August 28, 2022
Hell in the Bible is described as the place where God justly sends all sinners who have not been covered in the perfect substitutionary sacrifice of the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” Jesus (Jn 1:29). He died in the place of those who believe in His promise, and He lived for such believers the perfect life we cannot live. To have eternal joy in His presence, we must perfectly reflect the glory of His holiness, but there is no one capable of such a standard. In His mercy, He chose to give perfect righteousness legally to all who follow Him in faith, so that instead of eternal torment, we may enjoy eternal life and joy. When we come before His tribunal, those who had put their faith in Jesus while still on this earth will be seen as perfect. God will look at Jesus’ perfect life and the ransom of His death for us as if it were our own record. But for those outside of Jesus’ covering, there is no rest or hope or happiness left–ever. In hell, the description is given to us as the place where “their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched” (Mark 9:48).
What is that worm? Have you ever said or heard someone use the phrase, “Such and such is eating away at me”? God’s language in Scripture is very symbolically vivid for spiritual and emotional realities. What is it that gives us unrest of spirit and mind in this life? A broken relationship? An embarrassing memory? An unbroken sin habit? An unresolved problem? An annoyance that feels unfixable? These are little “worms” that don’t die unless God Himself resolves them. They are merciful miniature experiences of hell. I call them merciful, because God is gracious to give us small tastes of hell as warnings and yet often gives us ways to resolve them in this life, the resolutions of which are merciful experiences of God’s redemptive grace. Over and over we see the repeat of this process, and yet, how many of us have stopped to realize the powerful application of these life events, how grateful we ought to be when God resolves them, and how utterly despairing it would be for every kind of “worm” we can think of that has “eaten away at us” to be attacking our minds and emotions for all eternity without resolution?
When we are in Jesus Christ, we enter a journey meant to take us to the ultimate resolution which Jesus calls “eternal life” and which reflects the perfect peace Jesus wants our lives to demonstrate of His perfect love (“My peace I give you” - Jn 14:27; “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You” - Is 26:3, NKJV). The “worms” that the Lord allows to continue to attack us mean to dig out of us the rot that hinders our holiness. They show us where we have not perfectly focused our minds and embraced by faith His truths and promises. The worms of discontent that come from shifting our minds from God’s will, the worms of fear that come from losing sight of His perfect love promises in Christ, the worms of self-loathing that come from not seeing ourselves as the workmanship of God from eternity past, etc. will continue to feast on us until we have recognized them, faced them, and asked Jesus to help us get to the root of their feasting.
Let’s continue to follow Tabitha’s travel journal. In this entry, she was in a number of places that reflect our meditation today. First, she was on a train that led to a submarine that she toured. We will get to the submarine in the second part of this discussion.
The train was old fashioned that couldn’t go very fast and was on rickety tracks away from all civilization. The conductor kept setting it up to make it look like his amazing navigational skills were actually hers, and then he offered her the position of conductor. But Tabitha didn’t feel prepared to take it because she knew she wasn’t the one with the skill or experience.
The train is a metaphor for the vehicle in which God is taking all of us to our next destination–whatever means He’s chosen in our day-to-day lives to get us to the next level of sanctification. But because we live in these Adamic bodies of decay and sin, we feel that we are on perilous and rickety tracks. Our way is uncomfortable at best. If we are walking by faith in Jesus Christ, we probably have found that our level of awe in His ability to navigate the perils of this life continues to skyrocket. We are amazed at how He turns trials into glory, how He interweaves the details of our lives for our good, and how He brings His amazing power and wisdom into the spotlight. But sometimes, He tests our pride. He puts us into positions in life that make us feel like we’re actually steering the train–in fact, we have a title to go with it! But if we’re honest with ourselves, and if He’s merciful enough to allow us to crash, we will quickly come to grips with the reality that He is truly controlling it all, even if He makes it look like we are.
This should be a comfort to us–that the perfect, all-wise conductor of our souls is navigating through the suffering in a way meant to lead us safely to eternal joy while grinding down our over-inflated egos. True joy is found in losing ourselves in the glory of worshiping Him in spirit and truth.
In our next post, let’s discuss the other aspect of hell’s description–“the fire is never quenched”-- and see how that interrelates to “outer darkness” and connects to Tabitha’s journey into a dark submarine.
*All Scripture is in the BSB (Berean Study Bible) translation unless otherwise noted.
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