This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com.
Before Satan is cast into the lake of fire to be tormented forever, he’s imprisoned for a thousand years, as Revelation 20:1-3 records:
“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time.”
The Greek word abyssos, rendered “abyss,” “pit,” or “bottomless pit” in many English translations, occurs nine times in the New Testament. In most cases, it refers to a place of temporary confinement for certain evil spirits. For example, in Jesus’ encounter with Legion, the demons who possess the Gerasene man beg Jesus not to banish them to the abyss – no doubt a place evil spirits fear (Luke 8:31).
Later, both Peter and Jude refer to a place where particularly nasty evil spirits are kept in reserve for judgment. Peter uses the Greek tartaroo (transliterated “Tartarus” in 2 Pet. 2:4 HCSB). Jude describes it as a place where certain rebellious spirits are kept in “eternal chains in deep darkness” (Jude 6).
In Revelation, demonic “locusts” and a murderous beast emerge from the abyss, and Satan is cast there for a time (Rev. 9:1-11; 11:7; 20:1-3).
Note several characteristics of the abyss:
First, the abyss is under God’s sovereign control. An angel must be given the key for the shaft to the abyss, for the angel has no authority to open it on his own (Rev. 9:1; 20:1). The beast, upon whom the “Mother of Prostitutes” rides, comes up from the abyss, only to go to destruction (Rev. 17:5, 8). Demons fear the abyss and seek to avoid it, although Jesus has the final say (Luke 8:31).
Satan is seized, bound, and thrown into the abyss for 1,000 years – a sentence he may neither appeal nor shorten (Rev. 20:1-3). Bible commentators debate whether the thousand years are to be taken literally or figuratively, but they agree the evil one’s unfettered freedom is revoked for a lengthy period.
We also may note the humiliating nature of Satan’s detention in these verses. An unnamed angel – not God himself or Michael the archangel – is dispatched to lock Satan in the abyss. The ultimate cosmic burn.
Second, the abyss is a place of confinement. Like Satan, evil spirits seem to desire freedom to prowl the earth (1 Pet. 5:8). They crave autonomy – independence from God, and both the ability and opportunity to oppose him. In the abyss, however, they are kept under lock and key. Jude describes it as a place where some evil spirits are “kept in eternal chains in deep darkness” (Jude 6). No doubt, the expression “chains” is used figuratively, since evil spirits are non-corporeal beings and physical chains cannot bind them. Nevertheless, they are imprisoned, and God, who is spirit (John 4:24), knows full well how to keep spirits he created in their place.
Third, the abyss is a place of temporary punishment. Satan is kept there for a thousand years, only to be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented night and day forever (Rev. 20:10). Like hades, the abode of the dead where the wicked go between physical death and final judgment, the abyss is imprisonment – with no parole – for evil spirits. Ultimately, both “death” and “Hades” are cast into the lake of fire, for they are temporary states of punishment and are no longer needed after final judgment (Rev. 20:14).
Fourth, the abyss houses Satan and evil spirits, not people. The departed spirits of human beings reside in a temporary place called sheol in the Old Testament and hades in the New Testament. Followers of Jesus go directly into his presence in heaven upon physical death, where they await resurrection, glorification, and everlasting life in the new heavens and new earth (2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-24; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21-22). But nowhere in Scripture are people described as being in the abyss.
Fifth, the purpose of Satan’s confinement in the abyss is to prevent him from deceiving the nations. John’s use of ethnos (“nations”) in this passage likely refers to people in general, although it could be a reference to unbelievers in the last days.
The binding of Satan in the abyss curtails his ability to deceive. It doesn’t necessarily stop the residual influence of his evil work on human beings. And it certainly doesn’t put an end to sin. But it’s a much-welcomed incarceration.
Finally, the abyss is a reverse image of heaven. Just as “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17), the abyss spews nothing but wickedness from below. As Walter Elwell and Barry Beitzel point out: “This is in keeping with the metaphor and the picture throughout Revelation in which the Dragon and the Beast attempt to duplicate the power and glory reserved for God alone. Just as heaven is a source of all that is worthwhile, the bottomless pit is the source of all that is evil.”
In summary, we may see Satan’s downfall in three stages: from heaven to earth (Rev. 12:7-9); from earth to the abyss (Rev. 20:1-3); and from the abyss to the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).
Next: Unreformed and Undeterred