Here we have an argument which proceeds from the lesser to the greater.  Man

can only kill the body.  God can destroy body and soul.  Man may kill, but he

cannot prevent resurrection.  The murdered man will as surely rise in the

resurrection as the one who dies of natural causes.  It is different,

however, with God.  He can cast men into the lake of fire, from which there

is no resurrection.  Those who are thus cast in are destroyed body and soul,

as being no more fit to live.

The parallel passage to this, Luke 12:4,5 shows that to 'cast into

gehenna' is to be taken as synonymous with 'to destroy' or 'to perish'.  This

is further evidenced by Matthew 5:29, 'It is profitable for thee that one of

thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into

gehenna'.  Here the plain meaning is that it is better that a limb should

perish than that the whole body should perish.  There is no thought of agony

and torment, for the Lord would have used the word in Matthew 10:28, 'Fear

Him who is able to torment both body and soul in hell', had He meant to

convey such teaching.

The fact that men are 'perishing' and need salvation is emphasized

again and again.  We have noticed the word in John 3:16.  In 1 Corinthians

1:18 we read, 'For the preaching of the cross is to them who are perishing

foolishness, but unto us who are being saved, it is the power of God'.  It is

the same word (translated 'lost' in A.V.) in 2 Corinthians 4:3, 'If our

gospel is veiled, to them who are perishing it is veiled'.

Yet again in 1 Corinthians 15:17,18 we read, If Christ hath not been

raised, to no purpose is your faith, ye are yet in your sins, hence also they

who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  What does this mean?  Does it

mean that believers, apart from the resurrection of Christ, would

at this moment be suffering the agonies of hell fire?  Certainly not.  It

means exactly what it says.  Without resurrection the believer, like the

unbeliever, will have perished, will have passed out of being, will have been

destroyed.  The idea of a conscious intermediate state, with departments in

some mythological hades, is foreign to the Scriptures and antagonistic to

this passage.  Death ends life, and apart from resurrection death means utter

destruction.  Resurrection, which is everywhere the one theme of hope in the

Scriptures, is set aside by orthodoxy, and death instead is eulogized as the

gate to life.

We have yet further evidence as to the meaning of this word apollumi by

considering the inspired interpretation of the word Apollyon (Rev. 9:11),

which is a derivative of apollumi.  The passage gives us the Hebrew

equivalent of Apollyon, it is the word Abaddon, from abad, which we

considered on page 409.  The unmistakable meaning of abad is 'to destroy',

and thus we are given, to confirm our faith, the divine warrant that the word

under consideration means to 'destroy'.  In the context of Revelation 9:11

the scorpions, whose king is Apollyon, are definitely withheld from

destroying or killing (their normal work), and are only permitted to torment

men for five months, after which other horsemen receive power to kill those

who had not the seal of God in their foreheads.  Before passing on to the

consideration of the next word, we would like to quote the primary meaning of

apollumi as given by Liddell and Scott:

'Apollumi.  To destroy utterly, to kill, slay: of things, to demolish,

to lay waste, to lose utterly'.

This word is a noun derived from the word apollumi, and means

It is rendered by the A.V. as follows: 'damnation' once;