vi Salvation by Fire. 109 



me : for their worm shall not die, neither shall their 

 fire be quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring to 

 all flesh." This is not a threat of torment, but of 

 what many men fear as much, namely, the disgrace 

 of bodies after death. Our Lord spiritualises the 

 image ; in His application of it if not, indeed, in the 

 Prophet's original use of it the worm represents 

 the natural effects of sin, and the fire, the anger of 

 God against sin. We do no violence to Christ's 

 words if we understand them to mean that the worm 

 will not die so long as anything is left for it to 

 devour, and the fire will burn so long as anything is 

 left for it to consume. Both the worm and the fire 

 are destructive agents ; and we import into these 

 passages a foreign, and, indeed, a self-contradictory 

 meaning, if we maintain that the work of destruction 

 goes on for ever, and is never accomplished. Isaiah's 

 words suggest total destruction ending in extinction ; 

 and such destruction is purification. But our Lord, 

 in quoting Isaiah's words, drops a hint that while 

 they are true, they are not the entire truth. He 

 says, in allusion to the Levitical ritual of sacrifice, 

 "For every one shall be salted with fire;" suggest- 

 ing that the fire of God's anger against sin will not 

 only destroy the sin, but through that destruction 

 will preserve and ultimately save the sinner. God 

 can save, not only from the fire and through the 

 fire, 1 but by means of the fire. 



We conclude, then, that the fire, which is the 

 1 1 Cor. iii. 15. 



