Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29, NKJV).
The only things that will survive the transition from this age to the next are those things whose origins and foundations are spiritual. All other things, the things that are made, will be consumed and remade, shaken to the point of regeneration. While the New Heavens and the New Earth will consist of the physical, the present separation between that realm and the eternal realm of the spirit will be eliminated. Then it will be as it was in the beginning, with both conjoined as one.
The prospect of this coming to pass should fill the child of God with unspeakable joy, but the unbeliever should tremble with fear - for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. For our God is a consuming fire.
What does this mean? And what exactly is the difference between ungodly and godly fear, since both are either explicitly or implicitly in view in these latter chapter of Hebrews?
Godly fear leads to repentance and hope; the turning of a human heart from the deadly pursuit of sin to the pursuit of life-giving righteousness. In this context, "hope" is the present certainty of a guaranteed future event, and righteousness is not the petty popular concept of religious stodginess, but the very inviolable righteousness of God, Himself - the righteousness which serves as the bedrock of all that is good and beautiful and the source of all true joy.
Ungodly fear is the opposite in every respect. Instead of repentance, it fosters paralysis and hatred. Rather than hope, utter despair. It is that state of being that until death, spirals downward and inward toward complete depravity, and after death is the very substance and ecology of Hell.
The depiction of God as a consuming fire is both ecstatically and excruciatingly accurate. It is what MUST be the case for a holy, righteous, and all-powerful Being who offers either forgiveness and regeneration, or promises destruction and eternal judgement if the miraculous offer is rejected.
The world hates God, and all the things of God, and this hatred can only be overcome by the miracle of faith, which recreates a human heart, and enlivens a dead human spirit. There is no other means of escaping the consuming fire. All creation will be brought through the flames, and either refined and remade, or consigned to be forever burning in unrelenting agony.
As declared in these verses, it requires grace to serve God acceptably, with reverence. That ability is not something we can grit our teeth and drum up somewhere inside us. If that were the case, then Christ would not have had to die. No, that ability is a gift, a grace of God. And we are instructed to have it, that is, to receive it with open arms, for grace is something God delights in giving.
Acceptable service to God is nothing done in our own strength motivated by our own delusional self-sovereignty. It is ever and only that which He empowers us to do for his purposes through our complete surrender. In essence, it is walking in those good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. From simply supplying a cup of water to someone who thirsts, to being burned at the martyrs' stake as His witness.
So yes, our God is a consuming fire. He is NOT that grandfatherly and loving curmudgeon in Heaven who "winks at our sin". Nor is He someone with whom any bargain can be struck. Instead, He is the almighty ruler of all existence, who offers us, not only an eternity of blessedness, but Himself as our exceedingly great reward. But ONLY on His terms.
And that too is eminently fitting. He is the Maker, the Eternal King, the One Who is Who Was and Who is to Come. The Source and Power and Intelligence and Personhood from which all else proceeds and has its being.
