Copyright
© 2024 Michael A. Brown
‘Then I
saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and
there was no place for them. And I saw
the dead, great and small, standing before the throne…’ (Rev. 20:11-12)
The final judgement, often called ‘the great white throne
judgement’ or simply just ‘the day of judgement,’ will take place after Satan’s
final rebellion is crushed at the end of the millennium. It should not be conflated with the bema seat
judgement of Christ which took place earlier and separately after the rapture.[1] The bema seat of Christ was a judgement of
believers only (i.e. the dead in Christ who had been raised, together with
believers who had been raptured), whereas the final judgement will be the
judgement of all unbelievers together with those believers who lived during the
millennium. By this point, assuming that
the Old Testament believers were raised and judged at the beginning of the
millennium (as I suggested in the previous chapter), all believers will have
been raised and judged, apart from those who lived during the millennium.
The intermediate state
Before I go on to discuss the final judgement, it
would be right and proper to set the scene for it by backtracking a little and
discussing first that which is called ‘the intermediate state’ of both
believers and unbelievers. By
‘intermediate state’ I mean the state and (different) places in which believers
and unbelievers exist after physical death until they are raised from death for
judgement.
In the case of believers, after physical
death, his/her spirit goes immediately into the presence of Christ in
heaven. The apostle Paul made this
abundantly clear:
‘We are
confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with
the Lord.’ (2 Cor.
5:8)
‘I
desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far…’ (Phil. 1:23)
A believer will be conscious and
self-aware in heaven, and s/he will be with other believers who have also died
(Luke 16:22-23,25-26; 2 Cor. 5:1-4; 1 Thess. 5:10; Rev. 6:9). S/he will consciously exist there as a disembodied,
but glorified and perfect spirit, until they receive their new glorified
spiritual body when they are raised from the dead in the resurrection-rapture
event (1 Cor. 15:35-54, Heb. 12:23). As
I made clear in the first part of this book, after the resurrection-rapture
event, believers will then stand before the bema seat of Christ in
heaven for his evaluation of their life as a believer, and they will receive
their reward. They will then return with
Christ to earth at his Second Advent and reign with him in his millennial kingdom.
In the case of unbelievers, when a
person dies physically, his/her disembodied spirit goes straight to Hades and
remains there, conscious and aware, until they are raised out of Hades for the
final judgement at the end of the millennium.
I describe further below what Hades is like.
1. Hell:
Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna
The word hell is often used in
English translations of the Bible, and it is used of the place where
unbelievers go after death. However, it
is not rooted in the Greek or Hebrew words that are used in the original
manuscripts of the Bible. It comes from
the word hel which was the old English name for the underworld in the
afterlife, and, in Old Norse, it was also the name of the evil goddess who
presided over it. So this word was taken
and used by Bible translators as being the nearest equivalent of the Greek word
hades, and it has been used both in English language translations and in common
parlance ever since. Hades is the Greek
word used in the New Testament for the abode of the dead in the afterlife, and
in Greek mythology it was also used of the evil god Hades who presided over
it. This word was used by the New
Testament writers to translate the Hebrew word sheol.
However, we should be careful to
distinguish between three different Greek words that are used in the New
Testament, each of which is often translated as ‘hell.’ To translate each of them using only the one
word ‘hell’ leads to misunderstanding and confusion amongst believers regarding
what the New Testament teaches about the intermediate state and the eternal
state of unbelievers. These three words
are ‘hades,’ ‘tartarus’ and ‘gehenna,’ and I draw out very briefly below the
differences between them.
1.a.
Hades
As I said above, Hades is the place where the departed
spirit of an unbeliever goes after physical death. Ultimately, Hades is only a temporary holding
place. It will exist until the day of
judgement, after which it will itself be cast into the lake of fire (Rev.
20:13-14). Of those human spirits who
are unfortunate enough to be in Hades, some have been there for millennia
already of course, but some will only be there for a short time, for the simple
reason that they will die on this earth close to the end of the
millennium. In the parable of the rich
man and Lazarus, after his physical death the rich man found himself conscious
in Hades:
‘The
rich man also died and was buried. In
hell [hades], where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away…’ (Luke 16:22-23)
1.b.
Tartarus
Tartarus is the deepest abyss of Hades. It is the place where the fallen angels who
sinned in Genesis 6:2-4 were sent and bound with everlasting chains to await
the day of judgement:[2]
‘God did not spare
angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell [tartarus], putting them into
gloomy dungeons to be held for judgement…’ (2 Peter 2:4, cf. Jude v.6)
1.c.
Gehenna
Gehenna is the eternal lake of fire, the place of
everlasting punishment. This is not the
same place as Hades where the spirits of unbelievers go after physical
death. As I said above, Hades will only
exist until the day of judgement, when all unbelievers there will be yielded up
to face judgement. Hades will then be
cast into Gehenna, the lake of fire (Rev. 20:13-14). During his ministry, Jesus knew that the
Pharisees were well on their way to eternal condemnation in Gehenna, because of
their religious hypocrisy:
‘How
will you escape being condemned to hell [gehenna]?’ (Matt. 23:33)
‘Rather
be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell [gehenna].’ (Matt. 10:28)
‘It is
better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown
into the fire of hell [gehenna].’
(Matt. 18:9, cf. Mark 9:42-49)
2. What
is Hades like?
Reading: Luke 16:19-31
From the parable of the rich man and the beggar in
Luke 16:19-31 and various other verses in the word of God, we can glean the
following information about Hades:
·
After
the rich man died, he found himself conscious and self-aware in Hades. His soul was not destroyed or annihilated
(v.23). After spending his life without
any fear of God and ignoring him, he now knew the sobering and dreadful truth
that Hades is a real place, but tragically he only discovered this after he
died.
· He
could see, think, speak and communicate.
He could even see far away quite clearly (vv.23-24).
·
He
was conscious of the parts of his body, so he had some kind of spiritual body
which could feel and sense (v.24).
· Hades
is a place of darkness in which the presence of God is totally absent (Matt.
25:30; cf. 2 Peter 2:17, Jude v.13).
Everything that God is, is absent from Hades. It is utterly devoid of him. There is no love, no compassion, no light, no
hope and no goodness there. Hades is the
full, undiluted and awful expression of everything that the dominion of
darkness is.
· It
was a place in which the man was being tormented constantly, and he was in
agony from the burning of fire. So he
could feel constant pain in himself. He
was in despair, and he had no rest day or night (v.23-24,28). Many commentators believe that Hades is also
the abode of many demonic spirits, and that people who end up in Hades will
also therefore be tormented by these evil spirits.
· The
man was continually, desperately and unquenchably thirsty, so much so that even
one small drop of water would have comforted him. So there was a total absence of water and
comfort. He begged for mercy, but there
was none. There was no-one who could or
would help him (vv.24-25).
· There
is an impassable chasm fixed between Hades and heaven. No-one in heaven could help him, even if they
wanted to. Neither can anyone in Hades
ever escape from it. This man was in an
utterly helpless and hopeless condition (v.26).
· People
in Hades will weep and gnash their teeth in regret that they ended up
there. Their memory is not impaired, and
they will remember what kind of life they lived. Abraham knew what kind of life the man had
lived. They will know that they only
have themselves to blame, and that it is too late for them to be saved. They will experience unending anguish of soul
(v.25, Matt. 25:30).
· The
man had suffered this terrible fate and regretted it, and he wanted to warn his
family members about it. However, he
showed no signs of real repentance, but only of his own self-centred need for
water (vv.24, 27-28).
· Heeding
the message of the word of God is sufficient for a person to be saved, and to
avoid ending up in Hades. Seeing someone
raised from the dead will not ultimately convince or change anyone. They must repent for themselves (vv.29-31).
Heaven, Hades and Gehenna are all real places
So the word of God presents Hades and Gehenna as real
places, just as it also presents heaven as a real place. We should therefore avoid the temptation of
wanting to accept and embrace the truth of heaven, while denying the truth
about Hades and Gehenna. Heaven is real,
and so are Hades and Gehenna. It
is self-deception to believe in the one, while denying the others. The stark reality of being plunged
permanently and inescapably after physical death into the awful, dark and
conscious reality of total separation from the presence and life of God in
Hades, and then to be thrown into Gehenna (the lake of fire) after the final
judgement, is ahead of everyone who does not know the redemption of
Christ.
To live in denial of Hades and Gehenna, or to never
teach or preach about their reality, is to distort the message of the word of
God by leaving aside these very important and sobering truths. This does a disservice to unbelievers who, if
they die without repenting from sin and receiving Jesus, will surely go
there. It gives them false hope that the
door to heaven will be open to them, because they think or like to pretend that
these other places do not exist. Both
believers and unbelievers need to hear and know the truth about Hades and
Gehenna, so that they can repent and receive Jesus, and then also live a pure
and obedient life which pleases God.
People need to be warned! There
is only one way to heaven, and that is through repentance from sin and faith in
Jesus as Saviour. Otherwise, a
person goes to Hades when they die, and, after the final judgement, they end up
in Gehenna for eternity. The realisation
that this is the ultimate end of a person without Christ should instil urgency
into our prayers for God to save them, and into our willingness to share the
gospel with them (cf. Jude v.23).
Copyright Notice
THE
HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011
by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
[1] The reader may
wish to review at this point the relevant chapter in Part 1 to refresh their
knowledge of the bema seat judgement of Christ.
[2] The judgement of
Satan and his fallen angels, together with those angels that have been chained
up in Tartarus, will evidently also take place at the judgement before the
great white throne (Jude v.6). The word
of God does not give us any detail regarding this, apart from the general
statement of the apostle Paul that we as believers will judge angels (1 Cor.
6:2-3). They will all be cast into
Gehenna, the lake of fire. The narrative
of the final judgement in Revelation ch.20 focuses on the judgement of human
beings rather than on that of angels.
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