Where the Worm Dieth Not, Where the Fire is not Quenched

I think I stumbled across a genuine insight. A small but genuine insight.  (It could even be an original insight, though I bet not).   It’s a different interpretation of something Jesus taught about hell.    Mark 9:

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched

The straightforward interpretation is Jesus is saying hell is a place of eternal torment, avoid it at any cost.

But there is another way of looking at it that doesn’t do violence to this scripture.

Let’s break down what Jesus said into elements.

• Eternal torment is real.
• It occurs if you have sinful parts that are not removed. (As a natural consequence, I would argue, not as a punishment per se).
• Removing your sinful parts is better than eternal torment.

Spelled out like that, I bet you see where I am going with this.

The usual reading is to assume that this means if the sinner doesn’t remove their sinful parts through repentance, they will suffer the pains of hell forever.  But repentance doesn’t remove your sinful part.  It transforms it.  If thy hand offends thee, and you repent, thy hand no longer offends thee and you still have a hand.

It therefore makes just as much sense to assume that the sinner has the sinful part removed as that they would suffer eternal torment.  Yes, the sinner would be in torment forever if allowed to continue on with their sins forevewr.  But who is to say that anyone is?  What if, in the Judgment, those capacities and drives that we have given to sin and will not repent of are simply taken from us?*

His bishoprick let another take.

Everyone would be happy because they would have nothing of sin and corruption about them.  But some would have less capacity and opportunity because more had had to be taken from them.

In other words, lesser and greater kingdoms of glory.

As I read in an LDS commentary on the Great Divorce,

the coincidence of the final judgment and resurrection occurring at the same time is no coincidence, a determination of the spheres and relations in which a soul will say yes to God naturally accompanying the total remaking of that soul into a being which only acts in those spheres and relations.

I told my daughters this idea yesterday.  One of them said it seemed like denying agency to take away capacity from someone, but really it made sense because it was what they chose.  The college girl lit up.  She said she was thinking about the scripture “stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free,” Mosiah 23:13 (we looked up the reference, we aren’t that cool).  That verse sounds like a verbal flourish, a fancy way of saying ‘stay free,’ but it literally says that we have liberty that in turn makes us free.

It reminded me of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve had agency to choose agency.

*Possibly the sinner would have to agree to have the sinful part removed, which wouldn’t quite be the same thing as repentance.  In that case, we can believe that after some period of suffering the sinner may agree to have the sinful part removed, and the sinners suffering would have been more like purgatory than hell.  Pure speculation on my part.