Webers_Home said:
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†. Mark 9:47-48 . . If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for
you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be
thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not
quenched.
Jesus revealed nothing new in that passage. He got it from the Old Testament.
†. Isa 66:22-24 . . From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to
another, all mankind will come and bow down before me-- testifies Yhvh.
And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled
against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they
will be loathsome to all mankind.
If that's a reference to the lake of flaming sulfur in the book of Revelation then
it reveals that people won't be disintegrated in the lake but will be somehow
kept in existence as perpetual nourishment for a curious species of fire-proof
worm.
A worm that thrives in flaming sulfur is pretty amazing, but not
unreasonable. The 4-inch Pompeii worm lives in sea water temperatures of
176° Fahrenheit, hot enough to kill salmonella and sanitize an egg. So I
guess if God could create a worm like the Pompeii, it shouldn't be too
difficult for Him to create worms that like it even warmer.
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Interesting commentary, Bro. It might also be that the reference to worms and fire in that passage are a figure of speech. The purpose of a worm in this kind of reference is to eat up the remains of a dead body. We know such worms as maggots. In a typical garbage dump of that day and even more recent times, the purpose of fire was to destroy refuse. Gehenna was such a place, which Jesus referred to in Math.10:28, using it as a reference to the lake of fire. The idea of these two things is that when a life dies there are ways that the remains are taken back to the elements. In the case of the corpses of those who transgressed against God, the suggestion is that they wil be in a perpetual state of existence, as you have correctly concluded.
Jesus in mentioning the worm not dying nor the fire being quenched, May well have been merely using allegory language to describe a state where no decay will be allowed to take place. Who's to say that there literally be worms there? But the important thing in my opinion is that we do not take this as though it means a person will be conscious or alive forever. Living forever is only designated to those in Christ, as seen in John 50:51, John 3:16. Mankind is mortal, not immortal.
The confusion in my opinion, comes from references to torment, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. But these are in the time frame before the final white throne judgment, not necessarily after it. Jesus suggested in Math.10:28 that it is possible for the body to die but not the soul. Hence weeping etc., in Hades. However in the final judgment (hell is translated from "Gehenna" in that passage), God destroys both, indicating that soul death is under His authority and not anyone else's.
A side note; Jesus said God would destroy the body. But we have already seen that the body will not decay or be consumed. No problem. Math.10:28 is about death. Killing the body is not the same as ending its existence. It is simply about ending its life. So the context of that passage is about the cessation of life. And whatever happens to the body, also happens to the soul by God's hand. A corpse is a body with no life. If this is a destroyed body, then a destroyed soul is a soul with no life as well. Simple logical deduction in light of and respectful of context.
