Mark 9:41-48

⁴¹ For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

⁴² “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.

⁴³ If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched—

⁴⁴ where ‘Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

⁴⁵ And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched—

⁴⁶ where ‘Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire—

⁴⁸ where ‘Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

Also found in Matthew 18:6-9 and Luke 9:43-48.

Verse 41 picks up Jesus’ teaching interrupted in v.38 by John’s question.

will by no means lose (v.41) — In Greek, a double negative for emphasis.

causes … to stumble (v.42) — put a stumbling-block or impediment in the way upon which another may trip or fall. The noun form means “the moveable stick or rigger of a trap, a trap, snare, any impediment laced in the way causing one to stumble or fall. — Wuest, page 191.

thrown (v.42) — tense indicates that the one thrown stays thrown

A man may place moral stumbling-blocks in his own path; the temptation may proceed not from without, but from some part of his own nature. As men submit to the loss of a bodily organ or limb in order to preserve the body as a whole, so it is to their interests to sacrifice powers and functions of their spiritual nature which have been found to be inevitable occasions of sin. … The word “maimed,” in classical Greek [was used] of one who has a crushed or crippled limb.” — Wuest, page 191.

life (v.43, 45) — not eternal life, but a life that is really worthwhile.

hell (vs.43, 45, 47) — The word hell is the Greek geenna; this is a loose transliteration of the Hebrew ge-hinnom, “the valley of Hinnom,” a gorge just outside Jerusalem which had in ancient times been the scene of human sacrifices (Jeremiah 7:31), but later, during the reforms of Josiah (2 Kings 23:10), became the refuse-heap of the city. It was a natural metaphor for the place of future punishment. — Guthrie, page 871.

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[Geenna] is the name of a ravine starting from the northwest of Jerusalem, which sweeps around the southwest angle of the city, then meets the Kedron below the Pool of Silvan. This valley is the traditional site of the fire-worship which began in the reign of Ahaz, and after its desecration by Josiah, became a common receptacle for the offal of the city, and in later Jewish thought, a symbol of the place of future punishment. The city garbage, where worms gnawed and fires burned continually is a vivid picture of everlasting punishment. It is the word used in the N.T. to designate the place of the final abode of the wicked dead, the Lake of Fire of Revelation being the same place. — Wuest, pages 191-192.

Verses 44 and 46 are not in the best manuscripts. They are simply a repetition of v.48. The quote is from Isaiah 66:24. “And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Again, it’s important to understand this passage in the proper dispensational context. Jesus was speaking in, and of, the dispensation of law. The parallel thought in the dispensation of Grace would be “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (Romans 12:1).

If a person was to attempt to achieve heaven under the Law, he or she would be better off cutting off parts of the body that caused him or her to sin. One of my commentaries (below) states that the body parts are stand-ins for the sins committed with those parts of the body.

According to Palestinian custom, Jews did not refer to the abstract sinful act but to the concrete member of the body by which it was liable to be committed. This was thus not a call to self-mutilation but to a refusal to place the body at the disposal of selfish pleasure — Thomas, page 126.