Jesus Said we Shall “Never Perish.” What Does That Mean?

Jesus said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)

Take note of the individual words of Jesus and the structure of the sentence. He uses the word neither, showing us that the statements before and after this word are stand-alone, independent truths. “They shall never perish” is a truth that stands by itself.

To know what Jesus meant by “never perish,” we must understand those two words.

This word never is defined as “at no time, on no occasion; not at all, in no way.” This word perish means “to suffer destruction; to incur spiritual death, be lost;” “to be lost eternally;” “to be damned.”

Words have meaning, and what Jesus meant by “they shall never perish” can be understood quite clearly from the meanings of never and perish.

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References:

1. “Never.” The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically, I A-O, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 1918.

2. “Perish.” The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically, II P-Z, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 2135.

3. “Perish, v.n.” A Dictionary of the English Language, by Samuel Johnson. 1755.

4. “Perish.” A Complete Christian Dictionary, by Thomas Wilson. 1661.