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The term "fire" in Scripture language is commonly employed to express the judgment, f God upon sin (Hebrews 12:29; Psalm 1:1.2; 2 Thessalonians 1., &c.); and accordingly, when the Jewish worshipper (the veil being off his heart) contemplated the altar's heaven-kindled flame, and bore in mind the Divine edict for its preservation, he was given to understand that the judgment of God was held in abeyance, that the Divine arrangements for turning aside that judgment from the contrite sinner though revealed to hope, were not consummated in fact, and, that as the fire, day by day, swallowed victim after victim, and burned still as fierce as ever, that victim had not yet been laid thereon whose blood should quench in mercy the fire maintained in justice. Well — "God is the Lord who hath showed us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar" — the victim has been found and accepted; "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter"; His blood is "shed for many for the remission of sins," and the fire is gone out — God Himself hath "put it out": "for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," and, "through the offering of the body of Christ once for all," mercy and truth, righteousness and peace have met together, and like the wings of the mystic cherubim, they shadow the mercy-seat of God — the throne of Divine grace. Well, the fire is "gone out" — God Himself hath "put it out," but in so doing He hath kindled another. Accordingly, when the fire of Divine justice died away in the offering up of Christ, the flame of Divine love shot upwards upon the altar-hearts of the Lord's redeemed; it was and is kindled from above, for love begets love, and "we love Him because He first loved us." This is the heavenly fire which kindles upon the altar of the heart, the sacrifice of the affections; it is the fruit of satisfied justice; it is the movement of Divine mercy, besprinkling the soul with the all-awakening, all-cleansing blood of Jesus, producing a responsive movement of the soul to God, by the drawings of the Spirit of grace, and lighting up a flame in its Divinely occupied recesses, not to be extinguished by the deepest waters of trial. "It shall never go out."

1. In time of trial and affliction it shall not go out; for "in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His Tabernacle shall He hide me."

2. In seasons of spiritual depression it shall not go out; "O my God, my soul is cast down within me," &c.

3. In the hour of temptation it shall not go out; "for God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

4. When life, too, is waning, and the night of death is setting in, and the blighting chill is paralysing the frame as it enters the deep and dark river, it shall not go out; for "love is strong as death"; and "many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

(H. Hardy, M. A.)

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KJV: The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.

WEB: Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.