In Matthew 18:8-9 the theme of what causes us to stumble and sin is touched upon once again by Jesus as he suggests that the limbs that cause us trouble should be cut off. A very similar passage in 5:29-30 has been discussed previously but let me re-cap here that I believe that Jesus is not to be taken literally when he, for example, tells us to gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin. After all, we would have very few limbs left if we were to follow such a suggestion to its conclusion.

So while hyperbolic language is, in my view, once again being used in 18:8-9, it may be possible for us to extend the interpretation to the reference about Gehenna in verse 9. Jesus isn’t suggesting that we will actually be in a fiery rubbish tip if we don’t take care of our ethical living, rather he is using figurative language to make his point about the importance of living well in the here and now.

Before we can leave this passage we do need to take one word into account. In verse 8 Jesus refers to the fire that awaits those who fail live ethically as ‘eternal’. It’s quite clear that – if it exists as a geographical place at all – the ‘eternal fire’ here is the same place as the ‘fiery Gehenna’ of verse 9. Suddenly Jesus, if taken literally, is saying that Gehenna is a place that exists forever.

If we took this reference literally, therefore, would we need to interpret Gehenna as a place where the unjust suffer eternal conscious torment as punishment? This is what many would read into the verse, for sure, but is this what Jesus is actually saying? While Gehenna may exist for eternity he is not saying that those thrown there for ethical failures would actually remain there for eternity. Being cast into that place does not necessarily mean that you stay there – on that (here, at least) Jesus is silent.

So to conclude, in Matthew 18:8-9 Jesus is using hyperbolic, figurative language to make an important point about living well in the present and while a literal understanding of Gehenna as an eternal fiery place is possible, these verses do not offer us any confirmation that the unjust will be there for eternity.

This post forms part of a series on ‘hell’. See last post here.


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