SUBMIT TO GOD’S REFINING FIRE
Most people who have read the Bible know the phrase that says God is a refining fire and they might also be familiar with scripture that says God tests the hearts of his people. They like to quote these scriptures whenever they are going through some kind of trouble in their personal lives.
STUDY TIPS: See this link for more understanding of God’s fire.
Many people claim to love God, but the fact that they also love and practice religion that is abusive proves that they do not love him with “all their heart soul and strength.” When they do not listen to and obey his voice only, but listen to the voice of false prophets and follow the religious traditions and doctrines created by men, they prove that they do not love him with “all their heart soul and strength.”
When God’s children do not love him with “all their heart soul and strength,” God imposes discipline on them as an expression of his love and his commitment to his covenant with them. Godly discipline in the Bible is typically represented in the form of oppression by religion. Oddly, this means that God punishes his people for practicing religion by sending them into captivity by religious oppressors. This may not make much sense to us, but we must still accept that this is God’s way of getting his people to the point where they are so sick of being oppressed by religion that they cry out to him for deliverance. This is what happened when they were in Egypt, Babylon, and Persia.
The experience of Bible heroes dealing with religious nations (e.g. Egypt, Babylon, Canaan, Philistines, Persia, etc.) confirms what scripture says about the law (i.e. religion) being a tutor that leads us to faith (i.e. New Covenant). To see how this happens we must read between the lines of several scriptures and connect events that reveal the following process.
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Jesus’ life was also filled with violent conflict at the hands of the religious people of his day (i.e. Hellenistic Judaism). Although the Jews expected a Messiah who would deliver them from Roman oppression, Jesus never took initiatives to contend with Roman authorities. Jewish Pharisees were always his target — not the Roman government. It is no wonder, then, that the Chief priests and Pharisees found Jesus to be a threat to their positions of high spiritual authority and plotted to crucify him. But that was not the end of the matter for Jesus. While on the cross, he cried out to God who ultimately brought him back to life. This is a picture of what happens to us when we cry out to God for deliverance from tribulation at the hands of our religious family and friends.
What we learn from the lives of Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, the Apostle Paul, and other apostles is that conflict is inevitable and ongoing for New Covenant disciples. They all wrestled with religious leaders who found them to be threats to their religious power and authority. And this is not a misplaced threat. Religious leaders, past and present, have every reason to be afraid of New Covenant disciples because of God’s clear command to utterly destroy all the altars and idols of the religious nations/people who lived in the Promised Land.
So Jesus, Paul and the other apostles were only doing what all of God’s people are commanded to do:
Therefore, just as Jesus, the Apostle Paul and other apostles were serious threats to the power and authority of Jewish temple leaders, and just as Israel was a threat to Pharaoh and his kingdom, all people who like to think of themselves as children of God should also be serious threats to religious institutions. None of Jesus’ followers who take this responsibility seriously will physically die on a cross, but they will still suffer affliction and persecution from religious people, both leaders and followers, who know, or at least can see, that God’s people are committed to tearing down their religious institutions.
But, just as Jesus was raised from the dead, the people of Godly faith persevered and overcame religion’s control over them as they transitioned from Old/First Covenant religion to being New Covenant disciples. This is the death, resurrection and new life story that the Bible tells over and over again.
STUDY TIP: See Death, Resurrection, New Life, Salvation, Heaven.
It is critical to recognize that the resurrection and new life does not happen unless death first occurs. And death does not occur unless there is first a sense of oppression that causes us to cry out to God for deliverance (i.e. salvation). And God does not deliver us unless and until we repent (i.e. turn) for having participated in religious practices and traditions taught by men.
Bringing this all back to the topic of why/how we should read the Bible, we conclude that we should learn from the lives of Bible characters that we are no better than they were in holding onto righteousness. We, like they, are all susceptible to the temptations that lure us into religion (i.e. the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). And we, like they, are all victims of oppression and persecution by religious leaders (i.e. our enemies) and institutions that we willfully and eagerly joined, followed and supported because we enjoyed religion and took pride in being part of a religious community that has made a name for itself by building a religious structure that tries to reach God through physical effort.
If we do not read the Bible and find these parallels to our lives so that we repent for joining ourselves to religions that God told us to destroy, and if we don’t cry out for deliverance from those religions, we have missed the teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that perfects and equips us for every good work. Or, it could be said that we have refused God’s loving discipline that is designed set us free from a kingdom that can be shaken (i.e. Old/First Covenant religion) so that we can receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken (i.e. New Covenant/Kingdom of God).
The active agent in process of teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that perfects and equips us is God’s word spoken through his messengers (i.e.true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, warriors and apostles.) Only God’s spoken word has power to change hearts from evil and impure to clean and pure. He does that by sending his anointed messengers/prophets to enlighten religious people about sin and the difference between faith and religion.
Refining fire is one of the terms that God uses to describe this process. What we see when religious people react with anger to true prophets who share the true gospel is the refining effect of God’s spoken word. It is God’s spoken word that arouses evil, impure hearts to anger when religious people hear a truth from God’s mouth that disagrees with what they have been taught in their religious community. Their minds and hearts are aroused with anger and fear that the religion in which the have so much pride is under a serious threat. This fear causes them to lash out with words that they hope will defend their religious kingdoms against spiritual forces behind the threat. What they don’t realize is that God is the spiritual force that threatens their religious kingdom. What they don’t realize is that God has sent true prophets to speak his words to call his people out of religion and to tear down religion.
We see this response to truth in the story of Jesus. Religious leaders plotted to kill Jesus because he was on a mission to expose them and remove them from their positions of authority as enslavers and oppressors of God’s people. We can expect this kind of response from Old/First Covenant religious people every time New Covenant disciples speak truth to them. This violent response is all part of the refining process.