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

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This entry is part 42 of 121 in the series: Tough texts

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)

 

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