Fate of Unbelievers

Comment on Their Worm Does not Die

The arguments from Christ’s statement in Mark 9:44 1 (and its related verses in Mark 9) are classic examples of theology determining scripture rather than scripture determining theology.

Here are the verses:

Verses 43,44

And if thine hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into [Gehenna] hell,2 into the fire that never shall be quenched:3

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.4

Verses 45,46

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.5

The doctrine of eternal torment argues that the reference to “worms” in these passages refer to the tortured “living” spirits of the unredeemed who will never die, but are tormented forever. This argument is unconvincing for the following reasons:

1. The Bible never states, in these verses or anywhere else, that the final end of the unredeemed is eternal torment.6
2. The Mark 9 passages never mention the duration of any torment;
3. The “fire that will never be quenched” is taken from the Greek and means exactly what it says: unquenchable but not necessarily eternal;
4. The word “worms” means exactly that: worms. And the word is never used to refer to people.7

Christ was not saying that worms are people, nor was He teaching that there are supernatural worms in hell that never die. He was quoting from Isaiah:

And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.8

Isaiah was stating what is continually taught by scripture: that sin causes death. In this case, the death is shown by the fact that it is carcasses (dead bodies) that are eaten by worms, not sentient people. The reason why the worms never die is either that there is an unlimited supply of carcasses or it is simply a picture of a horrid mass of the corpses of those who transgressed against God being eaten continually by worms. Both Isaiah and Christ are painting a picture of a horrible death and ignominy, but not eternal worms.

The Catholic Church does teach that there are worms in hell and it teaches that these worms are not eating carcasses, but eating living, sentient unrepentant sinners who exist forever.9 Following the lead of the Catholic Church, some of those who support the doctrine of eternal torment argue that the word worms refers to eternal worms that live in the fires of hell for the purpose of torturing the un-dead people who are being burned alive for eternity. Thus, the unredeemed are being both eaten by worms and burned by flames at the same time because they did not become Christians. Their punishment is worse than the eternal torment of Satan because there is nothing in scripture indicating that Satan will be eaten by worms. As we encounter these supernatural worms, evangelical doctrine merges into Catholic mythology and a grotesque panoply of hellish creatures, purgatory, rungs of hell and eternal torment spring into the mind, not in the least unlike the tortures related in Dante's Inferno.10 And scriptural truth is left somewhere in its evil wake.

This argument for eternal works is not a secondary argument for eternal torment. It is one of the primary arguments used to support the doctrine. This is supposed to prove that the 50 scriptures that teach death as the final end of the unredeemed are not really teaching death at all, but, in fact, are teaching exactly the opposite-eternal life in hell. They are teaching a "living," sentient existence for eternity imposed on those resurrected by God for the sole purpose of inflicting them with eternal worms that eat them and fiery torment that burns them for eternity. Except for the worms, this is the same punishment as Satan.

Gentle reader, that is a direct contradiction of Revelation 20:12:

"… and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

All of the unredeemed will be judged based upon their own works, so the judgment will necessarily be different for each person. Each will face his own judgment and bear his own sins in hell. But in the end, each of the unredeemed will die in the second death and never be resurrected again. There are no supernatural worms and there is no screaming pain forever and ever and ever. There is only righteous judgment and, in the end, death-exactly as revealed in scripture. In this passage, Christ was referring to the state of unbelievers before the judgment and before hell itself is thrown into the Lake of Fire.11 The verse never mentions eternal torment and the fact that it is broad enough to imply it is irrelevant because there are fifty other verses that teach death directly as the final end of the unredeemed.12

1. Mark 9:44 “Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.”

2. The Greek word used here is γέενναν (“gehenna”). Gehenna was a physical place outside of Jerusalem where apostate Israelites worshiped Canaanite gods. To those who worshiped the true God, it was a place of death and loathing. In the New Testament the word Gehenna is translated “hell. “ Another word that is translated hell is αδες (“hades”). Both of these words refer to the place of the dead. The distinctions between the two is beyond the scope of this book.

3. The phrase “that shall never be quenched” is a translation of one word ασβεστον (“asbeston”), which means “inextinguishable” but not necessarily eternal. It should be distinguished from the lake of fire which scripture describes as is both inextinguishable and eternal. The same is true for all references to unquenchable fire in Mark 9.

4. This verse is omitted in the oldest manuscripts (Nestle text).

5. The phrase “the fire that never shall be quenched” is actually only two primary Greek words (πυρ το ασβεστον

6. Appendix 1 - Scriptures Teaching Death as Final State page 146

7. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich (University of Chicago Press), 2d Ed. 1958, p. 563, s.v. σκώληξ: "worm."

8. Isaiah 66:23,24

9. Judith 16:17 "Woe to the nations that rise up against my kindred! The Lord almighty will take vengeance of them in the day of judgment in putting fire and worm; and they shall feel them, and weep forever." Judith is a book of the Apocrypha, which is Catholic doctrine. It is not part of the Bible.

10. Alegheri, Dante, La divina commedia ( The Divine Comedy), written approximately 1308-21. The work consisted of three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradisio. It is an Italian political / religious parody written in the Middle Ages that depicts in Inferno various stages of horrible punishments generally in keeping with Catholic doctrine. In Dante's third circle he writes of eternal worms that feast on the souls that are trapped there.

11. Revelation 20:14 " Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire."

12. See Appendix 1