Mark 9:43-48

“And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is good for you to enter into life maimed rather than having two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is good for you to enter into life lame rather than having two feet to be cast into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out. It is good for you to enter under the Kingly Rule of God with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into Gehenna, where the maggot does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

The idea of causing others to stumble leads on to the idea of what causes men themselves to stumble. We must note here first that there is no suggestion that this decapitation should be done by others as a punishment. The mutilations carried out in the name of Allah have no connection with the ideas of Jesus of of the Father. They result from cruel and heartless men misusing the word of God. And yet they think themselves righteous in doing it. How evil men are. How blind to the truth about God. Jesus was simply here talking of extreme actions which men themselves should in theory apply to themselves if there was no alternative. He was really saying vividly, ‘you must go to any lengths to prevent sin'.

‘If your hand causes you to stumble.' The man whose hands are uncontrollable, whether through petty stealing, or through groping a woman who does not want the attention, or in any other sinful purpose, has hands that cause him to stumble. But Jesus did not really expect such a man to cut his hand off. He knew well enough that that would not solve the problem. What He was saying was that that man should be willing to take any drastic action that would enable him to control his behaviour. Although indeed, if there were no other alternative losing the hand would certainly be better than having to enter Gehenna. But Jesus knew well enough that cutting the hand off would not be the answer, for He had already declared that evil came from the heart of man (Mark 7:20). The man would be just as evil without his hand. To deal with sin he would have to cut his heart out. The same applied also with respect to both foot and eye, and the sins that relate to both. The wandering feet that take men into sinful places. The wandering eye that tempts to indulging in sin. All are to be dealt with severely.

‘Cut it off -- cast it out.' Be decisive with sin, says Jesus. Do not play with it but treat it for what it is, destructive and harmful and to be got rid of at all costs lest it finally result in judgment. This was the kind of deliberate exaggeration often favoured by Jesus in order to bring home His point. Jesus had no time for a faith that did not result in a changed life and a changed attitude to sin.

‘To enter into life.' This is the opposite of going to Gehenna. It is to enjoy that eternal life that Jesus offered to men (Mark 10:17; Mark 10:30), life under the Kingly Rule of God (Mark 9:47).

‘To go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.' The picture of Ge-henna was based on ‘the valley of Hinnom' (ge Hinnom). This valley outside Jerusalem was the rubbish dump of Jerusalem where there were continually burning fires, and where continually devouring maggots consumed the rubbish. It was a sight men preferred not to look at. The bodies of executed criminals were often tossed there to expose them to shame and to be rid of them, and there they burned and there the maggots and the scavengers gradually disposed of them. But it was the continuous activity of the maggots, which could not be chased away or avoided, which illustrated the inevitability of judgment.

The idea was used in Isaiah 66:24 to depict the end of the wicked. Those who inherited the new heaven and the new earth would ‘go out and look on the carcasses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their maggot will not die, nor shall their fire be quenched, but they will be an abhorring to all flesh.' It was the picture of an eternal Gehenna based on the Valley of Hinnom.

Thus Jesus was here warning men to consider their end, pictured in terms of the undying maggots and the unquenched fire which would be the guarantee of the certainty of man's final judgment. The idea is not of conscious suffering but of being totally shamed. Compare Daniel 12:2, ‘everlasting contempt'.