I reflect differently on the suggestions that these songs provide. This song gives ME the courage to do god’s work if necessary. Bear in mind, that we need confidence or bravery to be operative. Our human body needs to be exercised in various many adjectives to be disciplined and to refine the human and share the wonders and abilities our human form and its capacities. That you for making this available.
Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul (Not in the new song book)
by slimboyfat 26 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Biahi
I remember that song. I asked my parents if we SHOULD fear those who kill the body, because we have no soul? In their teachings. That is one of those (many) times that I was warned not to “think too much” because I will “think myself right out of the truth”.
-
Gorb
It is a scary song melody, in my memories.
G.
-
LongHairGal
GORB:
I remember this awful song as well.🤮
-
HereIam60
...Just trying to refresh my own memory here... I think the explanarion given in the now-long-ago 'You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth" study book was that the "soul" was the Person, the living combination of the physical body and the spirit, or "life force" that Jehovah placed within it.
Scriptures used being Ezekiel 18:4 (The soul that is sinning will die...) and Ecclesistes 12:7 (...the dust returns to the earth...the spirit returns to the true God who gave it.) At death the body ceases functioning and eventually decays, and the 'spirit' /'life force returns to God, who gave it, and who can re-create the body and restore the spirit, of those in his memory, bringing back that unique individual Person.Thus the original body can be killed, but the soul/Person cannot be destroyed, as Jehovah always has the power to bring him back if he so chooses
They used to go into explanations of the Hebrew "nephesh" and Greek "Psyche" but that has long since been dropped, and since the 2013 revision of the New World Translatiion, the world Soul is very rarely used in Watchtower writing, although Matthew 10:28 still reads "...cannot destroy the soul..." with a footnote stating "or life, that is life prospects
I am not maintaining that this is a correct interperetation, just trying to recall what I was taught...
-
moomanchu
Thank you for reminding me of this classic and profound song and 867-53-ohhh-9.
-
aqwsed12345
The Soul and Eternal Punishment - Matthew 10:28 Oh, the tragicomedy of Watchtower exegesis: where the plain words of Jesus are run through the theological meat grinder and spat out as theological mush to suit Brooklyn’s ever-shifting dogmas. Here we are, forced to revisit the Watchtower’s tired, reductionist reading of Matthew 10:28, a text that for nearly two thousand years has terrified the conscience of saints and martyrs—until the Governing Body decided that “soul” just means “future life potential,” and annihilationism is somehow the “good news.”
Let’s be clear: Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” That’s not cryptic. That’s not code. That’s not a wink-wink-nudge-nudge about future resurrection prospects. That’s a direct, existential warning about the stakes of eternity and the ultimate irrelevance of earthly threats. But try telling that to someone who gets their theology from Watchtower tracts and not from the Bible, church history, or, God forbid, the actual Greek text.
Let’s torch the straw men one by one, shall we?
First, the JW anthropological monism—the asinine idea that humans are just animated meat, that “soul” is nothing more than a biological phenomenon, and that the death of the body is the extinction of the self. According to this pop-materialism, once you’re dead, you’re as conscious as a sack of potatoes, until Jehovah’s perfect memory recreates you as a clone in a Millennial Disneyland. Meanwhile, your “soul” is as dead as the disco, apparently. And yet, these same apologists insist on defending the text—“fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul”—by making “soul” mean... what exactly? A record in God’s cloud storage? An insurance policy for possible resurrection? Is this what passes for theological rigor in the Kingdom Hall?
Let’s actually read the text, not Watchtower’s footnotes:
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Here, two things are made explicit: (1) the soul is NOT identical to the body, because man can kill the body, but NOT the soul; and (2) there is a kind of death worse than mere bodily death—a destruction in Gehenna, executed by God, that involves both body and soul. In other words: the “soul” isn’t destroyed by human violence, and isn’t annihilated by physical death. If it were, Jesus’ words would make no sense. If “soul” just means “life” or “person,” and killing the body is ipso facto killing the soul, then what is left for God to do in Gehenna? Play Scrabble with your DNA?
But of course, the Watchtower loves eisegesis: instead of letting the text say what it says, they shovel in their own meanings with all the subtlety of a backhoe. “Soul just means ‘future life potential’”—yes, and Shakespeare’s ‘To be or not to be’ is about job prospects, I suppose. If “soul” only means your future chance of being resurrected, why on earth would Jesus contrast the limited power of men with the unlimited, ultimate power of God? Why would he even bother with the distinction? It becomes a completely pointless tautology: “Don’t fear men, because they can only kill you; instead fear God, because He can... also kill you, but might choose not to bring you back.” Riveting.
But let’s go further. If you want to play the language game, let’s do it: the Greek word here for “destroy” (ἀπολέσαι, apolesai) is the same word used throughout the New Testament, and it never means annihilation in a metaphysical sense. It means to ruin, to lose, to render useless, to consign to a state of utter loss. The same verb is used of the “lost sheep,” the “ruined wineskins,” even of the Prodigal Son (“was lost and is found”—Luke 15:24). Was the lost sheep annihilated out of existence? Did the prodigal vanish into non-being? This is basic lexical analysis, not Watchtower make-believe.
And let’s not ignore the parallel passage in Luke 12:4-5, which the Watchtower conveniently avoids. There Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell (Gehenna). Yes, I tell you, fear him!” If death is nonexistence, what’s the big deal about being thrown into Gehenna after you’re already dead? Do you threaten the non-existent with more non-existence? The logic is preposterous. Jesus’ whole point is the existence of a punishment beyond physical death—otherwise, his warning is pointless.
Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on the comic absurdity that is the Watchtower’s “life prospects” theory. Are we to imagine that Jesus is warning: “Fear God, because He can delete your file from His hard drive, and you’ll never get downloaded again”? That isn’t theology; that’s IT support.
And what of the Christian tradition and the earliest Christian writers? Justin Martyr, in the mid-2nd century—not a Trinitarian, not a Catholic, not a medieval scholastic—interpreted this verse as a warning of post-mortem, conscious punishment. The same goes for Tertullian, Athenagoras, and the entire early church. The idea that the soul persists, that it is not subject to human violence, and that it faces ultimate judgment from God, is not some Babylonian innovation but the baseline, universal belief of the Christian movement until the theological illiterates in Brooklyn started passing out magazines.
Let’s not forget: even the Jews of Jesus’ day—except for a handful of Sadducees whom nobody took seriously—believed in the survival of the soul and post-mortem recompense. This is confirmed by Josephus, the Book of Wisdom, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament itself (see Luke 16:19–31, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where both are conscious after death).
Meanwhile, the annihilationist/JW view can’t explain a whole host of texts:
- Matthew 25:46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment (κόλασιν αἰώνιον), but the righteous into eternal life.” If “eternal punishment” just means non-existence, it’s a punishment you’re never conscious of—hardly what the word “punishment” means in any language, anywhere, ever.
- Revelation 14:10-11: “They will be tormented with fire and sulfur... and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.” Non-existent people don’t experience “no rest” or “torment.” Only conscious beings can be said to “have no rest day or night.”
- 2 Thessalonians 1:9: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord.” Destruction here is relational and existential loss, not ceasing to exist.
But perhaps most ironically, the Watchtower itself had to silence the words of Jesus—removing “Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” from its own songbook, because it so blatantly contradicts their doctrine. When your theology can’t survive being sung, it’s time to consider whether you’re even still in the business of Christianity.
So, to sum up: The JW reading of Matthew 10:28 is a masterclass in dishonest interpretation, a monument to theological wishful thinking, and a sad testament to the intellectual bankruptcy of annihilationism and monism. Jesus’ words stand in judgment against all such revisionism. Men can kill the body; only God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. That’s not about “life prospects,” “cloud storage,” or a resurrection lottery. That’s about the ultimate reality of the human person: body and soul, judged by God, and destined for eternal life or loss. Face it—or run away singing Watchtower-approved lyrics, your choice.