Mt 10:28/Lk 12:4f – Whom should we fear?

This entry is part 39 of 119 in the series: Tough texts
- Genesis 1:26 – Why a plural name for God?
- Genesis 3 – traditional and revisionist readings
- Genesis 3:16b – ‘Your desire shall be for your husband’
- Genesis 5 – the ages of the antedeluvians
- Genesis 6:1f – ‘The sons of God’
- Genesis 6-8 – A worldwide flood?
- Genesis 12:3 – ‘I will bless those who bless you’
- Genesis 15:16 – ‘The sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit’
- Genesis 22 – “Abraham, kill your son”
- Exodus – Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?
- Exodus 12:37 – How many Israelites left Egypt?
- Leviticus 19:18 “Love your neighbour as yourself”
- Deuteronomy 23:6 – ‘Never be kind to a Moabite’?
- Joshua 6 – the fall of Jericho
- Joshua 10 – Joshua’s ‘long day’
- Judges 19:11-28 – The priest and the concubine
- 1 Samuel 16:14 – ‘An evil spirit from the Lord’
- 1 Samuel 28:7-14 – Did Samuel visit from the grave?
- 2 Samuel 1:26 – ‘More special than the love of women’
- 2 Sam 24:1, 1 Chron 21:1 – Who incited David?
- 1 Kings 20:30 – ‘The wall collapsed on 27,000 of them’
- Psalm 105:15 – ‘Touch not my anointed’
- Psalm 137:8f – ‘Happy is he who dashes your infants against the rocks’
- Isaiah 7:14/Matthew 1:23 – “The virgin will conceive”
- Daniel 7:13 – ‘Coming with the clouds of heaven’
- Jonah – history or fiction?
- Mt 1:1-17 and Lk 3:23-38 – the genealogies of Jesus
- Matthew 2:1 – ‘Magi from the east’
- Matthew 2:2 – The star of Bethlehem
- Matthew 2:8f – Can God speak through astrology?
- Matthew 2:23 – ‘Jesus would be called a Nazarene’
- Matthew 5:21f – Did Jesus reject the Old Testament?
- Matthew 7:16,20 – ‘You will recognise them by their fruit’
- Matthew 8:5/Luke 7:3 – Who asked Jesus to help?
- Matthew 8:5/Luke 7:7 – son? servant? male lover?
- Matthew 8:22/Luke 9:60 – ‘Let the dead bury their dead’?
- Matthew 8:28 – Gadara or Gerasa?
- Matthew 10:23 – ‘Before the Son of Man comes’
- Mt 10:28/Lk 12:4f – Whom should we fear?
- Matthew 10:28 – ‘destroy’: annihilation or everlasting punishment?
- Matthew 10:34 – ‘Not peace, but a sword’?
- Matthew 11:12 – Forceful entry, or violent opposition, to the kingdom?
- Mt 12:30/Mk 9:40/Lk 11:23 – For, or against?
- Matthew 12:40 – Three days and three nights
- The Parable of the Sower – return from exile?
- Mt 15:21-28/Mk 7:24-30 – Jesus and the Canaanite woman
- Mt 16:28/Mk 9:1/Lk 9:27 – “Some standing here will see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”
- Matthew 18:10 – What about ‘guardian angels’?
- Matthew 18:20 – ‘Where two or three are gathered…’
- Matthew 16:18 – Peter the rock?
- Matthew 21:7 – One animal or two?
- Mt 24:34/Mk 13:30 – ‘This generation will not pass away’
- Matthew 25:40 – ‘These brothers of mine’
- Matthew 27:46/Mark 15:34 – Jesus’ cry of dereliction
- Matthew 27:52f – Many bodies raised?
- Mark 1:41 – ‘Compassion’, or ‘anger/indignation’?
- Mark 2:25f – ‘When Abiathar was high priest’
- Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10 – The unpardonable sin
- Mark 4:31 – ‘The smallest of all the seeds’?
- Mark 6:45 – ‘To Bethsaida’
- Mark 12:41-44/Luke 21:1-4 – ‘The widow’s mite’
- Luke 2:1f – Quirinius and ‘the first registration’
- Luke 2 – Was Joseph from Nazareth, or Bethlehem?
- Luke 2:7 – ‘No room at the inn’
- Luke 2:8 – Shepherds: a despised class?
- Luke 2:39 – No room for a flight into Egypt?
- Luke 4:16-19 – An incomplete quotation?
- Luke 7:2 – ‘Highly valued servant’ or ‘gay lover’?
- Luke 14:26 – Hate your family?
- Luke 22:36 – ‘Sell your cloak and buy a sword’
- John 1:1 – ‘The Word was God’
- John 2:6 – symbol or history?
- John 2:12 – Did Mary bear other children?
- Mt 21/Mk 11/Lk 19/Jn 2 – When (and how many times) did Jesus cleanse the Temple?
- John 3:16f – What is meant by ‘the world’?
- John 4:44 – ‘His own country’
- John 7:40-44 – Did John know about Jesus’ birthplace?
- John 7:53-8:11 – The woman caught in adultery
- John 10:8 – “All who came before me were thieves and robbers”
- John 10:34 – “You are gods”
- John 14:6 – “No one comes to the Father except through me”
- John 14:12 – ‘Greater deeds’
- John 20:21 – “Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.”
- John 21:11 – One hundred and fifty three fish
- Acts 5:1-11 – Ananias and Sapphira
- Acts 5:34-37 – a (minor) historical inaccuracy?
- Romans 1:5 – ‘The obedience of faith’
- Romans 1:18 – Wrath: personal or impersonal?
- Rom 3:22; Gal 2:16 – faith in, or faithfulness of Christ?
- Romans 5:18 – ‘Life for all?’
- Rom 7:24 – Who is the ‘wretched man’?
- Romans 10:4 – ‘Christ is the end of the law’
- Romans 11:26a – ‘And so all Israel will be saved’
- Romans 16:7 – ‘Junia…well known to the apostles’
- 1 Corinthians 14:34 – ‘Women should be silent in the churches’
- 1 Corinthians 15:28 – ‘The Son himself will be subjected to [God]’
- 1 Corinthians 15:29 – ‘Baptized for the dead’
- 1 Corinthians 15:44 – ‘Raised a spiritual body’
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 – ‘God made Christ to be sin for us’
- Galatians 3:17 – How much later?
- Galatians 3:28 – ‘Neither male nor female’
- Galatians 6:2 – ‘The law of Christ’
- Galatians 6:16 – The Israel of God
- Ephesians 1:10 – ‘The fullness of the times’
- Philippians 2:10 – ‘The name that is above every name’
- 1 Cor 11:3/Eph 5:23 – ‘Kephale’: ‘head’? ‘source’? ‘foremost’?
- Colossians 1:19f – Universal reconciliation?
- 1 Thessalonians 2:14f – ‘The Jews, who killed Jesus’
- 1 Timothy 2:4 – ‘God wants all people to be saved’
- 1 Timothy 2:11f – ‘I do not allow woman to teach or exercise authority over a man’
- 1 Timothy 4:10 – ‘The Saviour of all people’
- Hebrews 6:4-6 – Who are these people?
- Hebrews 12:1 – Who are these witnesses?
- 1 Peter 3:18-20 – Christ and the spirits in prison
- 2 Peter 1:4 – ‘Partakers of the divine nature’
- 2 Peter 3:9 – ‘The Lord wishes all to come to repentance’
- Jude 7 – ‘Unnatural desire’
- Revelation 7:4 – The 144,000
- Revelation 14:11 – ‘No rest day or night’
Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Luke 12:4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. 12:5 But I will warn you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God) understands ‘those who kill the body’ to be the Romans, whereas ‘the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell’ is Satan, the real enemy.
In more detail, Wright argues:
‘Some have seen ‘the one who can cast into Gehenna’ as YHWH; but this is unrealistic. Jesus did not, to be sure, perceive Israel’s god as a kindly liberal grandfather who would never hurt a fly, let alone send anyone to Gehenna. But again and again—not least in the very next verse of this paragraph—Israel’s god is portrayed as the creator and sustainer, one who can be lovingly trusted in all circumstance, not the one who waits with a large stick to beat anyone who steps out of line. Rather, here we have a redefinition of the battle in terms of the identification of the real enemy. The one who can kill the body is the imagined enemy, Rome. Who then is the real enemy? Surely not Israel’s own god. The real enemy is the accuser, the satan.’ (Jesus and the Victory of God, p454f)
(The first word in the above quote (‘some’) is a serious understatement. As will be shown below, the great majority of commentators think that the reference is to God, not Satan.)
Wright adds, in a footnote to the above:
‘Perhaps this is a clue to the meaning of the closing phrase of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘deliver us from the poneros’, the Evil One (Mt. 6:13).’
(Stier is one of a small number of commentators who take the same view as Wright.)
But, as Paul R. Eddy (In Jesus and the Restoration of Israel, p47) comments:
‘Both the long-standing “fear of Yahweh” tradition and the common apocalyptic theme that pictured God, not Satan, as the judge who would finally destroy his adversaries in the eschatological flames—themes the Gospels suggest were not foreign to Jesus (e.g., Mk 9:45–47; Lk 18:1–4)—count against Wright’s interpretation.’
And France remarks, ‘No such power is attributed to Satan in the Bible, nor is the Christian bidden to fear him.’
Morris thinks that it is highly likely that God, not Satan, is meant here:
‘A few commentators have held that the one with power to cast into hell is Satan, but this should certainly be rejected. The evil one can operate only within the limitations God assigns him and there is no indication that God ever gave him this power. Moreover we are not to fear Satan but to resist him (Jas 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:9). It is God who has power over the eternal issues and Jesus repeats, yes, I tell you, fear him!’
Edwards, similarly:
‘The one who “has authority to throw you into hell” (v. 5) might seem at first to refer to Satan, but it almost certainly refers to God, for in scriptural tradition “the one who has power to cast into Gehenna is God.” Thus God is to be feared (23:40; Ps 119:120; Heb 10:31; Rev 14:7, 10), whereas Satan is not to be feared but resisted (Jas 4:7; 1 Pet 5:9).’
Keener (IVPBBCNT):
‘All Jewish hearers would understand “the one who has authority to cast into hell” as God, the judge, whose power the wise are respectfully to “fear” (e.g., Prov 1:7).’
Blomberg:
‘The NIV rightly capitalizes “One” as referring to God and not the devil (cf. Jas 4:12).’
So also, among modern commentators: Evans, Bock, Stein, Garland, Nolland, Barclay, L.T. Johnson, Schreiner (ECB), Wilcock, Geldenhuys, Hendriksen, Marshall, Liefeld (EBC), France, Mounce, Osborne, Hagner, Carson, J. Green (DJG, 2nd ed), the contributor to HSB (F.F. Bruce?) and S.E. Porter (NDBT, p497).
Bruner draws on a number of older commentators in the following:
‘Fear God or fear everything! “He who does not fear God, fears everything save him: 1 Pet 3:14–15” (Bengel, 1:161). “Let us fear therefore, that we may not fear” (Augustine, Serm., 15[65]:1:306). It is God who is to be feared in this text; we are never told to fear Satan in Scripture (McNeile, 145; Gundry, 197…). Augustine, Serm., 15(65):7:308, gives the best sense of Matt 10:28 in its context: “Fear not then, O Martyr, the sword of thy executioner; fear only thine own tongue, lest thou do execution upon thine own self, and slay, not thy body, but thy soul.” Chrysostom, C.A., 390–90, is also wise: “See how He puts above all other perils, dangers, and even above the worst [peril], death, the fear of God.… Note also that He does not hold out to them deliverance from death, but encourages them to despise it; which is a much greater thing than to be rescued from death.”’
Bruner adds:
‘People can hurt us only temporarily; the Father can sentence us permanently. The disciple will transfer fears from people to God, from what people will do to what the Father will do. And blessedly, the one who fears the Father is liberated from fear of people—no little liberation. The tender-minded message that the Father of Jesus Christ is not to be feared but loved is a pious fraud.’
Among other older commentators taking the same view: Calvin, Henry, Poole, Dickson (implied), Gill, Barnes, Ryle, JFB (implied), and Ellicott.