“They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32)
Ears can be “tickled”; ears can be “pricked”; heads can be “level”; heads can be “cool”; guts can be “wrenched”; and minds can be “blown.” Things can make us “heartbroken” or they can be “heartwarming.” “Heart-burn” tends to have different connotations.
When the two disciples acknowledge that their hearts “burned” at the opening of the Scriptures, what do they mean?
Of the more than 20 authors I consulted on this question, the vast majority give shades of this sort of answer:
“Jesus’ exposition had stirred them deeply.” (Leon Morris)
It “caused their heart to warm and to glow within them when they heard what the Scriptures said.” (RCH Lenski)
“Their words point to how emotional the exposition had been for them, like a message being sown into the soul.” (Daniel Block)
It becomes, for many, a description of a moving, stirring, sentimental feeling. And don’t we—you and I—“feel” a certain way when we hear the Scriptures, too?
Yet, can that be all this means? Do not Mormons likewise pray as they read the Book of Mormon, and claim that a “warm, peaceful feeling of truth” settles in their heart, confirming the words they read?
I want to suggest two alternative—or additional—lines of consideration for the “heart-burning” acknowledged by these two disciples. In particular, notice that they say their hearts burned—not that they hearts were vaguely “warmed.” Not an adjective describing an emotion, but a verb describing an action.
A very particular word is used here. So we should ask the question: “What else burns?” By which I do not mean “What else is merely ‘flammable,’” but in the Scriptures, what else burns?
When we track “burning” in the Old and New Testaments, there are two general categories: a burning of judgment and a burning of lamps.
In the Parable of the Weeds in St. Matthew, chapter 13, Christ describes the weeds gathered in bundles and burned. In St. John Gospel, chapter 15, the fruitless grape branches are burned. In the Apocalypse, a “burning mountain” is thrown into the sea; and a “burning star” falls from heaven onto the earth. (Rev 8:8, 10) At the end, the Beast and his anti-church are cast into a fiery lake, burning with sulphur (Rev 19, 21), in a reverse echo of Nebuchadnezzar’s casting three non-idolaters into a burning furnace. (Dn 3)
The Scriptures have a burning of judgment throughout. Idolatry “kindles the fire of Yahweh’s anger” and “burns to the depths of Sheol.” (Dt 32:22) Against the unrepentant, God “whets His sword,” and “bends His bow,” shooting “burning arrows.” (Ps 7:12-13) And thus, at God’s command, the Chaldeans set Jerusalem on fire, and burn it. (Jer 32:29)
And yet, the burning of judgment is not a bad thing. It is found also in the burning of sacrifices, and the priests were commanded to keep the fire of the altar burning on it (Lev. 6:9). The burning of judgment is a purifying and refining fire. (Mal 3:3)
The burning of judgment removes what is unholy, and leaves what is righteous, either literally or formally. Because God Himself is a “consuming fire” (Dt 4:24; Heb 12:29), who sits on a throne of “fiery flames” with wheels as “burning fire” (Dn 7:9), when He came to Sinai, the “mountain burned with fire.” (Dt 4:11; 5:23; 9:15)
Burning judgment means God’s presence.a And only that which is pure can stand there.
These two disciples St. Luke describes as having “burning hearts.” These same, to whom Jesus had said just seven verses prior—“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken”! (Lk 24:25) At the expounding of the Scriptures, the judging, reproving, correcting, and training nature of God’s Word burned their hearts. (2 Tim 3:16) It judged their unbelief, burned it off like dross, and left believing hearts. Their hearts—brought into the burning presence of God—were judged by a “spirit of judgment” and a “spirit of burning.” They were made burnt sacrifices; they were cleansed; and like the burning bush, they were not consumed (Is 4:4; Ex 3; Is 33:14).b
The other major Scriptural burning is the burning of lamps.
No one “burns a lamp and puts it under a basket,” but it is to give light to all, from a stand. (Mt 5:15)c John the Baptizer was similarly a “burning and shining lamp,” (Jn 5:35) making straight—and indeed lighting the way—for Christ. And therefore, Christ calls His followers to “Stay dressed for action and keep [their] lamps burning.” (Lk 12:35) We know well the virgins in Matthew 25 who wisely took oil for their lamps as they awaited the bridegroom, and those who foolishly did not, and their lamps went out.
The burning of lamps is all throughout the Scriptures, especially in the Golden Lampstand which was burned by the priests in the Holy Place of the Temple. (Ex 27:21; Lev 24:2) The Lampstand, complete with its almond-shaped “watcher eyes,”d was about light and sight. It brought glory-light into the inner place of the Temple. A burning lamp enables one to see what’s going on, and makes darkness fly away.
When the “branch of Yahweh” is glorified, Isaiah said, there would be “the shining of a flaming fire by night” over Mount Zion. (Is 4:5) And in that day Zion’s “righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.” (Is 62:1)
For good cause, then, does Psalm 119:130 say, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” We know that God’s Word is a “lamp to [our] feet and a light to our paths,” (119:105) but the same psalm says that our hearts are enlarged to be filled with God’s commandments. (119:32) His Word is a Lamp to our hearts as well. He makes our hearts burn as lamps.
These two disciples in Luke 24 have “burning hearts.” Previously, “their eyes were kept from recognizing” Jesus (24:16), but after the Word opened the Word to them, and after their hearts burned as lamps, their “eyes were opened, and they recognized Him.” (24:31) As the oil of the Spirit worked in them, their hearts were ignited with Christ’s light, and they beheld Him in faith.
This heart burning is more than a warm, emotional feeling, I submit. Christ came to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Lk 3:16) The Spirit came as fire at Pentecost, and the Spirit “convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” (Jn 16:8)
The Spirit’s work in the Word, and in the hearts of mankind, likewise makes true the promise that Christ’s “winnowing fork is in His hand, to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Lk 3:17)
Even as He separates His harvest of souls, His fire also burns in our hearts to separate out the evil chaff of our hearts, and purify our hearts, and make our hearts burn with heavenly light, fueled by the oil of the Spirit. (Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 1:22)
St. Gregory the Great observed that “By the word which is heard the spirit is kindled, the chill of dulness departs, the mind becomes awakened with heavenly desire. It rejoices to hear heavenly precepts, and every command in which it is instructed, is as it were adding a [log] to the fire.”e
When you hear the Scriptures, and see in them—Old and New Testaments—their speaking of Christ, may your heart burn. Not with mere “warm feelies” about Jesus.
But may the Light of Christ shine on all the darkness of your heart, bringing of fire of judgment which purifies and renews your affections, and transforms your heart into the smoke of a sweet smelling, living sacrifice, with a pleasing aroma of life. (Lev 1:9; Rom 12:1; 2 Cor 2:15)
And may His Light shine in your hearts, kindling them as the fire of lamps, lighting your way, and making you love what He loves. This sort of heart-burn takes us through God’s holy judgment, refining us, and then fills us with the glorious light of His truth.
Finally, may this lead to a spilling forth of the Light. When Jeremiah tried to hold the Word of God in and keep it to himself, it was “in [his] heart as…a burning fire,” making him “weary with holding it in.” (Jer 20:9) As the two disciples with burning hearts immediately ran back to Jerusalem to tell others what they had heard and seen, so may your hearts burn within you, that you may offer that burning heart to the Lord, “promptly and sincerely,”f that Christ be made known in your words and your lives, to all around you.
Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels.
- cf. comments by Joel Green (back)
- so Matthew Henry (back)
- We might be accustomed to reading that no one “lights” a lamp, but the word is literally “burn.” (back)
- Nod to James B. Jordan here. (back)
- Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, ed. John Henry Newman, vol. 3 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843), 780. (back)
- As Calvin’s motto said. (back)
