A gracEmail subscriber asks for an explanation of Revelation 20:10, in which John sees the devil, the Beast and the False Prophet thrown into a lake of fire where they are "tormented day and night forever." A few verses later, "anyone not found written in the Book of Life" is cast into the same lake of fire (20:15).
* * *
The Book of Revelation is written in a kind of prophetic code drawn from certain Old Testament books and some nonbiblical Jewish writings between the Testaments. Writings that use this code-language are known as "apocalyptic" literature. (The Book of Revelation is known as the Apocalypse in Greek.) Such writings use common symbols to portray earthly and heavenly characters and events, in order to give a big-picture view of history and especially of its final end and the transition from time into eternity.
The "Beast" and the "False Prophet" are characters in John's vision -- that great video splashed across the sky and sea off the Island of Patmos -- but both characters stand for larger historic forces, not actual individual human beings. In the code language of apocalyptic literature, nightmarish creatures often represent particular civil governments that persecute God's people, such as imperial Rome in John's day (for an Old Testament example, see Daniel 7). In Revelation, the "False Prophet" represents all ungodly religion (beginning with the cult of Emperor worship in John's day) which lends its influence to civil government to oppose God and his people.
In John's vision, the devil joins these two creatures and all three are tormented forever and ever in a lake of fire and sulfur. The symbol of fire and sulfur comes from the divine destruction of Sodom and throughout Scripture symbolizes complete and thorough destruction (Gen. 19:24-25). No matter how overpowering the odds now, John's vision assures believers that a time will come when God will totally annihilate every persecuting government and every false religion accessory to it. Since the "Beast" and the "False Prophet" are finally annihilated, it is most probable that the Devil will also finally meet the same fate. That is most consistent with the ultimate triumph of God, and with the existence of new heavens and a new earth in which evil is gone forever. Revelation 20:10 is the only verse in the Bible which ever mentions everlasting torment, even as a symbol, and it does not involve human beings.
A gracEmail subscriber asks for an explanation of Revelation 20:10, in which John sees the devil, the Beast and the False Prophet thrown into a lake of fire where they are "tormented day and night forever." A few verses later, "anyone not found written in the Book of Life" is cast into the same lake of fire (20:15).
* * *
It is significant that every time John mentions human beings in the Lake of Fire, he is careful to add the explanatory phrase, "which is the second death" (Rev. 20:15; 21:8). He seems to go out of his way to ensure that we do not make a mistake on that point. This symbol of a fiery lake most likely comes from Daniel 7:10-11, where it clearly stands for total destruction. For the wicked who finally go there, it represents "the second death." This second death is all-encompassing, irreversible and everlasting. From it there will be no escape, no resurrection, no recovery forever.
Revelation's "second death" in the Lake of Fire sums up many earlier biblical symbols concerning the end of the wicked. Isaiah spoke of corpses of executed evildoers, thrown into a garbage dump where maggots would race against smouldering fire to consume them (Isa. 66:16, 24). Malachi portrayed the judgment fire of God that would leave the wicked "neither root nor branch," so that they become "ashes under the soles of the feet" of the saved (Mal. 4:1, 3). John the Baptist predicted that Jesus would "burn up the chaff" with fire that cannot be put out (Matt. 3:12).
Jesus himself warned concerning "eternal punishment" that lies beyond present frontiers of time and space (Matt. 25:46). When that punishment occurs, God will "destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28). Paul reaffirms that the lost will "suffer the punishment of eternal destruction" (2 Thess. 1:9). Indeed, "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). The divine judgment that awaits those who reject God's grace stands in contrast to God's overwhelming gift of love to those who put their trust in him. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). In the end, those are the alternatives -- life or death, forever.
For more on the dark side, click here.
For more on final punishment, click here.