Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Even though the New Testament was originally written in Greek, it was still written by Jews (except for the books of Luke and Acts which were both penned by Luke who was not of Jewish descent). Thus the correlating Greek words will mean the same thing as the Hebrew words. The Greek word Hades is translated hell ten times and grave once but like sheol it simply means grave, not hell in the popular sense. You can look it up in Strongs Concordance too if you'd like; it is word G86. Here are a few verses with hades along with my comments on some of them:
1 Corinthians 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave [hades], where is thy victory?
Revelation 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [hades] and of death.
Who is it that will call people out of their graves at the resurrection? Jesus, of course. So He holds the keys out of the grave. That's why Job said he wanted the Lord to hide him in sheol/the grave till the day of the Messiah. Job knew he would not be in heaven or hell, but merely in the grave with no conscious thought. His suffering would end and when he was resurrected he would get to be with the Lord for eternity. Okay, two more:
Revelation 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [hades] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Revelation 20:14 And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
If hell is already a fiery underworld, why cast it into the lake of fire? That makes no sense. Think about it. Supposedly it says the realm of fire will be cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed by the fire... huh?!? But verse 14 makes sense if you think of it as the grave, not hell, being destroyed for all time. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave [hades], where is thy victory?" Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:26? He said "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Well when death is destroyed the grave will be destroyed with it. Amen.
As you may recall, I ended Part 2 by mentioning the pit is also a symbol for imprisonment along with being the grave. When you realize that it makes Revelation chapter 20 a little easier to understand. Let's talk about the 1st 3 verses.
Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Revelation 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Revelation 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Many people think the bottomless pit is hell but what it actually symbolizes is the surface of the earth. I covered that in another study but I'll briefly recap it here. At the return of Christ the first resurrection takes place. This is the resurrection of the dead in Christ; they along with the Christians who are alive at the time of Christ's return will be taken to New Jerusalem for 1000 years. Everybody who was alive at the time but not saved will be killed. Then at the end of the 1000 years the second resurrection, the resurrection of the unsaved, will take place. Here is the scripture to back that up:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
This sequence of events, which is popularly called the Rapture, takes place in the following order. During the last 7 plagues when the wrath of God is poured out on the earth, the 6th plague happens, then Jesus returns to fulfill the events from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Then the 7th and final plague kills all the wicked who are unsaved. Despite popular belief there is no second chance at salvation after the rapture. Revelation chapter 16 describes the last 7 plagues, which are symbolically referred to as the vials of wrath in the King James Version or the bowls of wrath in many English translations. Revelation chapter 16 goes through the plagues/vials of wrath in order. In verse 12 the 6th plague happens, then skip ahead a couple of verses to verse 15 and Jesus says "Behold, I come as a thief ..." which matches 1 Thessalonians 5:2. Then in Revelation 16:17 the 7th and final plague happens with "a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done." This is the "sudden destruction" that "they shall not escape" from in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Comparing scripture to scripture we will match these things up with Revelation 20:4-5.
Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Those verses talk about the people who are "caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" from 1 Thessalonians 4:17 who will live and reign with Christ 1000 years which is the first resurrection. But the rest of the dead, the unsaved, won't be resurrected "until the thousand years were finished." Okay, so where will all the people who were killed in the 7th plague be? Their corpses will be left behind where they died, since the saved won't be around to bury them. That means the surface of the earth will be littered with dead bodies. Dead bodies as far as the eye could see if anybody were there to see them. This is "the bottomless pit" mentioned in Revelation 20:1 & 20:3. The earth will be one unending mass grave. The bottomless pit is not the mythical hell people think it is. The pit is the grave so the bottomless pit is a never-ending grave. But the grave also symbolizes a prison remember? Who is that is imprisoned for those 1000 years? Satan and his fallen angels that's who. Revelation 20:1-3 says "... an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled..." The "great chain" and being "bound a thousand years" is symbolic. Satan is trapped in the bottomless pit because he cannot "deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled." As it says in Jude 1:6 "the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." The judgment of the great day happens after the second resurrection when the unsaved are brought back to life and Satan is able to convince them to try going to war with the saints in the beloved city. Then God judges them all as condemned and He reigns fire down on them, turning the surface of the earth into a lake of fire. As 2 Peter 3:10 says "... the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Let's look at how Revelation chapter 20 describes it.
Revelation 20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Revelation 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
[Remember verse 3 describes Satan's prison sentence like this - "he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season." That is what verses 7 and 8 are describing.]
Revelation 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them [this is judgment of the great day which Jude 1:6 was describing and it's also the day of the Lord where the elements will be melted and the earth burned up in 2 Peter 3:10].
To recap, the bottomless pit is the surface of the earth as a mass grave... the same mass grave which symbolizes Satan's prison for 1000 years.
The term "bottomless pit" shows up in scripture 7 times total, all of them in the book of Revelation. It is found in Revelation 9:1-2, Revelation 9:11, Revelation 11:7, Revelation 17:8, Revelation 20:1, & Revelation 20:3. The earth has been the prison of Satan and his angels from the time they were cast out of heaven and death happens countless times daily on this planet since the fall of man, so earth has always been the devil's prison and an endless tomb of death. Earth is the bottomless pit.
A quick side note. This is off topic, but Revelation 20:8 mentions the names Gog and Magog. There is a ton of speculation in our churches and online about who Gog and Magog are, with the most popular opinion being they represent the countries of Russia and Iran. Well, take a second look at Revelation 20:7-8 and it tells you exactly who Gog and Magog really are. It says Satan will be freed from his prison and deceive the nations, then it identifies Satan and the deceived nations as Gog and Magog. Gog is Satan, Magog is the deceived nations, and together they are gathered for battle against the saints. Revelation also says this war of Gog & Magog happens 1000 years after Christ's return yet the people who think it is Russia and Iran think it will happen sometime very soon. I think they are mistaken. Just thought I point that out.
Now back to the topic at hand...
Okay, so I'll wrap this study up with the other two Greek words beside hades which is translated as hell in the New Testament. They are tartarus which only occurs one time and gehenna which occurs 12 times. In fact Jesus used the word gehenna 11 of the 12 times occurs in the New Testament, with James 3:6 "... it is set of fire of hell" [gehenna] being the only time someone besides Jesus used that word in the original Greek. If you want to see every occurrence of gehenna as hell go to this link https://www.blueletterbible.org/ and type G1067 in the search box. Here are two examples of it.
Matthew 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? [gehenna]
Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell [gehenna]; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
Gehenna was a place south of Jerusalem. It was the place where the city's refuse and the bodies of dead animals were burned. It literally was a place where the trash was burned. As harsh as it sounds Jesus was warning people they would be burned as trash in the lake of fire. And Revelation 20:9 and 20:14-15 do promise the wicked will burn after the second resurrection. So if you want to call hell a place of burning I suppose that is true, it just isn't the underworld hell we've been taught all our lives. And the wicked will burn until they are all dead, not for all future time as most people believe.
The one other word translated as hell is tartarus (Strongs concordance G5020) which only occurs once when Peter used it in the following verse.
2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Tartarus means prison, a place of incarceration. When Satan and the other fallen angels sinned against God they were cast out of heaven, down to earth which became their prison, their tartarus, to be reserved for judgment. And in case you didn't read my other study where I revealed what the bible really says about Satan being destroyed in the lake of fire, the biblical truth is even Satan and his demons will be killed when "the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" so ultimately the earth is both their prison and their grave. Hell truly is the grave.
I pray this study has been a blessing for you. Amen.
Click here for Part 2
Even though the New Testament was originally written in Greek, it was still written by Jews (except for the books of Luke and Acts which were both penned by Luke who was not of Jewish descent). Thus the correlating Greek words will mean the same thing as the Hebrew words. The Greek word Hades is translated hell ten times and grave once but like sheol it simply means grave, not hell in the popular sense. You can look it up in Strongs Concordance too if you'd like; it is word G86. Here are a few verses with hades along with my comments on some of them:
1 Corinthians 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave [hades], where is thy victory?
Revelation 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [hades] and of death.
Who is it that will call people out of their graves at the resurrection? Jesus, of course. So He holds the keys out of the grave. That's why Job said he wanted the Lord to hide him in sheol/the grave till the day of the Messiah. Job knew he would not be in heaven or hell, but merely in the grave with no conscious thought. His suffering would end and when he was resurrected he would get to be with the Lord for eternity. Okay, two more:
Revelation 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [hades] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Revelation 20:14 And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
If hell is already a fiery underworld, why cast it into the lake of fire? That makes no sense. Think about it. Supposedly it says the realm of fire will be cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed by the fire... huh?!? But verse 14 makes sense if you think of it as the grave, not hell, being destroyed for all time. "O death, where is thy sting? O grave [hades], where is thy victory?" Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:26? He said "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Well when death is destroyed the grave will be destroyed with it. Amen.
As you may recall, I ended Part 2 by mentioning the pit is also a symbol for imprisonment along with being the grave. When you realize that it makes Revelation chapter 20 a little easier to understand. Let's talk about the 1st 3 verses.
Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Revelation 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Revelation 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Many people think the bottomless pit is hell but what it actually symbolizes is the surface of the earth. I covered that in another study but I'll briefly recap it here. At the return of Christ the first resurrection takes place. This is the resurrection of the dead in Christ; they along with the Christians who are alive at the time of Christ's return will be taken to New Jerusalem for 1000 years. Everybody who was alive at the time but not saved will be killed. Then at the end of the 1000 years the second resurrection, the resurrection of the unsaved, will take place. Here is the scripture to back that up:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
This sequence of events, which is popularly called the Rapture, takes place in the following order. During the last 7 plagues when the wrath of God is poured out on the earth, the 6th plague happens, then Jesus returns to fulfill the events from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Then the 7th and final plague kills all the wicked who are unsaved. Despite popular belief there is no second chance at salvation after the rapture. Revelation chapter 16 describes the last 7 plagues, which are symbolically referred to as the vials of wrath in the King James Version or the bowls of wrath in many English translations. Revelation chapter 16 goes through the plagues/vials of wrath in order. In verse 12 the 6th plague happens, then skip ahead a couple of verses to verse 15 and Jesus says "Behold, I come as a thief ..." which matches 1 Thessalonians 5:2. Then in Revelation 16:17 the 7th and final plague happens with "a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done." This is the "sudden destruction" that "they shall not escape" from in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Comparing scripture to scripture we will match these things up with Revelation 20:4-5.
Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Those verses talk about the people who are "caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" from 1 Thessalonians 4:17 who will live and reign with Christ 1000 years which is the first resurrection. But the rest of the dead, the unsaved, won't be resurrected "until the thousand years were finished." Okay, so where will all the people who were killed in the 7th plague be? Their corpses will be left behind where they died, since the saved won't be around to bury them. That means the surface of the earth will be littered with dead bodies. Dead bodies as far as the eye could see if anybody were there to see them. This is "the bottomless pit" mentioned in Revelation 20:1 & 20:3. The earth will be one unending mass grave. The bottomless pit is not the mythical hell people think it is. The pit is the grave so the bottomless pit is a never-ending grave. But the grave also symbolizes a prison remember? Who is that is imprisoned for those 1000 years? Satan and his fallen angels that's who. Revelation 20:1-3 says "... an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled..." The "great chain" and being "bound a thousand years" is symbolic. Satan is trapped in the bottomless pit because he cannot "deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled." As it says in Jude 1:6 "the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." The judgment of the great day happens after the second resurrection when the unsaved are brought back to life and Satan is able to convince them to try going to war with the saints in the beloved city. Then God judges them all as condemned and He reigns fire down on them, turning the surface of the earth into a lake of fire. As 2 Peter 3:10 says "... the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Let's look at how Revelation chapter 20 describes it.
Revelation 20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Revelation 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
[Remember verse 3 describes Satan's prison sentence like this - "he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season." That is what verses 7 and 8 are describing.]
Revelation 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them [this is judgment of the great day which Jude 1:6 was describing and it's also the day of the Lord where the elements will be melted and the earth burned up in 2 Peter 3:10].
To recap, the bottomless pit is the surface of the earth as a mass grave... the same mass grave which symbolizes Satan's prison for 1000 years.
The term "bottomless pit" shows up in scripture 7 times total, all of them in the book of Revelation. It is found in Revelation 9:1-2, Revelation 9:11, Revelation 11:7, Revelation 17:8, Revelation 20:1, & Revelation 20:3. The earth has been the prison of Satan and his angels from the time they were cast out of heaven and death happens countless times daily on this planet since the fall of man, so earth has always been the devil's prison and an endless tomb of death. Earth is the bottomless pit.
A quick side note. This is off topic, but Revelation 20:8 mentions the names Gog and Magog. There is a ton of speculation in our churches and online about who Gog and Magog are, with the most popular opinion being they represent the countries of Russia and Iran. Well, take a second look at Revelation 20:7-8 and it tells you exactly who Gog and Magog really are. It says Satan will be freed from his prison and deceive the nations, then it identifies Satan and the deceived nations as Gog and Magog. Gog is Satan, Magog is the deceived nations, and together they are gathered for battle against the saints. Revelation also says this war of Gog & Magog happens 1000 years after Christ's return yet the people who think it is Russia and Iran think it will happen sometime very soon. I think they are mistaken. Just thought I point that out.
Now back to the topic at hand...
Okay, so I'll wrap this study up with the other two Greek words beside hades which is translated as hell in the New Testament. They are tartarus which only occurs one time and gehenna which occurs 12 times. In fact Jesus used the word gehenna 11 of the 12 times occurs in the New Testament, with James 3:6 "... it is set of fire of hell" [gehenna] being the only time someone besides Jesus used that word in the original Greek. If you want to see every occurrence of gehenna as hell go to this link https://www.blueletterbible.org/ and type G1067 in the search box. Here are two examples of it.
Matthew 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? [gehenna]
Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell [gehenna]; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
Gehenna was a place south of Jerusalem. It was the place where the city's refuse and the bodies of dead animals were burned. It literally was a place where the trash was burned. As harsh as it sounds Jesus was warning people they would be burned as trash in the lake of fire. And Revelation 20:9 and 20:14-15 do promise the wicked will burn after the second resurrection. So if you want to call hell a place of burning I suppose that is true, it just isn't the underworld hell we've been taught all our lives. And the wicked will burn until they are all dead, not for all future time as most people believe.
The one other word translated as hell is tartarus (Strongs concordance G5020) which only occurs once when Peter used it in the following verse.
2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Tartarus means prison, a place of incarceration. When Satan and the other fallen angels sinned against God they were cast out of heaven, down to earth which became their prison, their tartarus, to be reserved for judgment. And in case you didn't read my other study where I revealed what the bible really says about Satan being destroyed in the lake of fire, the biblical truth is even Satan and his demons will be killed when "the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" so ultimately the earth is both their prison and their grave. Hell truly is the grave.
I pray this study has been a blessing for you. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment