What did Jesus say about hell?

God's revelation is in the Bible. We get our knowledge of heaven from the Bible, we know nothing of heaven apart from it, but it speaks of hell as well as heaven. If we accept the one we cannot consistently reject the other. Take the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you" (John 14:2). If there had been no place and state of blessing beyond this life for us, He would have told us plainly; and if there had been no judgment to come, no retribution for sin, no hell, would He not also have told us? But the strongest language in the Bible as to these things came from His own lips. He spoke of some who would die in their sins and the impossibility of such going where He would be (John 8:21, 23, 24). He said to the proud self righteous hypocrites of His day, "How shall ye escape the damnation of hell?" (Matt. 23:14). He said, "Fear Him which, after He has killed has power to cast into hell; yea, I say to you, Fear Him" (Luke 12:5). He it is who will say to some in the day of judgment of the living nations, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41), and of these He said, "these shall go into everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46). He spoke of "outer darkness" and "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25:30), and "of their worm that never dies and the fire that is not quenched" (Mark 9:46). Who dares to say that he will listen to the Lord and believe Him when He speaks of blessing, but refuse to hear and believe when He speaks of judgment?

It is out of the lips of the Son of God, who came from heaven to tell us of God's great love, that the most solemn warnings as to hell have come. He said to His followers, "In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you." If there had been no heaven to win, He would have told us, and if there had been no hell to shun, would He not have told us? But it was He who said to the self-righteous, hypocritical Pharisees, "How shall ye escape the damnation of hell?" He it was who warned men of "Gehenna, where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched." He told His hearers of one rich man who, after death, lifted up his eyes being in torment. You see, I am not giving you my opinions on so solemn a subject as this, I would not do that, for my opinions would be of no more value than yours. I am giving you the words of the Son of God, and His words are truth. He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away" (Mark 13:31). Have you believed them? His words are spirit and life, those that warn of judgment to come equally with those that tell of the love that saves.

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [Gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched [or rather, the fire unquenchable], where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell [Gehenna], into the unquenchable fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another,"

This leads the Lord into a warning of searching solemnity. "And if thy hand ensnare thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into99 life maimed, than having the two hands to go away into hell into the fire unquenchable [where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched].† And if thy foot ensnare thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life lame, than having the two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire unquenchable [where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched].† And if thine eye ensnare thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire: where their worm100 dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." The burden, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," falls on the conscience-stricken like the bell that tolls the felon to his doom. Would that it might kindle our hearts who believe into an unwonted earnestness on behalf of perishing souls! (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10-11). The words "into hell" are attested by most and the best copies and versions, but are not in the Sinai palimpsest. †The clause bracketed in verses 44, 46 is in ADN, 69, Old Latin, Syrpesch hcl Goth. Æth., but Edd. omit, following ℵBCLΔ, etc., and Syrsin.

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [Gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched [or rather, the fire unquenchable], where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell [Gehenna], into the unquenchable fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."

Let us refer to the passages: "It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire" (Matt. 18:8). Why everlasting? Do you really believe the Lord meant to alarm us with this word, when it meant nothing? What matters its being everlasting, if we are to be instantly consumed by it? Everlasting fire (and this [see v. 22] is hell fire) has no real meaning, if I ceased to exist; it may as well go out. But, according to you, it is the fire that consumes the world. Is this, then, to be everlasting? Is it hell that is to consume this earth, and that by a fire that is never to be quenched? Besides, why would it be better for him to be cast into the sea with a millstone round his neck? He might as well, according to your interpretation, live on. It would be but to exchange instantaneous consumption by fire for drowning: and if left for the fire, he would have a much longer life to please himself in. Is that the force of this most solemn warning of the Lord? Again, when in Mark the Saviour insists in His warning that the fire never shall be quenched (alluding, as you say, to the passage in Isaiah which pressed the perpetuation of the punishment, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched), you would have me suppose that He meant that for all that they would after the first moment be perfectly insensible to it. The worm might live — to do I know not what. They would have ceased to exist: the worm would have nothing to gnaw upon. Is this what the Lord presents? Is it what is presented by Isaiah 66? Is it not solemnly and urgently the contrary? Let any honest mind, who would think it blasphemy to charge the Lord with trifling on any subject, especially on this, judge. How solemnly does He repeat it!

In Matthew 5 the statement is general: danger of hell-fire — thy whole body cast into hell; referring to sacrificing one member rather than sin; clearly not the valley of Hinnom. "Fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell," chap. 10:28. It is not the valley of Hinnom. They do not put souls there. It is metaphorically used for the place of final judgment and punishment. Chapter 18:9 is as in chapter 5; in chapter 23:15, a child of hell — one who is the natural heir — belongs to this place. That it is the place of condemnation in judgment Matthew 23:33 shews: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment (kriseos) of hell?" (Mark 9:43-48.) We have solemnly repeated the call to sacrifice the dearest thing that is a snare to us, under penalty of being cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. It is a judgment, a judicial punishment, for which there is no relief, of which there is no cessation.

133 In Luke 12 it is used as a known thing, a place, the effect of divine judgment. James 3:6 is only of importance as shewing that it is connected with pure unmitigated evil; where nothing else is. Now a person who reads all this cannot doubt that that which the word "hell" is used for in English is fully contemplated. The desirableness of not confounding it with Hades, the vaguest possible word for the unseen world, no reflecting mind would deny. It is a place into which God's judgment casts the unrepentant and rebellious wicked, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. That human figures of fire and worms are used may be; but the force of it is plain enough — it is the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, where God casts in judgment those that are righteously rejected, where there is no remission, when God says gegone, It is done; and without are whoremongers, and all who love and make a lie. Hades is not Gehenna, and Gehenna in the New Testament is never used as the Valley of Hinnom. The proper English word is "hell"; that is, the place where pure evil, if such a phrase may be used, meets its final doom, after restoring means (even to God's giving His own Son, and beseeching men to be reconciled) are exhausted, and where the effect of judgment remains unquenched.

But the use of Gehenna in the New Testament, beyond all controversy, goes beyond this. In Mark 9:42-48, it is evident it is no question of the judgment of Jerusalem at the last day. But Luke 12 puts it out of all question, where the Lord says, "Fear him, which after he has killed has power to cast into hell;" and, Matthew 10:28, "Able to destroy both soul and body in hell." These passages shew that though the Lord uses the figure of the valley of the son of Hinnom, He uses it figuratively in reference to what is not of this earth; and hence "worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" must be used in a like way.

It was true that in their enmity to it men might kill the body: this was their limit; by doing so they would only deprive themselves of further power. The soul would survive beyond their reach. God could destroy both body and soul in hell, and He who has this power is the One only to be feared. We cannot but remember, in view of the Lord's words here, that there was a Judas already among this little band of witnesses for Christ, ― a man whose surname was "Iscariot," and who "from the beginning" was known by Him to be the traitor (John 6:64). Solemn words of our Lord in the presence of such an one; and surely for his ears.

They were solemn words that came from the mouth of the Lord Jesus, when He said: "And I say to you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He has killed has power to cast into hell; yea, I say to you, fear Him" (Luke 12:4-5). They clearly teach the survival of man beyond the death of the body, and that God is the judge of his destiny. However men may challenge His authority and please themselves in this life, God will dispose of them according to His own justice in the next life and there will be no appeal from His verdict.