Tartaro-o is used only in the following text:
“God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.” 2 Pet. 2:4.
From these references it will be seen that hades is the place of the dead whether righteous or wicked, from which they are brought only by a resurrection. Rev. 20:13. On the contrary, Gehenna is the place into which the wicked are to be cast alive with all their members, to be destroyed soul and body. These places, therefore, are not to be confounded together.
Now the punishment against which the text warns us, is not a punishment in hades, the state or place of the dead, but in Gehenna, which is not inflicted till after the resurrection. Therefore we affirm that the text contains no evidence whatever of the condition of man in death, but passes over the entire period from the death of the body to the resurrection. And this is further evident from the record in Luke: “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell.”
Luke does not use the term, soul, at all; yet he expresses the same sentiment as Matthew. Man can kill the body or destroy this present life; but he can accomplish no destruction beyond that. But God can not only kill the body, or destroy the present life, but he can cast into Gehenna, or destroy the life that we have beyond the resurrection. These two things alone the text has in view. And now when we remember that psuche, the word here rendered, soul, often means life, either the present or future, and is forty times in the New Testament so rendered, the text is freed from all difficulty. The word, kill, to be sure is not such as would naturally be used in connection with life; but the word, destroy, which is among the definitions of the original word, apokteino, can be appropriately used with life. Thus, fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to destroy the future life; but rather fear him who is able to destroy the body and put an end to all future life in hell. And it is worthy of notice that the destruction in hell here threatened is not inflicted upon a person without his body. Nothing is said about God’s destroying the soul alone; but it is at some point beyond this life, when the person again has a body: which is not till after the resurrection.
Another declaration from the lips of our Lord, found in Matt. 16:25, 26, will throw some light on our present subject: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” The word soul should here be rendered life. Dr. Clarke, on verse 26, says: “On what authority many here translate the word psuche in the 25th verse, life, and in this verse, soul, I know not, but am certain it means life in both places.”
But let us take the expressions, “soul” and “to lose the soul,” in the popular sense, and what should we have? Whosoever will save his soul (to save the soul meaning to save it from hell) shall lose it (that is shall go into hell torments): but whosoever will lose his soul (suffer eternal misery) for my sake, shall find it (shall be saved in Heaven). This makes utter nonsense of the passage, and so is a sufficient condemnation of the view which makes such an interpretation necessary.
The passage simply refers to the present and future life. Thus, whosoever will save his life, that is, will deny Christ and his gospel for the sake of avoiding persecution, or of preserving his present life, he shall lose it in the world to come, when God shall destroy both soul and body in Gehenna; but he who shall lose his present life if need be, for the sake of Christ and his cause, shall find it in the world to come, when eternal life is given to all the overcomers.
Here the life is spoken of as something which can be lost and found again. Between the losing and finding no one can claim that it maintains a conscious existence. And what is meant by finding it? Simply that God will bestow it upon us in the future beyond the resurrection. So what is meant by the expression that man cannot kill it? Simply the same thing, that God will, in the resurrection, endow us with life again, a life which is beyond the power of man.
The life of all men is in the hands of God. The body was formed of the dust, but the life was imparted by God. Man, by sin, has made this present life a temporary one. But through the plan of salvation, by which the human race was placed upon a second probation, after Adam’s fall, with the privilege of still gaining eternal life, a future life is decreed for all; for there shall be a resurrection of the just and unjust. With the righteous, this life will be eternal; for they have secured the forgiveness of all their sins through Jesus Christ; but with the wicked, it will soon end in the second death; for they have thrown away their golden privilege, and clung to their sins, the wages of which is death. Man may hasten the close of this present temporary life, may cut it short by killing the body, for some years before it would close in the natural course of events; but that future life, which in the purpose of God is as sure as his own throne, they cannot touch.