Matthew 10:28 – ‘destroy’: annihilation or everlasting punishment?

This entry is part 38 of 114 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’
- 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’
- 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?
- When 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 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 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’
Mt 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.”
The question to be explored here is whether the word ‘destroy’ implies a doctrine of everlasting punishment or of annihilation of the wicked.
For those with a traditionalist view, the word ‘destroy’ signifies, not extinction, but ruin; not loss of being, but loss of well-being. This interpretation goes back at least as far as Tertullian, who espoused a Platonic view of the immortality of the soul (see Fudge, The Fire That Consumes).
Calvin argued from this text not only that the soul survives death, but that it is immortal. But, as Philip Hughes remarks,
‘it is difficult to see how he could derive an argument for the immortality of the soul from this saying, since it would seem, quite to the contrary, to imply the soul’s mortality: that God can destroy both soul and body must surely mean that the soul is destructible.’ (in Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, Joshua W. Anderson. Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism (p. 186). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.)
Vine (Expository Dictionary, art. ‘Destroy’): ‘The idea is not extinction but ruin, loss, not of being, but of wellbeing.’
Blomberg asserts that
‘”kill,” like “destroy,” does not imply annihilation but eternal suffering, as the qualification “in hell” makes clear.’
So also Morris:
‘The reference to hell shows that we are not to understand “destroy” as annihilation. Jesus is speaking of the destruction of all that makes for a rich and meaningful life, not of the cessation of life’s existence.’
Osborne:
‘This is not a statement on the annihilation of the soul. It is clear that torment in the lake of fire is seen to be eternal punishment, not annihilation (see Matt 18:8; 25:41, 46; cf. also Rev 14:11, 19:3, 20; 20:10). As Luz says (Matthew 8–20, 102n), the orthodox view understands “the suffering of the soul in hell metaphorically as its “death.”‘
Hendriksen:
‘The word “destroy” is used here in the sense not of annihilation but of the infliction of everlasting punishment upon a person (25:46; Mark 9:47, 48; 2 Thess. 1:9).’
Wilkins (in Holman Apologetics Commentary):
‘This verse leads some to argue for a doctrine of annihilation, where the damned are destroyed rather than punished eternally. However, a broader look at the topic shows Gehenna is a place where the judged are cast not to be destroyed, but to be punished. For instance, Matthew himself elsewhere described Gehenna as being a place of enduring weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30).’ It has to be said, however, that none of these verses states that the suffering of Gehenna is ‘enduring’ (i.e. everlasting).
France (TNTC):
‘Destroy (apolesai) carries the connotation of ‘loss’ and ‘ruin’ as well as of literal destruction, so that the expression does not necessarily, though it may, imply a view of the annihilation of the impenitent as opposed to eternal punishment.’
In his larger commentary on Matthew, France argues that hell is
‘a place of destruction, not of continuing punishment, a sense which fits the origin of the term in the rubbish dumps of the Hinnom valley, where Jerusalem’s garbage was destroyed by incineration.’
Again:
‘it would…be better to speak of true life (the “soul”) not as eternal but as “potentially eternal,” since it can be “destroyed” in hell.’
So also Nixon (NBC):
‘The soul in biblical thought is not immortal, except when new life is conferred upon it through Christ . . . Hell is therefore the place of its destruction as Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, was of the rubbish of Jerusalem.’
Barclay (DSB) also thinks that ‘something very like’ conditional immortality is taught by Jesus here:
‘This belief holds that the reward of goodness is that the soul climbs up and up until it is one with all the immortality, the bliss and the blessedness of God; and that the punishment of the evil man, who will not mend his ways in spite of all God’s appeals to him, is that his soul goes down and down and down until it is finally obliterated and ceases to be.’
Boyd & Eddy:
‘The implication is that God will do to the souls of the wicked what humans do to the body when they kill it, implying that the souls of the wicked will not go on existing in a conscious state after they have been destroyed.’ (Across the Spectrum, p289)
After a review of the meaning and usage of ἀπολέσαι, Papaioannou concludes that:
‘the ἀπολέσαι of Matthew 10:28 should be understood in its most natural and consistently used form—as destruction that involves the death of the object of the action. What we have therefore in Matthew 10:28 is the following sequence: a resurrection not only of the righteous, but also of unrepentant sinners (this is implied), a judgment that condemns the latter (stated), and eventually their destruction/annihilation—an act where God presides (stated).’ (The Geography of Hell, p55)