"We now recognize that in this chapter we have spiritual realities set forth in symbol, just as the writer sets forth spiritual realities throughout the entire book of his visions on Patmos. The rarest of gems are never found on the surface of the earth, and the greatest treasures of divine truth are never found openly on the surface of the scriptures. And so is it with our present subject! What a frightening thought on the surface: “…tormented with fire and brimstone…in the presence of the Lamb.” But let us search beneath the surface! The Greek word used here for “tormented” is basanizo which is derived from the word basanos, and Strong’s Concordance states that both words bear principally the same meaning. Basanos is the Greek word for what is commonly known in English as the “touchstone.” It was a gritty black stone from Lydia whose proper usage in olden times was to test or try the genuineness of gold. The pure gold rubbed on the stone would leave a peculiar yellow mark, different to that of other metals or alloys. Today we test gold by acid or fire. Therefore the touchstone acquired a symbolic significance: a test or criterion for determining the quality or the genuineness of a thing; to test for purity or truth. The noted professor of Greek, Dr. Strong, admits it is only by analysis that the thought of torture has been derived from the original. How beautiful the truth, and how different from the distortions of Babylon, when we read the text in this light: “…and he shall be tried and tested with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb.”
Larger study in the link:
"Some argue that because we believe God’s judgments are not unto condemnation, but are corrective and redemptive; and because we teach that the fire and brimstone are not the flames of an eternal hell of torture and damnation, but are Holy Ghost fire for man’s purification, we teach a “hell redemption.” We are accused of believing that the lake of fire can accomplish in a man what the mercy, gospel, and blood of Jesus could not accomplish. Many years ago Charles G. Finney opposed the ultimate salvation of all, and the work of purifying fire, by ridicule. Finney was an accomplished attorney and a master of the invective. He said that those who were saved after this “age of grace” ends would unceasingly sing, “Thanks be to the hell that saved us by our own suffering!” Just how much weight is there to that criticism? It is a marvelous truth that CHRIST ALONE can save, and ONLY THE BLOOD OF JESUS can take away man’s sin. There is no other way! How we rejoice that it is so! Yet, without an understanding of the relationship between the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus and the all-consuming, purifying fire of God, we can never comprehend the whole truth!"
"The fiery presence of God receives that blood of atonement, and NOW THE BLOOD IS IN THE FIRE! Oh, the wonder of it! No, my beloved, we do not believe in a “hell redemption” or a “fire redemption” apart from the precious, redeeming blood of Jesus. Oh, no! You cannot meet the holy, consuming, purifying fire of God apart from the holy, cleansing blood of Jesus — for THE BLOOD IS IN THE FIRE! You get the fire, you get the blood. But never forget — you get the blood, you will also get the fire!"
"John the Baptist announced that he baptized with water, but that the One coming after him would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire."
"On the day of Pentecost God’s glory, power, and holiness were manifested in tongues of fire resting upon every believer. Thus we see that the Holy Ghost is God’s power in anointing, and the fire is God’s power in purification, for the prophet Malachi had prophesied that the Lord would come as a “refiner’s fire” and that “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” (Mal. 3:2-3). Thus we see that the blood of Jesus cleanses, and the fire of God purifies. It is infinitely necessary that every member of God’s elect understand the correlation between these two actions of God!"
"The crude idea that the loving and righteous Creator would decree endless torment in undying flame for His creatures who are the work of His hands, and who were created for His pleasure, does dishonor to the name and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is incredible that any man who has tasted of the goodness of the Lord could ever believe that the compassionate Saviour of mankind could ever have intended us to read such a meaning into His words. The eternal fire is the truth, the righteousness, the love of God; in a word, it is the nature of God. Any careful reader of the Old Testament will be aware that fire is often used therein as a symbol of the presence and action of God. “Our God is a consuming fire,” says the scripture, and the apostle adds, “God is love.” It is no straining of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing described from opposite points of view. Every father who has had to put the rod of correction to his son understands this! How we shall experience God’s love depends upon the way we come up against it. God does not change; it is man’s moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God’s unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. Nothing can live in that devouring flame that is of the nature of a lie or wars against the spirit of holiness. Oh, if there is one thing for which we ought to rejoice and praise God without ceasing, it is that eternal fire which will burn up all the foulness and rottenness, all the wickedness and cruelty, all the shame and wrong from which our souls have suffered. It is not evil which will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love; not warfare, but peace; not Satan, but Christ! It is not men that God is consuming in His fire, it is what is in man that is consumed so that all men shall in that glad day be saved “so as by fire,” for THE BLOOD IS IN THE FIRE!"
"God has not made me a ruler or a judge of my neighbor’s motives, but it does not require an exceptional gift of discernment to conclude that much of the work done in God’s name is in reality the wood of a deceitful heart, the hay of spurious revelation, and the stubble of carnality. All work, whether carnal or spiritual, will be subjected to the testing fire of God! If it is gold, silver, or precious stones it will stand the test. If it is the wood, hay, or stubble of self-effort or self-promotion it will be burned up and destroyed. If any man’s work can abide the fiery testing of God’s fire and brimstone, then that man will receive a reward for the profitable work he has accomplished. But if any man’s work abide not the fire, but rather is consumed by it, then that man will suffer humiliating loss. All that he has done through a life-time of supposed service to God will all go up in smoke before his eyes, and he will suffer dreadful loss. “He himself shall be saved,” the scripture says, “yet so as by fire” (I Cor. 3:15). These words are worthy of deep meditation and prayer. Their deep and powerful meaning can never be comprehended apart from the quickening of the spirit of truth. I believe I have the spirit of the Lord when I say that the fire of God will not only consume the combustible works of such a person, but it will also consume the man of sin in him, the carnal mind, the fleshly nature, the Adamic personality (II Thes. 2:3-10). Unless the carnality within the man which inspired all the unprofitable works is also burned up and destroyed, how can we say that HE has been saved by fire? Just getting rid of the works is not enough!"
"We test wood, steel, and stone in order to find out what they are capable of supporting. We test our ability to read, to run, to think, to drive a car, but no one therefore calls them evil. We find out something about ourselves, even if that something is not always complimentary. Everything in life is tested in some manner! How important the truth, generally overlooked by Bible teachers, that this testing takes place, not in some far-away torture-chamber, but “in the presence of the holy messengers (ministers of God), and in the presence of the Lamb.” God will certainly not torture sinners up in heaven before the throne of God! Yet, if we took it literally, and interpreted it with the carnal mind, that is what would be implied. This again points to the fact that it is not the sinners of the world that are being “tested” here, rather, it is the Lord’s own people who are being tried and tested in the consuming Holy Ghost fire of God, and in the presence of Him who comes as a refiner’s fire, and as a purifier of gold and silver! “In the presence of the Lamb” indicates that it is a spiritual work of testing within God’s people who dwell in the mixture of Babylon, yet they are the Lord’s. It is the Lord Himself and His saints that do the testing!"
"Fire is God and God is fire. If you’re going to have a relationship with God, sooner or later you will have a relationship with fire! Tradition would say that the fire and brimstone in the book of Revelation bespeaks God punishing and torturing men with fire. That’s not what this is talking about! Such talk only reveals men’s ignorance of the things of God, the ways of God, and the word of God. The traditional idea is that God is torturing the wicked with fire and then sitting back and watching the whole thing, as Nero sat and watched the Christians burn at the stake. To the Romans it was just great sport! But that’s crazy — would you really want to serve a God like that? Think about it!"
"Every man’s state of being and every man’s work will eventually be tested by fire. The fire will try every man to determine what is in him, and the fire will try every man’s work of what sort it is. If you and I build into our spiritual life and activities wood, hay, and stubble, the fire will find it out, and the wall will come tumbling down. Every child of God is building his spiritual life upon the foundation that is Jesus Christ. There is no other foundation that can be laid, or is laid. Either we are building the quality of gold, silver, or precious stones or the weak and unprofitable things of wood, hay, and stubble that are soulish self-efforts and carnal. If the works that I do are gold, then surely it must mean that I am building out of the spirit! Am I led by the Spirit of God? Or am I fulfilling my own ambitions, satisfying my own ego? There is a vast difference!"
"Behold the sin of man! Behold the fire of God! For these two to come together without sacrificial blood to intervene leaves man lost and undone. For those two to come together with the presence of sacrificial blood means mighty deliverance and quickening. On mount Moriah Isaac made a statement and asked a question. His statement was: “Behold the fire.” His question was: “Where is the lamb?” Send the call to heaven above, “Where is the lamb?” Ask the angels, ask Gabriel, ask Abraham, ask the patriarchs, ask the prophets, “Where is the lamb?” and for four thousand years the heavens were silent. Then one day the last of the Old Testament prophets stood clothed in camel’s hair, and, with unerring vision, pointed across the way to an approaching figure and declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” At last Isaac’s question is answered. It is the answer that set a world singing. It is the answer that turned night into morning. It is the answer that turned tears into diamonds of hope. It is the answer that opened the graves in resurrection. It is the answer that arrested the onward march of a ruined race into the gaping jaws of sin and death, and made it possible to ascend the stairway of the skies, back to the heart of God. And we read that as a High Priest Jesus took His own blood, the blood of the Lamb, into the Holiest of all in the heavens of God’s Spirit, sprinkling His blood upon the heavenly mercy seat, and there now He appears in the presence of God for us. And it is there,Paul tells us, that He dwells in the light (the fiery Shekinah) which no man can approach unto (I Tim. 6:16). Oh, the mystery of it! Where is the blood of Jesus today? THE BLOOD IS IN THE FIRE!
"It is interesting to note that the Greek word for fire is pur, a derivative of which is the Latin word pyra (pure) and the English word pyre — the place for the burning of a corpse. PYREX also comes from the same root, pyr or pur, meaning a fire, and rex, meaning a king — that which is king, thus ruling over the fire, hence a “heat-resistant” glassware. All our English words having to do with that which is pure are related to the Greek word pur, indicating clearly that that which is pure is so because it has been cleansed BY FIRE! Consider: PURe, PURity, PURify, PURification, PURitan."
"Jesus, then, is our “touchstone,” and the Word of God, which He personifies. All the Lord’s people must measure up to Him — HE is our standard, gauge, yardstick, criterion, “…till we all come to the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” and HE is our Judge and our judgment-seat before which we stand! Gold is what was tested on the touchstone, and gold signifies the divine nature. As we rub our “touchstone,” what mark is being left thereon? Is the genuineness of our “gold,” or divine nature being revealed in us? Do we leave the mark of sonship thereon? Or do we still, in some measure, reveal the character of the Babylon dwellers as an alloy, truth mixed with the traditions of men, spirituality mingled with carnality, and divine nature commingled with human identity?"