Do you know that allowing the words perish and everlasting life in the following passages to have their common everyday meaning, we have a clear statement of these great truths: "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 (Adventist)

Reply: If you do not know that we must go to the New Testament use of words to get their correct meaning, you better "brush up." For example, take baptism in its "common everyday meaning," and what have you? Sprinkling, pouring, or immersion. Is this the N.T. meaning? No, for the Greek word in the N. T., baptisma, means "immersion, submersion."—Thayer. "Everlasting," aioonios, eternal, "without end never to cease. "—Thayer. And this term is applied to the "punishment," kolakeia, of the unjust as well as to the enjoyment of the just. Jesus says, "And these shall go away into (aioovion kolasin) eternal punishment, but the righteous into (aioovion zooeen) eternal life." (Mt. 25:46.) Kolasis, punishment, "torment" (I John 4:18). The Concordant renders it "chastening." And Paul says "tribulation and anguish." (Rom. 2:7.) Kolasis, chastisement," as Berry defines it, a "sorer punishment," says Paul, than death without mercy (Heb. 10:29.)

Apooleia, here rendered perish, is rendered eight times perdition; five times destruction; twice waste; once each die, perish, damnation, damnable, pernicious ways. And here it means "the loss of eternal life" which results in "eternal misery perdition, Thayer.