The Fiery Wrath of God

                         II Chronicles 7:1-3 KJB

King Solomon built a great Temple for the glory of God in Jerusalem, and he made a pious dedication service for it. As the leader of worship in this service, Solomon prayed for his people that when they sinned and turned from faith in God, that if they would turn their faces toward the Temple and repent, then Solomon knew that God would forgive them. II Chronicles 6:1-42 (KJB). 

When Solomon had ended his prayer, the fire of God fell from Heaven and consumed the burnt offering that was apparently on the altar. When the people saw that, they fell on their faces and worshipped God. II Chronicles 7:1-3 (KJB). In the Old Testament, whenever burnt sacrifices were offered, God sometimes burnt them Himself. Judges 6:21; I Kings 8:18-38; I Chronicles 21:26; Leviticus 19:24 (KJB). When He did this, God's purpose seemed to be that He desired to cause His people to repent and return to faith in Him as the only God. Judges 6:24-26; I Kings 18:39; I Chronicles 21:27; Leviticus 9:24 (KJB). Whenever God's fire burnt the burnt offering, that symbolized that God will only burn His enemies, and He will always cause His people to repent and worship Him so that He can save them all alive. God sometimes used His fiery wrath to burn His enemies, but they were not His people. They were rebels who symbolized total evil. Leviticus 10:1-2; Numbers 16:31-35; II Kings 1:8-12 (KJB). 

God, the Father, had the preeminence in the Old Testament just as Jesus Christ had the preeminence when He was on the earth, and the Holy Spirit has the preeminence in this Age of Grace. The Father did not seem to have a desire to have a close, spiritual relationship with every one of His believers as does the Holy Spirit in the Church Age. The Father did seem to have somewhat of a spiritual relationship with some of His priests, His true prophets, and some of the best kings of Israel and Judah. As a result, the Father tended to cause His people to repent and return to faith in Him by His use of outward miracles that everyone could see. Jesus preferred to use both outward and inward miracles. He healed and He saved by His grace. The Holy Spirit prefers to use mostly inward miracles such as saving people by His grace. The Trinity has always been united, but in the end of the world, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will equally share the preeminence in God's desire to use His fiery wrath to purge the world of all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil, and Christ's desire to cause all of His living humans to repent and return to faith in Him, and the Holy Spirit's desire that all of God's people enjoy a spiritual relationship with God. God's people are every human whom He ever created in His image and whom He loves. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 82:6; John 10:34-36 (KJB). The Father will use His fiery wrath against evil to thoroughly purge the Heaven and the earth of all vestiges of sin and evil so that He can save all of His people from eternal death. Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve the beings of all of His living humans not already saved by His grace so that He can recreate their living natures and consign their dead and evil natures to the eternal lake of fire. The Holy Spirit, who will have already filled God's people saved by grace with His Spirit, will give His Spirit to all the rest of repentant humanity so that they can enjoy righteous lives on God's recreated earth. God will burn all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil, not any of His living humans because He will cause them all to repent. II Peter 3:9-13; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 3:15; Genesis 3:20-21; Genesis 8:20-21; Luke 20:38; Hebrews 2:9-18; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 15:20-28; I Timothy 4:10; Joel 2:28-29; I John 3:8 (KJB).