Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
All Commentaries on 1 Kings 18:38 Go To 1 Kings 18
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
In the time of Elijah, also, fire came down when he challenged the prophets of the heathen to light up the altar without fire. When they could not do so, he poured water three times over his victim, so that the water ran around about the altar; then he cried out, and the fire fell from the Lord from heaven and consumed the burnt offering. You are that victim. Contemplate in silence each single point. The breath of the Holy Spirit descends on you; he seems to burn you when he consumes your sins. The sacrifice that was consumed in the time of Moses was a sacrifice for sin, wherefore Moses said, as is written in the book of the Maccabees: “Because the sacrifice for sin was not to be eaten, it was consumed.” Does it not seem to be consumed for you when in the sacrament of baptism the whole outer person perishes? “Our old self is crucified,” the apostle exclaims. Herein, as the example of the Fathers teaches us, the Egyptian is swallowed up—the Hebrew arises renewed by the Holy Spirit, as he also crossed the Red Sea dry shod—where our fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the sea.
