The mornings are still pleasant, but soon the heat will be on.  Central Texas catches on fire several times each summer.  People say things like “It’s a dry heat” or “It’s extra muggy.”  Heat is heat. As we look to the last installment in the examination of how Jesus refers to hell we turn to pur, fire.  What does Jesus mean when he speaks of eternal fire? Is it judgment? Is it a regular fire?

Agricultural Fire

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:6 NASB)

Jesus uses metaphors that his people understand.  In John 15 Jesus is giving a final speech to the disciples before his priestly prayers of John 17.  The topics all center around the idea that Jesus is leaving, but the “helper” is coming so the disciples should “abide” in Jesus during incoming persecution. In all the grand rhetoric Jesus has no problem describing a common agricultural practice of his day, burning unproductive and dry brambles.  Israel is a place that is not heavily treed.  There isn’t lumber and timber in abundance.  So if heat or fuel is necessary, then anything combustible is burned.  Jesus is describing some fruit producing branch that is cut off from the vine, dries out, and then is burned with the other wood scraps. The point, if you aren’t connected to the source of life, then fire.

Matt 7:19 picks up this same metaphor but puts the emphasis not on abiding but on bearing fruit, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is… thrown into the fire.”  This similar metaphor is preached in a very different context from John 15.  Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount.  These are newly recruited disciples who likely will abandon Jesus before he even gets to Jerusalem. The thrust of the warning then is for people to “recognize” others by their “fruits” in reference to the “prophets” of v15.  In short, there are people who call themselves prophets.  Do you want to know how to judge them?  Don’t look at what they say, but instead look at the fruit of their life/prophecy.  The fruitless prophecy/prophets are garbage that will be burned.

“Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field” is a great request by the disciples in Matt 13:36.  Jesus just delivered the parable of the weeds in 13:24-30, and the disciples clearly don’t want to be on the losing team that meets the reapers and is bundled up and burned.  Jesus explains: weeds = sons of the evil one; evil sower = devil; harvest = close of the age. This metaphor crosses the line between a very in-the-moment agricultural metaphor and eschatology, the end of history. “Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age” (13:40). What you disciples see every day, using brambles for fuel, is not that different form the end of history. We will save the discussion of the eschatology (v42) for the next section, but notice what is very different about this agricultural fire. In the previous two metaphors, the weeds are there “just because”.  Either they didn’t stick with the living vine or they didn’t produce fruit.

However, this metaphor contains layers of intrigue.  Wiley Coyote sneaks into the field and tries to thwart the field owners plan to grow a good crop (v25).  But the field owner will show him.  He will let everything grow up and then collect the weeds to burn them (v30). Notice that there is no repentance, there is no abiding offered to the weeds.  They exist for an evil purpose by an evil devil. So the question is, “What are the weeds?” or furthermore, “What are sons of the evil one?” We know that Jesus has no problem calling humans sons of the devil (John 8:44), but the explanation in v41 says, “all causes of sin and all law-breakers.” Some of the weeds are impersonal and some are “law-breakers.” The pur is for the sources of sin and persons who seek to choke out the sower’s good seed. So could the disciples end up on the losing team?  Could you? If your goal is to choke out sower’s good seed, then yes. But the point of the parable is actually to touch at the age old question, “Why does persecution and evil in general happen?” 1) There’s a bad guy, the evil sower. 2) The good sower like a good farmer doesn’t blast the whole field, but he lets the good and bad grow up. God doesn’t smash all the evil people/forces in the world because he wants to give good people/forces time to sprout up. 3) Once again, God doesn’t lose.  The Wiley Coyote character is not very formidable, neither is the devil compared to God.

Descriptive Fire

And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched … For everyone will be salted with fire. (Mar 9:43-44, 49 NASB)

This passage also popped up in the gehenna passages.  These verses describe the gehenna of pur in more detail than Matt 5:30; 18:8-9.  Mark emphasizes of “unquenchable fire” and adds “where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”  Furthermore, Matthew spreads these teachings out, but Mark crams them all together and follows up with a version of the “salt of the earth” by leading into it with “everyone will be salted with fire.” Clearly, Jesus is more descriptive of hell and judgment in Mark 9, “It’s like this,” than he is in Matt 5, “Avoid it at all costs.”  So, what is Jesus describing? The worm as a form of curse first occurs in Deu 28:39 “You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall devour them.” The curses are looming over Israel’s disobedience.  If they disobey their new God, their grapes will be worthless, fall off the vine, and be eaten by worms.  Jesus is quoting the last verse in Isaiah, 66:24.  That passage is very eschatological and pictures a day when God would gather all nations and judge peoples’ visible deeds and even their secret thoughts (Isa 66:18). The first part of 66:24 says, “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me.” So in the context of Isaiah, the vision describes a battleground that God is gloriously victorious over. The victory is so decisive that the fires for the dead rebel’s bodies will burn and fester. It’s a pretty gruesome end to a shiny and happy vision. But Jesus intentionally doesn’t quote the first part of the verse. In doing so he emphasizes the unending-ness of the vision. More importantly, he quotes Isaiah 66:24 to add to the intensity of controlling your hands.  Modern readers are most shocked that Jesus would recommend chopping of your hand, Jewish listeners who had Isaiah practically memorized, saw that he was putting hand-sin in the same category of the not-on-Yahweh’s-side of Isaiah 66. Your hands are more important than your lineage.

Just as his audience is being scandalized by Isaiah 66, Jesus throws in the bit about salt. Is this still a statement about the end of the world or a statement about what Jesus’ followers should expect?  It is easy to go both ways. If it is about Jesus’ followers the metaphor works like, “Fire, or trials, will come. Only the steadfast, or salty, will persevere.  Don’t be like garbage-salt and lose/hide your saltiness.” If it is about the whole of humanity, “All will be judged. The righteous ones are self-evident, like salt is inherently salty. The unrighteous are self-evident too, like unsalty salt. My disciples should be self-evident and have peace with each other.” The “whole of humanity” option seems to fit the passage better.  What does that do for how Jesus talks about the fire of hell? As he zooms out to an Isaiah 66 view of history, the eternal fires are a testament to God’s victory, and it’s no secret why the damned are defeated.  We think justice is complex, but when it comes to eternal justice it is easy as tasting salt and deciding salty or not.

And [the Son of Man’s angels] will cast [causes of sin and all law-breakers] into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Mat 13:42-43 NAS)

This parable of the wicked sower was discussed above, but now focus on how Jesus describes the pur.  It is a furnace that is accompanied by “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Notice that this fire does not emphasize the usually good quality of light. The fire burns and is very unpleasant, but the source of light is the righteous shining “as the sun.” The fire is not a semi-positive thing, it is wholly negative. The furnace goes beyond the agricultural metaphor begun in Matt 13:30. The farmer would gather the brambles and burn them. But there is no need to burn the brambles in the furnace. Even modern farmers and ranchers don’t take brush to be burned at a special facility. Jesus is likening hell to a specifically prepared place, not a brush pile. “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” also occurs in Luke 13:28 where Jesus is describing the sense of angst and remorse that the Pharisees will have at being tossed out of the heavenly banquet. Jesus uses the phrase not just to mean discomfort but also to describe awareness of “missing out.”

Eschatological Fire

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt 25:41 NASB)

The Sheep and the Goats passage is unique to Matthew.  Jesus’ purpose is to describe the eschaton, the end of history. The righteous and unrighteous are as evident as sheep and goats. In v41 hell is a fiery place that is intentionally designed for the devil and fallen angels. Furthermore v46 adds “they will go away to eternal punishment.” The idea is that God has settled everything and there is no revisiting. Also, hell has multiple tiers of beings there. There is no, “But the devil made me do it.” The word for eternal is aionios, which is the general term for eternity and is linked to the modern word eon. There is no end in sight for the final state. The theology of the passage is bigger than this examination of what Jesus means when he references hell, but what is important is that Jesus frames this vision of the final judgment with the Son of Man coming in glory. Jesus is describing a glorious thing, the historical culmination of his work. He came for the cross, but that is connected to his glorious authority to judge the world.

What do we learn about Hell from how Jesus uses pur?

Throughout all these passages Jesus describes hell as an agonizing and eternal place. From Matthew 25 we see that the pur of hell certainly takes on a quality that is different from a friendly camp fire. It is more than just the chemical process of combustion. But, the fire, like an ancient battlefield, is a testament to defeat and death (Mark 9). There is the horrifying reality that those in hell are aware of their judgment and “missing out” on heaven (Matt 13). Also, hell is a prepared location that God intends not just for rebellious humans but every source of sin including the devil and fallen angels. Most importantly, Jesus never describes the fire just because knowledge is fun. Like in Matthew 5 or Mark 9, Jesus describes the fire in order to warn away from it. Or like in Matthew 25, Jesus describes the fire in order to describe his glory. A king’s authority to eternally enact his judgment is a sign of power and authority. If a king can only enact a judgment for a few months but then the judgment gets ignored, then that king is weak.

At the end of this very bleak discussion you may be thinking, “Well that sounds terrible and unfair!” Next time we will tease out that reaction and revisit three very important things that Jesus brings up in his statements on hell: repentance, abiding, and fruit. Also, you may have another great question, “How do I find out more about hell?” Well remember this examination got started as a question, “What do you believe about hell?” I went through and cataloged from all the NT the references to Gehenna, Hades, Pur. Also, I searched all the OT for references to esh, and fire, sheol. The attached file is the compilation of all those verses. Study them all to develop a full biblical theology of hell.

Take and read: Brief Theology of Hell Research