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July 28/29, 2018
Jason Meyer | Mark 9:42-50
“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. 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. 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. 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, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”—Mark 9:42–50
Introduction
Last week we discussed something called “theological triage.” There are first-tier doctrines (doctrines that are essential to be orthodox—like the second coming of Christ), second-tier doctrines (doctrines that are essential to church life and order—like baptism), third-tier doctrines (doctrines that are important, but not essential for salvation or church order—like the timing and sequence of the second coming of Christ).
Today’s text deals with the doctrine of hell. Where would you put that doctrine: tier one, two, or three? This is a first-tier doctrine. You cannot reject the doctrine of hell and have right doctrine (i.e., orthodoxy)—it is a departure from orthodoxy.
But I am not necessarily concerned today that I am speaking to people who reject the doctrine of hell. I am more concerned that I may be speaking to people who believe in hell, but they are embarrassed about it or don’t embrace it as they should.
First, don’t zone out because you are uncomfortable about hell or embarrassed about it. Why? Answer: Because Jesus was not uncomfortable with it or embarrassed about it. Hell is important to Jesus—he taught about it more than all other biblical authors … combined. Hell is not some fire and brimstone scare tactic that overzealous preachers popularized.
Second, please don’t zone out because you think that the warning about hell doesn’t apply to you. You may be thinking that this warning is not for you because you are a believer—it is a warning only for non-believers—and so you can breathe a sigh of relief and not take it as seriously. That would be going against everything Jesus is doing in this text. Why? Who did Jesus give this warning to? He preached this warning to the disciples—followers of Christ!
Third, please don’t check out because you think this danger about hell is only for those who are caught in scandalous sins. Ok, maybe this is for some believers, but only for people who struggle with certain big sins. What sins do you think justify the warning about the danger of hell? Sexual temptation?
When you read about a hand or a foot or an eye that causes you to sin, many people think immediately of the need to fight the sin of lust. Why? The answer is that Jesus does address that sin with this same warning in Matthew 5:27–30:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
If your right eye causes you to sin—what is the sin?—“looking at a woman with lustful intent” (v. 28). But that is not the sin that Jesus addresses here in Mark 9. Context is king in Bible reading.
“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. 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. 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. 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, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ ”
The Matthew passage speaks of sin as lusting after someone, but the Mark passage speaks of sin as our actions causing someone else to sin—literally to “slip up” or “stumble.” We are sinning when our words, attitudes, or actions cause someone else to slip up or stumble. That is a serious sin and we must be serious in our fight against it. Jesus says it is so serious that eternal punishment is at stake. That is the main point of this passage: Don’t exclude a fellow believer and cause them to stumble because eternal punishment is at stake. Another way to state the main point is that we should be at peace with one another, not be at peace with sin.
Outline
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin …”
“Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
I want to make four observations about these two verses.
A. Verse 42 and 50 are two sides of the same coin: cause a believer to sin/be at peace with one another.
The first observation to make in these verses is that the passage begins and ends with the same point—the first states it negatively and the second states it positively.
Jesus warns the disciples against “causing a believer [even a seemingly unimpressive believer—a little one] to sin or stumble.” What is the opposite of causing someone to stumble? Answer: being at peace with them. The opposite of having a sectarian spirit is having a reconciling spirit.
B. Stumbling would be causing confusion as to whether someone is in the kingdom and really belongs to Christ.
The second observation to make relates to that very first phrase: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin.” How could one believer cause another believer to sin? The ESV footnote is helpful here. The sin in question would be stumbling. The idea is that a little one (seemingly insignificant followers of Christ) has a fragile faith and they could be so undone by the rejection of other Christians that they abandon the faith and abandon following Jesus. The rejection they experience is like spiritual trauma that takes their fragile profession of faith and causes it to trip and fall down and fall away. This is especially true of the disciples because they function in many ways as the official representatives of Christ. Because what they say will be heard as what Christ would say, then they better be sure that they are saying what Christ would say or they can do serious damage to someone’s self-understanding as to whether or not they are in the kingdom.
3. The disciples are in danger of excluding others and thus causing others to stumble.
The third observation to make is that this warning is very timely for the disciples because they are in big time danger of doing this very thing. They have been shrinking the circle of those who follow Christ and belong to Christ to themselves and they are in danger of excluding everyone else. Pride turns teammates into opponents; it turns family members into disowned family outcasts.
In fact, the disciples have not only reduced the circle to 12, they are further subdividing the circle in cutthroat competition and arguing over who is the greatest. They want to shrink the circle to 12 and then rank those 12 from greatest to least. Pride continues to divide until the whole group is shattered into individual pieces.
D. Why does Jesus talk so much about salt?
The first half of that last verse is about salt: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50).
What is all this talk about salt? We have to build our way up to an interpretation of this confusing metaphor. Look at Mark 9:49–50:
"For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
Why are believers salted with fire? I think the picture comes from Leviticus 2:13. A grain offering (which was burnt) had to be salted with fire.
“You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus 2:13).
Ezra also mentions salt among the required provisions for restoring the temple sacrifices. Ezekiel 43:24 says the priests offer a burnt offering with salt on the offering.
“When you have finished purifying it, you shall offer a bull from the herd without blemish and a ram from the flock without blemish. You shall present them before the Lord, and the priests shall sprinkle salt on them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord” (Ezekiel 43:23–24).
Salt is often linked with the idea of purification. Exodus 30:35 helps us see this picture with great clarity.
“Make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy” (Exodus 30:35).
One commentator says it well: “To be ‘salted with fire’ seems then to evoke the imagery of temple sacrifice, but the victims who are ‘salted’ are now the worshippers themselves. Their dedication to the service of their suffering Messiah is like that of a burnt offering, total and irrevocable” (R. T. France, Mark, p. 383).
Jesus is addressing the nature of discipleship. Disciples have a passion for purity. This is the distinctive flavor profile of followers of Christ. If a disciple is salted with fire, then he will be a salty disciple—a follower of Christ committed to purity that has a purifying effect on this world. An impure disciple is a worthless disciple like salt-less salt. Matthew and Luke add that salt that loses its saltiness is thrown out.
How can salt lose its saltiness?
Strictly speaking sodium chloride is a stable compound which cannot lose its quality. But the “salt” used in Palestine, derived either from the deposits around the Dead Sea or from salt pans in which its water was evaporated, was not pure sodium chloride. The salt could leach out, leaving other minerals like gypsum. Once that has happened, it is ludicrous to think of trying to season that which should itself have been seasoning (R. T. France, Mark, p. 384–85).
Recall that Jesus speaks of salt in the same context of Matthew 5, and there Jesus affirms that believers are the salt of the earth. The imagery of salt is a positive one, just like light. The world is a dark place, but believers are light in the darkness. The world is a decaying place, but believers are a purifying presence. Why does Jesus talk about salt that loses its saltiness? If salt no longer does it purifying work, then one will taste the decay—no one likes the taste of rancid meat. If salt does not do its job, then it is no good anymore.
But what do believers do to counteract decay in this world? What is the taste that they bring? I think Jesus means that this world is a place of pride and exclusion. You can’t be part of this “in-group” unless you dress a certain way, talk a certain way, have a certain income or status, or athletic performance or affinity experience, etc. The world is cliquish. The church is not to be. It is to be a place where the name of Jesus should be enough to provide unity because the blood of Jesus has purchased unity.
Now someone may object at this point. Ok, I see that excluding others in our pride is a serious sin because we can cause someone to stumble and may put a question mark in their mind as to whether or not they are in the kingdom. But is that prideful exclusion, which can cause someone to stumble really serious enough to send the sinning person to hell?
Jesus’ point is that this behavior should not characterize Christians. It may show that you are not a believer at all. You can fool others by being so into doctrine and theology that they assume you must be a believer. I remember a haunting story from my seminary days about a missionary sent out by Bethlehem who ended up living a life of sexual immorality on the field. They did church discipline and warned him of the danger to his soul, but he has not repented. I think we all assumed that of all people, missionaries had to be Christians. We asked how this could be. I will never forget the response: Looking back over his seminary days, we noticed that he was always quick to argue with others and turn things into doctrinal debates. Beware dear friends. A prideful heart, always ready to prove others wrong, could very well be an unconverted heart.
In Matthew 5, Jesus even warns about people who would feel no qualms about angrily bad-mouthing a fellow believer: “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
The opposite of anger toward a brother, insulting a brother, or saying “you fool” to a brother would be someone who seeks to mend relationships rather than break them—or someone who is quick to reconcile a relationship that has been broken. Notice the urgency in Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:23-24: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
You can see that Jesus takes “being at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50) and “being reconciled to your brother” (Matthew 5:24) very seriously.
“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. 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. 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. 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, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Jesus’ warning to fight the sin of causing a fellow believer to stumble involves the most serious exposition of eternal judgment found anywhere in Mark. Don’t cause a believer to stumble or you will face the fires of hell.
The word that Jesus uses for “hell” is the Greek word Gehenna. Gehenna refers a valley outside of Jerusalem (the South-west corner). It was used as a place where the garbage and rubbish was brought to be burned up. The fire kept burning and smoldering there perpetually. In Jesus’ day, that place had become a metaphor for the place where those who reject God and his rule will end up after death.
There are some obvious points that Jesus makes concerning the meaning of this metaphor. I want you to remember three words in what follows: The suffering of hell is unending, incomparable, and real.
First, the suffering of hell is unending.
Where do we see this point? Two times in these verses Jesus adds a further description about the nature of hell.
The church through the ages has always affirmed the eternality of hell. We can understand the phrase “unquenchable fire”—it means a fire that does not go out—it just keeps going. But what about the second description? Why does he talk about the worm not dying? Answer: It shows that the image has been transposed from the normal burn pile to a cosmic, eternal level. The valley of Gehenna had piles of garbage that were burned, but there were also dead bodies—those who did not have families to bury them. The worms are maggots that live in the corpses on the garbage heap. When the bodies are consumed, the maggots die too. But the difference with hell is that even the maggots do not die—there is no final decomposition to the point of total elimination.
The fire never dies down and what is in the fire never dies from the fire. The people in hell don’t die out and the fires of hell don’t die down. It is the worst possible place—a horror movie with no closing credits—the horror never stops. That is why Jesus speaks elsewhere of “eternal fire and punishment” as the final place of torment for fallen angels and humans who have rejected God (Matthew 25:41, 46).
Second, the suffering of hell is incomparable to any earthly torment.
At the heart of these verses, there is a comparison between something on the one hand, and hell on the other hand. The first thing is portrayed as far better than hell. The word “better” occurs four times in rapid succession in these verses.
Jesus chooses to utilize a comparison that shows the horrors of hell are worse than anything one could face on earth. Why would it be better to face earthly torment (like being chained with a heavy weight and be drowned in the sea) than cause a believer to stumble? Because temporary torment is better than eternal torment. This is something of a stock image in horror movies: being chained and thrown into the sea where someone is helpless to save themselves from certain death. They just sink until they run out of air and cannot struggle any longer. Jesus says, hell is worse than that.
Three times he also uses the imagery of gruesome physical dismemberment: tearing out an eye, cutting off a hand, or cutting off a foot. He says that being physically maimed or disabled and alive is far better than having a whole body only to have it all burn in hell.
Third, the suffering of hell is real, not metaphorical.
I have in mind here people who say that hell is “just a metaphor.” One of the most prominent objections against hell is that Jesus uses metaphorical language so many people wonder if it is a real place with real suffering. We know that Jesus is using metaphorical language and images, but the images involve the body. Jesus talks about the whole person burning in hell (verses 43, 45, 47).
But the fact that Jesus uses a metaphor does not mean that hell is imaginary and not literal. Hell involves both the spiritual and the physical. Certainly the souls of those who rejected Jesus are in hell now, but Jesus says that the final punishment of hell will also include our bodies. In Matthew 10:28, Jesus says, “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Clearly, for Jesus, hell was a real place since he said that after judgment day people would experience it in their bodies,
Therefore, we understand that Jesus does use metaphor to describe hell. Virtually every biblical commentator and theologian believes that the biblical image of fire is a metaphor. A few moments reflection will reinforce the metaphorical nature of the imagery of the unquenchable fire. First, the other dominant metaphor for hell is being cast into “outer darkness.” How could hell be a place of “outer darkness” if it were aflame all the time forever? Second, since souls are in hell right now, without bodies, how could the fire be literal, physical fire?
But hear me carefully. When we say that the unquenchable fire is a metaphor, we are not watering down the horrors of hell in anyway. A metaphor always fall short of the reality it pictures. The reality of hell is far worse than the imagery of hell.
One uses metaphor when other words fail to capture the full weight of something else. Many different pictures or metaphors are needed because the reality is so full that one or two ways of talking about it are not enough (the doctrine of salvation is the same—multiple metaphors). Saying that Scripture uses metaphors for hell does not compromise the reality of hell at all. The metaphors for hell declare that the reality is fuller and worse than one can put into plain words.
Take the other primary metaphor that Jesus uses for hell: outer darkness. What does that symbolism communicate about hell? Darkness refers to an isolation—departing from something that is good like light. It is a vivid way to talk about losing the presence of God—just like heaven does not need the sun because God is the sun and the light of the Lamb.
Jesus’ words of condemnation are forceful and clear: “Depart from me” (Matthew 7:23). In other words, the worse thing that could happen to us is being away from God. Humanity was created to walk with God—speaking of his immediate, direct presence. The Bible affirms that his nearness is our good. All goodness, life, joy, and love that we find here point to God’s presence as the place where all the goodness, life, joy, and love come from.
The sinful path of rebellion against God would take us away from what ultimately gives us life. It would be like removing a fish from water and removing the hydrating effect upon the gills. You watch as the gills slowly dry up and no longer function properly as it the fish slowly suffocates.
Fire and outer darkness speak of a total destruction or separation from God. Those metaphors point to a total destruction—one does not cease to exist, but one is sustained in a state of being ruined—cut off from what gives us life and light and goodness and joy.
Conclusion
The horrors of hell help us see two things: (1) the terror of sin, and (2) the preciousness of the gospel.
First, if hell scares us at all, it should scare us concerning the nature of sin. The real reason we go to hell is sin—it could really be any sin that runs its course in our lives. Tim Keller talks about a man he met who said that talk about the fires of hell simply didn’t scare him—it seemed too far-fetched, even silly. So he read him lines from C.S. Lewis:
Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others ... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God “sending us” to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud.
Have you ever been in a place where people were fighting and arguing all the time and it was so tense that you just had to get out of there or you were going to go crazy? Hell is a place where sin comes to its full fruition. There is a process of decay that runs its course and reaches its full devastation in hell. That is why believers see that evil within us and do not make peace with it, even if it is grumbling or complaining. We fight it and put it to death.
Second, if we lose the terrors of hell, we also lose the preciousness of the gospel. People tone down the wrath of God because they want to save the idea of the love of God, but they actually destroy both because they miss the gospel. The wrath of God is an essential dark backdrop against which we can see the bright, shining beams of the love of God in the gospel of Christ.
Have you ever eaten an insanely hot habanero pepper? My friends once dared me to do it—seeds and all. My mouth felt like a forest fire. They told me that milk was even better than water at extinguishing the burning. I don’t think I have ever wanted a glass of milk more in my entire life. After drinking it, I don’t think I ever loved milk so much as in that moment.
The gospel is like that. If you tone down the heat of God’s anger toward sin, you take away the intensity and desperation and desire and love and life-saving gratitude for the gospel.
Outline
Main Point: Don’t exclude a fellow believer and cause him or her to stumble, because eternal punishment is at stake.
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to take as seriously as Jesus does the danger of causing a fellow believer to stumble. Pray for a grace to be at peace with one another.