[Last updated: 4 March 2022]
Most of the discussions one can find about Christian eschatology are dependent upon several incorrect presumptions: primarily, that Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus are all the same place of ‘Hell’; and also, that an αιωνιον thing is eternal and never-ending. So, what do the Last Things look like when these errors are corrected? Let’s go through how Scripture talks about it.
Hades [ᾍδης] or Sheol [שְׁאוֹל]
Sheol and Hades both basically just mean “being dead”, or, more poetically “the grave”. In the Septuagint/LXX (a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek allegedly by seventy rabbis in the 3rd century BC; when the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament, they are almost always using this), the word ‘Sheol’ is translated as ‘Hades’, which is how the Apostles would have understood it. After any creature dies—wicked and righteous alike—they go to Hades (e.g. Gn 44:31). When it is said “Death [θάνατος, thanatos] and Hades [ᾅδης] were thrown into the lake of fire” (Rv 20:14), it literally means ‘dying and being dead’ were thrown into the lake of fire.
Although it is orthodox dogma that the souls of the elect immediately go to Heaven upon their death, note that Paul says “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-12). It is interesting that he was unsure if he was among the elect; but more importantly, it would not really make sense for him to look forward to the resurrection of the dead if he thought he (assuming he was found worthy) would go to Heaven before that. He would already be experiencing the supreme bliss of companionship with God.
It is unclear whether people are conscious while dead. In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31, the rich man in Hades is depicted as “being tormented” and having a conversation with Abraham. Twice in 1 Peter, it is said that Jesus preaches the Gospel to the dead (1 Pt 3:18-20, 4:6). On the other hand, there are some places in Scripture where the dead are described as being unconscious. Besides Luke 16, Jesus describes dead people as being “sleeping” (Mt 9:24, Mk 5:39, Lk 8:52, Jn 11:11-12). Ecclesiastes 9:10 says: “here is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol”. There are more such examples.
So, there are several possible ways to reconcile this apparent contradiction, the most obvious two being: A] Those in Hades are always unconscious, and Luke 16 and 1 Peter are merely anthropomorphizing the dead because what is actually happening is too otherworldly for us mortals to comprehend; or B] those in Hades are conscious, they are only “asleep” from the perspective those still alive. I could not tell you for sure which is the case, but it does not seem like a topic of grave importance either way.
The first resurrection of the dead, separated into two parts
When all things have been completed in God’s plan, there will be a time of ending. In the Gospel of John he calls it “the Last Day” (Jn 6:39-44, 6:54, 11:24, 12:48). (Note that this appears to refer to something different from “the Day of the Lord”.¹)
On the Last Day, there will be what is referred to in Revelation 20 as the “first resurrection” (v. 5-6), where “the dead [are] judged according to their works” (v. 12). Jesus describes it as being a pair of diametrically opposed resurrections that happen at the same time: “the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (Jn 5:28-30). This qualification is made in other places as well, e.g. “you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Lk 14:14).
This is the time when everyone gets their comeuppance. All the dead and still-living are judged before God’s throne. The “righteous”, i.e. the elect, are admitted into Heaven, saved before the condemned (“the dead in Christ will rise first”, 1 Thes 4:16), and they are called the “first fruits for salvation” (2 Thes 2:13; cf. also Rom 8:23; Jas 1:18; Rv 14:4). Note that the term “first fruits” implies there is a whole harvest that comes afterward. There are numerous other benefits to being among the elect besides avoiding condemnation, because we know in Heaven that there is actually a ranking of people (cf. Mt 5:19, 11:11), and those who were saved at the first resurrection will sit in judgment on those in the second (cf. Mt 19:28-30).
The wicked are condemned to Gehenna [γέενναν], which is called “the lake of fire” in Revelation. They are said to be here for αιωνιον (‘until the end of the aion‘) throughout the New Testament (e.g. Mt 25:41-46). Despite being described so bleakly, Gehenna is a place of purification, a benevolent rectification so that the wicked can be made clean and enter Heaven (see the section “Fire and brimstone (sulfur)” are not punitive, but purificatory in this article). We know that it has to be a temporary admonishment because “the Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone” (Lam 3:31-33). The un-elect “will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:15).
More about Gehenna, “the second death”
γέενναν is the Greek word for the Valley of Hinnom. It was a place associated with the pagan gods Baal and Molech, and child sacrifice dedicated to them (cf. 2 Chr 33:6; Jer 32:35). It is interesting that Jesus chose to name the eschatological place of chastisement after it. That could merely be because contemporary rabbinical literature also talks about Gehenna in a similar way,² but Jesus was under no obligation to use that terminology himself. So, why?
Before we can answer that question, it must be seen that it is unfathomably ironic that infernalists think this is God’s place of eternal punishment, since that would imply that God is finishing up Molech’s work by burning more people forever. Does it make sense to think that? In Jeremiah 19:1-5, we read “thus says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people [… have] gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind“, so it is preposterous to imagine that God will use it for just that purpose for his own creation.
It is actually later in this same passage that the Father prophesies about Gehenna: “therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lᴏʀᴅ, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter. And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life…” (Jer 19:6-7), which all came true during the reign of King Josiah. He “defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech” (2 Kgs 23:10). Josiah is depicted as a righteous king favored by God (cf. 2 Chr 34:33), and one of his greatest achievements was to end the practice of child immolation in Judah. Are we to think that the Lord purged out the child sacrificers of Baal/Molech from Gehenna just so he could use that valley for the same purpose for himself? Or perhaps he wanted to outdo those gods by burning more people for even longer? The very thought of it is blasphemous.
The only explanation that makes sense is that Jesus chose to use “Gehenna” as the name of the place of chastisement for the sake of irony. Scripture is full of similar ironies everywhere, e.g. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27). The supreme ‘screw you’ move that God could make in order to spite Molech/Baal is to turn their place of child sacrifice into the place where God will enact the ultimate salvation of all mankind. Thus, the fires of Gehenna are not there in order to please some idol through sacrifice, but quite the opposite, are God’s work in order to bring the un-elect to paradise. In Exodus 13:21, it is said that in the desert of Sinai, “the Lᴏʀᴅ went in front of them [the Israelites] in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night” to the Promised Land. To those already in the “light of the Gospel” (cf. Jn 8:12; 2 Cor 4:4-6), God leads them in the form of a cloud, just as he appeared when Jesus was baptized (cf. Mt 3:17/Mk 1:11/Lk 3:22), and when Jesus was transfigured (cf. Mt 17:5/Mk 9:7/Lk 9:35), to say “this is my Son”. But to those in the night’s darkness (cf. Lk 1:79; Jn 12:46), God leads them like “unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:12/Lk 3:17; Mk 9:43), so that they too might enter the new Promised Land, the Kingdom of Heaven.
On the Last Day is when death is “swallowed up forever” (Is 25:6-8a; cf. also 1 Cor 15:54), when “Death and Hades [are] thrown into the lake of fire” (Rv 20:14). Strangely, John of Patmos then refers to the lake of fire as being “the second death” in the same verse, immediately after saying that death and dying are done away with forever. The mix of metaphors is admittedly quite confusing, but this is a big hint that Gehenna exists for the salvation of the wicked. What is “dying” here is not the person or their spirit (for otherwise John is contradicting himself within the same sentence); Gehenna itself is a kind of “death”, and what it kills is evil, sin, and corruption forever, i.e. those things which cause mortals to die. Paul explains what this means. The destruction is of the “Old Self”, the sinful shell around our God-breathed spirit: “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:5-6; cf. also Eph 4:22, Col 3:9). Then what happens? We are clothed with Christ to make a “New Self” (Eph 4:24, Col 3:10; cf. also Gal 3:27). This is also what Jesus meant when he said “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24); the death or destruction of the Old Self is what paves way for new life, something fundamentally interconnected with Jesus dying to give us new life in rising again. The people in Gehenna cannot die anymore, for that is no longer possible after there is no more θάνατος (Thanatos); the thing dying is their “Old Self”.
The second (final) resurrection, the universal restoration
We know that there will be a second resurrection because Revelation directly says as much: “the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus […] came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power…” (Rv 20:1-6). In other words, the elect are saved at the first resurrection and get to dodge the lake of fire, but those who do go to Gehenna are still prophesied to come back to life later.³
Due to Revelation’s considerable use of figurative language, I think it profoundly unwise for one to make important theological claims with no Scriptural support beyond passages from Revelation. But even without using this book, it is overwhelmingly clear that the wicked are saved after their “resurrection of condemnation”.
After the aion is complete, those in Gehenna are revivified and brought into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is when the events described in Isaiah 45:22-23 occur: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.’”
And in Philippians 2:10-11: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This is “the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). This is the “mystery” that Paul alludes to in Romans 11:25-36: “a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved; […] Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”
None of these prophesies can come true if all are not saved at the end. Infernalists interpret all of the above passages in bizarre ways to explain how they don’t actually mean what they are saying, but it cannot be denied: “we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim 4:10). The reason believers are “especially” saved is because they are glorified at the first resurrection and thus are also spared from going to Gehenna, instead of having to wait for the second resurrection.
Tartarus [ταρταρώσας]
This place is only mentioned one time in the entire Bible, 2 Peter 2:4: “God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but condemned them to the chains of Tartarus [ταρταρώσας] and handed them over to be kept for judgment” (New American Bible: Revised Edition). So, whatever it could be is not extremely important, since it is apparently reserved exclusively for sinful angels.
In Greek mythology, Tartarus referred to the deepest part of Hades, where the gods’ most hated (e.g. Sisyphus) and most dangerous (e.g. Typhon) enemies are kept. The punishments for these entities are the most severe and said to be never-ending, although there is really nothing stopping Zeus from ending their punishment should he ever feel the desire to. Perhaps Peter thought that the reader could simply assume that it has a similar meaning in Christian cosmology, but who knows.
Naturally this leads to the question if fallen angels/demons will be saved as well at the universal reconciliation. There is a good argument for both sides of this debate. On one hand, one must ask how Acts 3:21 (“… until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old”) and Colossians 1:19-20 (“in him [Jesus Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross”) could be true if there will be any beings left unsaved into eternity. On the other hand, Jude 1:6 says that “the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he [God] has kept in eternal [ἀϊδίοις, aidios] chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day”. Unlike aionion, aidios actually does mean eternal; it is used as such in Romans 1:20 to describe God’s “power and divine nature”.
Even the Early Church Fathers did not have a consensus on the topic, though the universalists among them appeared to mostly believe that demons would be saved eventually. Clement of Alexandria wrote: “how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all?” (Stromata, Book 7, chp. 2; cf. also Fragments, III. Comments on the First Epistle of John, chp. 2-1, v. 2). Origen is reputed to have said contradictory things on this topic. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that Jesus “accomplished all the results before mentioned, freeing both man from evil, and healing even the introducer of evil himself”, and “nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire”, and “nothing exists that will not be saved”.
So, which side is right? I cannot confidently say either way, but since we know that God only punishes people for benevolent purposes, I lean towards that even demons will be reconciled eventually. Or perhaps, it is incomprehensible to our mortal brains what exactly angels and demons actually are, thus they might not even experience ‘punishment’ or ‘imprisonment’ in the same kind of way that humans do (they might not even be sapient), in which case there is really no coherent way to speak about their fate.
The New Jerusalem
The last two chapters of the Book of Revelation describe what life will be like after the Last Day. Suffice to say, for the saved it sounds like a supremely blissful paradise. It is probably also incomprehensible to our mortal brains, but we can gather some information about it throughout the New Testament. For instance, it is said we will dwell there as ascended beings “like the angels” (Mt 22:30/Mk 12:25/Lk 20:36), with glorified, immortal bodies (cf. 1 Cor 15:42-55). The skies and earth will pass away, leading to the New Heaven and New Earth (Rv 21:1) merged together (popularly understood as just being “Heaven”), where we will reign with God for “aions unto aions” (Rv 22:5) in its city of New Jerusalem.
¹ “The Day of the Lord” is used to mean different things in different contexts of the Bible. In Am 5, it appears to refer to the upcoming judgment of Northern Israel (Samara) in the 8th century BC. It is used in a similar way in Is 2 & 13 to refer to Babylon in the 6th century BC, in Jer 46 and Ez 13 & 30 to Egypt in the same century, and in Ob 1 to Edom in the same century. The Books of Zephaniah and Joel seem to use the phrase to refer to the Neo-Babylonian conquest of Judah in 597 BC. “The Day of the Lord” in Mal 4 seems to be interpreted by Jesus in Matthew (cf. Mt 11:2-24) to refer to the time of the Roman destruction of Judea during the First Jewish-Roman War in AD 66-73. Revelation’s quotations of the Book of Joel (cf. Jl 1:6, 2:2-10 vs. Rv 9:3-9) seems to suggest they are referring to the same time, the First Jewish-Roman War. The New Testament appears to use the phrase “the Day of the Lord” in this sense as well (cf. 1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 1:14; 1 Thes 5:2; 2 Thes 2:2; 2 Pt 3:10). You can read more about this in my post Don’t be watchful, the ‘Great Tribulation’ already happened.
² Some, such as Rob Bell, have made the claim that the Valley of Hinnom was a pit for burning garbage in the 1st century AD, but thus far I have been unable to substantiate that.
³ One of the mistakes people make in reading Revelation is that they assume every vision happens in sequential order. Nowhere does John of Patmos claim this. Premillennialists assume that the Final Judgment mentioned in Revelation 20:11-15 is a separate event from the first resurrection mentioned in v. 4-6, because between these two visions is the part where John says “When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison…” (v. 7-10). But this seems to be a tangent from what John was just speaking about; he goes back to talking about the first resurrection by v. 11. All it says is “Then I saw…”, but that tells us nothing about the order in which these events occur. Assuming v. 4-6 happens before “the thousand years” and v. 11-15 happens after does not really make much sense in context, since the judgment of the wicked is already pronounced in v. 4-6 by virtue of their exclusion from the first resurrection. There is no point in them being judged again 1,000 years later.
Yet Another Christian Universalist 