The Worm

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, “where their worm does not die.”   Mark 9:47-48, ESV

Jesus spoke about a worm that never dies in hell. Notice this worm belongs to the person in hell. Jesus doesn’t say “the worm,” he says, “their worm.” He is speaking of something personal and internal to every person in hell.

Several years ago, a storm destroyed a tree in our yard. It had become diseased, and when it fell, the extent of the damage was revealed: worms had been eating away the inside. That’s what worms do—eat away at the inside of things.

Jesus is talking about something that eats away the inside of an individual in hell. He is talking about conscience. There is nothing more crippling than a bad conscience that never rests. Jesus says that in hell the sinner’s worm will never die.

My father was on the police force for thirty years, and what surprised him most was that people who had committed the most dreadful acts seemed to have so little understanding of what they had done, even after long periods in prison.

Those who commit the greatest evils are sometimes least sensitive to the wrong they’ve done. But it won’t always be so. Consciences will be fully activated in hell; denial will be futile. Every sinner in hell will be unable to block out the knowledge or responsibility for his or her own sins. Unbelievers’ sin will always be before them. Those who loved sin in this world will see it for what it is and share God’s abhorrence of it. This is part of the justice of God.

David had been living in denial about his sin, but God brought him to the point of facing what he’d done: “I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night” (Psalm 51:3). God will bring every person to that point, either by bringing us to repentance in this life or by showing us the full horror of sin in hell. Pray that God would soften your conscience to respond to him today.

For further reading, see Psalm 51