Dictionaries :: Perdition

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Perdition:

per-dish'-un (apoleia, "ruin" or "loss," physical or eternal): The word "perdition" occurs in the English Bible 8 times (Joh 17:12; Php 1:28; 2Th 2:3; 1Ti 6:9; Heb 10:39; 2Pe 3:7; Re 17:11,18). In each of these cases it denotes the final state of ruin and punishment which forms the opposite to salvation. The verb apolluein, from which the word is derived, has two meanings:

(1) to lose;

(2) to destroy.

Both of these pass over to the noun, so that apoleia comes to signify:

(1) loss;

(2) ruin, destruction.

The former occurs in Mt 26:8; Mr 14:4, the latter in the passages cited above. Both meanings had been adopted into the religious terminology of the Scriptures as early as the Septuagint. "To be lost" in the religious sense may mean "to be missing" and "to be ruined," The former meaning attaches to it in the teaching of Jesus, who compares the lost sinner to the missing coin, the missing sheep, and makes him the object of a seeking activity (Mt 10:6; 15:24; 18:11; Lu 15:4,6,8,24,32; 19:10). "To be lost" here signifies to have become estranged from God, to miss realizing the relations which man normally sustains toward Him. It is equivalent to what is theologically called "spiritual death." This conception of "loss" enters also into the description of the eschatological fate of the sinner as assigned in the judgment (Lu 9:24; 17:33), which is a loss of life. The other meaning of "ruin" and "destruction" describes the same thing from a different point of view. Apoleia being the opposite of soteria, and soteria in its technical usage denoting the reclaiming from death unto life, apoleia also acquires the specific sense of such ruin and destruction as involves an eternal loss of life (Php 1:28; Heb 10:39). Perdition in this latter sense is equivalent to what theology calls "eternal death." When in Re 17:8,11 it is predicated of "the beast," one of the forms of the world-power, this must be understood on the basis of the Old Testament prophetic representation according to which the coming judgment deals with powers rather than persons.

The Son of Perdition is a name given to Judas (Joh 17:12) and to the Antichrist (2Th 2:3). This is the well-known Hebrew idiom by which a person typically embodying a certain trait or character or destiny is called the son of that thing. The name therefore represents Judas and the Antichrist (see MAN OF SIN) as most irrecoverably and completely devoted to the final apoleia.

Written by Geerhardus Vos

King James Dictionary

Perdition: Destruction.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of PERDITION. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3)

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Perdition:

For PERDITION see DESTRUCTION, No. 1