Jesus' proceeded to elaborate on the importance of disciples dealing radically with sin in their lives. He had just warned about leading other disciples astray. Now He cautioned against being led astray oneself.
"Seducing simple souls is disastrously easy work; but still more easy is seducing oneself, by letting the body lead the spirit astray."232
9:43-48 Jesus compared the members of the human body to the agents of sinful activities. He did not want His disciples to perform physical surgery but spiritual surgery to excise the sin within us. The language is hyperbolic, but Jesus described probable sins. The threefold repetition highlights the importance of the warning.
"As a surgeon does not hesitate to cut off a gangrenous hand to save a life, so evil and destructive practices, though precious to us as a very part of our lives, must be sacrificed to save the soul."233
"Hell"translates the Greek word gehenna, the transliteration of the Hebrew phrase ge hinnom(lit. "Valley of Hinnom"). This valley, just south of Jerusalem, is where the apostate Jews offered human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer. 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35). King Josiah terminated this practice and converted the site into a city dump where rubbish burned constantly (2 Kings 23:10). The fire never went out at gehennaand the worms never died. Unquenchable fire must be eternal.234External fire and internal worms are Old Testament pictures of destruction (cf. Isa. 66:24). Thus gehennabecame a picture of the place of eternal punishment (Enoch 27:2; 90:26).235The word gehennaappears 12 times in the New Testament, and in all but one of these occurrences Jesus spoke it (i.e., James 3:6).
Disciples should take prompt and decisive action against anything that might lead them away from their allegiance to Jesus. Temptations come through the hands (what we do), the feet (where we go), and the eyes (what we see) primarily. Disciples who are believers will suffer the loss of rewards in the kingdom if they do not exercise self-discipline. Disciples who are unbelievers will experience eternal damnation if they fail to do so.
Verses 44 and 46 are absent in important early manuscripts. Probably scribes added them later to fill out the parallelism in the passage. They repeat verse 48.
9:49 This verse evidently alludes to Leviticus 2:13. The "everyone"in view could refer to unbelievers who enter hell. Unbelievers are the immediate antecedent of this verse. As salt preserves food, so God will preserve them forever in torment.
A second possibility is that "everyone"refers to believers living in a hostile world. Jesus' believing disciples were those to whom He addressed these words. As the Old Testament priests salted the animal sacrifices, so God will season His living sacrifices with fiery trials to purify their faith (cf. 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:12).236
A third interpretation is that "everyone"refers to every person, unbelievers and believers alike. God will subject everyone to fiery trials. He does this to believers and unbelievers alike during their earthly lives (James 1:1-18). He will also do this to believers' works when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ (cf. Matt. 25:14-46; 1 Cor. 3:10-15). He will do this to unbelievers when they stand before Him at the great white throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). This seems to me to be the best interpretation. It takes "everyone"literally and is consistent with other revelation. The point is that everyone should realize that divine testing is an inevitable part of life.237
Since this verse appears only in Mark it must have had special significance for the original readers. If they were Roman Christians, it would have encouraged them to realize that the fires of persecution were part of their calling. Everyone will experience trials (cf. James 1:1-18). We sometimes say that into every life a little rain must fall. We could change that a little and say that into every life a little salt of testing must fall.
9:50 Jesus continued to use salt as a figure for testing. He said that testings from God, as salt on food, are good for us. Salt preserves food, prevents decay, and enhances flavor. The trials that God allows people to experience should have similar beneficial effects on them (cf. James 1:2-4). However if salt becomes bland, it will not achieve its desired results. Likewise if God's trials lose their bite--if we become insensible and unresponsive to the self-discipline that He is seeking to teach us by hardening our hearts--these trials can cease to benefit us. Therefore we must have salt in ourselves, namely accept the trials that God sends us that demand self-discipline rather than rejecting them. Furthermore we must live peacefully with one another rather than becoming sectarian (v. 38) or self-seeking (v. 34).
This command concludes this section of instruction that deals with the enemies of disciple fidelity (9:33-50).
