The Threefold Cord: The Pictures in the Scriptures

Elementary, my dear Watson!”  

That’s a witty way to say "that was easy enough to solve."  We have Sherlock Holmes to thank for the expression (at least from the stage and screen; he never actually said it in the books).  Dear Dr. Watson would often see the obscure and miss the obvious.  

You may remember the joke.  It won online contests as the world’s funniest.  Holmes and Watson pitch their tent on a camping trip.  Awaking in the middle of the night, Holmes asks Watson what he sees.  "Stars," says Watson.

“And what does that tell you?” the inspector inquires.

Dr. Watson knew his stars.  “It tells me that tonight Saturn is in Leo, it’s approximately a quarter past three, God is all powerful, we are small and insignificant, and... uh… we will most likely have a beautiful day tomorrow.”

Feeling pleased with himself, Watson asks, “And what does it tell you, Mr. Holmes?”

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock drones, “Someone… has stolen... our tent.”

In the debate on endless torment, someone indeed has stolen our tent.   Something is missing, and it’s so obvious that oblivious Watsons and orthodox Einsteins miss it. 

Ajith Fernando in his book Crucial Questions About Hell presents an impressive art gallery filled with raging red and angry orange in vivid pictures of fire.  And he is sure these pictures picture pain.  “So the question we must ask,” Ajith asserts, “is what did the Biblical writers intend their readers to understand when they described punishment using the imagery of fire?... when writers used some imagery to illustrate a truth, they used it in the sense that the people who read it would understand it.”  With his primary premise I couldn't agree more, though with his resulting conclusions I couldn’t agree less.  Something elementary is missing, my dear Fernando. 

First he points out a couple of rare apocryphal paintings; “not a suitable base for doctrine” Ajith admits, but sufficient to “show that Jews were accustomed to using the imagery of fire to describe torment.”  He then calls our attention to the menacing masterpiece of the Rich Man and Lazarus, a watercolor painted with one wet finger.  Next there’s a couple of apocalyptic frescoes of fire and brimstone hanging side by side- quite the revelation.  

But something’s missing.

We could call this exclusive collection the Fernando Few- fittingly apocryphal, parabolic, and apocalyptic.  But Ajith, our art authority and gallery guide, reminds us that there are many more works to examine in the rest of the illustrious exhibit. “Fire is often used in the Bible to describe the nature of judgment.”  Often, he says.  And of visiting viewers he is of the mind that “what usually comes to their mind is the pain of being burned.”   

Yes, something is definitely missing.

Fernando, very Watson-like, unwittingly uncovers the clue that solves the mystery of what’s missing. “The deciding factor,” he deftly deduces, “when determining the meaning of picture language used in a passage is the context of the occurrence.”  Yes, context!  To that I sing a chorus of exuberant Ahhhh-mens!  With this key we can meander back through the gallery, room by room, and, Voila!- the missing magically materializes.

But before we do, Clara Peller just walked in.  Remember her?  She was the eighty-one year old manicurist that starred in the hilariously unforgettable Wendy’s commercials.  She and two elderly friends order hamburgers at an imaginary “Big Bun” restaurant, and while her cohorts are impressed with the size of the bread, curmudgeonly Clara demands, “Where’s the beef?”

As she walks around our imaginary museum (we could call it the "Big Burn"), I can see the sassy senior critically squinting her eyes up close at the images of fire.  Something's missing, and Clara knows it.  She's at John the Baptist's flaming painting (Matthew 3:12), a scenic landscape of wheat harvest complete with pitch fork, threshing floor, and unquenchable fire.  Ah, yes, there’s the fire.  

"My, what a big burn!" her pals proclaim. 

"Where's the chaff?"

What's that Clara?  

"Where's the chaff?!"

Hmm … I don't think Ajith Fernando quite caught that.

"Where's… the… CHAFF?!" Clara growls.

No chaff?  Oblivious to the obvious, Dr. Watson failed to see the missing tent.  Traditionalists, like Ajith Fernando, fail to see the missing tinder- the extremely flammable fuel and highly combustible kindling of chaff, tares, stubble, briers, thorns, tow, and dry branches, the most effortlessly ignitable and easily consumable materials on earth.  There's something in the fire, and these items swiftly and completely burn up, especially in a fire that can’t be put out.  You can’t leave these objects out and still get the picture.  There's the fire.  Where's the chaff?  Or the stubble?  Or the tares?

Truth is, Ajith, there is no "imagery of fire."  Not fire alone.  It's imagery of objects in fire.  "He will burn up the chaff in unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12).  That's the "deciding factor… of the context of the occurrence."   The Divine painter knows how to expertly illustrate, and His images of those kinds of objects in that kind of fire perfectly picture consumption, not torment.  Get the picture?  Fire consumes.  Fire alone could possibly, but not necessarily, picture pain, but incendiary items in an inextinguishable inferno couldn’t.  And doesn’t.  

Though it’s elementary, my dear Watson, the inspired painters do not always depend on us to readily decipher their plain pictures, but often interpret them for us with clear corresponding commentary.  They tell us what the fire in their picture will do.  See for yourself.  Here's quite an impressive catalog of the contents of the collection, a list of objects consumed in a judgment fire:

• Stubble. Exodus 15:7: “thy wrath… consumed them as stubble”

• Thorns. 2 Samuel 23:6, 7: “the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away...and they shall be utterly burned with fire”

• The fat of lambs. Psalm 37:20: “the wicked shall perish… as the fat of lambs… into smoke shall they consume away”

• Tow (coarse part of flax).  Isaiah 1:28-31: “destruction… consumed… as tow... shall burn… none shall quench”

• Stubble, chaff.  Isaiah 5:24: “as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff”

• Briers, thorns.  Isaiah 9:18, 19: “devour the briers and thorns… be as the fuel of the fire”

• Thorns, briers.  Isaiah 10:16-18: “burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day… consume… both soul and body”

• Briers and thorns.  Isaiah 27:4: “briers and thorns... I would burn them together”

• Chaff, stubble, lime, thorns.  Isaiah 33:11, 12: “fire shall devour you… shall be burned in the fire”

• Stubble.  Isaiah 47:14: “they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them”

• Forest.  Jeremiah 21:14: “a fire in the forest… shall devour all things”

• Stubble.  Joel 2:5: “a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble”

• Stubble.  Obadiah 1:18: “stubble… they shall kindle in them, and devour them”

• Stubble.  Malachi 4:1-3: “all that do wickedly shall be stubble… burn them up… ashes”

• Chaff.  Matthew 3:12 (Cf. Luke 3:17): “he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”

• Tares.  Matthew 13:40: “as tares are burned in the fire… so shall it be in the end of this world”

• Withered branch.  John 15:6:  “as a branch… withered… cast into the fire and burned”

• Thorns and briers.  Hebrews 6:8, 9: “rejected… whose end is to be burned”

These pictures in the Scriptures in which the fire “devours” and the wicked “perish” present the Biblical “imagery of fire.”  How did we miss it?  Let’s ask that freshman class on their field trip at the art museum: “What do all these pictures have in common?”  A spray of hands spring upward. 

“All are pictures of God’s judgment.”  That’s right, Susie.  

“All depict fire as the means of punishment.”  Very good, Bobby.  

“All express ultimate destruction.”  Most observant, Anthony!   

Anything else?  The puzzled students knit their brows and finger their chins.  Look closely.  It’s rather obvious.  

“I know!  I know!” little Laura squeals as both hands bounce and beckon.  Yes, Laura?

“All include an object!”   

That’s it!  All include an object.  And these objects burn up.  Remember articulate Ajith's crucial question: "What did the Biblical writers intend their readers to understand when they described punishment using the imagery of fire?"  These obvious objects make it objectively obvious as to what is being pictured.  These items burn up.  As Ajith assures us, "when the writers used some imagery to illustrate a truth, they used it in the sense that the people who read it would understand it."  Elementary!  These items burn up.

If the Divine Author did not intend to express consumption by fire, He certainly knew how to use other objects in His pictures:  

• Psalm 12:6: “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”  

• Zechariah 13:9: “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.”

• 1 Corinthians 3:12, 13: “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble… it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.”

• 1 Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire…”

• Revelation 3:18: “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire…”

Silver and gold do not burn up; chaff and stubble do.  The burning bush or the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, though not tormented, could also have been used to illustrate a fire that burns without consuming.  But they weren't.  The Creator of Language knows how to use His creation to communicate and not to confuse, and on His palette vividly ablaze with the fires of judgment, He took His skillful brush and added evident objects to illustrate final destruction, not eternal torture.  God wanted the reader to get the picture.  

But, alas, it seems these objects are too obvious for defenders of the damnable dogma to see. Like Ajith Fernando, they miss the objects... and the truth.

And that’s no joke, my dear Watson.