Hell under fire

If I opened someone's blog who had simply cut and pasted a sermon, I'd probably be lucky to get past the first paragraph before finding something more interesting. Yet that is exactly what I'm about to do. Well, it's more a sermonette really. For one of our subjects at Moore, a month or so back we were separated into small groups, given a passage each and the task of preparing a 10 minute talk for presentation and critique.

Thanks to the latest 9Marks eJournal, the topic of Hell has been especially prevalent in online discussion for the past couple of weeks. The passage for my ten minute talk was Mark 9:42-48, and as this is one of the numerous places Jesus mentions hell, and it's also where I took the emphasis of the sermon, I thought it might be of interest to others. Also, most preachers like seeing the way others write.

This is the result of about 2 hours worth of reflection and work after church on the night before I gave the talk, so it was well and truly open for critique and very rusty on delivery. After the feedback I realised I should have focused more on sin, which is actually quite a big omission. But anyways, here it is for those interested. No title, no outline.

Mark 9:42-48

42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ 

Today, the doctrine of hell is under fire. Hell is under fire. I’m not sure if you’ve come across this, but people don’t like the idea of hell. Which… is kind of the idea. But more and more, well-meaning Christians, unable supposedly to reconcile the love of God shown in sending Jesus with the idea of eternal judgment coming from the same hands, keep minimizing the possibility that God could eternally punish. To send people to hell. Its much easier to stomach the idea of perhaps annihilation or some kind of period of judgment followed by ultimate salvation for all. But what are we to make of this? Should we care about hell? Should we give a damn about damnation?

It is to this we turn our attention today.

The context v42

Where we cut into the narrative, Jesus is addressing his disciples;

42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

You can tell immediately that we’ve kind of jumped into the middle of something that’s already going on. And we need to zoom out for a moment to get our bearings.

We’ve reached a bit of a climax in the narrative of Mark. Just prior to the exchange we’re looking at, the great secret of Jesus’ identity has been revealed. He is the long-awaited Christ. The messiah, the king of God’s kingdom. And Jesus explains that the coming of God’s kingdom will perhaps not be quite as expected. And so surrounding this passage and on into the following chapters, Jesus is fleshing out what it means that he is the Christ, and what his death and resurrection will mean for the disciples understanding of the Kingdom of God.

And todays section is really the backend of one of these discussions that began in 9:33. Basically Jesus’ followers were having a fight about which one of them was the greatest. Jesus used this dispute as an opportunity to teach his disciples. Specifically, that 9:35 those who are greatest in the kingdom are those who are ‘servant of all’. Like all good orators Jesus used props to communicate his point and so he’d grabbed himself a child and kind of plonked him in the middle of the twelve to show what it meant to care for the smallest in society.

Do you see now how Jesus is still continuing with these thoughts here in v42.

42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin (THE CHILD), it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. (WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A FOLLOWER)

This is what Jesus is saying. If you want to know what it means to be in the kingdom, you will serve people. You will look after the little ones. The kingdom of God is an upside down kingdom, where the greatest, are those who serve the least. We know what Jesus is saying, don’t we? For we know the outrage when the innocent are tarnished at the hands of the guilty. Its an emotional plea, but the point is there: God’s kingdom does not operate that way.

2. Jesus is clearly a master communicator. Grabbing the child to illustrate his point, turning the imagery of greatest on its head to emphasise the least. But Jesus’ wordcraft goes on. Just like it would be better to be sleeping with the fishes than to cause a child to sin, so too would it be better to and he provides a number of unpleasant amputations that would be more desirable than to miss out on the kingdom of God.

43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

As a form of communication this is strong, is it not? Don’t you feel drawn in? Jesus says all these really unpleasant things, that you would never want: To cut off a hand or a foot or tear out your eye – they are actually desirable compared to sinning and going to hell. It’s a common rhetorical device, there was a comedy song about a break-up I used to have on CD where the singer said ‘I’d rather have a hundred thousand paper cuts on my face, than spend one more minute with you.’

But, you may be asking, is Jesus just exaggerating? (Or for those who just finished the HSC – using hyperbole?) When he says it would be better to cut your hand off, is he actually suggesting if people’s hands are causing them to sin, they should cut both hands off? (Which I would imagine would be easier with the first one.) But is Jesus for real? Is he being literal?

Jesus is using exaggeration. For, who is without sin? Jesus followers themselves had just been sinning in pride as they talked of who is the greatest. And how would they have gone without tongues? And yet, does he seriously mean it?

We cannot conclude anything but, Jesus means this, seriously! Jesus meant what he said. V43, It really is better to enter life crippled than with two hands go to hell. It really is 45 better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. It really is v47 better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Jesus really means this. Literally! So while he may be exaggerating the amputations, his intention is absolutely solemn.

For what is driving this whole discussion is the horror of hell. It’s not simply pointing out the good bits, that to follow Jesus is to v45 ‘enter life’. You know, that somehow Jesus is ALL ABOUT LIFE. No, part of the rhetoric is you really don’t want to miss out on the kingdom, but this isn’t done here by comparing how GREAT the kingdom is. No, here’s some stuff that you think is horrible, but is actually to be desired compared to how bad God’s punishment is. It would be better to be crippled, blind and lame than to go to hell.

The words Jesus describes hell with are not pleasant. It is to be avoided at all costs. It is the place where one is ‘thrown’ (v45) which hints at the idea of deliberate judgment which is expanded elsewhere in the Scriptures. It is the place of unquenchable fire, which hints at the ongoing nature of it, which also is expanded upon elsewhere. But Jesus point here is not to give a nice, tight description of hell. It’s not to show off his rhetorical flourishes as a great public speaker. Jesus wants his followers to avoid this place like the plague. Jesus’ greatest desire is that this description acts as a deterrent, and that people would be spared the judgment of God.

You see, this is what Jesus was on about: saving sinners from hell. He had already told them as the Christ he was to suffer and die and after three days, rise again. Jesus was so concerned that his people would avoid hell, that he went there himself on their behalf. And it must be added my behalf, and yours too, if you have trusted in Jesus death and resurrection on your behalf.

And so Jesus plans are so much greater than simply to settle petty squabbles amongst the disciples about who is the greatest. And I’m sure he hoped they would be above that too. Which is why v 49-50 talk again about how the disciples should relate to one another in the kingdom of God. It’s picking up and resolving that strand of thought that began with the fight about who was the greatest. But thankfully, Jesus also mentioned there they are meant to be like salt, and as whoever broke up the passages either had no idea themselves or assumed we wouldn’t know what Jesus was talking about, conveniently left them out of my section to cover today. But it’s the full circle, you see?

Who’s greatest in the kingdom? The one who is the least. But make sure you are that one who is the last, the servant of all, the one who sees themselves as NOTHING, before God. For that is how you enter, and avoid the eternal punishment of hell.

Do we need to bring back the fire and brimstone preachers? Turn or burn? That kind of thing? I’m not sure we can say that as a direct outworking of this passage, per se. But we certainly can’t discount it. And I know personally I must repent of some of the ridicule, which I tend to give this caricature. There is a particular unbalanced nature to this type of preaching. But am I any better to have the temptation perhaps not to deny the reality of hell, but to downplay it, or ignore it. Have we gone too far away from hell-fire preaching? Would Jonathon Edwards even get a hearing in most churches in Australia with his sermon titled, ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’?

So, we are back where we began. Hell under fire. I can really sympathise with those who wish to downplay hell. It’s a frightening thought. It’s a frightening concept. And yet in one sense these people completely get it. That’s exactly how Jesus saw it. A horrible place to be avoided. Don’t you get it? It’s meant to frighten us! It’s meant to bring us to our knees before God wanting him to spare us.

And yet though they completely get it, on another level, those who think on hell and God’s eternal judgment and the unquenchable fire and think, ‘It just can’t be so.’ At that time they completely miss the point. It’s meant to bring us to our knees not to imagine punishment away, or rationalize hell to nothingness. But rather to be broken and fearful but trusting in the one who was the Christ who suffered and died and rose again on the third day, that we might never taste the eternal punishment of God.