Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #3 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 9:1-2:
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
We spent some time looking at the Greek word “abussos” which is translated as “bottomless” here in Revelation 9:1. It is also translated as “bottomless pit” a couple of times in Revelation 20, verses 1 and 3. We also looked at Revelation 11:7, when the beast ascended out of the “bottomless pit.” We saw that this word was also translated twice as “deep.” On one occasion the demons sought the Lord that He not cast them into the “deep.” Also, in Romans 10:7, God spoke of who should descend into the “deep,” and I want to look at that, again, beginning in Romans 10:6-7:
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
That word “deep” is the Greek word that was translated as “bottomless” in our verse in Revelation 9. Here, God is linking the word “deep” with “death.” We also saw in the Book of Jonah, when Jonah was in the whale’s belly, it was stated, “Out of the belly of hell, cried I,” then God referenced the “deep,” and that is undoubtedly a tie-in with this word “bottomless.” The “bottomless pit” identifies with “death and hell,” as Jonah joins those ideas together. Remember, Jesus said, concerning Jonah: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” This means that Christ is demonstrating what He had done from the foundation of the world (beginning that Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane) in going through “hell,” as “hell” identifies with the grave and the grave identifies with “death.”
This is why the Bible says in 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 and of death.
This was because Christ was dead and that means He was in the grave; He was in “hell,” so He identifies with “hell and death,” but God resurrected Him from the dead, bringing Him out of “hell” and bringing Him to life from the dead. This is what is in view when we read verses such as those recorded in Psalm 16:10:
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Christ was not left in “hell,” or in the grave. He did not remain dead, but He rose from the dead and since He rose from the dead, it is as though “the keys of hell and death” were given to Him. Now He has the keys; now He can open the gates of hell and He can come out of “hell” Himself and He can cast others into “hell.” That is what happened with Satan, as the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross; at that time Satan was bound. We know that Satan was bound at the cross and that is the figurative period of time mentioned in Revelation 20 as “a thousand years.” Let us just quickly go there and read it, again, in Revelation 20:1-3:
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit…
That is the “keys of hell and death.”
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…
Christ bound Satan and, yes, that meant that Satan was limited and could not freely do the things he had done before, but it also meant that Christ placed Satan in “hell” at the cross – not a literal place; we know that because he continued to go about the earth as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He was very active in sowing tares amongst the wheat “while men slept” all throughout the church age, so, obviously, he was not placed in a place like a prison – a place called “Hell.” But it was the condition of being in hell and we see this in the language the Bible gives us in 2nd Peter 2:3-5:
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but castthem down to hell, and deliveredthem into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighthperson, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
This Greek word that is translated as “spared” is in the negative (spared not): “God spared not the angels that sinned,” and it is a word that indicates the wrath of God; and it is the same word used when speaking of the old world: “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person.” The people of the old world that were destroyed by the flood were “spared not,” and that was another example of judgment or the wrath of God.
The angels that sinned were “spared not.” They were also an example of the wrath of God being poured out and the judgment of God that comes upon the wicked doers; in this case it is against angelic beings – Satan and all the angelic beings that became demons. They were “spared not.” We know this is language referring to God’s wrath, without any question. It is confirmed when we look at Romans 8:32:
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
God “spared not” His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; the Father delivered up the Son to experience the wrath of God. It was the Father who slew the Son for the sake of His elect; and Christ died for their sins from the foundation of the world and later entered into the world to reveal, or to make manifest, what He had done.
So, “He that spared not his own Son,” is language indicating the wrath of God. Therefore, when it says in 2nd Peter 2:4, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell,” it is describing God’s judgment on the fallen angels which took place at the cross.
Now, why did this take place at the cross? Why was this not done from the foundation of the world? Why did God wait to bind Satan until the cross? Why did He wait to cast the fallen angels, including Satan, “down to hell” and “deliver them into chains of darkness,” at the cross?
The answer is that it is because of what we read in Hebrews 2:14-16:
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature ofangels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
You see, it was not until the Lord Jesus entered into the world (born of the Holy Spirit and delivered of the virgin Mary) and became a man, that it was confirmed that Christ came and took on the seed of Abraham – He would die for (elect) men and women and He would pay for their sins only.
Christ did not take on Him the nature of “angels” and, therefore, He could not make payment for any angels. If He had been pleased to do so, He could have, but it was God’s good pleasure that He would “save a people for Himself.” He did not save any angels and this was finally guaranteed and confirmed when Christ entered into the world and made this “manifest;” that is, to show there was no provision made for any angels concerning salvation; they had sinned and they would bear those sins; there was deliverer, no Saviour and none to rescue them. As a result, they were bound at the cross, when this was finally “demonstrated” by the Lord Jesus. There was no salvation for any angel and they were “cast down to hell,” as it says in 2nd Peter 2:
…but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment…
Again, “hell” was not a place. God did not cast Satan and the fallen angels into a place called “Hell.” There is no place called “Hell.” The Bible uses the same word that is translated as “hell” for the “grave” in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and that is because “hell” and the “grave” are one and the same: they identify with “death.”
When Jesus went to the cross and the confirmation was made that He did not take on Him the nature of angels, but only the “seed of Abraham,” therefore, it guaranteed the death of all the fallen angels and it guaranteed there would be no Gospel light available to any of them. Therefore, they were “delivered into chains of darkness.”
In the Bible, “darkness” and “death” and “death and Hell” go hand in hand and they are often synonymous and when God brings someone into “darkness,” it is as though He has brought them to death. Remember what God says about His wrath and how He speaks of “hell” as synonymous with “darkness” in many places, such as Matthew 8:11-12:
And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Here, “darkness” and the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” go together and this fits the language the Bible uses to describe “hell.” It is a place of “darkness.” In Jude, which is an Epistle that is very similar to 2nd Peter, chapter 2, it says in verse 6:
And 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.
What God did was that He guaranteed that salvation would only be for the elect portion of mankind; there was no salvation and no provision made for any angelic being and this guarantee was confirmed at the cross at the time of Satan’s binding and at the time of his casting down to hell where he was “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” So the “bottomless pit” is identified with being “cast down to hell” and being reserved in “darkness.”
The “bottomless pit” has the characteristic of “hell and death and darkness,” which we need to keep in mind as we read this terrible information in our verse, in Revelation 9:1, of the Lord Jesus, typified by a star falling from heaven who is given the key to the “bottomless pit,” and that “He opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace.” That reference to a “furnace” is, of course, not an accident. God is making a tie-in with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where we read in Genesis 19:27-28:
And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before JEHVOAH: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
The “smoke of a furnace” indicates the wrath of God being poured out and destroying the objects of God’s wrath. So, here, in Revelation 9:1, where the Lord Jesus Christ opens the “bottomless pit” and “there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace,” this is language indicating that the wrath of God is now upon the world. The inhabiters of the earth are under the wrath of God and they are experiencing God’s anger for their sins.
This language is also revealing something else that is very important and that is that “hell and death” were spoken of as being in the “bottomless pit.” As I pointed out earlier, the words “bottomless” and “pit” are separate words in our verse in Revelation 9:1. The word “pit” is translated as “well” in the Gospel of John in a reference to Jacob’s well, so it is a deep pit, just as a well is a deep pit, so “hell” was beneath or below; and that is often how the Bible speaks of hell; hell is “down there.” But what has happened is that the Lord Jesus, who possesses the key to hell and death, has opened up the “pit” and notice that the smoke arises “out of the pit.” In other words, God is not using language of placing Satan, for instance, into a “bottomless pit,” or, as 2nd Peter 2 says, “cast down to hell,” but, here, God is using the language of “hell” rising up and coming to the earth. In other words, God is turning the earth into “hell.” The condition which was prevalent in the “deep” or in the “bottomless pit” is now arising and coming up to the earth: “There arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace.” And notice what happens then: “and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.”
So what have we learned from the Bible that is identified with the pit? It is “smoke, hell, darkness and death.” These all identify with hell. So as Christ has opened up the “bottomless pit,” the smoke has risen and come to the earth and it has reached the sky, where the air is, and into deep space, where the sun is, so the “sun and the air were darkened” and the light of the world is put out and, therefore, the earth becomes a smoke-filled place as “the smoke of a great furnace.” The earth becomes a “dark place,” just as the angels were “cast down to hell, and delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” In other words, what God has done is He has placed the world and all the unsaved inhabitants of the world into the “condition of hell and death.” This is why the rider on the pale horse whose name was “Death and Hell followed with him,” are characteristic of these days of judgment; God has turned the world into hell.
Remember, God said He would do that, in Psalm 9:17:
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
This is now accomplished: “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” Once God darkened the “sun,” immediately after the tribulation of those days, and He put out the light of the moon and the stars fell from heaven, He cast the world into spiritual darkness and into the condition of hell. Just as the angels were bound at the cross and cast down into the condition of hell, reserved in chains of darkness, now the whole world is in that condition. This, of course, is a very grievous time to be living. It is a very grievous time for the people of the world, even though, for the most part, they are ignorant of it.
It is a certainly a grievous time, too, for the true believers, as we think of this: If God has brought up “hell” from below and brought it to the earth (which He has done) and if He has turned all the nations into hell and if they have taken on the characteristic of “death and hell,” what does that say about the true believers? Where are we right now? We are living in the world in the Day of Judgment, but what does that mean, considering that God has turned the nations and the wicked of the world into hell? Yet, the true believers are not wicked because their sins are paid for and that really presents some very interesting situations for the children of God. And, also, an interesting situation will develop at the very end of this period of time, as God will take His people out of this world – out of this world that has been turned into hell.
Lord willing, we will think more about this and talk about it in our next Bible study.