The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-05-29
IMMORTAL WORMS AND
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE

earthly creatures, too. whose snvi-
ronment was u~nfayorable and whose
adversary, the devil, God neither de-
stroyed nor bound?
Such an Interpretation, my dear
readers Is not s~upposable. We must
look Tor some explanation Of the Mas
ter's words more consistent with his
own Character and with the Heavenly
Fathers character. and more consist
ent with nj conception OF what a
just, loving, wise and powerful Creator
would do. II does not answer the pur-
pose to say, as so many do. 'tBosh, do
not discuss such a matter. Nobody
now believes such things!" This one
Scripture repudiated would shake our
confidence In the whole Bible. But
rightly explained and understood it
would settle and increase our faith in
the Scriptures as a Divine message.
Entering Into Life.
Let us go back to Jesus day and in
mind place ourselves with those who
heard him utter the words OF our text
and context. The Teacher had just
said, IL thy hand offend thee, cut it
ofE-it is better for thee TO enter into
life manned, than, having two hands,
to go into hell, into the fire that never
shall be quenched, where their worm
dieth not and their fire is not quench-
ed" He said the same in the follow
ing verses respecting the foot and the
eye. Was he speaking literally or fig
uratively? Does any sane person sup
pose today that Jesus advised a literal
cutting off Of a hand or a foot or the
plucking out of an eye? Assuredly
not. And the person who would follow
his counsel in that way would be con-
sidered unbalanced in mind.
All recognize what he did mean,
namely, that If any one who desired to
have eternal life found that they had
h~indrances or appetite or pleasure or
what not. as dear to them as an eye,
foot, hand. these precious, but dispual-
flying sins or wrong-doings should be
put away-no matter how precious
they were-no matter how highly es-
teerned. BY way Of contrast, the Mas
ter suggested that if the retaining of
these things would hinder them from
entering into life they could no. at
ford to retain them-that even IL they
were to carry the figure further and
suppose that in the future life they
would be deprived to the extent of be-
ing MANNED to all eternity it stiIl
would be preferable to them to practice
the self-denial now and to enter into
life.
Be 1t noted the reward here in
dicated is the entering into life, and
the information is that those who fail
will not have life at ali-that they will
fail to attain life; that they will have
nc eternal life, either in pain or In
pleasure. Let us examine our text
further to see this.
Gehenna Typed the Second Death.
The word hell in our text is from the
Greek word gehenna, which, in turn
was a corruption of the Hebrew word
geh-hinnon, which signifies valley of
death. There are two other words in
the New Testament Greek, translated
hell in u common version. One OF
these, ~tartarus, has nc reference to hui
mainly whatever, but merely signifies
our earth's atmosphere-the place
where Satan and the fallen angels are
restrained in chains Of darkness q
Peter ii, ~. The other Greek word
rendered he'll In the New Testament is
hades, which corresponds exactly to
the word rendered hell in the Old Tes-
lament, namely, sheol. And all schol-
ars know that both of these words sig
nifty the same thing. They are used in
terchangeably in the Scriptures to des-
ignate the state or condition of death
the tomb. No person, of even slight
education, would for a moment at
tempt to claim that eternal torment is
taught by sheol, hades or tartarus. The
great stress Of all who teach eternal
torment falls, therefore, upon the word
hell found in our text-in the original
Creek gehenna.
A Valley Outside Jerusalem.
I wish that those of you who have
modern Bibles with maps at the back
would turn to the map Of the city OF
Jerusalem and there notice on the
southwest side Of the city, just put
side the wall, the valley of Hinnom,
That is the valley that in brief was
called G~eh-hinnon, the Greek Of which
is gehenna. All Of our Lords uses OF
the word gehenna stand related to
that valley. For the sake of our large
number Of readers it will be worth
while for us to take a glance backward
at the history of that valley durins
many centuries before Jesus day.
The first mention of this valley In
the Bible is found in Joshua XIV, 8
where 1t is given as n of the boun-
daries Of the tribe of Judah, according
to the lot cast by Joshua in the
division Of the land that had come in.
to possession Of the ~lsraelites. 1t ii
again mentioned similarly in Joshua
xviii, 16. The next reference to this