This article is an in-depth look at Images of spiritual reality in Revelation.
Among the images that Revelation provides us with associated with Christ’s gift of his life, there is also that of fire. Jesus says: “I have come to bring fire on the earth.” This fire is the fire of love, of God’s Spirit of love, which set the apostles ablaze on the days of Pentecost, when they received the gift of the Spirit, which appeared in the form of flames that descended on the apostles’ heads. This fire is also celebrated every Easter, when the risen Christ offers his victory over death to all the baptized, and each person lights his or her candle to the candle that represents Christ. This candle is the one entrusted to the newly baptized on the day of baptism, as Jesus tells us:
Amen, amen, I say to you: he who believes in me will do the works that I do. For I go to the Father, and whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:12-13).
This fire is therefore an image of the love that enflames our hearts, that illuminates the earth through all those who bear witness to this love, who make it visible through the way they look at their neighbor: the righteous are a reflection of God’s love for everyone, and it is to them that God has entrusted the task of spreading his love on earth, of making it visible, concrete, by offering it to each of his creatures. But, at the same time, this fire can be the source of suffering for those who have scorned love. If we are not ourselves a candle burning with love and lighting up others, the fire of love that is not welcomed within us, and that transforms us, has the effect of burning. Regret, repentance for one’s faults, can lead to asking for forgiveness on this earth, so the fire burns us for a while until we find forgiveness and peace. But after death on earth, it’s too late to seize the opportunity to repent, to ask forgiveness of those we have persecuted, humiliated and despised, so this fire becomes an eternal torment at the resurrection of the dead.
This is how the Apocalypse, the Gospel and the letters of the apostles speak of a first resurrection of the just, signifying the opportunity offered to each of us to forgive our faults, to repent, and to be recreated, to be born to a new resurrected life through baptism. Here we’re talking about a spiritual death, in which the evil committed against our neighbor and against God causes a spiritual death that stands in the way of light, that prevents us from tasting the source of life and joy that consists in loving God and his creatures, our neighbor. This is the first death, a spiritual one, from which we can rise by asking forgiveness for our sins, through the bath of baptism, and thus enter already now on this earth into eternal life, into the kingdom where we live in profound communion with God and our neighbor, animated by the same love, like members of the same body. But the Apocalypse, the Gospels and the Apostles warn us of the second death, which will take place at the resurrection of the bodies of all those who will come out of the tombs, and to whom will be manifested the reality of their faults that separate them from this communion, from eternal life, from the love of their brothers and sisters. Then, the pain of regret for one’s own actions will be a fire that will not spread, a love that they will face forever and to which they will not have opened the door of their heart.
2 Corinthians 2:15-16:
“For we are to God the good odor of Christ, among those who welcome salvation as well as among those who go to their ruin; for some, it is a fragrance of death that leads to death; for others, a fragrance of life that leads to life.”
Tyconius, Commentary on the Apocalypse, translated and annotated by Roger Gryson, Brepols, 2011, p. 175 n.23, on Ap 15:2:
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass”, i.e. the perfectly transparent baptismal fountain, “mingled with fire” (Rev 15:2), i.e. the Spirit or trial. Fire, in fact, signifies both the Holy Spirit and trial, as it is written: “The potter’s vessels are tested by the furnace, and righteous men by the trial of tribulation” (Sirach 27:6).