I hope that before you read this paper you were able to read "How Do We Find the Truth?" Jesus spoke some strong things about hell, and it is important that we understand them (and, just as importantly, that we do not misunderstand them). We must seek the truth. We must receive from God the gift of an anointing to love the truth. In II Thessalonians 2, Paul wrote that those who did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved were in for a difficult time. As a result, they believed a lie, and came to love the lie. That is sad. But it was all based on whether or not they received the love of the truth.
Notice the emphasis on receiving. People, without the help of Christ, do not naturally love the truth. The ability to love the truth is a gift from God. When we seek to find out whether something is true or false, or we seek to understand something, we need light from God -- the light that comes from God's presence. Without that, people naturally live in shadows, in a world of delusions, half-understandings, and false explanations. But, if we look to our God, and seek to understand the truth at all costs by the grace of His anointing, we will find both the love of the truth (for God Himself loves the truth), and, in due time, the resultant understanding that we need.
In this vein, Jesus said this to the scribes and Pharisees: "By your tradition, you invalidate the Word of God" (Matthew 15:6). This is a very common condition -- the traditions that religious people, and sometimes society in general, pass along to us invalidate, for example, what the scriptures are testifying to us. There is no other topic where this is more apparent than in the traditions that have been handed down about hell.
In our society, essentially everyone knows about hell. They know that good people go to heaven, and bad people go to hell. Each Christian sect has its own definition of what "good" and "bad" are. Among the majority of protestants, the definition of "good" is that they believe Jesus was raised from the dead, and that they confess Jesus to be the Lord. If they do this, they are told, they will not go to hell. They know they have until death to repent of their sins, and believe, and ask for salvation.
Is this, however, what Jesus taught? The fact that nearly all of society, including those that generally do not have even the beginning of spiritual understanding, "know" that bad, unbelieving people go to hell when they die, ought to give us pause. Paul wrote that the things the Holy Spirit teaches cannot be understood by the natural person (I Corinthians 2:11-15). Jesus was teaching by the power of the Holy Spirit. Can people not in Christ understand what He really meant? It is highly doubtful.
The real tragedy about the fog caused by religious traditions is that not only does it keep people in bondage to a misunderstanding, it also keeps people from really seeing what Jesus was talking about when He spoke about hell. He had some enlightening and very important things to teach us about the fire of hell, but the fog of tradition tends to keep us from understanding His teaching. It keeps us focused on other things.
Let us now turn to the scriptures to see what Jesus, and other prophets and teachers, did say about hell. Of first importance is to understand that there are primarily two Greek words translated "hell" in the King James Version, the New King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version of the bible. The first is "gehenna," and the second is "hades." The first one is the one that most people think of when they consider the punishment of the fire associated with hell. Hades is not generally a place of punishment, but it is the state of death. It, and its related word in the Hebrew language, "sheol," are sometimes translated "the grave." Many modern translations have kept the translation "hell" for gehenna, but translate hades as "hades." That is a positive trend, helping clear off some possible misunderstandings.
Therefore, the main focus of this discussion will be on the Greek word gehenna. It is used 12 times in the new testament scriptures. It is used 11 times by Jesus, and one time by James. I personally think that it is a crucial point that in all of the preaching of the gospel, and general teachings, by Peter and Paul (as recorded in the book of Acts and in their epistles), they never once used the word gehenna (or hell). Peter did use hades twice on one occasion -- quoting from Psalm 22 that Jesus' soul was not left in hades (the state of death), and furthermore His body saw no corruption. Paul did use hades once also, in talking about how the resurrection will overcome hades in I Corinthians 15:56. "Oh death, where is your sting? Oh hades ["grave" in the King James Version], where is your victory?"
The word "gehenna," however, was never mentioned by either one of them. Neither was it used by John, or in the book of Acts by anyone. That also should give us pause. If the concept is so crucial to the Christian way of thought, why did these apostles never use it (at least as recorded in the Scriptures)?
As for the origin of the word gehenna, it is a translation from the Hebrew into the Greek language of "the valley of Hinnom." In the old testament scriptures, it is called "the Valley of the Son of Hinnom." In time, as is very common in human language, it became shortened to "the Valley of Hinnom." In the Greek rendering of the Hebrew, the prefix "ge-" means valley, and "henna" means Hinnom. If the equivalent had happened in English, it might have moved over time from "the Valley of the Son of Hinnom," to "the Valley of Hinnom," to "Hinnomdale" (the suffix "-dale" meaning valley). Perhaps "Hinnomdale" is a better translation than "hell." I am going to use it in the following discussion to help clarify the meaning of gehenna. It certainly puts the focus where it ought to be -- on this valley in the land of Israel.
The Jewish people listening to Jesus use the word Hinnomdale (gehenna) certainly knew what place he was referring to. It is immediately south of the ancient city of Jerusalem. The map in the back of my bible has it clearly marked. It is talked about several times in the old testament scriptures. The Jewish people knew the history of Hinnomdale. It had an awful history.
The first awful thing that happened there is that when Israel became disobedient to God, they sacrificed their children to false gods by causing them to be burned by fire in this valley. For this, and for generally disobeying God's covenant and not yielding to the prophets that He sent, God punished them by having the king and warriors of Babylon conquer them. They killed multitudes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, and carried off many of the survivors to the city of Babylon as captives. Hinnomdale became known as the valley of slaughter, because multitudes of dead bodies were piled into this valley and buried there. You can read about it, for example, in Jeremiah 7, especially verses 17-20 along with 30-34.
God said that His anger would be like a fire, and would burn and not be quenched (verse 20 of Jeremiah 7). The mass grave of the dead bodies of disobedient Israelites in Hinnomdale caused by the fire of God's anger was punishment upon Israel to help bring the people to repentance. This fire is reminiscent of the prophecy Isaiah wrote in chapter 66, about God's fire of correction and the resultant death, on the way to His making a new heaven and a new earth. "The LORD will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. By fire He will enter into judgment, and by His sword with all flesh; and those slain by the LORD will be many.... And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me, where their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched...." (Isaiah 66:15-16, 24).
This latter verse (24) is quoted by Jesus in Mark 9, in His discussion there about Hinnomdale. The descriptions by Jesus in Mark 9, taken together as a whole (because He brings in many different facets from the Jewish scriptures), provide crucial tidbits of understanding to help comprehend what Jesus meant by His use of the word Hinnomdale. We will return to that chapter at a later point in this paper, after we lay the framework necessary to understand it.
What we see so far is that Hinnomdale is associated with the fire of God's judgment and correction of His people, and with the resultant death and destruction.
Fire is a very important concept in the scriptures. God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. God's powerful presence with the people of Israel under Moses' leadership was visible as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. So, right off the bat, in the second book of the Bible (Exodus), God's presence is typified by fire.
Exodus 19:18 says that the LORD descended on Mount Sinai in fire. Exodus 24:17 says that the sight of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on Sinai. In Deuteronomy 4:24, Moses says that "the LORD your God is a consuming fire." This latter verse is quoted in Hebrews 12:29, as a conclusion to the section beginning with, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, 'yet once more,' indicates the removal of things that can be shaken... so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.... [We are] receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken... for our God is a consuming fire" (verses 26-29).
In other words, God's presence, His very being within us, is like a consuming fire, shaking and destroying all that is fleshly, ignorant, self-dependent, and sinful, so that His glorious nature is all that is left within us. And, as these verses indicate, it is not only within us that this shaking and this fire are working -- it is in all of creation. He is working to burn up the old, to bring in the newness of life, until there is a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. But, the work begins with us, His people. "Judgment must begin with the house of God" (I Peter 4:17).
This is why John the Baptist prophesied that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and that the fire would burn up the chaff (Luke 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit is the fire of God within us. This is why Paul says, "do not quench the Spirit" (I Thessalonians 5:19), and exhorts Timothy to "fan into flames" the gift of the Spirit that was within him (II Timothy 1:6). And He works to enlighten us with the fire, as well as burn up all that is not of God within our thoughts, attitudes, decisions, reactions, and habits of living.
Furthermore, Jesus said, "I have come to cast a fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled" (Luke 12:49). This is why the Father sent Jesus -- so that, through His death and resurrection, the fire of God's presence could work effectively throughout the whole earth. This fire of the Holy Spirit causes destruction -- burning up all that is not of God, and ushering in the Kingdom of God (that is, obedience to God and His ways). The Spirit brings the cross to us, so that we can take up our cross and follow Jesus. "By the Spirit," Paul writes, "we put to death the deeds of the body" so that we "may live" (Romans 8:13).
A few verses later in Romans 8 Paul writes that we will be glorified with Jesus if we suffer with Him. What is this suffering? It is losing our life by the cross, by the fire of the Holy Spirit burning the sacrifice of our lives (Romans 12:1-2, I Peter 2:5, etc.), in the fire on the altar. In fire, physical material does not disappear. It changes form - it goes up in smoke. So, as the fire of the literal sacrifice in the old testament transforms the flesh into smoke that ascends into the sky/heaven (God calling the smoke a "sweet smelling savor" to Him, in the same way as a steak cooking on the grill smells so good to us), so the real fire of the Holy Spirit causes us to die to the form of a fleshly life, to ascend into the heavenly realms to know God as He is, where He is. This dying and subsequent transformation pleases our Father very much. And, it is the only way to get to glory.
In the Song of Solomon it says, as part of the conclusion of this song of love, "Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death. Jealousy is as is as sharp as the grave. Love's burnings are the burnings of fire, the flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love." (Song 8:6-7a). Just as the true love of a man for a woman, and of a woman for a man, are so captivating that it causes them to die to their separate identities to be enveloped in each other's love and union of body and life, so the love of God is like a fire that envelopes us in oneness with Him, as we ascend into the heavens by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and are joined into His being.
When this happens, we lose our life (Matthew 10:39), and gain real life by being joined to God's Being, in the union of our life with His life. This being enveloped in God's love is like the state of death. We are ruined as far as fleshly success is concerned. We, like Paul, "suffer the loss of all things" (including trying to be good by our own efforts), that we may "gain Christ, and be found in Him," not having our own righteousness, but God's righteousness (that is, His absolute and intrinsic goodness [Philippians 3:7-10]).
In a similar vein, Exodus 20:5 and 34:14 (and many other verses) say that our God is a jealous God. In 34:14 He makes this thought even stronger by saying His name is Jealous. This indicates that this positive jealousy is an intrinsic and important part of His being. The verses quoted above in the Song of Solomon tie in this jealousy with fire and love. In the first verse quoted above, Exodus 20:5, God's jealousy is discussed as part of the second of the ten commandments. He said that the Israelites were not to make any carved or molten images of false gods. They were not to bow down to them or worship them. This kind of worship of false gods and false images of gods would not be tolerated. God's consuming love makes Him jealous for His people to know the truth about Him, and be wholly given to the true knowledge of this glorious Being, and not to commit the adultery (Ezekiel 16:32, 23:1-49, etc.) of serving or worshipping anything else but He Himself. We are not to be sidetracked to anything else.
In other words, our God wants us to be wholly committed to and consumed with the love of God, and with the life of living in union with Himself. We are to be in love with God, and wholly committed to what we see by experiencing Him in this union of life. Anything else will be burned up by the fire of His jealousy. He is so absolutely good that He will not tolerate anything less than all of His created beings knowing and experiencing and living the goodness that He is. He will not rest until this is accomplished. His love is inexorable.
In 1979, while I was attending Michigan State University, I went to the dorm of a brother I had only recently met to spend some time fellowshipping with him. If I remember correctly, he had only recently believed and received life. We decided to spend some time praying together, and as we were doing so the Lord Jesus gave me a prophecy for this brother. It went something like this: "I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God. I desire you; I desire all of you. Give yourself wholly to me...." It went on to say a bit more, but this is the main thrust of what God said. This prophecy came with great power, and out of the blue.
I had not really thought much about the verses in the Bible that mention jealousy before this. The brother and I sat for a while in awe of God, steeped in the power of the Spirit together, as we contemplated what the Lord said. It really awakened me to an awareness of God's consuming desire that we give ourselves wholly to His Being, to be completely given to Him. It awakened me to His desire for us -- for His desire to live a life in union with us. A year or two later I was walking down the street when He said within me, "I desire you." And, again, He will not rest until all are given to love Him with all their hearts (Matthew 22:36-40), because that is what is best for us. That is what we were created for -- to know Him, and to live out and reveal His goodness into the earth. Anything else is living in delusions. Anything else is living a sub-human experience. Anything else cheats us from living a real, joy-filled life. And because such a sub-human existence is harmful to us, His love cannot rest until He destroys, by the fire of His presence and His working, all that hurts and sidetracks us.
The last mention of the Valley of Hinnom in the Old Testament is in Jeremiah, chapter 32. The chapter is set right at the time when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and his armies were attacking Jerusalem. It starts with God commanding Jeremiah to buy a piece of property not far from Jerusalem, and to bury the deed in the ground so that it would be safe for many years. God then told him that in the future houses and fields would again be bought, clearly pointing out that, though Israel was being punished with the unquenchable fire of His jealousy, and though things at that moment were looking dismal, He would restore Judah and Jerusalem in the future. Jeremiah obeyed, but was astounded.
Then Jeremiah cries out, "Ah Lord GOD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power, and by an outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you! You show steadfast love to thousands...." Jeremiah then quotes the word of the LORD that is a response to Jeremiah's prayer. God says, to start off, "I am the LORD. Is anything too hard for me?" In other words, the restoration of Judah, according to His promise was well within His capability. He then reiterated what He had said before in chapter 7 about the fire of His judgment for their disobedience, and their being given to serve false gods. But, He promised to restore them in due time (elsewhere He says that it would be after 70 years). He continues, "I will bring them back to this place... and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and for the goodness of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and I will not turn away from doing good to them."
He did indeed restore them after 70 years, and they returned and rebuilt the temple and Jerusalem. But the fullest fulfilment of that prophecy did not begin until the Messiah, Jesus, came and gave them the new covenant. At that point, Peter, James, John, etc., and the people that were with them, began to experience the new covenant of getting a new heart by receiving the Holy Spirit, sent from the glorified Jesus in the heavens. The law at that point was no longer written on paper and stone, but within their hearts, within their very being.
The Old Testament law and prophecies, and the experiences of the people of God during those years, were a foundation and a preparation for the coming of the New Covenant that came by the death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus. God was training their hearts in what righteousness would look like. God was preparing a people to be the birthing place of His Kingdom. The things He said, and taught, and did with and among the people, were a preparation for the New Covenant.
With that understanding in view, we find that the punishment by fire that comes from the fire of God's love, from the fire of His jealousy, is always followed by restoration. He never deals out retribution just because He is tired of what people are doing. Rather, His goal is punishment for correction, not for vindication. He is not vindictive. He is love. So the pattern that He painted in the Old Covenant was that He sends the fire of correction, then He restores. The fire is for our good, not to satisfy His anger. Those who say otherwise are blaspheming against His character.
God goes so far to say that even Sodom would be restored in due time. Recall that it was destroyed by fire for its wickedness. This fire was called an eternal fire. (See Jude verse 7). The fire was unquenchable, but it is not burning today. It was unquenchable in that no man or angel could douse it out. But, Sodom, though having been completely destroyed by fire, will be restored one day (Ezekiel 16:53-55).
This is the pattern of God's working. He destroys, then restores. God said to Jeremiah, as he was being called to be a prophet, that his prophecies were "to uproot, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10). "I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal" (Deuteronomy 32:39). "For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you" (Isaiah 54:7-8). "For His anger endures for a moment, but His good favor restores one's life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5).
These things were written, the history of God's dealing with Israel and the prophetic writings, to prepare mankind's hearts to understand what God would do and teach in Jesus. Specific to Hinnomdale, it has given us a framework to understand God's jealousy, and the fire of His corrections that came to be associated with Hinnomdale.
In the New Testament scriptures, Hinnomdale is first used in Matthew 5, as part of the sermon on the mount. It is used three times here (one quarter of all the uses of Hinnomdale). The section of the sermon referring to Hinnomdale concerns the ten commandments, and how we are to understand them in light of the new thing that was happening in Jesus. Jesus said that He had not come to set aside the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them (v. 17). The law and the prophets were together prophecies of what was to come (Matthew 11:13). Jesus (and the life in Him and in His people) is the fulfillment of those prophesies! The law was a shadow of the good things to come in Jesus (Hebrews 10:1), but the real thing is found in Him (Colossians 2:17). So, Jesus picked a sample of the ten commandments and other laws to give as an example of what the fulfillment of the law looks like in the lives of His people (verses 21-48).
The first one He deals with is the sixth commandment, about not murdering. He says that anger in the heart toward a brother, insulting a brother, and cutting down a brother by using a mean, derogatory name for him, are three, increasingly severe, examples of what we people motivated by love will not do. They will not only not kill their brother, but they will not have hatred, resentment, and bitterness in their hearts and mouths toward him. If they do, there are commensurate, increasing levels of scrutiny and punishment that they are in danger of. These are: to judgment (probably before a lower court, thought to mean appearing before 2-3 leaders), to the Sanhedrin (the body of elders that Jesus appeared before for examination before His unlawful conviction and crucifixion), and finally to the fire of Hinnomdale.
Since, in the scenario Jesus gave as an example of the sixth commandment, the increasing severity of hatred toward a brother happened in the heart first, and then in the way the offender talked about and what he said to his brother, appearing before the court and the Sanhedrin, and suffering in the fire of Hinnomdale, are all three metaphors of the reality experienced. No one will go to a literal court for just the thoughts one has in the heart! No one even knows these thoughts except God! But His living Word within us will judge and correct the "thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12-13). "Is not my Word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29). Both the Word and the Spirit are the fire of God's working within our spirit and our heart.
Similarly, we will never appear before the Sanhedrin for hating and insulting someone. The Sanhedrin no longer exists (as far as I know). Even in the first century, the believers in Corinth (or even in Jerusalem, for that matter, where the Sanhedrin convened), did not appear before the Sanhedrin for bitter words spoken against a neighbor. These are all symbolic expressions, metaphors used for teaching. In the same way, we will never experience a literal fire in Hinnomdale. We are indeed judged by our loving Father who is training, correcting, and, if need be, punishing us in order to correct our hearts, emotions, thoughts and words (Hebrews 12:5-11). The fire of His corrective punishment has been used by Him in His people over the centuries since the resurrection of Jesus. We live the reality expressed in the second commandment as the fire of His presence teaches and corrects us.
This is what Jesus is teaching us in these verses in Matthew 5. He was not teaching the ridiculous notion of unending torment, conceived by that fallen church (whose fall was predicted by Paul, Peter, Jude and John), the church of Rome (known today as the Roman Catholic Church), in the fourth and fifth centuries. This teaching became a tool of "bishops" and "priests" of that fallen church, to keep people in line, and to force them to pay money and to respect the carnal authority of the church. And even as people pulled free from that church, such as happened with Luther and his followers, with the Anabaptists, then the Methodists and the Pentecostals, etc., this teaching of unending torment was so ingrained in their way of thinking, as handed down by tradition from generation to generation, that people were conditioned to view the scriptures from that viewpoint. Thanks be to God that the fire of God working within us is burning up all the chaff -- the empty and useless habits and thought patterns inherited from the fleshly culture, including the religious culture, around us!
Immediately after these verses in Matthew 5, Jesus goes on to discuss a similar aspect of the sixth commandment. If we have offended a brother, and become aware of it in our heart, Jesus is teaching that we need to quickly try to make it right with that brother. Relationships are important to God. Jesus uses slightly different metaphors of what will happen if we ignore our conscience and do not deal with having hurt our brother, but it is the same trend. This time, the unrepentant offender ends up in prison in Jesus' metaphors. He says, "he will not get out until he has paid the last cent." What does this offender owe? Money? No, he owes his brother a repentant heart, and actions to seek reconciliation. Money is a metaphor. Prison is a metaphor.
Prison in this passage is not a metaphor for unending torment in Hell, but is another metaphor for corrective punishment. And, when things in the heart and in the relationship are made right by the corrective work of God, and the person gives to the offended one what is owed (healing words and interactions to attempt to mend the relationship), then the offender is set free from God corrective punishment. The prison in this metaphor is a correctional facility, not a penal facility! He gets out when true repentance comes.
The second example from the law that Jesus teaches about is the seventh commandment. He says that looking upon a woman with the intent to desire her is itself the true adultery that God wants to free us from. He says that if our eye offends us, we are to cut it out. Similarly, if our right hand causes us to stumble, we are to cut it off. These are metaphors. Thankfully almost no one takes these literally. (Sadly, I do know of the testimony that one man who castrated himself with these verses in mind. Thank God that He not only sets us free from wrongful desires, but also wrongful religious understanding.)
The reality of what Jesus was pointing to is found in Colossians 3. "Put to death your members that are on the earth..." (verse 5). The cross (the dying of the Lord Jesus) enables us, in the power and working of the Holy Spirit, to put to death the unlawful desires in our members, so that they no longer control us. The power of the divine nature, which we are partakers of, lifts us out of our fleshly desires into the freedom that God has. God is free from all evil desires and actions. He cannot misstep or sin. And we are set free, in the Holy Spirit, to live and think in God's freedom. This freedom of the divine nature is what James discusses in James 1:12-21. The "implanted Word" that we receive in the moment of temptation sets us free, because it releases the operation of the divine nature within us. So the Word bears fruit, growing within us, instead of sin bearing fruit, as we look to God in the temptation.
So, this working of the cross keeps us from adultery in the heart. If we don't learn to look to God, and find his ways when we see a beautiful woman that is not our wife, then the seed of desire within our members will bring forth its bad fruit. The fire of Hinnomdale, then, is given by God in order to train us not to do that. In his corrective work, as our loving Father, He teaches and trains us first to repent, then to learn His ways. He may rebuke us. If we learn, we grow. If we are persistent in hardness of heart, we may need to experience another aspect of God's fire -- being given over to our ways, so that the fire of our destructive ways become evident and bring destructive, bad fruit in our lives. We learn how devastating it is to live our own lives, instead of the life of the Lord Jesus. This is never our Father's first choice. He works patiently to correct us by the fire of His light. But, if that does not work over time, He has to take more drastic measures. You can see this in the lead up to God sending His people to Babylon. He worked for a long time, sending His prophets to correct His people's errant ways by His Word. Eventually, He had to give them over to the fire of Babylon's takeover of His people.
This second variety of God's fire, allowing us to experience the destructive results of living a fleshly life, can be seen in the last use of the word Hinnomdale in the Bible. It is found in James 3:5-7. He said that a tongue (representing our words and our speech) that is not under control by the master, Jesus, is a small member in our body that causes us great problems, just like a small fire in a match can start a huge forest fire, reaping vast destruction. He says, furthermore, that the tongue is set on fire by means of Hinnomdale.
The first important thing to note is that James' use of Hinnomdale is about the destruction that occurs now, in everyday life. It is not at the end of our life. This is similar to Jesus' use of Hinnomdale in Matthew 5. The second thing to note is that the fire of our own behavior, and of fleshly interactions with those in our lives -- if God gives us over to it -- creates this destruction in our lives. That is why the writer of Hebrews implores us to subject ourselves to the Father of spirits, to be corrected and trained by Him, and let Him directly burn up and kill our fleshly desires and ways by the Holy Spirit, so that we can avoid the fire that results from our destructive ways.
In short, if we submit to the fire of the Holy Spirit, and to the cross of Jesus, to let these destroy what is not of God in our thoughts and actions, then we will not need to experience the more drastic corrective fire of reaping the destruction our fleshly behavior brings upon us. But, even if we do need that more severe correction, our loving Father will make sure we learn, and He will restore us.
Having seen above that the fire of Hinnomdale refers to God's corrective punishment, and that it is associated with the broader concept of the fire of God's love and His jealous desire to make us completely whole by means of the fire of the divine nature, understanding Jesus' discussion of Hinnomdale in Mark 9 will not be difficult. He uses Hinnomdale three times in this passage.
The chapter starts with the transfiguration of Jesus, where His glory was revealed in a very physically apparent way as He shined with light brighter than the sun. He immediately after this lets His disciples know that He must die, then be raised on the third day. For His glory to become part of His disciples' being, He must go to the cross. There is no other means for us to be transformed, except by His death and resurrection.
What His death does for us is it permits us to die also, as we have already noted previously. We must take up our cross and follow Him. Toward the end of the chapter, He discusses causing others, especially little children, to stumble. He says that those who cause others to stumble are in danger. He then reiterates that it is better to cut off your hand so that you can enter into life (His life), than to keep your hand and have to go into the fire of Hinnomdale. He then quotes from Isaiah 66 that was referenced above, "where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."
A critical portion of this discussion happens at the end, in verse 49. "For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt." Here, Jesus says concerning the fire of Hinnomdale that everyone will have to experience this fire. He associates it with the sacrifices of the Jewish people on the bronze altar before the temple. Recall that in Matthew 5 Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." Salt makes bland food taste better, and brings out good flavors that are already in food. Having been transformed by the fire of the altar causes us to take on this "salt" quality. We taste like God's good nature to people. We are "the light of the world," bringing the knowledge of God and of the truth into this earth, and we are the salt that tastes like real life to those about us.
But, we are made salty by the fire of the altar, by the fire of the Holy Spirit. This is the whole purpose of Jesus' humbling Himself and becoming a man, and dying for us. It was so that we can stop hurting others (like causing them to stumble), and be transformed by the fire of God into a people that bring light and life into this earth. We bring the love of God into the earth, so that people can see it lived out and can understand God's goodness. Then, in due time, this work in us will become so significant that the glory of God coming forth from us will set the whole creation free (Romans 8:18-22). The only way to get to this point of maturity, however, is through the fire of God's loving work toward and within us. He is a good Father, who knows how to get us where we need to be.
There are many more things that need to be discussed concerning this important topic. There is the discussion of what happens to those who physically die having never entered into the life of God through Christ. There is the meaning of "eternal punishment." There is the hope that Paul talked about, the hope of "the resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust" (Acts 24:15). There is I Corinthians 3, where those who build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ with fleshly materials must be judged. They must experience the fire that destroys these dead works, and it will cause them to suffer loss; but, they themselves "will be saved by means of the fire." It is the fire that saves them! There is also the lake of fire, and its results.
These discussions will need to be left for future things to be written. This paper is long enough at this point. What has been written, however, should suffice to help us understand the nature of God's corrective work in people. He is love. He is good. He "knows the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that have not yet taken place" (Isaiah 46:9-11). He has a "plan for the ages" (Ephesians 3:11). When He created the heavens and the earth, and the creatures and especially humans upon the earth, He looked (both at that moment and throughout all the ages to come) and declared that it was very good. His plan has mankind at its center and its focus (Psalm 8, with focus on verse 4). A prime mechanism of the outworking of our glorious God's plan is the fire of His presence to cause us to lose our lives in order to gain real life - His life! May we give ourselves to the fire of His presence, to the fire of His love and of His training and discipline, so that His purposes can swiftly come to fruition through the glorious church.