more on the consuming fire

Interesting to compare MacDonald's sermon in yesterday's post with Edwards' classic, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Both make the case for holiness and the consuming character of God, albeit in different ways. For Edwards, fire is the end of hope. For MacDonald, fire holds the hope of nothing less than resurrection:

The wrath will consume what they call themselves; so that the selves God made shall appear, coming out with tenfold consciousness of being, and bringing with them all that made the blessedness of the life the men tried to lead without God. They will know that now first are they fully themselves. The avaricious, weary, selfish, suspicious old man shall have passed away. The young, ever young self, will remain. That which they thought themselves shall have vanished: that which they felt themselves, though they misjudged their own feelings, shall remain-- remain glorified in repentant hope. For that which cannot be shaken shall remain. That which is immortal in God shall remain in man. The death that is in them shall be consumed.