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"damnable" heresies, of "pernicious ways" and eight times of "perdition". John 17: 12
uses this term of Judas, who is called the son of perdition, and II Thess. 2: 3 uses the
same title for "the man of sin".
We must not omit to consider the bearing of context when attempting to interpret any
word in Scripture, and we find that the word "perdition" in Hebrews is set in a context of
persecution, long endurance, with the prospect of a "great recompense of reward", but
that owing to the wearing down of patience and the frailty of the strongest under trial,
there was a need to urge these tempted souls to cast not away their confidence, to
remember that a little while and He that shall come will come and will not tarry and that
during this hour of testing "the just shall live by faith"; the alternative being the drawing
back unto perdition. In Phil. 3: we find the Apostle using the same words "perfect"
and "perdition" in close connection with the attaining to the prize of the high calling:
"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after
. . . . . I press . . . . . for the prize" (Phil. 3: 12-14).
Then follows the warning concerning those whose example is evil, who by their
attitude make themselves enemies of the cross,
"whose end is perdition (destruction)" (Phil. 3: 17-19).
It is not conceivable that believers who had reached so high a standard as these
Philippians should need to be exhorted not to follow the ungodly pagans among
whom their lot was cast. The warning is uttered about the example of Christians,
whose God is their belly, who glory in their shame, who mind earthly things, who by
their self-indulgence antagonize all that the "cross" stands for, in contrast with those
whose conversation is in heaven. We observe that in Heb. 10:, the loss of a "reward" is
in view; in Phil. 3:, the loss of the "prize" is in view. Further light upon the intention
of the apostle in Heb. 10:, may be gathered from the use of apoleia in Matt. 26: 8,
where it is used in a non-doctrinal sense:
"But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this
WASTE?"
In I Corinthians we have those who are "perfect" (I Cor. 2: 6) placed over against
those who were "babes", who were fed with "milk" and not with "meat", just as we have
in Heb. 5: In Heb. 6:, the apostle introduces the figure of husbandry, even as he does
in I Cor. 3: 9 and says:
"That which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is NIGH UNTO cursing; whose
end is to be burned" (Heb. 6: 8),
and these thus figured lacked those things that "accompany salvation" not salvation itself.
So in I Cor. 3::
"If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer LOSS: but he himself shall be
saved; yet so as by fire" (I Cor. 3: 15).