sacrifice, movement and music and colour, were used to speak the word of God and the souls sincere desire; and stately services made great ideas vivid and impressive in a way not otherwise possible. Then, as now, things material and temporal were types of things spiritual and eternal; and religion as an institution was made to develop, to quicken and nourish religion as a life. Even the most spiritual and best of ancient religions made free use of this symbolic language; spoke to its children in acted parables, and exhibited dramatically the lessons which it was charged to convey. It loved to enact its instructions, picturing them as upon a canvas, displaying them as upon a stage from generation to generation.
But man, the twofold creature, apprehends
The twofold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him,
A mere itself,cup, column, or candlestick,
All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;
The whole temporal show related royally,
And built up to eterne significance
Through the open arms of God.1 [Note: E. B. Browning, Aurora Leigh.]
The ritual custom of which our text speaks is one beautiful and instructive in itself, and full of large suggestionlong since dead as to the letter, but living still as to the spirit. The allusion is to the altar of burnt-offering in the court of the Tabernacle. It was concerning this altar and offering that the instruction was given that the fire should ever be kept burning and not be suffered to go outan enactment well fitted to convey and to make clear and impressive the idea and duty of maintaining without break or interruption the worship and service of the living and true God in the life of Israel and in the life of every Israelite.
Let us ask three questions
I.What is the fire?
II.How is it kindled?
III.How is it maintained?
I
What is the Fire?
Among some of the ancient heathen nations, fire was kept constantly burning as a religious symbol. Thus among the Persians (and among the Parsees of India to this day) fire was, and is, the visible representation of the Godhead; and the continual burning of it the emblem of eternity. The perpetual fire of Vesta (the oldest goddess) among the Greeks and Romans was the emblem of the inmost, purest warmth of life which unites family and peoplethe hearth, as it were, the heart of a house or of a State. But we shall be led astray from the true significance of the ever-burning of the altar fire if we fix our attention chiefly upon the fire itself, upon the fire, that is, apart from the altar. If we would get at the real meaning of this symbol, we must contemplate it in its inseparable connexion with the altar. It was not mere fire that was to be kept perpetually burning, but the fire of the altarthe fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually.
Consider the significance of the various sacrifices which were required to be offered upon the altar. They consisted of three kinds, viz. sin-offerings, burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings. The first of these, the sin-offering, typified the death of the offerer to sin and self, through and by means of the one offering for sins for ever, which was to be offered by Jesus Christ. The burnt-offering symbolized the life of the offerer dedicated to God; just as the fire wholly consumed the burnt-offering, so the life of the offerer was to ascend up before God in living consecration to His will. And the peace-offering was intended to set forth the privilege which the pardoned and consecrated believer enjoys of fellowship with God and with His people. May we not gather from this the signification of the command, The fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually? Is it not thisviz. that what was signified by the sacrifices of the altar was to be the unceasing experience of Gods people? In other words, by the fire being constantly kept burning upon the altar was denoted the unceasing, uninterrupted character of the spiritual state or life which was indicated by the sacrifices of the altar.
1. The fire on the altar, therefore, denotes that inner life of reverence and love, trust and consecration and loyalty towards God which constitutes the religious spirit and creates the truly religious character.
2. The fire on the altar is not the outward acts of devotion, but the spirit which expresses itself in these acts. By multitudes the religious life is looked upon as consisting or made up of a series of religious duties or acts of worship continually repeated. It is thought that those are undoubtedly religious who are conscientious in the performance of the public and private duties of religion as they recur. But this is an utter misconception of the true nature of the religious life. We may be most exact in our discharge of the external duties of religion and yet be utterly devoid of true religion itself. Were not the Pharisees of our Lords day as diligent as it was possible to be in all these duties? and yet, did not our Lord say to His disciples, For I say unto you that, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and of the Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven? And so, too, the apostle speaks of some whom he describes as having a form of godlinessa phrase which, of course, includes a diligent attention to the externals of religionbut who, nevertheless, deny the power thereof. No; true religion consists not in the intermittent practice of religious duties, but in the ceaseless burning of the fire of devotion to the will of God.
3. The fire on the altar transforms every act and makes it an act of devotion. Just as the sun shining upon the dark drops of falling rain transforms them into shining prisms of rainbow beauty, so the fire of the ever-burning Christian life renders everything done by the Christian a spiritual act, well-pleasing in the sight of God. Whatsoever toucheth the altar, says Moses, shall be holy. Even things so common as bulls and goats, and doves and flour and oil became holy by mere contact with the altar. And, in like manner, the earthly duties of the man who is truly living to God are rendered holy; for the fire of devotion to the will of God is ever burning on the altar of his heart. Charles Wesley has well caught the spirit of the text in his hymn
O Thou, who earnest from above
The pure celestial fire to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart.
There let it for Thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze;
And trembling to its source return
In humble prayer and fervent praise.
Jesus, confirm my hearts desire,
To work, and speak, and think for Thee.
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up Thy gift in me.
Ready for all Thy perfect will,
My acts of faith and love repeat;
Till death Thy endless mercy seal,
And make the sacrifice complete.
4. In what spheres of life is the devotional spirit to be manifested?
(1) In the Personal Life.In that temple of God which we each are, upon the altar of the personal heart and life, the fire of devout desire and affection ought ever to be kept burning and never allowed to go out.
There is a secret place of rest
Gods saints alone may know;
Thou shalt not find it east nor west,
Though seeking to and fro.
A cell where Jesus is the door,
His Love the only key;
Who enter will go out no more,
But there with Jesus be.
If thou hadst dwelt within that place,
Then would thine heart the while,
In vision of the Saviours face,
Forget all other smile;
Forget the charm earths waters had
If once thy foot had trod
Beside the river that makes glad
The city of our God.
(2) In the Home.Religion is necessary to the home. A house where we merely lodge and eat together is not a home; and a home, though it may have all things elselove, friendship, comfort, refinementdoes not fulfil its true idea unless the influence of real religion is adequately there. To preserve family life from decay, to give strength and beauty to the domestic relations, to bind the home together and make its circle a unit and a source of elevating influence, nothing helps so much as simple and sincere devotional usages and habits.
A worldly home cannot be a deeply united and happy one. There must be a common life in God and union there. The best we can do for our children is to create in the home an atmosphere that is favourable to reverence and faith. For they grow, like air-plants, chiefly by what they absorb from the atmosphere around them. If allowed to grow up in a non-worshipful atmosphere they will be injured for life. Herbert Spencer has enriched our educational vocabulary with the phrase complete life, and the quiet and gradual awakening and culture of the religious affections are as necessary, yea, more necessary, to the complete life of our youths and maidens than any physical or mental training.1 [Note: John Hunter.]
So far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love,so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea;so far it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of Home.2 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, 137.]
(3) In the Church.In that temple of God which we call the Church, upon the altars of our sanctuaries, the holy fire ought ever to be kept burning and never be suffered to go out. We shall not quarrel about words and phrases, and mistake form for substance and semblance for reality, but it is prayer and the prayer-spirit which make a Church out of a congregation. Gatherings together to hear argument and rhetoric, anecdote and music, may be good in their way, and serve some useful purpose, but they are not such gatherings together as make one feel and say, the Lord is in His holy temple.
It seems to me that what we most need in our land and day is an order of churches which unite great spirituality and deep devotional power with pure and high intelligence, and can be satisfied with naught but reality and truth; Churches of the Reconciliation, we might call them, for they would stand for the union of the devout and fervent spirit with the open and enlightened mind, and with the whole scope and temper of modern Christian thought.1 [Note: John Hunter.]
II
How is the Fire Kindled?
1. Recall the circumstances in which the words of the text were spoken. The altar of which the writer of the Book of Leviticus speaks was the brazen altar that stood at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. It was there that the sacrifices were offered unto God by Israel; and the sacrifices were all of them of necessity consumed by fire that was God-kindled. When the Tabernacle was completed and the worship of God begun in it, Moses and Aaron complied with every direction for the offering of sacrifice which God had given them. The wood was laid upon the altar; the body of the victim was laid upon the wood; a cake of meal-offering was laid upon the body of the victim; the incense and the salt were laid upon the cake; the blood was poured out about the altar; and the wine was mingled with the blood; and every direction that God had given them was fulfilled. But there the sacrifice lay upon the altar a dead thing; and then fire came down from the Lord, kindled the wood, consumed the sacrifice, and the offering came up into the presence of the Eternal through the fire which He had given. Precisely the same scene is repeated when the Tabernacle gave place to the Temple. Solomon again obeyed each of those ritual laws. And then he prayed; and it came to pass, when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices. And when the people saw it they said: The Lord is good; His mercy endureth for ever. It was an old law of Israel that no offering could come up for acceptance before God unless it were burned with fire that came down from God.
2. Now this altar is the altar of the Christian heart, and the sacrifice is the offering of the Christian to God in Christ to live the Christian life, and the power to live the Christian life is, in the grace of God, through the fire that God the Holy Ghost kindles in the heart.
Spring may come, but on granite will grow no green thing;
It was barren in winter, tis barren in spring;
And granite mans heart is, till grace intervene,
And, crushing it, clothe the long barren with green.
When the fresh breath of Jesus shall touch the hearts core.
It will live, it will breathe, it will blossom once more.1 [Note: Jalaluddin Rumi, in Fields Book of Eastern Wisdom, 57.]
3. The fire is looked upon as being the type of what old theologians called effective grace. What they meant by that was this. Fire typifies grace when it comes to act effectively upon the one who is the subject of that gracious influence. There comes the wonderful influence of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of regenerationwhat we call conversionbecomes effective as the one great shaping, living force that acts within the soul of the believer.
Grace does not altogether change nature, but uses it as it finds it. For instance, when a man who is kind and gentle by nature is turned to the faith, like Nicolas Hausmann, grace makes him a tender and gentle preacher; whilst of a man naturally given to anger, like Conrad Cordatus, it makes an earnest, serious preacher; whilst if another has a subtile and powerful understanding, that is used for the benefit of the people.1 [Note: Luther, Watchwords for the Warfare of Life, 254.]
4. Divine grace is well typified by fire. There is nothing which gives such an idea of vital energy as fire. Of all forces, when you think of power, it is the most powerful. And this fire of Divine grace is kindled in the heart, and acts upon every portion of it. It is the Divine life. It comes like light to the intellect, and illuminates it; it comes like heat to the heart and inflames it; it comes like strength to the will and energizes it and gives it strength; it comes with all its soothing influence, also, to the conscience, and purifies it and gives it peace. And so this Divine fire is that in which we live the Christian life. We cannot live it without it. No determination of our natural will will enable us to live without it. And we cannot manufacture it; if we try to do so, if we try to live our lives by offering sacrifice to God, like Nadab and Abihu, with strange fire, it is a powerless, it is an unacceptable thing. Christian life can be lived only in the energy of that Divine fire, that life of God communicated to every portion of the inner spirit, permeating it, influencing it, transfiguring it like a flame.
It is said to be the prerogative of genius to light its own fire. But we have not to originate the flame of spiritual desire in ourselves. Some spark from the heavenly altars has reached each one of us. We describe ourselves at times as seekers after God, but the truth is we seek God because He first seeks us. Our upward yearnings and strivings are the answering movement of our spirits to the touch of His spirit. It is an old tradition that the fire which burned for so many ages upon the altars of Israel without going out was first conveyed from heaven. The Divine aspiration is itself a Divine gift. The need of God and the feeling after Him, which are the root and support of all religious observances, are not instructed into existence; they are not of human invention, but of human naturethat deeper nature which is begotten, not made, born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The appeal of religion and of the literature which interprets religion is to the intuitions of the race. We first feel within us what we discern to be without us. The recognition of God is the soul unfolding to spiritual realities and relations. We call Jesus, Lordconfess Him to be the Master of the Divine life through the awakening in ourselves of a kindred spirit:
Held our eyes no sunny sheen,
How could sunshine eer be seen?
Dwelt no power Divine within us,
How could Gods Divineness win us?1 [Note: John Hunter.]
How much more beautiful and suggestive is the thought of that ever-burning fire on the altar of burnt-offering than the so-called miracle of the Holy Fire, which is enacted annually in our time at Jerusalem! On the eve of the Greek Easter Day all the lamps in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are solemnly extinguished. Afterwards, in the course of the night, a bright flame suddenly appears in the Chapel of the Sepulchre, and this, it is said, has been kindled by God Himself. Then the Greek Patriarch lights a candle at the Holy Fire; and this candle is passed, amidst intense excitement, over the heads of the crowd of pilgrims, each of whom lights his own taper at the sacred flame, that he may carry it with him to his distant Russian home.2 [Note: C. Jerdan.]
Summe up at night what thou hast done by day,
And in the morning what thou hast to do;
Dresse and undresse thy soul; mark the decay
And growth of it; if with thy watch that too
Be down, then winde up both: since we shall be
Most surely judgd, make thy accounts agree.3 [Note: George Herbert, The Church Porch, lxxvi.]
III
How is the Fire Maintained?
The fire on the altar of Israel, though kindled from heaven had to be kept constantly burning by natural and human means. The priests had to lay wood on the altar every morning, and, like the vestal virgins of Rome, to watch day and night with sleepless care lest the holy flame should die out. It is a parable of which the spiritual experience of mankind writes large the meaning. The religious sentiment, which is an essential element of human nature, needs cultivation as certainly as the power to think, or the love of the beautiful, or our affection for parents and friends.
1. The Removal of the Ashes.What had the priest to do? First of all he had to go to the altar every day, take away the ashes and carry them to the place where the sin-offering was burnt without the camp. The ashes were that part of the wood that was laid upon the altar to feed the fire, which is of the earth earthy; that which could never mount up towards God, blending with the atmosphere, and become an offering in His presence.
The ashes are our sins; the things that day by day and hour by hour lie upon our consciences; the things that we know are wrong. And whatever we do we must not allow these sins to lie upon our hearts; we must get rid of them regularly, because, if we do not, just as the accumulating ashes would have smothered the fire upon the altar, so the accumulating sin within us will destroy the Divine life. So we have to go into the inner temple of our own being; we have to go to the altar and take away the ashes; find them out by regular self-examination.
Our Christian life cannot go on aright unless, like the priests of old, at fixed and regular times we go to the altar of our heart, and there find out what the ashes are. Then when we have found them out, let us take them in our handstake them in the hands of a trembling contrition, and be sure we carry them to the right place. We cannot go wrong as to what the right place is, because we have got an interpretation of it given us in the New Testament: The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp. Let us take them to Jesus always; kneel down at His feet; confess our sins to Him definitely. If we confess our sinsnot sinif we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.1 [Note: Canon G. Body.]
Take unto Thyself, O Father,
This folded day of Thine,
This weary day of mine,
Its ragged corners cut me yet,
O, still the jar and fret!
Father, do not forget
That I am tired
With this day of Thine.
Breathe Thy pure breath, watching Father,
On this marred day of Thine,
This erring day of mine!
Wash it white of stain and spot!
O, cleanse its every blot!
Reproachful Eyes! remember not
That I have grieved Thee
On this day of Thine!
2. The Feeding with Fuel.We have not only to take away the ashes, we have also to lay on wood. We must feed the fire. What is the fuel which God has provided for the fire of the Christian life? We know the answerthe public and private means of grace. A diligent use of the public ordinances of Gods house is necessary to the obtaining of fuel for the spiritual life. Under the Mosaic law the Sabbath was instituted not only as a day of rest from the ordinary work and activities of life, but also as a day of holy convocationa day which furnished an opportunity of assembling for Divine worship. And the Christian Sabbath is in force for the same purpose. Waiting upon the Lord in the public worship of the sanctuary, we renew our strength, we mount up with wings as eagles; we run and are not weary; we walk and are not faint.
Then I saw in my Dream, that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a Fire burning against a Wall, and one standing by it always, casting much Water upon it to quench it: yet did the Fire burn higher and hotter. Then said Christian, What means this? The Interpreter answered, This fire is the work of Grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts Water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil: but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that: So he had him about to the back side of the Wall, where he saw a Man with a Vessel of Oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast (but secretly,) into the Fire. Then said Christian, What means this? The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually with the oil of his Grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls of his People prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the Man stood behind the Wall to maintain the Fire; this is to teach thee, that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of Grace is maintained in the soul.1 [Note: Pilgrims Progress, Clar. Press ed., 32.]
More particularly, the fuel is
(1) Prayer.Prayer lies at the very foundation of all Christian vitality. To be a praying man or woman is to be spiritually living; to be not praying is to be spiritually dead. Prayer is the Christians vital breath; and as, if I would live I must breathe, so, if I would be a Christian I must pray; or if I cease to pray, my spiritual life perishes. It lies beneath everything. Without prayer the study of Gods Word is no good: without prayer worship in the sanctuary is no good; without prayer work as a teacher or district visitor is no goodnot spiritually; without prayer self-communing is no good.
It has been the greatest error of my life, said a great man in his old age, not learning to avail myself as I should have done of the help of prayer. And what moral loss and failure proceed from this neglect! It is an ethical as well as a religious mistake. Superficial are we in all our observation and experience of life if we fail to see the moral uplift of religious worship; how goodness and integrity are hallowed and protected by intense religious feelingregarded and cherished as part of the service we owe to God; and how faith, instead of being a substitute for right living, is in truth its supreme aid and inspiration, moving one to greater effort and attainment, and preserving and nourishing in the soul those finer virtues and graces which are the flower and crown of human character.2 [Note: John Hunter.]
O only Source of all our light and life,
Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,
But whom the hours of mortal moral strife
Alone aright reveal!
Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought,
Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;
Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought,
My will adoreth Thine.
With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind
Speechless remain, or speechless een depart;
Nor seek to seefor what of earthly kind
Can see Thee as Thou art?
If sure-assured tis but profanely bold
In thoughts abstractest forms to seem to see,
It dare not dare the dread communion hold
In ways unworthy Thee.
O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive,
In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;
And if in work its life it seem to live,
Shalt make that work be prayer.
Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,
Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,
And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes
In recognition start.
As wills Thy will, or give or een forbear
The beatific supersensual sight,
So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer
Approach Thee morn and night.1 [Note: Clough.]
Many in these days who eulogize the devotion of Jesus to the service of mankind forget that from the beginning to the close of His earthly ministry He drew strength for that service from communion with God. I live by the Father, He once said, and in these words we have the secret of His life and work, of His unwearying self-devotion to the cause of man and God.2 [Note: John Hunter.]
Forasmuch as they who love, and lean in love upon His breast,
Reap the richer bliss of being, drink the dews of a deeper rest,
Rise renewed in soul and sinew, greeting life with a keener zest,
I will seek Him.
It is told of Wilberforce that when an over-zealous friend asked him about the state of his soul, he replied: I have been so busy thinking about poor slaves that I have forgotten that I had a soul. He, perhaps, could afford to take for a time that attitude, for he had stored up in himself the results of years of severe spiritual discipline and culture. But his words, or words like them, are often used by persons to justify philanthropic activities which leave little or no leisure in their crowded days for the quiet thought which their needy souls require, and their work also, in order to make it nobly fruitful. The work cannot be better than the workman, and what we accomplish depends ultimately upon what we are. To give we must have; to do we must be.
If we with earnest effort could succeed
To make our life one long connected prayer,
As lives of some perhaps have been and are:
If never leaving Thee, we had no need
Our wandering spirits back again to lead
Into Thy presence, but continued there.
Like angels standing on the highest stair
Of the sapphire throne,this were to pray indeed.
But if distractions manifold prevail,
And if in this we must confess we fail,
Grant us to keep at least a prompt desire,
Continual readiness for prayer and praise,
An altar heaped and waiting to take fire
With the least spark, and leap into a blaze.1 [Note: R. C. Trench.]
(2) Study of the Word.Lay on, secondly, the fuel of the Word. If you want to see what kind of wood that is, study Psalms 119. It is the Word of God intelligently read and above all meditated upon: While I was musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spoke with my tongue. And for this reason, because the Word of God unveils to us Him who is the incarnate Word, foreshadowed in the law, foretold in the prophets, recorded in the Gospels, explained in the Epistles. And as we are brought into contact with our Lord there, as with the study of the Word we grow in the knowledge of Him, the altogether lovely One, the object of supreme desire, and while our whole nature feels the touch of the fire that comes through the Word, our mind basks in the light, our heart rejoices in beauty, our conscience is gladdened with peace, and our own will within us consciously thrills beneath the touch of that most blessed Word.
The truth revealed in the Scriptures, indeed, is the instrumentality which the Holy Spirit employs for communication of the life of God to the soul. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth. And by the same instrumentality is this life sustained. The prayer of our Lord for His disciples was, Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. Hence, the apostolic exhortation, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
But it is most important to observe the order here. The order is first prayer, and then the reading of the Word. A gentleman was asked by an artist friend of some note to come to his home, and see a painting just finished. He went at the time appointed, was shown by the attendant into a room which was quite dark, and left there. He was much surprised, but quietly waited developments. After perhaps fifteen minutes his friend came into the room with a cordial greeting, and took him up to the studio to see the painting, which was greatly admired. Before he left, the artist said laughingly, I suppose you thought it queer to be left in that dark room so long. Yes, the visitor said, I did. Well, his friend replied, I knew that if you came into my studio with the glare of the street in your eyes you could not appreciate the fine colouring of the picture. So I left you in the dark room till the glare had worn out of your eyes.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer, 161.]
(3) The Use of the Holy Eucharist.There is nothing which feeds the Divine fire within us like receiving with penitent heart and lively faith that gift which seems to be the very anticipation of heaven itself, that gift of our Lord as the bread of life in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
At the Lords Table waiting, robed and stoled,
Till all had knelt around, I saw a sign!
In the full chalice sudden splendours shine,
Azure and crimson, emerald and gold.
I stoopd to see the wonder, when, behold!
Within the cup a Countenance Divine
Lookd upwards at me through the trembling wine,
Suffused with tenderest love and grief untold.
The comfort of that sacramental token
From Memorys page Time never can erase;
The glass of that rich window may be broken,
But not the mirrord image of His grace,
Through which my dying Lord to me has spoken,
At His own Holy Table, face to face!1 [Note: Frederick Tennyson.]
3. These means must not only be used but they must be used habitually, that the fire may not go out. To produce any activity that is meant to be a continuous element in life there must be unremitting attention to the conditions of its development and use. The masters of music are always in training; they not only give years of laborious study to the discipline and education of their musical power and taste, but after all their preparatory studies they do not neglect the daily practice. But with regard to the devout spirit and life we are slow, almost reluctant, to learn that we must make much of method and habit, and that without persistent fidelity there can be no attainment. We know and are persuaded that to attain any other kind of excellence, to excel as students of physical science, as painters, singers, pianists, violinists, we must give time and thought to it, resolute purpose and steady practice; but somehow we imagine that excellence in a life infinitely higher than the scientific or artistic life does not require any such earnest and ceaseless endeavour; that the finest powers and affections of our human beingthe capacity of religious inspiration, the power to draw near unto God and to enter into the communion, of His Spirit: that these powers, compared with which genius in music or painting or science is but a small thing, may be preserved and nourished into strength and beauty without the systematic care and culture which other and lower faculties and tastes and any mechanical or professional success require and demand.
I shut myself up and practised twelve hours and more a day, until one day my left hand was swollen to about twice its usual size, causing me considerable anxiety. For some months I hardly ever left my rooms, and only when I received invitations to houses where I knew I should meet, and perhaps hear, Chopin.2 [Note: Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hall, 32.]
We often hear men speak about the spirit of prayer as being enough. Yes! it is enough; but how are we to have and to keep the spirit of prayer save as we have and keep the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of art, the spirit of love, or the spirit of anything else, save by fulfilling the conditions of having and keeping it? In pleading for devotional observances and habits, I am pleading the cause of the spirit. The men who may be said to pray without ceasing, who live almost unconsciously in an atmosphere spiritual and vital, and to whom God is the Great Companion of their days, are not the men who slight the habits of prayer; and theythe men who have mastered the art of living with Godare the only persons who can speak with any real authority on this subject. One of them says: Evening, morning, and at noon will I cry unto thee. Jesus Christ was full of the spirit of prayer, His heart was a shrine of unceasing worship, and His life was a constant walk with God; yet even He felt the need of method and habit, and obeyed the law which moves the devout soul to seek occasions of formal and concrete expression of its spiritual passion. He who lived in unbroken communion of spirit with His Father would yet spend whole nights in prayer, and make it His custom to go into the synagogue every Sabbath day.1 [Note: John Hunter.]
Without uncharitableness, it may be said that much of our scepticism and unbelief is simply the scepticism of neglected souls and the unbelief of world-worn hearts. It is often remarked that, in our distracted and overcrowded life, it requires much effort to keep our friendships with one another. But think you it requires less effort to keep up our sense of intimacy with God, to know Him with that knowledge which is Eternal Life, to gain insight into His ways, to love Him, and to enjoy what the Benediction calls the communion of the Holy Spirit? Many of us, alas! do not take time to believe in God. By our unresting action in earthly affairs, by our neglect of meditation and prayer, we build up around ourselves the very conditions of unbelief, and thus the sense of God fades out of our hearts, and all vital recognition of God disappears from our lives. We cease to tend and feed the altar-fires, and in some hour of critical trial we wake up to the fact that the very capacity for receiving religious inspiration and religious comfort has almost perished, and we are ready to take up the moan of the dying Paracelsus in Robert Brownings poem
Love, hope, fear, faiththese make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,
And these I have lost! gone, shut from me for ever.
Literature
Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 196.
Jerdan (C.), Gospel Milk and Honey, 360.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Morning by Morning, 197.
Welldon (J. E. C.), The Fire upon the Altar, 1.
Williams (J. P.), The Duty of Exercise, 122.
Christian World Pulpit, xix. 344 (Spensley); lxi. 248 (Glover); lxx. 168 (Hunter); lxxv. 200 (Body).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Reciprocal: Lev 1:7 – fire Lev 6:9 – because of the burning Lev 9:24 – there came a fire Num 4:13 – General Neh 10:34 – as it is written Isa 31:9 – whose fire Eze 40:46 – the keepers