“And I say unto you, my friends. Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” Luke 12:4, 5. The estimate which immaterialists put upon these texts is thus expressed by Mr. Landis, p. 181: “This text [Matt, 10:28] therefore must continue to stand as the testimony of the Son of God in favor of the soul’s immortality, and his solemn condemnation of the soul-ruining errors of the annihilation and Sadducean doctrine.” We reply: Mr. L. evidently applies the argument to a wrong issue; for whatever it may teach concerning the intermediate state, it is most positively against the doctrine of eternal misery, and the consequent immortality of the soul. It teaches that God can destroy the soul in hell; and there is no force in our Lord’s warning unless we understand it to affirm that he will thus destroy the souls of the wicked. We never could with any propriety be warned to fear a person because he could do that which he never designed to do, and never would do. We are to fear the civil magistrate to such a degree, at least, as not to offend against the laws, because he has power to put those laws into execution, and visit upon us merited punishment; but our fear is to rest not simply upon the fact that he has power to do this, but upon the certainty that he will do it if we are guilty of crime. Otherwise there could be no cause of fear, and no ground for any exhortation to fear. Now we are to fear God, that is, fear to disobey him, because he is able to destroy body and soul in hell; and what is necessarily implied in this? It is implied that he certainly _will_ do this in the cases of all those who do not fear him enough to comply with his requirements. So the text is a direct affirmation that the wicked will be destroyed, both soul and body in hell. The next inquiry is, What is the meaning of the word, destroy? We answer that, take the word, soul, to mean what we will, the word, destroy, here has the same meaning and the same force as applied to the soul, that the word kill has as applied to the body in the sentence before. Whatever killing does to the body, destroying does to the soul. Don’t fear men because they cannot kill the soul as they kill the body; but fear God because he can and will kill the soul (if wicked) just as men kill the body. This is the only consistent interpretation of the language. But all well understand what it does to the body to kill it. It deprives it of all its functions and powers of life and activity. It does the same to the soul to destroy it, supposing the soul to be what is popularly supposed. The word here rendered destroy is ἀπολλύω (_appolluo_), and is defined by Greenfield, “to destroy, to kill, to put to death,” &c.