What is "Strange Fire"? Anyone have any knowledge on it?

Le 10:1
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.

Nu 3:4
But Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of their father Aaron.

Nu 26:61
But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the LORD.

Jude 1:7
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Adam Clark Commentary:
Lev 10:1 -
And Nadab and Abihu - took either of them his censer - The manner of burning incense in the temple service was, according to the Jews, as follows: -
“One went and gathered the ashes from off the altar into a golden vessel, a second brought a vessel full of incense, and a third brought a censer with fire, and put coals on the altar, and he whose office it was to burn the incense strewed it on the fire at the command of the governor. At the same time all the people went out of the temple from between the porch and the altar. Each day they burned the weight of a hundred denaries of incense, fifty in the morning, and fifty in the evening. The hundred denaries weighed fifty shekels of the sanctuary, each shekel weighing three hundred and twenty barleycorns; and when the priest had burned the incense, he bowed himself down and went his way out. See Maimonides’ Treatise of the Daily Service, chap. iii. So when Zacharias, as his lot fell, burned incense in the temple, the whole multitude of the people were without at prayer while the incense was burning, Luk_1:9, Luk_1:10. By this service God taught them that the prayers of his faithful people are pleasing to him, whilst our High Priest, Christ Jesus, by his mediation puts incense to their prayers; (see Psa_141:2; Rom_8:34; Heb_8:1, Heb_8:2; Heb_9:24; Rev_8:3, Rev_8:4); for the priests under the law served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things; Heb_8:5.” See Ainsworth in loco.

In the preceding chapter we have seen how God intended that every part of his service should be conducted; and that every sacrifice might be acceptable to him, he sent his own fire as the emblem of his presence, and the means of consuming the sacrifice - Here we find Aaron’s sons neglecting the Divine ordinance, and offering incense with strange, that is, common fire, - fire not of a celestial origin; and therefore the fire of God consumed them. So that very fire which, if properly applied, would have sanctified and consumed their gift, became now the very instrument of their destruction! How true is the saying, The Lord is a consuming fire! He will either hallow or destroy us: he will purify our souls by the influence of his Spirit, or consume them with the breath of his mouth! The tree which is properly planted in a good soil is nourished by the genial influences of the sun: pluck it up from its roots, and the sun which was the cause of its vegetative life and perfection now dries up its juices, decomposes its parts, and causes it to moulder into dust. Thus must it be done to those who grieve and do despite to the Spirit of God. Reader, hast thou this heavenly fire? Hear then the voice of God, Quench not the Spirit. Some critics are of opinion that the fire used by the sons of Aaron was the sacred fire, and that it is only called strange from the manner of placing the incense on it. I cannot see the force of this opinion.

Which he commanded them not - Every part of the religion of God is Divine. He alone knew what he designed by its rites and ceremonies, for that which they prefigured - the whole economy of redemption by Christ - was conceived in his own mind, and was out of the reach of human wisdom and conjecture. He therefore who altered any part of this representative system, who omitted or added any thing, assumed a prerogative which belonged to God alone, and was certainly guilty of a very high offense against the wisdom, justice, and righteousness of his Maker. This appears to have been the sin of Nadab and Abihu, and this at once shows the reason why they were so severely punished. The most awful judgments are threatened against those who either add to, or take away from, the declarations of God. See Deu_4:2; Pro_30:6; and Rev_22:18, Rev_22:19.

Paul

[font=Comic Sans MS]On TM not too long ago someone posted about strange fire on one of the now deceased OT threads. I googled it...pondered it and posted something about it on my blog. I want to stress that[/font]

I am just musing here....

I have not settled on any of this as what I believe (because I know some of it is pretty farfetched.

.......[font=Comic Sans MS]the subject of the "strange fire" mentioned in Leviticus (and again, briefly, in Numbers) that killed Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, when they offered "strange fire" to God. Her point was that since God struck these guys dead, and if we could not come up with a satisfactory rebuttal to the issue, then how could we say that God did not order the atrocities in the OT? I didn't reply, but it did get my thinker going. And I have continued to think about it....

When I typed it into google to get some perspective for this post, it is not surprising that many doomsayer have used it to warn against "strange doctrine".....which pretty much amounts to doctrine which does not agree with THEIR doctrine. No big surprise there.

So what have I been musing about? Well, there are several possibilities that I see. One is, of course, that God really did get ticked at Nadab and Abihu for offering unauthorized fire and struck them dead with some kind of fire that "came out for the Lord" to teach them all a good lesson. This, however, does not seem at all consistent with the God we see portrayed in Jesus.

Web sites like God's Last Call Ministries http://www.godslastcall.org/articles.html and God Quest http://www.godquest.org/index.htm might blame satan, since they seem to lean toward the thought that satan was the instigator of the elaborate rules and regulations of the sacrificial system and other Old Testament oddities and laws. I think there is a lot of merit to their writings and if you have not visited their sites, you should.

Another idea is that, perhaps, these guys took in some kind of strange fire that backfired. Perhaps it was some kind of chemical process or fluke that killed them. Everyone is familiar with the dangers of mixing Clorox with ammonia...and that a toxic gas forms. Who knows what they put in their fire pans? There are other natural type gasses that are poisonous...sewer gas for one. It can be lethal. People have died from sewer gas. (I realize this is a bit farfetched here with the sewer gas...so I remind you all that I am just musing about it) How about natural gas? Fire in the fire pan and natural gas escaping somehow from the earth could do some damage. How about carbon monoxide? How is it formed? (MUSING here...remember that!!) However from later passages dealing with this story, it seems that their clothes were, for the most part, in tact. So then what about lightning?

When my mom was a kid, at a Bible study a bolt of lightning somehow came in the house (through an open door or window, I think) and "rolled across the floor". She said it was like a big ball of electricity...so it happens. "Ah-ha!" those who hold to a literal interpretation of the acts and commands of God in the OT might exclaim at this point. If it was lightening then surely that was from God....and the "fire that came out from the Lord" was what he used to strike them dead. But not so fast there. Does that mean a golfer, out on a Sunday morning, opting out of church for the lure of 18 holes, who is struck by lightning was struck down by God? How about the little girl skipping across the open field when a thunderstorm hits? Or the hundreds of other people who are struck by lightning every year. We might have to stop then and attribute every lightning strike to the Lord's displeasure.

More musings...and perhaps more farfetched and perhaps not, were sparked by the writings I came across via google by a man named Alfred de Grazia. http://grazian-archive.com/ He is quite the prolific writer. There are dozens of writings on his websites among which are writings on quantavolution described briefly as follows....

an abrupt, large-scale change caused by, and affecting one or more spheres such as the astrophere, biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, and anthrosphere.

To make a long story shorter, he thinks that many of the things that happened in the OT (in particular some of the things associated with the Exodus, the tabernacle in the wilderness and the arc, and some of the times many of the children of Israel were wiped out. (Golden Calf incident etc) were from changes in the above listed "spheres"...and in electron/electric related things. He goes into great detail which I did not have the time to read...but it sure piqued my curiosity. He also thinks this has something to do with the Egyptian plagues. As a possible cause, he mentions a slow moving comet hovering near the earth for a long period of time. And any of these miraculous/terrifying things the Israelites witnessed that could not be easily explained with their limited reasonings, they attributed to their God (who in their eyes was a tribal type war god to begin with) There are several writings on Alfred de Grazia's web site related to this.

Also in this Q-series were The Lately Tortured Earth, which is a proposed revision of the conventional earth sciences; God's Fire: Moses and the Management of Exodus, which interprets the Exodus in the light of modern science and psychiatry, which offers a new theology and new considerations on the existence of gods; The Burning of Troy, a collection of special studies and memoranda and Chaos and Creation, which presents the general theory of quantavolution.

Just some things to think about when we ponder the fire that "came out from the Lord" Strange, indeed![/font]


Again...just musing....

Cindi.....

Hey Paul,

Thanks for the response and information!


Cindi, man you are a walking encyclopedia

You always have incredible links to great writers! I am going to print them out at work today and read through them.

Maybe we could set up a thread for you to list some of your favorite writers for many of the "out of the box" topics or at least promise us that you will post them when you come across a topic that is relevant???

Years ago while I was pondering some of the ministries that walked in signs and wonders I heard what i thought was the Lord say "strange fire" and at that time I really wasn't too satisfied with my research or even if my research was worth it? I kind of feel the same today.

Its weird, I just get taught in weird ways - God will just "highlight" topics and lead me in that direction and will give me many pieces. It seems to be a season of "looking at the overall body of Christ" Will I get any satisfiing answers? Probably not.... but that endless curiosity continues to grow. I know you can relate

Strange fire to me is when we get in the flesh and offer that to God as a sacrifice thinking it will somehow please God.

When the only sacrifice is doing Gods will.

I think of Jesus saying to the men 'I have meat you know not of, my meat is to do the will of my Father.' Though that is talking about eating I think because Jesus is the baptizer of fire, his eyes are as fire and so forth, wonderful symbolism, any meat He consumed was an offering to God. And that doing Gods will is an offering or sacrifice that pleases God. Jesus walk was a continual sacrifice if you will. I only do what I see the Father doing. He is the Fire of God that burns the sacrifice.

No other fire will do and no other sacrifice.

[font=Comic Sans MS]Lately so much of my time is taken up worrying about my teenage daughter...so I have not been as active on my message boards and lists as I have been in the past. But other than work and day to day responsibilities at home, this is pretty much what I do. I don't watch TV (other than Grey's Anatomy) and have pretty much eliminated most other hobbies and interests other than my spiritual meanderings. God works the same way for me.....highlighting topics and sending me to google...and less frequently to books and other resources. I have been at it for quite a while....so while I don't really have an organized list of links that would be appropriate to post, I do have a bulging list of favorites and will post things as I come across them. For anyone who does much internet research let me recommend a program called zoho notebook for saving info you find on the internet. It can be found at www.zoho.com along with many other Web 2.0 tools. It is a free utility and I like it much better than google notebook or scrapbook.

As far as where my thoughts and studies lead me, I am unafraid....and even though I will start down many unorthodox paths, sometimes I realize I am going the wrong direction. As my friend annie says, I am not afraid to taste and see if it is good, but I don't necessarily swallow everything I taste.....

Thanks to Bernie for providing this forum where we can taste and see if it is good without threads being locked after a handful of posts.

Cindi.....[/font]

Jannes and Jambre, didn't they draw their magical powers from strange fire when they came against
Moses?

Peace,
Fire Walker