Yesterday’s post started with Matthew 13:50, in which our Lord spoke of the ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ that takes place in hell.
In 1982, John MacArthur delivered a sermon on Matthew 13:47-52:
The Parable of the Net
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
New and Old Treasures
51 “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” 52 And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
MacArthur’s sermon is called ‘The Furnace of Fire’. In it, he explains the nature of hell.
As I said yesterday, our modern notion of hell has been watered down greatly since the 19th century. Most Christians believe it will be a place of mental torment where the damned long for God forever.
But could there be other sensory elements to hell, ones which mankind would prefer to overlook or to explain away because they are too horrifying to contemplate? MacArthur thinks so.
He says that Jesus talked about how horrible hell would be. The Gospels have many references about eternal condemnation. These can be found in Matthew 5, Matthew 8, Matthew 23 through 25, Mark 9, Luke 6, Luke 12 and Luke 16.
Jesus said more about fire than mental torment, although permanent insanity could well be the end result of going to hell. Yet, many theologians and clergy choose to gloss over this fact. It would be better if they were to say that hell is like Dante’s Inferno and advise us to read it. However, they would probably say that Jesus was using allegory in talking about hellfire. I doubt many believe in hell as Jesus described it.
Degrees of torment
Like Dante, MacArthur believes there will be degrees of punishment in hell (emphases mine):
You have in hell a place of relieved torment of body and soul in varying degrees … In other words, for some people, hell will be worse than others. For all who are there, it will be horrible. It will be ultimate suffering.
There will be no relief for that, but there will be even more severe degrees of suffering for some. It says in Hebrews 10, “Of how much more severe punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing.” People who have stepped on Jesus Christ, who have rejected his cross, will know a greater hell than those who have not.
There will be degrees, just as there will be degrees of reward in heaven. We saw that, also, I think, in Matthew chapter 11, when it said, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you.” In other words, it’s only relative. It isn’t going to be tolerable for anyone, but it will appear to be more tolerable for them than for you because of what you have experienced.
You had Jesus Christ in your city, they didn’t. You rejected Him with more light; therefore, hell will be more severe for you. And then you have, of course, that incredible parable in Luke 12 where the Lord says, “To the servant who knew and didn’t do right, many stripes. To the servant who didn’t know and didn’t do right, a few stripes.” So hell will be unrelieved torment of body in soul in varying degrees. And John Gerstner says, “Hell will have such severe degrees that a sinner, were he able, would give the whole world if his sins could be one less.”
Darkness
MacArthur reminds us that the Bible speaks of darkness when referring to hell:
the Bible defines it as darkness, outer darkness. That is deep-pit darkness, darkness that’s way out from the light, impenetrable darkness, darkness that closes in. And it is darkness without the hope of light forever. Have you ever been in the darkness and longed for the daylight?
Have you ever been in the darkness and longed for someone to turn a light on? To be in that encroaching, encompassing, moving kind of darkness and know that for all the eons of eternity, you will never see light is how our Lord describes hell. Unrelieved darkness forever, with no hope of the light, no hope of the dawn.
Fire
Yes, there is fire:
And the Bible also says it is a fire. Now, it is not a fire that we would know as fire, to burn something in this world. But fire is God’s way of describing it because it is a tortuous, unrelieved kind of fire, more terrible than any fire that we would ever know. But fire describes the torment of the damned; blackness describes the torment of the damned, no light, no light ever, ever. No relief from the suffering, the agony and the pain, forever. And there’s only two times in all of Scripture that we have any insight into how people respond to hell.
Torment of the body
MacArthur mentions Jesus’s cautionary story about the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Dives did nothing to help poor, sickly Lazarus who ate the scraps from his table. When Lazarus died, he went to heaven. When Dives died, he went to hell. There Dives suffered from everlasting thirst:
24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
Abraham refused. The rich man then asked him to send someone who had died to his brothers, so they might be warned of the torment to come. Abraham replied that the rich man’s brothers had Moses and the prophets to warn them. Ultimately:
31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
Torment of the soul
MacArthur says:
it is a place of unrelieved torment for both body and soul, for both body and soul. Soul being the inner part.
The new body built for hell
MacArthur explains that the human body as God created for life on earth would not be able to resist hellfire.
So, when the Last Judgement takes place, just as those going to heaven will have a new glorified body, those going to hell will have a new body fit for eternal damnation:
When a person dies now, their soul descends into that torment. In the future, there will be a resurrection of the bodies of the damned. They will be given a transcendent body that will then go into a lake of fire. It will be a body not like the body we have now. It will be a very different one. They will be resurrected just like we will, as Christians.
We will be resurrected because this body could never live eternally in heaven, right? We have to have a transcendent body, a glorified body, a different body, and so do the damned. And they will be raised, John 5, they will be raised in new bodies for the single purpose of being punished forever in those bodies.
That’s what the Bible says, tormented forever. They have to have a body to fit that eternal torment. And that’s why Jesus in Matthew 10:28 said, “Fear not them that can destroy the body, but fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” You see, hell is soul and body.
Some people think it’s just bad memories. No, it isn’t just bad memories. It isn’t just the inner thinking processes; it is that body as well. Transcendent, eternal bodies, greater than anything we have on this earth, are going to be given to the damned so that they can suffer in those bodies forever. And that’s the only reason that they’ll have those bodies.
With the present body, man couldn’t endure hell … the body that we have now would be consumed in a moment. So as God fits the redeemed with new bodies for heaven, He fits the damned with new bodies for hell.
The worm and fire forever
We know that the ‘worm dieth not’ and that the fire never goes out. This describes the Jewish Gehenna. Was Jesus addressing His people allegorically or literally?
MacArthur explains:
Now what did He mean by that? When a body goes into the grave, into decay, worms descend into that body. And they begin to consume that body, and the worms will die when the food is gone. So once the body is consumed, the worms die. But in hell, the worms never die because the body, though it is continually being consumed, is never consumed. So the worm never dies.
In other words, the Lord was saying the unrelieved torment of body goes on and on.
And:
it says, also, the fire is not quenched. Now a fire always goes out when the fuel is gone. But the fuel will never be gone. Though the burning goes on, the fuel is never consumed. And so you have unrelieved torment of body and soul.
Conclusion
Do enough of us think about hell or is it something we can explain away?
Is it more than the great existentialist void many of us have been taught to believe?
For all the time we spend rationalising hell, maybe it is time we gave Jesus’s warnings more thought. We — inherently sinful men and women — are telling each other that hell is a state of mind. Our Lord described it differently.
If contemplating the hell He described is a horrifying thought, He meant us to clearly understand it’s not a place we want to spend eternity. Repent, pray for faith and for continual grace.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
8 comments
January 24, 2016 at 11:23 pm
john in cheshire
What you say makes me weep. I try to speak to my nephews about these things but they don’t really believe in Jesus. Most young people have been brain washed to rejecting both the Bible and Jesus.
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January 25, 2016 at 12:02 pm
churchmouse
I’m so sorry (but not surprised) to read that, John. That is very sad.
The most you can do now is pray for your nephews every day. I’ll join you.
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January 25, 2016 at 3:01 pm
Alec
John, Jesus spoke about this experience (John 10.35). It’s heartbreaking.
God hears our prayers, and will act according to His perfect will. May He have mercy on your nephews, and give them ears to hear.
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January 25, 2016 at 5:01 pm
lleweton
If this is true, and I cannot reconcile this with the concept of a loving God who gave his Son for the sins of the world, then I can only say ‘Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy’. And ‘Lord have mercy’. Again and again.
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January 25, 2016 at 10:29 pm
churchmouse
Surely, you have been reading my Forbidden (Essential) Bible Verses posts on the Gospels? Perhaps no longer? 😉 I recall our exchange on hell a few years ago.
Our Lord’s own words:
Matthew 5:20 — For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (So, where does one go?)
Matthew 5:22 — But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother[c] will be liable to judgment; whoever insults[d] his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5:29-30 — 29 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. 30 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.
Matthew 8:11-12 — 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 23:15 — Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
Matthew 23:33 — You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Matthew 24:31 — And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (It is unlikely that ‘the elect’ means everyone.)
Matthew 24:35 — Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Just in case we had any doubt about the expiry date of what Jesus said. The temple was destroyed, but there is more to come.)
Matthew 24:44-51 — 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant,[c] whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25:10-13 (Parable of the Ten Virgins) — 10 And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Matthew 25:29-30 — 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Matthew 25:41, 46 — 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Mark 9:43-48 — 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,[h] to the unquenchable fire.[i] 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.’
Luke 6:25 — “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
Luke 12:8-10 — 8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
Luke 12:40, 43-48 — 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
43 Blessed is that servant[i] whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
It is useful to read the New Testament from time to time, particularly in these days of Christianity lite.
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January 26, 2016 at 3:47 pm
lleweton
I register the way your bat connected sweetly with my comment and drove it far and hard to rest in the long grass. I doubt that a quotation match would be helpful, but I will cling to ‘with God all things are possible’. Regards
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January 26, 2016 at 4:17 pm
churchmouse
It is surprising that someone of your calibre would reject our Lord’s direct words.
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January 26, 2016 at 6:31 pm
undergroundpewster
To paraphrase someone who will remain nameless, Those who forget Hell may be condemned to endure it.
We should remember Hell but focus on Heaven.
“It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters.” C.S. Lewis
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