PERDITION. This word is used in the Eng. VSS of the Bible (eight times in KJV and ASV; four times in RSV), together with the word destruction, to tr. the Gr. noun ἀπώλεια, G724, which has the general meaning “destruction,” “ruin,” “loss.” Apart from its literal use (Matt 26:8; cf. Mark 14:4, of the waste of the ointment), it is used in the NT in a metaphorical sense of the doom of the enemies of God. Judas Iscariot is described as “the son of perdition,” a Sem. phrase meaning “the one doomed for perdition” (John 17:12). The same phrase is used of the eschatological “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2:3). The two remaining uses of “perdition” in the RSV are in Revelation 17:8, 11, where the beast is said to go away to perdition (cf. 20:10), where, with the devil and the false prophet, he is thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, and is tormented for ever and ever. The four remaining uses of the word in KJV and ASV, together with the other eight occurrences of ἀπώλεια, G724, where it is tr. by “destruction,” all have to do with the fate of unbelievers. The perdition that awaits persecutors of the Church is contrasted with the salvation (σωτηρία, G5401) of believers (Phil 1:28). The fate of the antinomian teachers is perdition (Phil 3:19, ASV; KJV and RSV have “destruction”); but believers await the Lord’s return, which for them will result in glory. The writer of Hebrews affirms that he and his readers “are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb 10:39 KJV). From the foregoing, it appears that the meaning is not annihilation, but the state of being lost—outside the enjoyment of God’s salvation and eternal life and under God’s wrath and judgment.

Bibliography N. H. Snaith, RTWB (1950), 162; Arndt (1957), 103; J. A. Motyer, BDT (1960), 165; A. Oepke, TDNT, I (1964), 394-397; Comms. in loc.