The Wheel of Fire – Side Notes
The ring of gold represents being wed to Christ. The ring of fire is a symbol of the process of sanctification that includes sharing Christ’s sufferings (Phil. 3:10). Not all Christians want to participate in this aspect of union with Him.
The first biblical example of calamus meaning moral uprightness was God saying, “Do what is right in His [God’s] sight” (Exod. 15:26).
In the Song of Solomon, cinnamon grows in the locked garden that Jesus calls “my sister, my bride” (Song of Sol. 4:12-14).
A wall is used to separate and protect that which it encloses.
The skin of Moses’s face also shone from being in the presence of God and His glory (Exod. 34:29-30, 35).
The divine light was made visible in Jesus when He was transfigured. His whiteness was beyond any earthly whiteness (Mark 9:3).
God invites all people to draw near to Him (Matt. 11:28).
The Wheel of Fire – Foot Notes
1. The heavenly host adores God for His mercy, praises Him for His goodness, and worships Him for His holiness as the “wholly Other” of all beings. None of the heavenly ones are more glorious in the burning holiness of worship than the seraphim stationed above the throne (Isa. 6:1-3). They are clothed with awesome fire as witnesses to the absolute purity of the holiness of God that is His alone. Only holiness can exist in such consuming flame. Therefore, the singing of these seraphim is the sweetest and purest known outside of God.
2. Voices from Heaven that are heard on Earth, especially God’s, may at times sound different from earthly voices (Ezek. 43:2; Rev. 1:10, 15).
3. Divine love is “the very flame of the Lord.” It is unquenchable and imparted only by grace. The Lord’s disciples are to set the intense flame of Jesus’s love as a seal over their hearts (Song of Sol. 8:6-7). His love sustains each one while undergoing the burning away of all fleshly idolatry in body and soul (Song of Sol. 8:6; Matt. 3:11-12).
4. The divine fire is for all disciples who will count their old self dead in order to fully embrace God’s purposes. They seek the reality of abiding in spirit “with Christ in God [the Father]” where they were placed by the new birth (Col. 3:1-3). The baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire that Jesus gives will burn away the chaff that is not of Christ in them (Matt. 3:11-12; Dan. 12:10). One is then drawn closer to the heart of the Father and learns to live in the consuming fire of His love (Deut. 4:24, 36; Ps. 50:3; Dan. 7:9-10).
5. A seraph touched the prophet Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal (Isa. 6:6-7). God chose his mouth to be purified because control by the Spirit of one’s tongue is the key to God’s control of the whole body (James 3:2, 6). “No one [human being] can tame the tongue” (James 3:8). Christ Jesus alone has the authority (the right) and power “to subject all things to Himself” (including the tongue) (Matt. 28:18; Phil. 3:21).
6. The Hebrew word for the spice calamus means “a stalk or reed.” It is translated “right or upright” in Scripture. Christ Jesus alone is upright or righteous in His Father’s eyes (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 10:3-4).
7. The primary root of the word cinnamon means “emitting an odor.” The new heart of each Christian is a fragrant garden, enclosed and set apart for Christ alone. It is to be formed in the image of the heart of the Lord Jesus that is undivided in His consecration unto the Father (2 Chron. 16:9; Luke 10:22).
8. God spoke this message through an angel: “Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls… For I,” declares the Lord, “will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst” (Zech. 2:4-5).
The fire of God is a manifestation of the purity of His holiness (Lev. 10:1-3). The seraphim’s song proclaimed that God would be a wall of fire to those being trained in holiness. The Holy Spirit would be the separation and protection for them around their hearts, their minds and their feet (their conduct or walk) (Phil.4:6-7; Gal. 5:25).
9. “Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matt. 17:1-2; Rev. 1:16; 10:1).
A heavenly messenger prophesied to the prophet Daniel about the last days: “Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).
Jesus said that at the end of the age, “The righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43).
10. Christians “see” (perceive) the true reality of the deceptive world system with the eyes of their new hearts first (Col. 2:8). Paul prayed for the Ephesians that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:18-19).
11. Jesus promised the overcoming Christians of the church in Philadelphia to be made pillars (given permanent places) in the temple of God. For He said, they “will not go out from it any more” (Rev. 3:12).
12. The zeal of Christ’s love for His Father (“Your house”) consumed Him (John 2:17). Such love “surpasses [human] knowledge.” It is beyond comprehension (Eph. 3:19).
13. Pure nard is a very costly spice (John 12:3). The word nard (spikenard in the King James Version) is from the Hebrew root meaning “light.”
The figure of the Father is visible in Heaven by the pure, uncreated light of His nature (1 John 1:5).
14. Eternal Life is offered freely to any who will receive and grow up into Christ (John 3:16). Many may accept the invitation (Matt. 22:10). But the “worries and riches and pleasures of this life” hinder the forming of Christ in some of them (Luke 8:14).
