Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 9:45
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:
Verse 45. See Clarke on Mr 9:43.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off,…. Such who are that to men, as the foot is to the body, the support of them through whom they have their maintenance and subsistence; and yet these, if they are a means of causing them to stumble and tail, or of leading out of the ways of Christ, and off from him, their company is to be shunned and abstained from;
it is better for thee to enter halt into life. The Vulgate Latin version reads, “eternal life”, which is undoubtedly intended by “life”; and so reads the Cambridge copy of Beza’s; and the meaning is, that it is better to go alone without such company into heaven,
than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; [See comments on Mr 9:44].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: (kai ean ho pous sou skandalize se apokopson auton) “And if your foot offends you (as an individual) cut it off:- If where you go, any place your foot leads you, or anything your foot does offends or causes a little one in Christ to stumble or fall, quit it, cut it off, or cut it out, lest the deed or work be burned, or the whole body of your work or testimony be burned, 1Co 3:13-15.
2) “It is better for thee to enter halt into life,” (kalon estin se eiselthein eis ten zoen cholon) “It is ideal for you (personally) to enter into life lame,” limited in the extent of your labors of life,
3) “Than having two feet to be cast into hell,” (e tous duo podas echota blethenai eis ten geenan) ”Rather than having two feet, to be cast into Gehenna-hell,’ or your entire life’s influence to be lost, burned, 2Jn 1:8.
4) ”Into the fire that never shall be quenched:” (this clause is omitted in what is considered the best Gk. manuscripts.)
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
The conclusion of Christ’s discourse:
v. 45. 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,
v. 46. where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
v. 47. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire,
v. 48. where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
v. 49. For everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
v. 50. Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. Christ here mentions some other members that are very apt to offend, to commit sin, to lead others into sin. The law of sin is always active in our members. Here it is necessary that a person keep these members in subjection. For the Lord speaks figuratively and does not want to be understood, as Luther says, that He here advocates physical mutilation or dismemberment, since that would obviously not take the sin and the desire to sin out of the heart. It is the heart which must be controlled by the spirit of love toward Christ and our neighbor, in order that the hand, the foot, the eye do not perform that which sin desires them to do. Whosoever places his members into the service of sin, of uncleanness, and unrighteousness here in this life, will hereafter pay the penalty for such transgression in all eternity. But whosoever, with the help of the Holy Ghost, brings his members into subjection, trains them, holds his desires in check, does not permit sin to reign in his body, he will retain faith and a good conscience, he will keep body and soul unto life eternal. Note: This passage makes such a deep impression on account of the earnestness of the Savior and because of His solemn reference to the fire of hell, and to the worm that will not die, and to the fire that will not be quenched. The fires of the Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where all the refuse of the city was burned, were commonly taken as a type of the fires of hell. As these fires burned without ceasing, day and night, so the fires of hell will offer no respite. And as the worms were continually feeding on the remains of carcasses and refuse that was dumped out into that valley, so some of the torments of hell will be like the ceaseless gnawing of worms. To try to crack jokes at the expense of the doctrine of hell, or to deny this doctrine outright, for the flimsiest reasons, is decidedly blasphemous in view of such passages as the present and Luk 16:28.
This sacrifice, this continual working and bringing into subjection one’s own members for the sake of Christ, is demanded by Christ in the interest of His purpose to make every Christian and the entire Christian Church a salt in this world. As every sacrifice of the Old Testament had to be salted, Lev 2:13, so every disciple, every believer, must be salted with fire. Jesus does not refer, in this instance, to the fire of hell, but to the purifying fire of His rule and leading. It is the discipline of the Word and the Spirit of God which gradually cleanses the believers of sin, and kills the works and desires of the flesh, and the fire of tribulation, which renders sin and its results unpleasant, 1Pe 1:4. This fire incidentally performs the work of a salt, it prevents moral rotting and a relapse into the service of sin. And the Christians that have been sanctified by the Word and the Spirit of God and whose sanctification is progressing continually should have this salt with them always, in doctrine and admonition. They shall freely, as occasion offers, rebuke the false works of the world, instead of permitting the world to lead them into sin. But among themselves, one with another, they should maintain peace and not boastingly seek self-glorification. The fact that the Gospel is a salt is brought out strongly by Luther in admonishing the Christians to be a true salt. “Where the salt loses its saltiness, and the Gospel is spoiled with doctrines of men, there the old Adam no longer can be spiced, there the worms will grow. But salt is sharp; therefore it is necessary to have patience and peace in the salt.”
Summary. After the miracle of the transfiguration, Jesus heals a deaf-mute boy, gives His disciples information concerning their inability to cast this demon out, announces His Passion for the second time, and gives them a long discourse on service, humility, and on giving offense.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
45 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:
Ver. 45. It is better for thee ] . It is a goodly thing to go, though maimed, to heaven.
To be cast into hell, where the fire ] About the year 1152, King Louis of France cast the pope’s bulls (whereby he required all fruits of vacancies of all cathedral churches in France) into the fire; saying, he had rather the pope’s bulls should rest in the fire, than his own soul should fry in hell. (Speed’s Hist.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
halt = lame.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
hell gehenna.
(See Scofield “Mat 5:22”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Mar 9:43, Mar 9:44
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5
The foot is used instead of the hand, otherwise the lesson in this verse is the same as that in verse 48 on the subject of making self-denials.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
DOOM OF THE WICKED
Mat 18:8-9; Mar 9:45-48. And if thy foot may offend thee, cut it off; it is good for thee to go into life lame, rather than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire which can not be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. This awful deliverance of our Savior, relative to the doom of the wicked, follows as a normal sequence from the innumerable and egregious sins committed in giving offense to spiritual and natural infants. Consequently He goes out into a clear, straight, and unequivocal affirmation, relative to the endless punishment of the wicked, which is simply irrefutable by all the sophistry of Universalism, all the chicanery of infidelity, and all the diabolical effrontery of the Pandemonium. Here, Jesus says that the wicked go into the fire which can not be quenched, where the worm [i.e., the conscious living] dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. The word for die is teleutao, from telos, the end; consequently, it means never have an end, the strongest and most inevasible word in the Greek language. These words and phrases, uttered by the Savior, can never be modified, evaded, weakened, or explained away. The sophistry that would have the audacity to tinker with these plain and unmistakable words of Jesus, could upset every truth in the Bible, completely take Gods Book of Truth out of our hands, leaving us groping in the utter bewilderment of rayless night. O that the preachers would preach like Jesus! If they do not, they have no right to preach at all. You have no right to deliver a message for another, unless you deliver it as he gave it to you. The reason why so many preachers have lost their power, is because Jesus does not send them. The reason why He does not send them, is because they have failed to deliver His message as He gave it to them. If you were to send a man with a most important message, and he should materially change it, either by additions or subtractions, or both, you would never again trust your business in his hands. Preachers stand in the pulpit, empty as the shell of a dead oyster, because of the delinquency in the faithful deliverance of the Lords message. The wicked are going to hell by millions. The most successful method of stopping them is faithfully, persistently, importunately fearlessly, and tearfully telling them precisely what they are doing, without mollification or modification, but persistently warning them night and day. One of the saddest concomitants of the awful apostasy in the Churches is the elimination of endless punishment out of the pulpit. Just as heaven should be the constant theme preached to the Christian pilgrim for glory bound, so hell should be the incessant theme roaring from every pulpit in the ears of all the hellward bound. If this is not faithfully adhered to, conviction will not only go out of a Church, but evanesce from a community, leaving all the gospel timber-gum logs, which will neither rive nor split.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
45 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: 46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
It might be of interest to understand how the hand and/or foot might be an offense. The hand might offend by reaching and/or doing something that is improper while the foot might carry you to that impropriety.
Next we see the eye mentioned and we all know how the eye can find its way into wrongdoing. Using it in the viewing of improper subject matter. I would classify most television in this area. We are to think on things that are good, but too many sit in front of the television absorbing smut at a very high level.
One might observe also that it is really the mind that is the true culprit in all of these. The hand the foot, and the eye really have nothing to do with it other than being a helper to the minds indiscretions. They are the enablers if you will.