3537 — The Worm Shall Not Die
By Editor
Will you kindly explain the last verse of Isaiah, chapter 66:24? It has been brought to me as an evidence of everlasting punishment, and we couldn't explain it. A Subscriber. Well, it is an evidence of everlasting punishment, but not an evidence of everlasting punishing. There is a difference between punishment, a completed process, and punishing, a process which goes on to all eternity, and is never completed. How could it be said that the wicked are punished, if that punishing never ceases? The Lord speaks of it as a finality. "The wages of sin is death," not dying. One could conceive that that dying would last a long time; but God does not speak of the process, but of the ultimate result. The dying results in death. It is the death, the deprivation of life, which is the punishment. This scripture is in harmony with that statement, "And they [the righteous] shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." Note, first, that it does not say that the righteous shall go forth and look upon living men, but upon the carcasses of men that have transgressed. The carcass is the dead body. The terms referring to the undying worm and to the unquenchable fire were very common to the Jews. The valley of Gehenna was just outside of Jerusalem. It was in that valley where all the refuse and offal of the city were cast. Upon this mass of refuse the worm constantly preyed, and what the worm did not consume was consumed by constant fires, which were kept burning, into which this was cast. The worm devoured what it preyed upon; the fire burned up what was cast into it. Consequently, to the Jew that was one of the strongest terms to denote everlasting destruction. See the prophet's use of it in another place, Isa. 51:8: "For the moth shall eat them up like a garment." The garment eaten up by the moth is destroyed; it is not eternally preserved. Jeremiah gives us the meaning of the fire. In the 17th chapter, the 27th verse, God declares by the prophet that if they will not harken, to hallow the Sabbath day, but not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, "then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." This is like the expression found in Isaiah. Is that fire still burning?—Not at all. What is meant by it?—It meant that no human power could prevent that fire from doing its work. Its fulfilment is recorded in 2 Chron. 36:19-21: "And they burned the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. . . . to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths." This shows clearly that the figure of the worm, as also the figure of the fire, meant absolute and certain destruction. We have another term, equally strong, in Jude 7. Referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, the apostle says that they "are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire;" but those cities are not now burning, and the fires which destroyed them have long since gone out. But what was the result?—That fire swept the cities out of existence, and just as long as they can not exist again they are under that sentence. Read Peter's explanation of it: "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly." 2 Peter 2:6. The eternal fire of Jude was the fire which Peter declares turned the cities into ashes. The fire that will prey upon the carcasses of the wicked will utterly sweep away sin, as declared by Malachi: "For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Mal. 4:1. The root is Satan, the branch those who have identified themselves with him. The same thing is expressed in Matt. 3:12: "Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."