PERDITION

Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.  (John 17:12)

Jesus prays in respect of twelve men, those the heavenly Father gave into his care, and he reflects that he discharged his duty even to Judas, who he calls the ‘son of perdition’.  Judas he ‘lost’; and the translation is of the Koine Greek verb, ἀπόλλυμι apollumi, which is formed from the prefix apo, ‘away from’, and ollymi, ‘to destroy’, thus, ‘to utterly destroy after being cut away’.

Judas hanged himself and, in circumstances that are tantamount to the bathetic, ‘falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out’, Acts 1:18.

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HELL

Hell is not a subject for polite conversation.  Surely, in these modern times, free of superstition, the concept of eternal damnation is not only offensive but ludicrous?  Of course, for any that are atheist, Hell has no meaning.  But for the Christian, on what do they base this assessment of irrelevance?  If the Bible is wrong on Hell, then how is ‘right’ on Heaven or Paradise?  Some Christians avoid speaking about Hell, while others deny Jesus’ teaching on the subject.  In this post, I examine what the Bible has to say about Hell.

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SALVATION (security of)

salvation

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. (Titus 2:11)

 The word in Greek that is translated as ‘salvation’ is σωτηρία sótéria (Strong’s 4991).  In Titus, Paul uses the adjectival form, and the sense is of deliverance; this begs the preposition, ‘from’.  From what is anyone delivered or saved?  God offers through Christ, His grace personified, to save individuals from a terrible judgment and ultimate expulsion from His communion.

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