A Bible student writes, “I am sympathetic to your position of total destruction instead of everlasting conscious torment. But how do you explain the verse which says: ‘where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched?’”

* * *

The phrase you cite first comes from Isaiah 66:24, which portrays the righteous going out of the city of Jerusalem, following God’s final judgment on the wicked, and viewing their dead corpses in the city “dump” — where maggots (“the worm”) and smouldering garbage fire (“the fire”) race to consume them. It is a scene, Isaiah says, of disgust or abhorrence (v. 24). Note that the picture includes dead corpses, not living beings. It involves shame, not pain. These are the “corpses of those whom the Lord has slain.”

Throughout the Bible, the figure of “unquenchable” fire refers to fire which cannot be resisted, and which thus completely BURNS UP whatever is put into it (Matt. 3:12; Ezek. 20:47-48; Amos 5:5-6).

During intertestamental times, this language came to be associated with the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, also known as Gehenna, the word translated “hell” in the New Testament. Gehenna is an actual place outside Jerusalem, which I viewed with my own eyes in June 1999 during a pilgrimage to Israel. Gehenna was once the site of child sacrifice (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6) and later the city “dump” for garbage and dead carcasses (Jer. 7:31-33; 19:2-13). It was a repugnant and disgusting place in biblical times, crawling with maggots and filled with sickening sights and smells.

The Jewish literature from between the Testaments (the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls) uses the word “Gehenna” to speak of the place of final punishment, although with some diversity of meaning. Most of these writers reveal an expectation of total and eternal annihilation, although one passage in apocryphal Judith clearly says the wsicked will endure conscious torment forever and a few texts in the Pseudepigrapha might suggest that fate as well.

When Jesus borrows language from Isaiah 66:24 for his own teaching (Mk. 9:48), we must read the Scripture he quotes if we wish to understand his meaning. That biblical text clearly describes total destruction, not conscious torment. Since Jesus says nothing to change the original meaning, but rather confirms it in other places (see Matt. 10:28), we are safe to leave it just as it stands.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

Jesus in Luke 17:26-28

for more see Fire and Flood page or pdf version of Fire and Flood

Do not Paul’s words, “absent from the body present with the Lord” and “to depart and to be with Christ; which is far better” show that the believer goes immediately to heaven at death?

The only comfort Paul offered the Thessalonian Church was that the dead in Christ would be resurrected when Jesus comes again (1Thess. 4:13-18). Likewise, 1Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, puts forward no hope other than the resurrection of the dead.

Looking at 2Cor. 5:8, in context, we note the following:

1. The hope expressed in the context is that of resurrection (2Cor. 4:14);
2. The “earthly tent” is our present mortal body (5:1a);
3. The “building from God”, the “eternal house in heaven” (5:1b) is our future resurrection body;
4. The clothing metaphor (2-4) elsewhere is used of the resurrection (1Cor. 15:53-54);
5. The “swallowing up” of the “mortal” by “life” (5) also occurs at the resurrection (1Cor. 15:54);
6. It is in anticipation of this hope that we “groan” (2,4 c.f. Rom. 8:22f);
7. Paul’s use of such terms as “naked” (c.f. 1Cor. 15:36-27 with 42 and following) and “unclothed” describe the intermediate state and it is clear from the passage under consideration that Paul does not desire to be in this state (3,4) despite how Paul’s Greek contemporaries may have felt.
8. Note lastly that the context concerns our appearance before the judgment seat of Christ (10), which occurs only after Christ returns.
Paul speaks only of future resurrection from beginning to end.

So Paul’s controversial words are best understood as teaching Paul’s preference to be away from this mortal body, having put on his immortal resurrection body as a consequence of Christ having returned.

In Phil. 1:23 the use of the term “depart” suggests a journey in which the beginning is death and the end is being with Christ. The “gain” which Paul has in mind throughout the context is that which comes of dying a martyr’s death.

The Rich Man and Lazarus is the stronghold of traditional thinking, but note the following:

1. This is clearly a parable not a report of actual events (c.f. 16:19 with 16:1, 15:11, 14:16);

2. The story is not original with Jesus, he is making ironic use of popular and Pharisaic lore in the tradition of the prophets (See their ironic use of Canaanite mythology);

3. The passage says nothing at all about souls and spirits, only of whole persons, and if taken literally would contradict all other Scriptures on this topic (c.f. 25 with Psa. 6:5 and all that is taught elsewhere on this web site).

4. Taking the parable literally involves us in a number of absurd contradictions. Can a drop of spit quench the torments of hell?

It would be worthwhile taking the time to study how the prophets take the Canaanite mythology of a Creation Monster and use that in an ironic way without in anyway intending to endorse the details or contradict other clear biblical teaching on the matter (Job 9:13, 26:12, Psa. 89:10, Isa. 51:9).

For more on this Scripture see:

The Rich Man and Lazarus (An excerpt from the book, Life Death and Destiny by Warren Prestidge).

Historical Antecedents to “the Rich Man and Lazarus” (Part One).