The Greek verb emballo means to throw into or cast into. In the New Testament, it appears in Luke 12:5 in Jesus's teaching about the fear of God, where He warns about the one who has authority to cast (emballo) into Gehenna.
In Luke 12:4โ5, Jesus distinguishes between the fear of men (who can only kill the body) and the fear of God (who 'after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell'). The verb emballo โ thrown into โ emphasizes the active, decisive nature of divine judgment. This is not a gradual fading into nonexistence but a definitive act of God's justice. Theologically, the passage establishes the proper ordering of fear: human threats, however severe, are limited to the temporal; divine judgment is ultimate and final. True wisdom, therefore, is to fear God above all else. This fear is not terror for the believer โ for 'perfect love casts out fear' (1 John 4:18) โ but reverent awe that properly orients the whole life.