The Fire of Judgment Day

At the end of time sin and all uncleanness on the earth shall cease. Those who are voluntarily and irrevocably given to evil will all be in hell. The earth where man has sinned will becleansed and purified.

It appears that the cleansing agency for the bodily world will be fire. We read in scripture (I Peter 3:12): “The heavens being on fire will be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat.”

The cleansing final fire will doubtless be the same kind of fire as the natural sort with which we are familiar. As natural water washed the sinful world in the great flood, so natural fire will cleanse it at the last day.

The heavenly bodies are not subject to contamination byman’s sin. They need nothing to fit them for the state of glory but to have their local movement set at rest by divine decree.

It seems that after the cleansing by fire, the substances of air, earth, fire, and water will remain, but as purified, and no longer in natural conflict with one another.

Therefore, all earthly substances, including fire itself, will be purified and cleansed in the final fire.

The cleansing fire will precede the judgment: “Afire shall go before him” (Ps. 96). Yet the special action of fire which will engulf the wicked will follow upon their judgment.

The final fire will act on men as the instrument of divine justice. It will reduce or change all bodies; but it will pain the wicked, and not the good, except in so far as temporal punishment may still be needed for the cleansing of the good.

With the purifying of the world by fire, all that is evil and ugly will be cast into hell with the wicked; all that is beautiful and noble will be taken up to heaven for the glory of the elect.