Hi Firedup,
As you know, we should always allow Scripture to interpret itself. In most of the verses in which the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) is referred to in the OT, it is to be understood in its literal sense. But in Jeremiah 19 (cf. 7:30-34) we read that, by God’s authority, the Valley of Hinnom – which was also known as “Topheth” (v. 6) - was made a metaphor or symbol for national judgment upon Israel (v. 12). Other than its literal and emblematic meaning, no other meaning is ever attached to this word in the inspired Scriptures. Because Christ gives no indication of introducing a new metaphorical meaning to a word whose meaning had long ago been fixed by his own inspired Scriptures, I submit that whenever Christ employs “Gehenna” in a non-literal sense, he is ascribing to it the same metaphorical meaning that was assigned to it by God in Jeremiah’s day.
Just as in Jeremiah’s day, a severe judgment upon the nation of Israel was looming over the horizon when Christ spoke these words to his disciples (Matthew 23:32-36 cf. 1 Thess 2:15-16; Isaiah 65:6-7). Christ refers to this approaching judgment upon that generation as their being sentenced to “Gehenna” (i.e., the Valley of Hinnom). Any Jew familiar with their Hebrew Scriptures would have understood Jesus’ words to be a warning of an impending national judgment, because it is this of which “Gehenna” (or “Topheth,” which was a location within this valley) had become an emblem. This national judgment fell upon the Jewish people at the climax of the Jewish-Roman war in 70 A.D., when the Roman army (led by General Titus) sacked the city of Jerusalem and utterly destroyed the temple. More than a million Jews perished during this violent overthrow of the Jewish nation, while thousands more were forced into exile.
It is significant that the first time Christ speaks of Gehenna is in Matt 5:22. However, neither Christ nor the Gospel writer gives any explanation of the word, which (being an OT word with meaning already attached to it) strongly suggests that those familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures would be able to figure out what Christ is talking about without doing any speculation or extra-biblical research. The verse reads, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the Gehenna of fire.” Here we see that one who is angry with his brother would be liable to judgment (which is likely a reference to the council of twenty three magistrates), while whoever insults his brother would be liable to the council (i.e., the Sanhedrin). Thus far, both of these are examples of some form of temporal judgment with which Jesus’ disciples would have been familiar. But according to the “orthodox” understanding of “Gehenna,” those who call someone a “fool” are liable not to an even more severe temporal punishment (which would make sense in the context), but to never-ending torment in a future state of existence! But there is simply no Scriptural evidence that this is what Jesus was talking about when he made reference to “Gehenna” - and his use of the word elsewhere is in direct opposition to such a view. For example, in Matthew 23:32-36 Christ is referring to a national judgment that was soon to fall upon the generation in which he lived:
“Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
And immediately after pronouncing these woes upon that corrupt generation, Christ goes on (to the end of this chapter on into the next) to speak of the national judgment that God was about to bring upon unbelieving Israel.
But what of the expression, “destroy body and soul?” Answer: The word here translated “soul” (psuche) is never said or implied in Scripture to refer to an immortal part of man’s nature, and unless this verse is the single exception, the word is never used to denote a part of man that can exist in a disembodied state after death. Far from teaching this, the word psuche is being employed by Christ in the same sense that the word is used in Matthew 2:10: “They are dead which sought the young child’s life” (psuche). But did they seek the “immortal soul” of Jesus? No; psuche refers to natural life - i.e., that which must be sustained by food and water.
In Matthew 6:25, Jesus states: “Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life (psuche), what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life (psuche) more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
Both here and in Matthew 10:28, psuche simply denotes the natural, biological life of a person (which must be sustained by food and water), while soma is being employed by Christ to refer to a person’s physical frame (which can be clothed or stripped naked). With this contrast kept in mind, there is a sense in which one’s “body” (as distinguished from one’s life) can be “killed” without one’s life being “killed” as well. In the former case, severe bodily harm may be inflicted, while the person’s life is spared. But in the latter case, it is the life itself upon which harm is inflicted, which can only result in the total destruction of the person. Thus, when soma (i.e., the physical frame of a person) and psuche (a person’s natural life) are distinguished, the body may be spoken of as being “killed” or “destroyed” without one’s life being “killed” or “destroyed” as well. That this is indeed the case will be even more evident when we consider the first time the expression “destroy both body and soul” is used in Scripture.
There is no indication that Christ’s disciples misunderstood what he meant by the destruction of “soul and body” in Gehenna." This is evident, because when they did not comprehend his meaning on other occasions, we find them making all the necessary inquiries. But here, they made none. From this single circumstance it is evident that they did not learn the meaning of this expression from Jesus, but that it was instead a common expression and proverb of that day. To speak of “soul and body” being “destroyed” was evidently a common Jewish expression with which Christ’s disciples were well acquainted.
By comparing this verse with Isaiah 10:16-18 (where we find God threatening a national judgment against Assyria, after having judged Israel), we can see that it was used as a proverbial expression denoting the total destruction of anything to which it was applied:
“Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire. The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day. The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.” Isaiah 10:16-18
Here, it is applied to the destruction of the glory of the king of Assyria’s “forest and fruitful land.” The literal meaning of the expression “destruction of soul and body,” however, evidently refers to that which takes place when “a sick man wastes away.” This agrees with our observation that the “body” could be spoken of as being “killed” (or in this case, “destroyed”) without the “soul,” or life, necessarily being “killed” (or “destroyed”) as well. But when a sick man “wastes away,” his condition is such that both his life and his physical frame are progressively “destroyed” by the illness. Thus, whether this expression is understood figuratively (as applied to the judgment of a nation) or literally (as applied to a man “wasting away” because of a disease), the expression has nothing to do with the punishment of so-called “immortal souls” in a “disembodied” state of existence.
So what is Jesus saying in the verses under consideration? Understood in the larger context of Matthew 10:16-23, Jesus’ words “kill the body” refers to what the Jewish persecutors of the early Christian church were allowed to do (i.e., inflict bodily punishment on people in the synagogues, without actually taking their lives - cf. John 18:31), in contrast to what the Roman authorities could legally do to law-breakers (i.e., execute them, thus destroying them “body and soul,” or “body and life”), and indeed did end up doing to the unbelieving people of Israel when they put an end to the Jewish rebellion in 70 AD. While countless Jews were slaughtered by the Roman army when the nation of Israel was overthrown, Christ’s obedient and watchful followers escaped this fearful calamity by heeding his words to flee the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding area when God gave them the opportunity (Matt 24:15-20; cf. Luke 21:20-21). In this way, God protected the early Christians from being destroyed “both body and soul” when he brought judgment upon the corrupt nation of Israel through the instrumentality of the Roman army.
It may be objected that this interpretation of Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:4-5 demands that the word “kill” (apokteino) be understood in a limited sense. Such an objection is invalid, however. It is evident that soma is being used in a limited sense in Matt 6:25, which is, notably, the only other verse where Christ distinguishes between soma and psuche. Now, if Christ was employing the word soma in Matt 6:25 to embrace every aspect of a person’s self from a physical, biological standpoint, then that which Christ says is sustained by food and drink (the psuche) in Matt 6:25 would necessarily be included in this general, inclusive meaning - for food and drink is necessary to keep our bodies (in the fullest sense of the word) alive. That is, soma, when used in a general sense, necessarily includes that aspect of us which Christ implies is sustained by food and drink, as well as that aspect of us which may be clothed or stripped naked. But because Christ distinguishes between the words soma and psuche by limiting soma to that which may be clothed and stripped naked, and excluding from the meaning of the word that aspect of us which is sustained by food and drink, soma must be understood in a limited sense. Thus, it is not so much apokteino (“kill”) that is to be understood as denoting less than its usual meaning, but soma. In this context, it refers to the outward frame of a person’s body (i.e., that which is clothed), not the body in its entirety.
Moreover, the very fact that soma and psuche are distinguished by Christ in Matt 10:28 (and by implication, in Luke 12:4-5, which is undoubtedly a parallel account) makes it an exception to how the words are used throughout Scripture. The only other place in the NT where psuche is distinguished from soma is in 1 Thess 5:23. But here, pnuema (“spirit”) is distinguished from both soma and psuche - a fact which weakens, or at least renders problematic, any argument that psuche (when distinguished from soma) denotes some aspect of man’s nature that continues to exist in a disembodied state after death. And Matthew 10:28 (and again, Luke 12:4-5 by implication) is also the only example in the NT where soma is spoken of as being able to be killed or destroyed apart from psuche, or life, necessarily being killed or destroyed as well. This, too, forces us to understand Christ’s use of psuche and apokteino in Matt 10:28 as being exceptions to how the terms are used throughout the NT.
The fact that there is only one other example in all of Scripture in which “body and soul” are spoken of as being “destroyed” (Isaiah 10:16-18), is reason enough for this example to be taken into consideration when seeking to interpret Matthew 10:28 and its parallel in Luke 12. And when we do that, it becomes clear that for body and soul to be “destroyed” is equivalent to what happens when “a sick man wastes away.” Thus, any objection to the word “kill” being understood in a limited sense in Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:4-5 on the grounds that it would be an exception to the rule overlooks the following facts: 1) that soma is clearly being used in a limited sense in Matthew just four chapters back, 2) that Christ’s distinguishing between soma and psuche is itself an exception to how the words are used throughout Scripture, 3) that psuche is being used by Christ as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew nephash, which nowhere denotes that which is popularly thought of as the “immortal soul”; and 4) that the only other example in Scripture where “body and soul” are said to be “destroyed” is in Isaiah 10:16-18, which provides no support for (and is in fact against) the traditional understanding of Matt 10:28.
The warning is to the body of Christ. 
and it’s going on 5 years ago or so. But I found a whole paradigm change was necessary for me. The gospel, as I understood it, was about salvation from eternal damnation in Hell. If Hell was not what I had understood it to be, then what are we saved from??? If something as fundamental to Christianity as the nature of Hell was incorrect, what else in my world view was also wrong? These and other questions had to be dealt with. A lot of subtle and not so subtle changes of belief were necessary.
