Deuteronomy 4:23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee. 24 For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. 25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger: 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. 27 And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you.
Christians have made a graven image of Jesus Christ. Some Christian churches even have statues of the man on the cross. Others have graven the image of the man on their minds and worship it as an invisible graven image.
It is wrong to worship the man Jesus or any man as God since God is the invisible Spirit of LIFE and Truth which has no shape or form of its own but simply manifests through ALL forms of life. To imagine any form of life as God and worship that form as God is sheer childish idolatry.
I believe consuming fire is referring to His anger; not that He is a consuming fire all the time if you are inferring that He is Hell and the lake of fire which I do not think you are saying that.
An eternally consuming fire is a consuming fire all the time for all eternity. It is not a temporary fire.
The God character in the bible is ALWAYS angry with the wicked and always judging the righteous every day for all eternity.
Psalm 7:11
That chapter has the Father chastening those whom He will receive for not resisting sin nor putting away sins with His help before the Bridegroom had come. That small season is the great tribulation. It is His anger that will burn the wood, stubble, and hay that has defiled the temple of God thus He shall give them unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh ( physical death ) so that their spirits may be saved in the day of Christ.
The "great tribulation" is simply figurative of the pressure, inner trouble, anguish that people go through in their own lives when they come face to face with the Truth and continue to reject it. It is not some physical future event that will happen at the same time for all people on Earth.
The "day of Christ" is every single day on Earth for all eternity. It is one eternal day without beginning or end. The "day of Christ" is not limited to a beginning at some "future time" like some preachers and false prophets would like you to believe as they convince you to follow and idolise the false Christ as a man with supernatural powers.
There is a Refiner's fire and then there is hell fire, but God is not actually a consuming fire when He is not angry all the time.
As I pointed out in Psalm 7:11 God is angry with the wicked all the time. The anger against the wicked is an eternal righteous anger.
The metaphorical eternally consuming fire never goes out since it is
eternally consuming. That consuming fire is not a different fire to the refining fire. There is only ONE eternally consuming fire. You do not have one fire to refine gold and a different fire to consume dross. The same fire does both things at the very same time.
I believe the scripture that death can by Adam because of his sin; so that tells me in his original state, he was never going to die. Was he meant to be immortal? No. God knew he would fall. And to prevent him from remaining in that fallen state forever, he was kicked out of Eden from partaking of the tree of life. I do not know of other consequences for eating from that tree of life, but God foreknew that mankind will need Him as Saviour to reconcile them back to God. Eating from the tree of life would have prevented that reconciliation, I would think.
What does the tree of life represent to you ?
Do you realise it represents wisdom in the bible? Prov 3:13-18
Do you also realise there was ONLY ONE TREE not two trees in the middle of the garden in the story of Eden?
Gen 3:3
But of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Compare with Gen 2:9.....";
the tree of life also
in the midst of the garden,"
and Gen 3:6...." and
a tree to be desired to make one wise,"
You only need to partake of the tree of life and gain wisdom, life and the knowledge of God, once but it will cost you your life of darkness, ignorance and foolishness.
Luke 14:26 If any
man come to me, and
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Matt 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and
he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman,
Ye shall not surely die:...
John 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die. Believest thou this?
Both the serpent in the Eden story and Jesus in the NT story promise "You will not die." IF you trust and believe them.
Both could be claimed to be liars since all people including Jesus in the story died.
Both could be claimed to be also telling the Truth if they are merely talking about the eternal life of the eternal spirit within the mortal body. That spirit cannot die in the first place since it is an immortal and eternal Spirit of LIFE. The word immortal means cannot die.
We are to not have our minds conform to the world, but to the Son; and I confess my need of Him for that and He is helping me & being my shield.
Then why do you conform to the false doctrines and traditions of the religious world ?
Phil 2:5-8
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Jesus did not think it was robbing God of anything to be equal with God. If you are of the same mind, you will also not think it is robbing God of anything to be equal with Him. Christianity seems to teach it is an evil sin and prideful to think you are equal with God or to try to be equal with God. They seem to teach the devil fell from heaven because he wanted to be equal with God but how is it prideful to make oneself of no reputation, take on the form of a servant, become like the most foolish of the fools on Earth, the most despised and rejected person you can think of? That is not pride at all. It is humility to make yourself equal with the worst person you can think of on Earth and allow others to judge you and falsely accuse you of all kinds of things while still not condemning them for what they do because you understand they are clueless.