The World and the Word

                       The Difference between Sin and Evil

Many believe that Jesus taught in Mark 9:42-48 that God casts unrepentant living humans into an everlasting fire where they will remain forever. But Jesus did not teach that. In verse 42, Jesus singles out one of the kinds of unrepentant sinners that God casts into Hell. Those who abuse children are among these types. Jesus also warned that unrepentant sinners who have an evil desire to harm children but retrain themselves, God will cast into that region of death called the Sea. Revelation 20:13. Three different regions of death exist called the Sea, Death, and Hell, which the people of the Bible collectively called Hell. Revelation 6:7-8; Micah 7:19.

In verses 43, 45, and 47, Jesus did teach that God will cast the living souls and spirits of some unrepentant sinners into a fiery Hell following their physical deaths, but He did not say that they would stay there forever. Hebrews 9:27. Jesus said the fire was everlasting, not the people in it. Since Jesus knew that cutting off one's hand or foot or putting out one's eye cannot keep one out of Hell, He simply meant that it is quite impossible for any person to rid themselves of their own sins. Jesus also knew that His listeners knew that no one ever enters into life "maimed." God heals all who enter into everlasting life.

Hell lasts forever because God will cast it into the everlasting lake of fire. Revelation 20:14. But Jesus taught in verses 44, 46, and 48 that those who will be tortured there forever are "worms," not living humans. When Jesus taught this, He had to have referred to Isaiah 66:14-24 where Isaiah prophesied about the general resurrection in the end of the world. God relates in these verses that all living humans resurrected from the regions of the dead will come to worship Him in Jerusalem, and God will allow them to observe their own "worms" forever tormented in the lake of fire. In addition, Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 14:9-11 that when God casts the beast alive into the lake of fire, he will be covered by "worms." Jesus used the word "worms" to symbolize the negative consciousness that will be attached to every spiritual death that He will separate from all living humans for Him to cast into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15.

In Psalm 22:6, Jesus referred to Himself as having become a "worm" as He suffered on the cross. II Corinthians 5:21. Jesus not only took the sins and evil that He will cleanse and forgive by His shed blood on the cross, He also took all of the unrepentant sins and evil of the rest of mankind upon Himself on the cross. Hebrews 2:9. No human can will himself to return to an eternal death that Christ has already taken away. Romans 11:29. Christ will be able to provide a lesser form of salvation for all unrepentant sinners within the regions of the dead because He left behind there all of their sins and evil when He rose immaculate from the dead. Their spiritual deaths will be their "worms." Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27. Just as the salvation that Christ has already provided for repentant sinners saved by grace becomes actual only at the moment they repent and believe, the lesser form of salvation that Christ has already provided for all unrepentant sinners within the regions of Hell will only become actual when they repent and believe in the Lamb of God. Revelation 5:11-14 prophesies that God will cause them all to repent and believe that the Lamb will save their living souls and spirits and raise them from the dead. All of the Old Testament burnt offering sacrifices that God began with Noah symbolizes the fact that God will never "again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."Genesis 8:20-21. Isaiah 45:20-25 prophesies that God will eventually save all living humans. All of this put together can only mean that God's use of the word "worm" can only symbolize the dead and evil natures that God will extract from all living humans for Him to cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15.