"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But
rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).
Is Jesus teaching in this verse that the soul lives on after death and
is immortal? Not at all. If you look at this scripture closely, you see
that Jesus is actually saying that the soul can be destroyed. Jesus
is here warning about the judgment of God. He says not to fear those who
can destroy only the physical human body (soma in the Greek),
but fear Him (God) who is also able to destroy the soul (psuche)-here
denoting the person's physical being with its consciousness.
Simply stated, Christ was showing that when one man kills another the
resulting death is only temporary; God can raise anyone to conscious life
again either soon after death (see Matthew 9:23-25; 27:52; John 11:43-44;
Acts 9:40-41; 20:9-11) or in the age to come after Christ returns to the
earth. The person who has died is not ultimately gone forever. We must
have a proper fear of God, who alone can remove one's physical life and
all possibility of any later resurrection to life. When God destroys one
in "hell," that person's destruction is permanent.
