I must give you credit..you got me questioning other believers about the idea of eternal punishment..like I said it does not sit well with me either..never has..It makes more sense that we would simply cease to exist..as many Bible verse seem to imply..I can understand God wiping out people because they chose to become so evil..but eternal punishment i can not comprehend a loving God doing..I agree with you here. This article makes sense to me Biblically..I wonder how it will sit with other believers that believe in an eternal hell for non believers?
What is the Biblical Meaning of Perish?
.The Wicked Shall Perish: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). A double enunciation of the truth is couched in this short text. It is that eternal life is to be obtained only through Christ, and that all who do not thus obtain it will eventually perish. John testifies further on the same point in his first epistle (1 John 5:11): "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." From which it follows, as a most natural consequence, that "he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Verse 12.
Dr. Weymouth, head master of Mill Hill School, and one of the finest Greek scholars, says, "My mind fails to conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language than when the five or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, signifying 'destroy,' or 'destruction,' are explained to mean maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence. To translate black as white is nothing to this." http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/death/perish.php#.WKsXhzsrKM-