Jesus said "fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna". My thought on this is that its referring to physical death only. Thats what death is. The destruction of body and soul.
If you look at the whole verse, I think you will notice that what you wrote cannot be right, as Jesus speaks of the destruction of the body and the destruction of the soul as separate and distinct: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:"
This implies that men can kill the body, but not the soul. Something remains and survives death; the Greek word is
psuche ψυχή. It means heart, mind, life, soul.
It is certain that God's memory of his saints would not pass away upon their death.
The body goes back to dust. The soul, which is the senses and feelings for the body, ceases to exist with no living body. And the spirit of the person goes into the "unseen" back to God who gave it, without consciousness or awareness. Sort of like being asleep I would think. The person will not exist again until they are resurrected by God. At which time, God will bring the person's body up again, restore the spirit, bringing life again which restores the soul.
The soul must be the personality and character. In the context, Jesus was telling his disciples not to be afraid of men, when witnessing to Christ and the gospel. The previous verse says, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops." Housetops were evidently a way that news or information was spread quickly throughout the city, in the days before newspapers, radios, TV, the Internet etc. In a following verse he said, "whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."
I did a study on the words resurrection, rouse, vivify, soul, and spirit, from the CLT and it led to me having this view on death. My point is, so many people think that Jesus is referring to unending punishment in the next life here when it says "destroy body and SOUL" and it doesn't. The soul is destroyed whenever the body is destroyed. Again its just physical death is all.
When he mentioned
Gehenna, Jesus referred to the valley of Hinnom, which is a short valley, outside the city of Jerusalem, on the south west, and southern sides of the city.
Jesus contrasts being cast into
Gehenna with being safe within the holy city, which represents the kingdom of God.
Jesus called Jerusalem "the city of the great King," and he is the king, born to inherit the throne of David. In Isaiah's prophecy, Jerusalem was to be raised up, and established in the top of the mountains, and this is fulfilled, in the New Testament, where Jerusalem is in heaven. It was raised up when Jesus ascended to heaven, Acts 1:9.
The "city of the great King" is the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city, the camp of the saints, not the earthly city, which like Hagar, was cast out of Abraham's house. (Galatians 4:25-30)
The saints are those in the heavenly Jerusalem. Jesus said, "Salvation is of the Jews." [John 4:22] The saints are identified as "Jews" and "the circumcision" in a spiritual sense.[Philippians 3:3] Paul explained that the real Jew is one who is a "Jew inwardly;" his "circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." [Romans 2:29]
The prophets spoke of Jerusalem as being the city of the saints; Isaiah said, "We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks" [Isaiah 26:1] "thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise." [Isaiah 60:18]
So Jerusalem represents salvation, and
Gehenna is a metaphor representing the place or the judgment of those accounted unfit for the kingdom, as the foolish virgins in the parable of the 10 virgins, [Matthew 25:1-13] and like the man who was not wearing a wedding garment, in Matthew 22:11-13.
Doug
Gehenna and the land promise
