65. Right to the end, God will treat both His wicked and righteous children the same—with everlasting love.
Everyone will be salted with fire! {Mark 9:49}
Perhaps the most often-used image for God in the Bible is fire. From the burning bush to the pillar of fire to the Sun of righteousness to Paul’s plain statement “for our God is a consuming fire,” when the Bible writers encountered God either in person or in vision, often they saw fire.
In Revelation, when John describes the vision he saw of God’s unveiled glory, he said it looked like fire coming down out of heaven. I suppose that would make sense, if God Himself is a consuming fire. But what doesn’t make sense is our assumption, then, that somehow this fire only impacts the wicked and not the righteous, that this fire is for the purpose of killing or torturing some of God’s children.
Jesus indicated just the opposite when, after describing referencing “hell, where the fire is not quenched,” He said, “Everyone will be salted with fire!” In other words, whatever that fire is, whatever makes up the physical substance of God’s unveiled glory, it is going to consume and overtake everyone. All of creation.
God doesn’t give life to some and death to others. He doesn’t treat the wicked one way and the righteous another. Everyone will be salted with fire, but the results of that event will lead to two radically different outcomes.
If you want to dig deeper—
Exodus 34:29-35
Isaiah 33:14-16
Malachi 4:1-3
Hebrews 12:29