Rev 20:4-6 (ESV)
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority
to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded
for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had
not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on
their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ
for a thousand years. (5) The rest of the dead did not come to life until
the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed
and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the
second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ,
and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
Rev 20:12-21:4 (ESV) And I saw the
dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.
Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead
were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had
done. (13) And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades
gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them,
according to what they had done. (14) Then Death and Hades were thrown
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. (15)
And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was
thrown into the lake of fire. (21:1) Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the
sea was no more. (2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (3)
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling
place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his
people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (4) He will wipe
away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things
have passed away."
Rev 21:27 (ESV) But nothing unclean
will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but
only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
We must be careful when reading prophcey for these are two very different
events that take place over a thousand years from each other. 20:4-6 is
the first resurection also known as the Rapture. 20:12-21:4 speaks of
Judgment Day after Satan is loosen on the world.
Rev 20:7-8 (ESV) And when the thousand
years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison (8) and will come
out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,
Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand
of the sea.
How long do you think it will take Satan to gather an army that number
like the sand of the sea? Its not going to be a few days. This will be
a world that has been tought by Christ for a thousand years without Satan's
influance so I believe it will take up to a year for Satan to tempt the
first few people away from Christ. Just as with Adam and Eve, they were
in the garden for a while before Satan tempted them to eat the fruit.
We don't know how long that was, I think time ran different then, but
I am sure it was more then a few days as many others suspect, which would
explain things we see in the world that carbon date from before 4000bc,
(not that carbon dating is reliable). |
From the 'International Standard Bible Encyclopedia'
Hades
ha¯´de¯z ( Hai´de¯s,“not to be seen”):
Hades, Greek originally Haidou, in genitive, “the house of Hades,”
then, as nominative, designation of the abode of the dead itself. The
word occurs in the New Testament in Mat 11:23 (parallel Luk 10:15); Mat
16:18; Luk 16:23; Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31; Rev 1:18; Rev 6:8; Rev 20:13 f.
It is also found in Textus Receptus of the New Testament 1Co 15:55, but
here the correct reading (Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, The New Testament
in Greek, the Revised Version (British and American)) is probably Tha´nate,
“O Death,” instead of Ha´ide¯, “O Hades.”
the King James Version renders “Hades” by “hell”
in all instances except 1Co 15:55, where it puts “grave” (margin
“hell”) in dependence on Hos 13:14. the Revised Version (British
and American) everywhere has “Hades.”
1. In Old Testament: Sheol
In the Septuagint Hades is the standing equivalent for Sheol, but also
translates other terms associated with death and the state after it. The
Greek conception of Hades was that of a locality receiving into itself
all the dead, but divided into two regions, one a place of torment, the
other of blessedness. This conception should not be rashly transferred
to the New Testament, for the latter stands not under the influence of
Greek pagan belief, but gives a teaching and reflects a belief which model
their idea of Hades upon the Old Testament through the Septuagint. The
Old Testament Sheol, while formally resembling the Greek Hades in that
it is the common receptacle of all the dead, differs from it, on the one
hand, by the absence of a clearly defined division into two parts, and,
on the other hand, by the emphasis placed on its association with death
and the grave as abnormal facts following in the wake of sin. The Old
Testament thus concentrates the partial light it throws on the state after
death on the negative, undesirable side of the prospect apart from redemption.
When in the progress of Old Testament revelation the state after death
begins to assume more definite features, and becomes more sharply differentiated
in dependence on the religious and moral issue of the present life this
is not accomplished in the canonical writings (otherwise in the apocalyptic
literature) by dividing Sheol into two compartments, but by holding forth
to the righteous the promise of deliverance from Sheol, so that the latter
becomes more definitely outlined as a place of evil and punishment.
2. In the New Testament: Hades
The New Testament passages mark a distinct stage in this process, and
there is, accordingly, a true basis in Scripture for the identification
in a certain aspect of Sheol - Hades - with hell as reflected in the King
James Version. The theory according to which Hades is still in the New
Testament the undifferentiated provisional abode of all the dead until
the day of judgment, with the possibility of ultimate salvation even for
those of its inmates who have not been saved in this life, is neither
in harmony with the above development nor borne out by the facts of New
Testament usage. That dead believers abide in a local Hades cannot be
proven from 1Th 4:16; 1Co 15:23, for these passages refer to the grave
and the body, not to a gathering-place of the dead. On the other hand
Luk 23:43; 2Co 5:6-8; Php 1:23; Rev 6:9; Rev 7:9; Rev 15:2 teach that
the abode of believers immediately after death is with Christ and God.
3. Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31
It is, of course, a different matter, when Hades, as not infrequently
already the Old Testament Sheol, designates not the place of the dead
but the state of death or disembodied existence. In this sense even the
soul of Jesus was in Hades according' to Peter's statement (Acts 2:27,
Acts 2:31 - on the basis of Psa 16:10). Here the abstract sense is determined
by the parallel expression, “to see corruption” None the less
from a comparatively early date this passage has been quoted in support
of the doctrine of a local descent of Christ into Hades.
4. Rev 20:13; Rev 6:8; Rev 1:18
The same abstract meaning is indicated for Rev 20:13. Death and Hades
are here represented as delivering up the dead on the eve of the final
judgment. If this is more than a poetic duplication of terms, Hades will
stand for the personified state of death, Death for the personified cause
of this state. The personification appears plainly from Rev 20:14 : “Death
and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.” In the number of these
“dead” delivered up by Hades, believers are included, because,
even on the chiliastic interpretation of Rev 20:4-6, not all the saints
share in the first resurrection, but only those “beheaded for the
testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God,” i.e. the martyrs.
A similar personifying combination of Death and Hades occurs in Rev 6:8
(“a pale horse: and he that sat upon him his name was Death; and
Hades followed with him”). In Rev 1:18, on the other hand, Death
and Hades are represented as prisons from which Christ, in virtue of His
own resurrection, has the power to deliver, a representation which again
implies that in some, not necessarily local, sense believers also are
kept in Hades.
5. Luk 16:23
In distinction from these passages when the abstract meaning prevails
and the local conception is in abeyance, the remaining references are
more or less locally conceived. Of these Luk 16:23 is the only one which
might seem to teach that recipients of salvation enter after death into
Hades as a place of abode. It has been held that Hades is here the comprehensive
designation of the locality where the dead reside, and is divided into
two regions, “the bosom of Abraham” and the place of torment,
a representation for which Jewish parallels can be quoted, aside from
its resemblance to the Greek bisection of Hades. Against this view, however,
it may be urged, that if “the bosom of Abraham” were conceived
as one of the two divisions of Hades, the other division would have been
named with equal concreteness in connection with Dives. In point of fact,
the distinction is not between “the bosom of Abraham” and
another place, as both included in Hades, but between “the bosom
of Abraham” and Hades as antithetical and exclusive. The very form
of the description of the experience of Dives: “In Hades he lifted
up his eyes, being in torments,” leads us to associate Hades as
such with pain and punishment. The passage, therefore, does not prove
that the saved are after death in Hades. In further estimating its bearing
upon the problem of the local conditions of the disembodied life after
death, the parabolic character of the representation must be taken into
account. The parable is certainly not intended to give us topographical
information about the realm of the dead, although it presupposes that
there is a distinct place of abode for the righteous and wicked respectively.
6. Mat 11:23
The two other passages where Hades occurs in the teaching of our Lord
(Mat 11:23 parallel Luk 10:15; and Mat 16:18) make a metaphorical use
of the conception, which, however, is based on the local sense. In the
former utterance it is predicted of Capernaum that it shall in punishment
for its unbelief “go down unto Hades.” As in the Old Testament
Sheol is a figure for the greatest depths known (Deut 32:22; Isa 7:11;
Isa 57:9; Job 11:8; Job 26:6), this seems to be a figure for the extreme
of humiliation to which that city was to be reduced in the course of history.
It is true, Mat 11:24, with its mention of the day of judgment, might
seem to favor an eschatological reference to the ultimate doom of the
unbelieving inhabitants, but the usual restriction of Hades to the punishment
of the intermediate state (see below) is against this.
7. Mat 16:18
In the other passage, Mat 16:18, Jesus declares that the gates of Hades
shall not katischu´ein the church He intends to build.
The verb katischuein may be rendered, “to overpower”
or “to surpass.” If the former be adopted, the figure implied
is that of Hades as a stronghold of the power of evil or death from which
warriors stream forth to assail the church as the realm of life. On the
other rendering there is no reference to any conflict between Hades and
the church, the point of comparison being merely the strength of the church,
the gates of Hades, i.e. the realm of death, serving in common parlance
as a figure of the greatest conceivable strength, because they never allow
to escape what has once entered through them.
The above survey of the passages tends to show that Hades, where it is
locally conceived, is not a provisional receptacle for all the dead, but
plainly associated with the punishment of the wicked. Where it comes under
consideration for the righteous there is nothing to indicate a local sense.
On 1Pe 3:19; 1Pe 4:6 (where, however, the word “Hades” does
not occur), see articles ESCHATOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; SPIRITS IN
PRISON.
8. Not a Final State
The element of truth in theory of the provisional character of Hades lies
in this, that the New Testament never employs it in connection with the
final state of punishment, as subsequent to the last judgment. For this
GEHENNA (which see) and other terms are used. Dives is represented as
being in Hades immediately after his death and while his brethren are
still in this present life. Whether the implied differentiation between
stages of punishment, depending obviously on the difference between the
disembodied and reëmbodied state of the lost, also carries with itself
a distinction between two places of punishment, in other words whether
Hades and Gehenna are locally distinct, the evidence is scarcely sufficient
to determine. The New Testament places the emphasis on the eschatological
developments at the end, and leaves many things connected with the intermediate
state in darkness.
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