The Fiery Spirit

Last week we spoke about the gentle and quiet Holy Spirit.
And tonight we wish to speak about another attribute of the Holy Spirit, which may appear—outwardly—somewhat different from the previous attribute.

I would like to speak not about the gentle and quiet Spirit, but about the Fiery Spirit.

The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples as tongues of fire (Acts 2).
And these fiery tongues inflamed their spirits, inflamed them for service, granted them power, and they became “fervent in spirit” (Rom 12:11).

It does not mean that because a person is gentle, he is inactive and extinguished,
doing nothing at all! No. The children of God are inflamed with the Spirit. And this fervor and this heat do not at all contradict meekness and quietness.

The Lord Christ was meek and lowly in heart. Yet when He appeared in the Book of Revelation, “His eyes were like a flame of fire, and His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters” (Rev 1).

It was also said in the Scripture, “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29).

This is the fire which Moses the prophet saw burning in the bush (Ex 3),
and from there came the word of God. This fire is what we see as a symbol of God in the censer.

In the censer (the shoria), the fire is a symbol of the Divinity, the coal is a symbol of the Humanity, and the union of fire with the coal is a symbol of the union of the Divinity with the Humanity. As for the shoria itself, it symbolizes the womb of the Virgin in which this union took place.

In the Old Testament, the way a sacrifice was accepted was that the fire of God consumed it—whether fire descending from heaven as happened in the time of Elijah, or the fire of the altar. On the altar of burnt offering, the fire burned day and night, and its consuming of the burnt offering was a sign of pleasing the heart of God, and that the justice of God had fulfilled its right.

As fire indicated the Spirit of God and His right and justice, so it was also with His angels, His servants, and His words. The Scripture says:
“Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire” (Ps 104:4). And when God sent His forces to deliver Samaria in the time of Elisha, they appeared in the form of “chariots of fire,” and he said, “Those who are with us are more than those who are against us.”

Elijah also ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.

And the rank of the Seraphim means the burning ones or those inflamed with fire.

The only time the Scripture speaks to us about the Seraphim, one of the Seraphim took a live coal from the altar and touched the mouth of Isaiah the prophet with it, and he was purified—by fire, by the Spirit of God.

All this shows us that the children of God are supposed to be inflamed with fire, a flame of fire. Meekness, quietness, and kindness do not mean that a person loses his heat.

God said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire” (Jer 5:14).

At one time, Jeremiah grew weary of the word of the Lord, by which he rebuked the people, and they mocked him and rose against him. So he said about the Lord, “I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name,’ but His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not” (Jer 20:9).

The Lord Christ Himself said, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49).

This is the Fiery Spirit which the disciples experienced in service: when they came into contact with the fire, and became fire. And concerning this, the Apostle Paul says:
“Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?”

And the psalmist says, “Zeal for Your house has eaten me up.”

It is a blazing fire in the heart and in the spirit, which no matter how one tries to extinguish it, he cannot. Thus the Apostle Peter said, “We cannot but speak.” Not speaking is impossible; we cannot.

The divine heat sets the heart aflame.

The fire of the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts ignites their hearts with love.

God is love, and love is fire; many waters cannot quench it. Therefore, whoever love enters into his heart, fire enters into him.

Your love for God inflames you with heat in worship and in service.
And your love for people inflames you with heat in striving for their salvation.

The Church, in giving us the idea of the holy fire, has no rites at all without fire. Whenever you enter the church, you find fire.

You see this fire in the incense and in the candles.

The grains of incense kindled by fire, ascending to the Lord as columns of smoke, are a sign of divine love which burns in the heart and offers it as a burnt offering and as incense, a sweet aroma of pleasure to the Lord.

And the fire in the candle is a sign of the one who by love melts in order to give light to others; the fire of the Spirit melts him, the fire of love, the fire of God.

All this—the fire of the censer and the fire of the candle—gives light as well as warmth and heat. And the church is never without both.

God is light and fire. He gives heat as well as guidance.

In the Old Testament, He led the people in the wilderness of Sinai by a pillar of fire over the camp; it was the Spirit of the Lord leading them.

And the glory of the Lord shone continually like fire. Thus He appeared to the people and gave them the commandments.

The mountain burned with fire; the word of the Lord to them was like a flame of fire, signifying to them the power of the word, its heat, and its effectiveness.

The children of God, when they enter into life with God, are transformed into this very heat: heat in prayer, in worship, in love, in service. They become a flame of fire, like the angels.

This heat is not only in the spirit—“fervent in spirit”—but also in the body.

When Maximus and Domadius prayed, Saint Macarius the Great saw their prayer as though it were flames of fire coming out of their lips.

And when Saint Anba Shenouda prayed—even in his childhood—his fingers appeared as though they were burning candles.

Spiritual prayer is inflamed with fire; therefore it is said to be a fervent prayer, proceeding from the heat of the heart and the heat of love.

From the heat of prayer comes persistence; from the heat of prayer come tears; from this heat comes striving in prayer, and faith, and response.

From the heat of prayer comes steadfastness in prayer, so that the one praying does not wish to end his prayer, but finds a delight that binds him to it; it is the fruit of divine love. Heat gives his prayer life.

Is not heat the difference between the living and the dead?

The body of a dead person you find completely cold, without heat. But the living body has warmth and heat. So also the spirit.

Live in the heat that is from the Spirit.

When a person’s spiritual life weakens, his heat decreases and he grows lukewarm.

They say: this is a person who has spiritual lukewarmness. And if his lukewarmness increases, it turns into spiritual coldness and into death. Therefore kindle the Spirit within you, or at least as the Apostle said:
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19).

Keep the flame continually burning, inflaming your hearts.

The fire of the burnt offering was continually burning; it did not go out. They cast fuel upon it and kindled it with a morning burnt offering and another in the evening, and with other offerings. So be like this, continually inflamed. Keep the heat of the Spirit that is in you.

The Church of the Apostles was a church inflamed with fire; therefore it was strong. It is the Church of the fiery tongues, the Church of the burning word.

Therefore their word was powerful and did not return empty. The Apostle Paul experienced it and said, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit…” (Heb 4:12). That is because it is a word proceeding from the fiery tongue, inflamed since the Day of Pentecost.

There is a person who speaks to you a word that has no effect on you. And another who speaks to you a word that continues to resound in your ear at home, at work, on the road, in your rising and your sitting, in your coming in and your going out, carving deep marks in your heart and working within you. It is a fiery word.

The Apostle Paul—while he was a prisoner—spoke about righteousness, self-control, and judgment to come, and Felix the governor trembled at the word of this prisoner.

A person may serve in a place as though he were a lifeless corpse placed in that place. Another serves, and the whole place becomes movement, life, heat, and activity. It is a fiery work inflamed by the Holy Spirit, who spoke by the prophets.

Thus were the twelve Apostles, whose voices reached to the ends of the inhabited world. They were flames; wherever they dwelt, they became a blaze.

If you are inflamed with the Spirit, every person you meet you will inflame, and every place you dwell in you will inflame. For such is the nature of fire.

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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Seven (Issue Twenty-Six) 25-6-1976

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