“Hell and Fire and Salt”
A couple of weeks ago we heard Pastor Huebel preach a sermon about demons, and Christ who conquers them. It's a topic you don't hear much about in many churches nowadays. Today, we hear from our Lord Jesus Christ on another topic which preachers seem prone to avoid: the reality of hell. But he also points us beyond ourselves, to the only hope we have of avoiding such a terrible punishment. And that hope is, as always, in him.
Hell is real. It is not some backward superstition of ill-informed religious zealots. It's not a delusion that Christianity has outgrown. Nor is it a made-up myth to scare people into behaving, like a mother goose or even brothers grim tale. It is a place of unspeakable suffering prepared for the devil and his angels. It is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And perhaps worst of all, it is a place without God – cut off from Father, Son and Spirit. Some of the harshest words spoken in all of Scripture are when Jesus tells the goats, “depart from me, I never knew you.” It should give us chills.Most of what we know about this comes from the lips of Jesus himself. In today's reading he uses the picturing of a smoldering garbage heap just outside of Jerusalem – Gehenna – as a picture of hell. It was there, in the valley of Hinnom, that the ancient people had practiced their pagan worship, sacrificed humans, even their own children to pagan gods. It was a place of curse. And so they fittingly turned it into a place of rubbish, a place where the fires were always burning.
Jesus speaks of the eternal hell as a place of unquenchable fire. A place where rotting flesh is forever being consumed by a worm that does not die. A place of misery. It's so bad, that you would rather have your hands and feet cut off, or your eye poked out, than to go there. It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a large weight around your neck to sink you to the bottom. There's no hope of swimming your way out of this one. There's no floating back to the surface. This judgment is final. This sentences is eternal. This is a stern warning. These are hard words. And they are not words spoken primarily to pagans, mind you, but first of all to God's people. And even, to you and me.
Sin is insidious. Temptations are subtle. And the devil would have you minimize sin, think of it as innocuous, no real danger. People don't even use the word sin as often as we used to – instead we speak of “mistakes”, or “challenges” or “growth areas”. The world wants us to think people are basically good, or at least morally neutral – and that the idea that we have a sinful nature, entirely corrupted, and deserving of death – well who believes THAT anymore? But to also say that even just one sin makes you guilty of the fire of hell? Why yes, Jesus says that very thing.
Sin cuts things off. It cuts us off, first, from God. Separates us. Divides. The original oneness of will and spirit which Adam and Eve enjoyed with God was ripped apart when they sided with Satan and disobeyed God's only command. But sin also separates us from each other – think of how it is when there's a sin hanging out there between you and someone – like an open sore. It breaks the relationship. It drives you apart. Communication is cut off, kindness is cut off, friendship is cut off. All of this is poisoned fruit of our sin.
And so our Lord impressed upon us just how dangerous sin is, how serious a matter it is, and how terrible the punishments of hell. God is a just God. He means what he says. He cannot be mocked. And hell is where the wicked are cut off from God forever – the ultimate consequence of sin.
So how do we escape such a fate? Jesus says, “if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” And of course he's not speaking literally here. If he were, and it were that easy, then we'd all be going through life with no hands, and breathing a big sigh of relief. Likewise, feet and eyes, and any member that causes us to sin. Cut it off! The judgment is so serious, we would do anything – even radical amputation – to avoid God's wrath. But upon deeper reflection, not even this will do. For it is out of the heart that comes all sorts of evil. It is the very soul that is corrupted by sin. We can't amputate our entire being! We'd never stop cutting. We'd have nothing left. We'd be long dead long before.
But isn't that exactly it? Jesus calls us not to simply “do better”, but rather, to die. Die to sin. Put to death the old flesh. Cut off all wickedness and ungodliness. And the only way this is done, is not through extra or extreme effort or force of will. Only repentance. Only confession will do. For if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But why? How? Isn't this the God who is just and hates sin, and promises punishment and death and hell? How can he just turn on a dime and forgive me? Well he doesn't turn on a dime, he turns on a cross.
The cross is the difference, for us, between heaven and hell, life and death, between being cut off from God forever and resting forever in his arms where he wipes every tear from our eyes. Only the cross of Jesus will do. Only Jesus can do what needs to be done for our salvation.
At the cross, Jesus' own body - and the members of his body suffer – hands and feet pierced, head crowned with thorns, back scourged, side pierced. But even more, he is entirely cut off from his Father, forsaken, as he endures the wrath and punishment and the very pangs of hell you and I deserve. Consumed in the fires of God's justice, he gives his body into death. He fulfills Isaiah 53:8, and is “cut off out of the land of the living”. And Jesus declares, “It is finished”.
Ah, but Jesus was not finished. He descended into hell. Not to suffer, mind you – that was done at the cross. Now he storms the gates of hell itself, shatters its power and chokehold on the children of Adam. He declares death's undoing, announces the undoing of sin's power, and stomps on the devil's might just as he crushes the serpent's very head. Jesus is victorious! Death has no hold on him, and so he rises, he lives, he reigns.
And now what about all this talk of salt and fire? We see throughout Scripture that fire is a purifying agent even as it consumes what is impure. That's why hell is an unquenchable fire – because there we see what is never made pure, but is always being consumed.
But being “salted with fire” is different. Here Jesus turns to talk of promise. For us, that is, the people of Christ, this world includes various fiery trials, through which God purifies us – like a precious metal which emerges as the dross is melted away.
He purifies us through his word and Spirit. The Holy Spirit himself appears as a fire, tongues of fire, and brings the Baptism of Jesus also with Spirit and fire. The word of law shows our sin, burns down any hope of our own righteousness, leaves us with only the ashes of repentance. But the Gospel brings us through that fire, a new creation, holy and righteous in Christ. And so fire, for the believer, even the fire of God's presence, brings good, makes us pure, even refined. For the believer in Christ, fire holds no fear.
Likewise Jesus speaks of salt – also a purifying and cleansing agent, but even more for preservation. Salt was also used in the ancient world in covenants of peace. It symbolically “sealed the deal”. Jesus uses the picture of salt here, to point us to all these things. “Have salt in yourselves”. Again, who purifies and preserves us but the Spirit of God through the word? Who brings us to peace with each other, but the Spirit, through the word? Who brings us to faith in Christ, preserves us in Christ, enlightens and sanctifies us in Christ, but the Spirit? How can we have peace with God and one another, apart from the Spirit? How can we come to faith and remain in the faith, apart from the Spirit? And the Spirit works through the word.
Only Christ, by his Spirit, can rescue from the seriousness of sin and the very fires of hell. Only Christ, by his fire and salt, can keep you from being cut off. Only Christ rescues us, hand and foot, eye and ear, head and heart, and makes us members of his body, the Church. Only in Christ, do we have the peace with God and peace with one another that passes all understanding. May that peace guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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