'Thou art cast out of thy grave (keber) ... as a carcase trodden under

feet' (Isa. 14:19).

'Behold, they were all dead corpses' (37:36).

We submit that any interpretation of Mark 9:44 should not contradict

the passage in Isaiah that gives it its true setting.

Let us now turn to the references to gehenna in Matthew.  The first

passage is found in the Sermon on the Mount.  This portion of Matthew is the

Lord's instruction to His own people.  To the selfsame hearers who heard the

beatitudes of Matthew 5:3 -12, to the selfsame hearers who were told to be

perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, is given the warning about

'hell fire'.  This is disconcerting if the Lord intended gehenna to refer to

the orthodox hell.  Matthew 5:21 -48 constitutes one undivided portion of

truth, addressed to one and the same people, and to whom all that is said is

within the realm of possibility.

It is impossible to pick out some of these precepts and omit others.

We have to admit that if gehenna in verses 22, 29 and 30 mean eternal

torment, then those who are the children of God and can rightly be expected

to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors, who are told to turn

the cheek to the smiter, and to manifest a very high standard of their purity

and obedience, that such, if they fail of this high and spiritual law, will

not suffer loss or be saved yet so as by fire, but, with the unsaved who have

never known God as Father, they must be tormented day and night

everlastingly.  That such is not the teaching of any sane believer only shows

that gehenna here means something different from the traditional hell.  Let

us turn to the passage under consideration and examine it afresh,

not so much to uphold pre -conceived ideas, as to see its teaching anew.

A

a

The Judgment.

b

The Council.

c

B

Be reconciled with thy brother.  Agree with thine adversary.

A

a

The Judge.

b

The Officer.

c

B

Thou shalt not come out till uttermost farthing paid.

Here it will be seen that Gehenna responds to Prison in the structure,

and there is mention of not coming out again until the uttermost farthing is

paid.  That this is totally foreign to the conception of everlasting

punishment needs no argument.  That such language as this can be used of a

saved person is evident when we turn to Matthew 18.  The servant who had been

forgiven his great debt, but who failed to forgive his fellowservant, is

delivered to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due, and lest we

should imagine that such language cannot be used of any child of God we quote

the Lord's own application:

'So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your

hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses' (Matt.