BB1956 wrote:
"
Matthew 10:28 doesn't teach we have immortal souls, you have already admitted to that, because you said at post #4 Matthew 10:28 "does not say that God "will destroy both body and soul in hell," only that he "is able" to." Well if he's able to to destroy both body and soul in gehenna, then the soul can't be immortal.
If someone has Immortality then the one said to have immortality is beyond death, that death has no hold on that person. So this person who is immortal can't be destroyed.
If someone says a person is immortal but then says the person he/she said is immortal can be destroyed, or is cable of being destroyed, then that person doesn't have immortality, otherwise immortality doesn't mean a person is beyond death, or that such a person who is immortal isn't indestructible."
There are a couple of serious problems with your thinking here,
BB1956.
1.) "Destroy(ed)" in the Bible doesn't necessarily mean "annihilation," that is, the total eradication of a thing from all existence. It can be used figuratively, as in the case of Pharaoh's advisors:
Exodus 10:7
7 Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not realize that Egypt is destroyed?"
The advisors (servants) to Pharaoh didn't mean that Egypt was
actually destroyed, but only that it was
badly damaged by the plagues that had already befallen it. The story of the Exodus (and the rest of the OT) reveals that, though further plagues came to Egypt, it was never actually
annihilated out of existence.
Here's another example:
Numbers 21:3
3 And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah.
Though the Canaanites were "utterly destroyed," were they completely annihilated out of existence? No. We read in
chapter 33 of the book of
Numbers that king Arad of the Canaanites heard of the Israelites in their wilderness journeys. If Arad was a Canaanite, and the Canaanites were "utterly destroyed," how is Arad still alive and kicking? Shouldn't he have been annihilated like the rest of the Canaanites were? Apparently, "utterly destroyed" is not a literal description meaning "total eradication."
Another example of "destroyed" not meaning "annihilation" occurs in the following:
Deuteronomy 4:26-28
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, wherever the LORD shall lead you.
28 And there you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Here, Moses, warned that the Chosen People of God, if they failed to walk in the statutes and judgments of God, would "utterly perish" and "be utterly destroyed." Did Moses mean the Israelites would be
annihilated, eradicated fully from existence? No. He explained that what he meant was that the Israelites would be "scattered among the nations," and be left "few in number," serving the lifeless idols of heathen nations - a very different meaning than "total eradication from existence."
There are many such examples of a word in Scripture meaning other than what it might be understood to mean literally and actually sometimes meaning a variety of different things, depending upon context. How, then, ought one to understand Christ when he spoke of the One who was able to destroy both body and soul in hell? Did Jesus mean "annihilation" when he used the word "destroyed"? Well, not if we take other things he said about hell into account, as
Free, has already pointed out:
Matthew 5:22 (NASB)
22 "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
If hell is the total eradication of one's soul, what difference does it make that hell is fiery? Being annihilated, the unrepentant sinner will not exist to suffer in its flames. Jesus, though, seemed to think that one should be concerned about the fact that hell is "fiery."
Mark 9:43-44 (NASB)
43 "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,
44 [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.]
If a person is totally eradicated in hell, what fear can they have of its fires and undying worms? Hell will end their existence, so flames and worms are irrelevant, aren't they? Jesus didn't seem to think so, though, warning his audience of these things that it seems he thought they would encounter in hell.
Matthew 25:46
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
It's obvious that punishment entails consciousness; one can't punish a stone, or a broom handle, or a phone book. Only sentient, self-aware and morally-responsible entities can be punished. If they are annihilated, though, the everlasting punishment of hell is escaped; for one who does not exist cannot be punished. Oh, but it is the punishment that is everlasting, not the punished. Well, again, punishment that is not experienced is not punishment. It isn't
the consequences of the punishment that are everlasting but
the punishment itself. Imagine threatening a murderer with the punishment of
everlasting hanging. So what if the hanging is everlasting? For the murderer, the hanging is over in an instant, his neck snapping and his earthly life ended the moment he drops to the full length of the rope on which he's hung. Being dead, and so, unaware of what happens to his physical body, it makes no difference to him if his corpse is left dangling on the rope for all eternity. So, too, when one makes the consequence of punishment what is everlasting and not the punishment itself.
What Christ says, then, in the verse above defies the idea that when he spoke of Him who could "destroy" both body and soul in hell, he meant "utterly annihilate from existence."
2.) Human immortality is necessarily contingent. That is, being immortal does not remove the human being from their dependency upon God for their immortality (and everything else). Human souls are only immortal so long as God exists and ordains that they are immortal. It is a distortion of Christian orthodox belief, then, to say that the immortality of the human soul exists independent of God, beyond His power to alter. If that were so, God would not be God.