And With Strange Eons Even Death May Die

A reader writes:

Jehovah Witnesses quote Rev. 20:14 ,"Hell will be cast into the Lake of Fire," to prove Hell is not eternal.  How do you explain that verse?

First, let’s look at the verse in context:

11: Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it;
from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for
them.
12: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing
before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened,
which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written
in the books, by what they had done.
13: And the  sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in  them, and all were judged by what they had done.
14: Then  Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the  second death, the lake of fire;
15: and if any one’s name  was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the  lake of fire.

As you can see from this translation, which is the RSV, the term "hell" is being rendered "hades." This is what the Greek term in the text actually is: hades. This is important because the term hades is not best translated by "hell" in contemporary English.

The way we use the word "hell" today (this was different in earlier English), "hell" refers to the place of the damned.

That’s not what hades meant in Greek. Hades was a more general term referring to the place or abode of the dead. Thus in the Septuagint hades is the standard translation of the term sh’ol, which also refers to the abode of the dead in general.

When the New Testament wants to refer specifically to the place of the damned, it uses a different term, such as "Gehenna" or, as in this passage, "the Lake of Fire."

That gives us the background we need to understand the passage above: It speaks of the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment:

First John sees the stage set for the judgment, then he sees the dead who are to be judged. Their resurrection is depected in verse 13. If we remember that hades is the abode of the dead, the import of the passage is as follows:

And the  sea gave up the dead in it, Death and the Abode of the Dead gave up the dead in  them, and all were judged by what they had done.

That’s the import of the following verse as well, which comes across as follows:

Then  Death and the Abode of the Dead were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the  second death, the lake of fire.

The passage thus refers to the destruction of the reality of death and, consequently, the need for a place for the dead. So it is quite true that hell–in the sense of hades or the place of the dead–will be no more. After the resurrection, everyone will be alive–forever. Some will be alive with God in paradise, but others will be in torment forever. As the book of Revelation earlier says:

And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have
no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and
whoever receives the mark of its name [Rev. 14:11].

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin