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-
Lee Strobel, like many other skeptics, had a problem with the resurrection. Watch as he shares the evidences that lead him to a firm conviction in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1azc5-ugeyE
"God condemns murder in so many places that to accuse Him of murder (that is, the intentional killing of persons which have committed no capital offense) is ludicrous. But if illogical arguments were eliminated from the atheists’ arsenal, the apologist would have considerably less to answer." http://creation.com/evil-bible-fallacies
"The first problem area for evilbible.com is a misunderstanding of God’s Word. In its efforts to attack the Bible, the evilbible.com web site makes two key assertions: 1) the Bible is full of horrible atrocities, and 2) the Bible is full of contradictions. As to the first point, evilbible.com is absolutely correct—the Bible is indeed full of atrocities and immoral behavior. From start to finish, the Bible records many terrible things, with the worst being the premeditated murder of the innocent and perfect Son of God. But where evilbible.com’s argument in this area falls flat is that they fail to understand that the Bible does not approve of everything it records. This is absolutely crucial to understand. For example, in Judges chapters 19 and 20, the Bible records the brutal rape and murder of a young woman who was a Levite’s concubine. Moreover, the actions of the Levite are less than honorable, and the crime results in a vicious civil war within the nation of Israel. But a careful reading of the text will show no approval of the actions that took place, and no commendation from God for the Levite’s behavior. So evilbible.com’s argument that atrocities being recorded in Scripture prove that it isn’t God’s Word simply does not hold up."
