Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS

2020REV-22 – Q&A-02

200516PM

Now that the “Exploring Revelation” class is completed, and posted online—the questions are rolling in by the scores, actually by the hundreds. In the next few sessions, we are taking “Live” questions from students to us in our virtual classroom. Each Q&A session features an answer to a question formed from dozens of variations that all refer to a similar topic. Thanks SO much for your thoughtful, insightful questions.

Transcription

Question from Student:

What is the difference between Hell, the Bottomless Pit, the Lake of Fire, and all of those places?  To learn, can you explain a little bit more of them, what they all mean, because you talked about that in a previous question.

Dr. Barnett’s Response:

Yes, okay. Back to my drawing and I’m sorry it’s a little faint on your screens but let me just give you the markers.

In Genesis we have paradise, the garden of Eden on Earth. So then, we find at the cross, Jesus tells the thief next to Him, “Today you’re going to be with me in paradise.” So, after the crucifixion, when Jesus died, He took the thief with Him to the place described in Luke 16, which is Abraham’s bosom. This is the happy side and the place of torment, the unhappy side.  Jesus went there because, after He was crucified, He went down and took the thief that believed on the cross next to Him, down here to the place where everybody that died went to.

Now, you got to understand, the Bible says that everybody that’s ever lived is still on Earth. Up until this point, the redeemed, those that believe, those who sought the Lord are here in the happy side. Abraham is there. Lazarus goes there in Luke 16. They see the lost on the other side in torment.

Then it says Jesus went, Peter tells us Jesus went from paradise and this place of confinement with the great gulf. Remember, there’s a great gulf fixed between where the happy side is and the unhappy. He goes from there and it says He preaches to the angels that are in captivity. Boy, that’s curious. Jude and 2 Peter tell us about these angels that are chained in this place called Tartarus or all the way through the Old Testament it’s called the pit.

In Revelation, it’s called the bottomless pit. Now, do you remember in Revelation chapter 9, God opens the pit and lets this demon army, like locust, horseman, out of the pit for five months. That pit is on Earth. The Bottomless Pit, Tartarus, this the place of Abraham’s Bosom, the place where the lost are in the waiting room to Hell.

Jesus said, it’s all here on Earth. See, this is the Earth. This is the empty tomb. This is the cross. This was Eden’s paradise. So, it looks like Eden after the fall into sin became this place of paradise, down here. Then after the cross, Jesus takes this paradise and has it in Heaven. That’s what Revelation 3 talks about when, the churches if you overcome, which is code for a believer, you will enter paradise. Which is what we described Heaven as.

Now you notice over here, there’s this. This is the Lake of Fire. Nobody is in there yet. The first occupants will be the false prophet and the beast. So, the false prophet and the beast in Revelation 19, at the Armageddon time are thrown into the Lake of Fire, alive. In the 20th chapter of Revelation, Satan is chained and put into this bottomless pit.  Then, later in the 20th chapter of Revelation, Satan is the first new occupant. He is thrown into the Lake of fire, where it says the false prophet and the beast already are. This is Revelation 20 from 7-11, all the way to 15. So basically, the Lake of Fire is just out there somewhere in the universe. You can see it from Heaven. Isaiah 66 tells us that. It says the people in Heaven can see the Lake of Fire and you say, Ugh that doesn’t sound very positive. The Lake of Fire is based on the justice and the holiness and the wrath of God. Those are all attributes of God. Because God loves so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross, His justice, holiness, and wrath means that those that reject Christ need to go to the Lake of Fire.

So, to give you the difference, in the Bible, this place is called Hades or the grave. This is also the place of saints, Abraham’s Bosom Luke 16 Jesus talked about it and pagan suffering fire.

Then there’s this place where angel rebels are. The part of the angels that rebelled against God that are so bad, if God let them out, which He does, once; they kill a third of all humans, they’re super deadly angels. So, they’re usually locked up in this pit and in the Old Testament, it’s called the pit. New Testament, bottomless pit. Remember, all the demons, whenever Jesus was doing miracles? The demons would go, don’t send us to the pit. They know it’s there and it’s on Earth and it’s a spiritual, maximum security. The bottom half of it, Peter actually names as Tartarus, which is the ultimate maximum security.

So, the spiritual realms:

• Grave/Hades, that’s the abode of the dead. The pit/Tartarus, bottomless pit, Both on Earth.
• Lake of Fire, not on Earth, out there somewhere.
• Heaven

So that’s the differentiation.

So, what happens here by the way? I’ll finish. Jesus was crucified. He dies. It says that He was in the grave for three days and three nights. What’s He doing? He takes the thief with Him. He picks up the redeemed. He goes by proclaiming that He won that, that He paid the price of sin. He preaches, declares the gospel here. Then He takes all of those saints to Heaven with Him. That’s what Ephesians 4 talks about. He led captivity captive. Matthew 8-10, Jesus said… I know that you’ve already heard all this in the class but it’s so exciting I have to tell you… when we get to Heaven, us the church, Jesus said that we’ll sit down at a banquet where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are already there. How did they get there? Jesus picked them up after the cross. When He rose on the third day and ascended back to His Father, remember He told Mary “don’t touch me, I haven’t yet ascended to my Father.” He was taking all those saints with Him to Heaven.

That’s where now the paradise of God is. This is what we would call our Father’s house. John 14 and they all, the redeemed don’t have their resurrection bodies yet, which we covered in Revelation 20.

So Daniel, I’m going way wider than your question. What else do you have on that?

 

Students Response:

No, that is good explanation of what everything is, where it all leads. I mean, there’s so much confusion around that. We just we know they’re separate but we have no idea where.