Jesus told the disciples to be ready for trouble, including the end of the Jewish dispensation. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master."- "That is, you must expect the same treatment which I have received.” (Barnes) “‘Do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops.” (Matthew 10:26-27) In the end, that is in the Judgment, there will be no miscarriage of justice. "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” The persecution of Christians and final destruction of Jerusalem would culminate with the destruction of the temple 70ad. This threatened a temporal first death for members of that generation. Focus your fears on the second, eternal death.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. 21 “But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. 23 Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the LORD God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live? 24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die."
“‘But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna).’ (Matt 10:28)
L. M. Grant rightly proclaims: “Fear of man is to have no place where the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed. If, as in the case of Stephen (Acts 7:1-60), men kill the body out of antagonism against the Word of God, they cannot kill the soul, as Stephen's triumphant faith bore witness at the very time of his martyrdom. God is able to destroy both soul and body in hell: He then is the One whom men should fear.” But then Grant, like other modern scholars, redefines words to match their preconceived belief, saying: “To destroy however does not mean to annihilate, but to render unfit for any intended use.” And others: "Not 'kill' merely. Compare Luke 12:4, Luke 12:5." (E.W. Bullinger) "Destroy-in hell; by making them miserable there for ever." (Justin Edwards)
"What are the chances that the disciples shared the traditionalist view of destroy? Did Peter and John understand Jesus to mean that God sustains the unsaved eternally in a state of ruin like ‘wineskins that can no longer function because they have holes in them’ or ‘a coin that is useless because it is lost’ ? [63— Douglas J. Moo, 'Paul on Hell,' Hell under Fire] This is what traditionalists want us to believe about destroy.” (Rescue from Death by Robert Taylor)
I agree with those who teach that hell “means final destruction, not everlasting life in misery.” (The Doom of the Lost Basil F. C.. Atkiinson) In a persecution of Christians, “Marcus Aurelius... ordered that the bodies of Christians martyred in Lyons should be ground to powder and thrown into the river with the intent of preventing their resurrection. But... all God requires for resurrection is their ‘dust’ as found in the dust of the ground (Isaiah 26:19, compare Genesis 3:19). The One Whom they therefore need to be in awe of is the One Who has the power of eternal life and eternal death. Let them therefore be in awe of Him, the One Who can destroy both body and inner being in Gehenna... We are reminded here of the Old Testament wisdom teaching, ‘the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil that is understanding’ (Job 28:28; see also Psalms 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 15:33; compare Isaiah 33:6), by which of course is meant the same reverent awe as we have here." (Peter Pett)
So, Matthew 10:28 teaches that “another human being may be able to take away our life, but we still have the capacity to live again. God can always bring us back to life in the resurrection. So, though we naturally fear people who can cause our physical death [the dissolve of our mortal or natural bodies], Jesus was giving us the true, eternal perspective. We should not fear man, but God. Why? God has the authority to deny bringing us back to life—destroying the capacity to live ever again. ‘Hell’ in this verse refers to the gehenna garbage heap fire burning in the valley outside of Jerusalem. It’s symbolic of what the Bible calls ‘the lake of fire.’ If we die ‘the second death’ in the lake of fire, there remains no hope of a resurrection (Revelation 21:8).” https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/bible-questions-and-answers/what-did-jesus-christ-mean-do-not-fear-those-who-kill
Jesus created all things by His word and desire. And thus by His explicit Command, after Judgment, He will kill and the dead bodies will be subject to decay symbolized by the lake of fire. “Divine justice takes place in the unquenchable flames of hell as the impenitent, like chaff and tares, burn up in God’s furnace of fire. There is no more apt term to describe such a death than annihilation.” (Rescue from Death by Robert Taylor) "There are... two places in the OT where the fate of the wicked after resurrection is described, and those are Isaiah 66:24 and Daniel 12:2. In Isaiah 66:24 the wicked are cast bodily into the valley of Hinnom where they are consumed by eternal maggots (Rom 8:18-23) and eternal fire. But it is the maggots and the fire that are eternal, not the consciousness of the dead. In the case of the dead it is their carcases which will be abhorred by all flesh. And it is their carcases that the righteous will come to look on as a reminder of God’s judgment. The valley of Hinnom was the place where the dead bodies of criminals were thrown to be burned and eaten by maggots, and where the fires were continually burning in order to dispose of the rubbish of Jerusalem, so the point here is that the unrighteous dead are classed with the criminal fraternity and have become so much rubbish. But the everlastingness depends on the everlastingness of the lives of the righteous. While there is clearly the intention of indicating something rather more than the old Valley of Hinnom, it has not become what we think of as Ge-henna, ‘the ‘Valley (ge) of Hinnom’." (Peter Pett)
