I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
This fire was associated with his baptism, which makes sense. It was promised by John the Baptist that Jesus was the one who would, "baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (see Matthew 3:11). However, we also know that baptism related to the death of Jesus since, "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death" (see Romans 6:3). This was the chalice that James and John naively believed they could drink, of which Jesus assured them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized" (see Mark 10:39).
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
His goal was the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, but that in order to do so the Passion was a necessary prerequisite. After all, in the Passion, the obstacles to the coming and indwelling of the Spirit were defeated. It was from the side of the crucified Christ that the living water of the Holy Spirit flowed. Before that, "the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (see John 7:39). There was a death to the old that was first necessary in order that the new could come and find a place in us. Jesus first accomplished this death for us so that he could then make it present in us through our own baptism. He defeated sin in the world and would go on to defeat it in the hearts of his followers who learned to live, not by the flesh, but by the Spirit.
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
The transformation that the fire of the Spirit was meant to cause in the lives of Christians was something that required their consent and cooperation. It was not something which they could accomplish of their own strength. But they could very much refuse it through their own stubbornness. The consequence of clinging to things that could not last, and the old life, was judgment. The fire of God would consume all that was unfit to stand in his presence since he himself was a consuming fire (see Hebrews 12:29). Those who kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of their faith, would experience the joy of being transformed in the Holy Spirit, and would be made capable of living together with God for all eternity. Those who stubbornly refused to look away from the ego self would turn out to be "chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (see Matthew 3:12).
No, I tell you, but rather division.
Jesus desired his Kingdom and his Gospel to spread like a fire on the earth. And this would result in division between those who accepted the message and those who did not. But this division was not necessarily eternal, not the division between those who would live the life of the Spirit forever and those who would experience judgment in the fires of hell. The divisive aspect of Jesus on earth was important because it helped make more clear where people stood. But it did not imply perseverance of those who at one time accepted him. They remained free to turn away. Nor did it imply certainty of judgment for those who at one time seemed to oppose him, and that for two reasons. The first was that they had time to change as long as their lives lasted. The second was that no one can read the soul of another. There may have been mitigating circumstances resulting in invincible ignorance. Since God desires all to be saved, the existence of this time of division before judgment must be precisely so that Christians can give themselves to spreading the Gospel and eliminating insofar as possible the group of those opposed to God by converting them. It is an obligation even greater than that which we bear to our families on the basis of the fourth commandment. Jesus was in anguish to see the fire of his love fill the world. What about us?
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