Strange Fire, Same God

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. ... The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems.”
A. W. Tozer

“We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are rebels who must lay down our arms.”
C. S. Lewis

“Let us beware that we take not that name of God in vain by speaking of Him without reverence and humility.”
John Owen

“God is serious about how we worship Him, and we must be serious about it too. The Bible warns us not to offer ‘strange fire,’ because God is not a God to be trifled with.”
R. C. Sproul

“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?”
Annie Dillard

“Take heed of a customary religion, a dead formality. The heart must be inflamed in the worship of God. Spiritual worship is what God requires, and nothing else will He accept.”
Thomas Watson

In Holy, Holy, Holy: Reclaiming the Fire and Fear of God, we stood unflinching before the blazing altar of divine holiness—unsoftened by modern sentiment, untouched by the ease of familiarity. God presence is a consuming fire that brooks no dilution, no cultural smoothing, no convenience. His holiness demands reverence, not relevance; it calls forth trembling, not casual greeting. The scene in Leviticus 10 is stark. Two sons of Aaron, consecrated for service, freshly robed in priestly garments, standing in the glow of the tabernacle’s majesty—“And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Leviticus 10:2, ESV). No warning, no dialogue, no second chance. It offends modern sensibilities. We flinch at it. Nadab and Abihu did not blaspheme with their mouths or rebel openly with their fists. They brought unauthorized fire. That is all. A small gesture. A deviation. And yet it cost them their lives. We read it and detach. That was the Old Testament, we say. That was law, and we live under grace. The tabernacle has passed away, the altar stands vacant, and Jesus has paid the penalty. We are no longer under the terrifying fire of Sinai but the gentle mercy of Calvary. But has the nature of God changed?

Not Safe, But Holy
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7, ESV). The law of sowing and reaping is no mere principle of morality; it is the pulse of a holy God who cannot be bent to human whim. “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6, ESV). God does not evolve. The consuming fire of Leviticus 10 is not a shadow of His past but an unfiltered revelation of His present glory. We live in a time where grace is assumed, holiness is blurred, and the fear of God is rare. But grace is not the erasure of God’s fire, it is what allows us to come near it and not be destroyed. “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3, ESV). These are the words spoken after the judgment fell. Not regret. Not apology. Not a softened statement to shield Aaron’s broken heart. The weight of God’s holiness falls heavy. To come near Him is not casual. It is not comfortable. It is not safe. Nadab and Abihu were not pagans. They were priests. They had seen the fire fall in Leviticus 9. They had stood in the glory of God. They were not ignorant or irreverent strangers —they were insiders. And that is the warning. Proximity to God does not grant immunity. In fact, it brings accountability. “You who are near, declare what has happened! Who has announced this from of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me” (Isaiah 45:21, ESV). We forget that. In the age of stage lights and slogans, where worship is branded and sermons are tailored for audience approval, we rarely tremble. But the God who killed Nadab and Abihu has not abdicated His throne. His holiness has not waned with time. He is still a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).

What Was Their Sin?
Leviticus 10:1 says they offered “unauthorized fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them” (ESV). It seems harmless on the surface. Some speculate they may have been drunk (see 10:9), others that they attempted to provoke the glory of Leviticus 9:24 with human effort. But the central indictment is this: they did what God had not commanded. That is the heart of presumption, doing what seems good to us and expecting God to accept it. It is the arrogance of approaching God on our terms, not His. It is the strange fire of human invention, clothed in spiritual garb. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32, ESV). And it still burns today. Every time we worship with hearts disengaged, every time we preach to impress and not to proclaim, every time we serve for visibility and not obedience, we are offering unauthorized fire. We take what is holy and dress it in strange robes. We act as though God must be pleased with whatever we bring, as long as we do it in His name. But the name of God is not a rubber stamp on our creativity. It is a holy name, to be treated with reverence and trembling. “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28– 29, ESV).

The Same Temptation
We live in an age that loves personalization. Faith becomes a buffet, worship becomes performance, and doctrine becomes optional. God becomes small, pliable, marketable. But we are not free to reinvent God or the worship of God. We are not at liberty to redefine reverence or engineer new ways to enter the Holy Place. We are told to come boldly—but not arrogantly (Hebrews 4:16). We are told to worship in spirit—but also in truth (John 4:24). We are told to draw near—but only through the blood (Hebrews 10:19–20). God’s presence is open to us because of Christ, but it is not cheap (1 Peter 1:18–19). It was bought at the cost of His life (Isaiah 53:5). That cost demands our awe, not our assumption. In the book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1–11). That was not the Old Testament. That was the New. That was post-resurrection, post- Pentecost, in the midst of gospel revival. God made a statement: My holiness has not changed. “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit...? You have not lied to man but to God’” (Acts 5:3–4, ESV). So why do we think we can be careless with the things of God and not be judged? Is it because judgment is delayed? Do we think His silence is approval? “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11, ESV). We play with sacred things. We turn pulpits into platforms. We put God’s name on entertainment. We sell truth like a commodity. And we expect no fire to fall. But what if fire has already fallen, not in judgment, but in departure?

Ichabod in the House of God
The greater judgment may not be death but distance. When the Spirit departs, and we are too distracted to notice. When the presence of God is replaced by the presence of people, and we still call it worship. When the strange fire of manmade religion blazes high, and no one sees the absence of glory. In 1 Samuel 4:21, after the ark of the covenant was captured and Israel suffered a crushing defeat, a child was born and named Ichabod—“the glory has departed from Israel” (ESV). The ark was gone. The presence had lifted. But the rituals did not stop. The priesthood continued. Life moved forward. That is the terrifying part. Ichabod marked not just a moment of loss—but a people too blind to see that the glory was no longer among them. “They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not” (Hosea 8:4a, ESV), “Woe to them when I depart from them!” (Hosea 9:12, ESV). The tragedy of Nadab and Abihu was not just their death. It was that the fire they offered was not from God. We do not fear that anymore. We produce our own fire now, lights, emotion, hype, momentum, but does it come from the altar? Is it kindled by God? Or is it unauthorized? God is not impressed with our methods. He is not flattered by our passion if it is not obedient. He is not moved by our sacrifice if it is not sanctified. The sons of Aaron were not punished for too little zeal. They were punished for zeal without obedience. For fire without fear. For initiative without instruction. Are we living in another time of Ichabod? Has the glory silently slipped away beneath our songs and gatherings, leaving behind the shadow of worship without wonder, the quiet loss of awe, the fading of reverence? Are we too blind to mourn His absence?

Holiness Is Not Optional
God is holy. That is not a personality trait. It is the defining essence of His being. Every other attribute, love, justice, mercy, wrath, is holy. He is “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3), not merely loving or sovereign or good. Holiness means He is not like us. Not tolerable to sin. Not accessible on demand. Jesus did not die to make holiness optional. He died to make it possible. “He has now reconciled...in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him” (Colossians 1:22, ESV). The aim of grace is not to relax God’s standard, but to fulfill it in us. The modern church often speaks of relevance, but not reverence. We strive to be accessible, not sanctified. We cater to comfort, not conviction. But the God of Leviticus has not adjusted to suit our culture. If we do not tremble before Him, we have not seen Him. “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14, ESV).

Draw Near Carefully
So what do we do? Shrink back? Stay away? Harden our hearts? No. We draw near, but carefully. With holy fear. With eyes fixed on the cross, and hearts bowed low. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16, ESV)—yes, with confidence, but not with presumption. There is a difference. Confidence comes through Christ; presumption comes through pride. We do not invent worship; we respond to it. We do not create fire; we receive it from heaven. We do not manipulate the sacred; we stand in awe of it. And we remember: what cost Nadab and Abihu their lives was not wicked rebellion but careless worship. They were priests. Leaders. Familiar with the presence. And they forgot what it meant to be near a holy God. How many today are in that same position?

The Responsibility of the Priesthood
In Christ, we are all priests now. “A royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), called to declare His excellencies, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. But that priesthood comes with the same requirement: sanctify the Lord in your heart. The priests bore responsibility for what they offered. So do we. Every song, every sermon, every act of service, every prayer we lead, every teaching we give, every witness we bear in His name—it must be holy. Not just sincere. Not just passionate. Holy. God will not bless strange fire. He may withhold judgment. He may let the show go on. But He will not sanctify what He did not command. We must ask hard questions. Not just, “Is it working?” but, “Is it holy?” Not just, “Do people like it?” but, “Does God accept it?” Not just, “Is it exciting?” but, “Is it obedient?”

Christ—The Only Fire That Saves
There is one fire that does not destroy. The fire that fell on Christ. He absorbed the wrath we deserve. He bore the judgment for our unauthorized lives. He offered Himself as the holy sacrifice. Now, we come to God only through Him. But that does not mean we come lightly. God’s holiness has not changed. The cross has not diminished it; it has made a way for us to enter it without perishing. That access should provoke more reverence, not less. More awe, not apathy. If we truly believe Jesus bore the fire of God’s wrath for us, how can we treat worship as casual?

So, dear reader, we come—trembling, joyful, repentant, bold, reverent. We offer only what God has commanded: our hearts, broken and contrite; our lives, yielded and purified; our worship, soaked in Scripture and sanctified by truth. Let us not offer strange fire. Let us not presume that God must accept what we create. Let us not confuse enthusiasm for holiness. The God who struck Nadab and Abihu is still God. But so is the God who accepted Aaron’s silence, purified the altar, and led Israel forward through the wilderness. He is both fire and mercy. Let us never forget either. Worship is not ours to define. It is ours to obey.