And When The Thousand Years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever (Rev. 20:7-10).
When discussing the differences between the popular and scriptural views of the devil, satan and hell, one of the subjects that comes up is eternal hellfire and torment. Most of the verses’ that seem to support this view are reasonably easy to deal with. In most cases, it is fairly easy to show from the context that a literal reading of the verse contradicts logic, or that the fire spoken of is not eternal, but rather the consequences are.
When we come to Revelation 20:10, however, we are presented with more of a quandary. Although v. 14 can be fairly easily dealt with, v. 10 presents us with a view not just of eternal fire, but also of what seems to be eternal torment. As far as I know this is the only verse that clearly seems to teach eternal torment. In this article, we hope to present one possible way this verse may be viewed which, unlike the orthodox Christian exegesis, is consistent with the rest of scriptural teaching on this subject.
The proposal
Traditional Christian exegeses on this verse may not be clear on what the beast and false prophet are, nor why they are in the lake of fire and brimstone. However, one thing they are clear on is that they believe this verse paints a picture of souls damned in hell and suffering eternal torment. We wish to propose instead that the language being used here is consistent with the rest of scripture, where judgment on wicked individuals and rebellious nations is described using the language of the continual burnt offering.
Judgment of the wicked described as a sacrifice
During the Mosaic period and before, one of the methods of providing a sacrifice to God was to place parts of an animal on an altar and burn it. In special instances where God wished to show His acceptance of the sacrifice, language is used describing fire coming from heaven and consuming the animal.”
It is interesting to note similar language used in the Bible describing God’s judgments against sinners. Consider the following:
- In Genesis 19, God’s judgment against the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is described. He is said to have “rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven” (v. 24).
- In II Kings 1:10-14, Ahaziah sent three groups of soldiers against Elijah to bring him by force into his presence. In the case of the first two groups, “there came down fire from heaven and consumed” them.
- Psalm 37 contrasts the wicked with the faithful. One of the major contrasts made is the end of the two groups. Of the wicked it says: “But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away” (Psa. 37:20). The interesting thing here is that the wicked are described as the fat of rams that were used in sacrifices, and when placed on the altar, were burnt into nothing.
- In Ezekiel 39:6,17-22, God describes the destruction of the hordes that will come against Jerusalem as “my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you.” Every fowl and beast of the field is invited to eat of the bodies. Note well that verse 6 (“a fire on Magog”) links well with Rev. 20:8-9.
With all this in mind, it’s interesting to note that even the passage we are looking at in Revelation 20 links judgment with an acceptable sacrifice. In v. 9, when the army comes against the camp of the saints, it says “fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Parallel quotes in Revelation
There are a number of other passages in the Revelation where God’s gment against the nations is described. Again we see the theme of judgment add sacrifice linked.
Note Revelation 14:8-11: In this case the judgment is directed against those individuals who have aligned themselves with the beast and the image. It is clear in these verses that we are dealing with divine anger and judgment, as opposed to a vindictive supernatural devil meeting out punishments. Phrases such as “the wine of the wrath of God,” and “His indignation” confirm this for us.
Throughout this whole set of verses, notice a common set of words and ideas creeping in, associated with sacrifice — “fire,” “smoke … ascendeth up,” and “day and night.”
Consider Revelation 19:11-21: Here the judgment is explicitly against the nations. The context of this judgment is the establishment of the kingdom, as the preceding verses are speaking of the marriage of Christ to his bride, and the marriage supper of the lamb.”‘ Not only that, but “true and righteous…judgments” are promised. These judgments are then described in great detail, and, as in Ezekiel 39, the fowls of the air are once again invited to eat the flesh of the conquered armies.
The language of the burnt offering
In Exodus 29, we have a description of the establishment of the morning and evening burnt offerings. It states:
Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: and with the one lamb a tenth deal off lour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering. And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee (Exo. 29:38- 42).
The continual burnt offering of the tabernacle/temple is described as being:
- Done at morning and evening
- For a sweet savour
- Made by fire, and
- Done continually throughout their generations.
Here I think we have the key to the language of Rev 20:10, as well as the other passages linked to this. There the torments are:
- Day and night
- Result in an ascending smoke, which in Ezekiel is described as a stink.”
- Done with fire, and
- Lasting “forever and ever.”
Note that just as the “continual burnt offering throughout your generations” did not last forever,VI so, too, the torments do not necessarily have to last forever. This can be linked with the language describing the fire on the brass altar. In Leviticus 6:12-13, the Jews were told that they were not to let this fire go out, and yet we know that this did happen — not only during the Babylonian captivity, but more permanently in AD 70. Thus God could describe both of these principles as being eternal or continual, while in His omnipotence knowing that the means by which He embodied the principles would not in fact be eternal.
So what is this torment?
All of what we have discussed so far is interesting, but it does not address the fact that the verse we’re looking at mentions “torment.” The Greek word used here is basanizo, which is a word that metamorphosed over time. It started its life referring to the use of a black rock by an assayer to test whether gold or silver coins were real. By rubbing the coin against the rock and checking the color of the resulting stripe, the assayer could test whether the coin was a forgery or not.” The meaning then changed to refer to checking calculations in financial transactions for correctness. Once more its meaning changed, and became a word referring to any type of testing that occurred. Finally, by the times of the New Testament it had come to mean testing through means of torture, and thus is translated as torment in the verse here.”‘”
To my way of thinking, this changes the way in which the use of torment in this verse can be viewed. We are not so much looking at a verse talking about mindless torment and torture, but instead a calculated judgment whose outcome is painful when the one being tested is found unworthy. Also implied is that the one doing and instigating the torment is one who has the responsibility to determine the true worth of the one being tested. Biblically this identifies Christ, rather than the orthodox concept of a supernatural devil. Even those who believe in a supernatural devil do not believe that he is the one who has the power to judge people.
It’s also interesting to note that this Greek word only appears once in the Septuagint Old Testament. This is in I Samuel 5:6, where it is translated as “destroyed” in the KJV, and “devastation” in the NIV. I think we can see some strong connections between I Samuel 5 and Revelation 20. For example:
- The protagonist in Revelation 20 is the Dragon, whereas in I Samuel it is Dagon. These are spelt similarly in the Greek.
- In Revelation, followers of the Dragon get a special mark in their hands and their head. In I Samuel, when the image of Dagon is confronted with the ark of the covenant, the head and hands of this image are singled out. Overnight, the idol falls over, and the head and hands are broken off.
- In Revelation 20:4 those “who had not worshipped the beast, neither his image” are judged worthy of living and reigning with Christ during the thousand years. In contrast to this we see the judgment against those who did worship the beast and his image in Revelation In verse nine, we have the language of judgment used against them with overtones of sacrifice. This links in with I Samuel 5 where we see the ones who worship the image of Dagon are the ones upon whom the destruction (basanizo) comes.
Here it’s important to note that the use of the word basanizo in I Samuel 5 (LAX) does not in any way contain overtones of hellfire or torment. Instead it’s very clear that it is describing judgments from God being poured out on a select group of people — specifically the worshippers of the image of Dagon.
An eternal memorial?
So far, then, we have established that the “eternal torment” being spoken of can be understood to refer to a specific occasion when the devil’s worthiness is judged, found wanting, with eternal consequences It’s interesting to note then the corporate resistance against Christ’s rule, whose destruction is described in Ezekiel 38, results in a memorial being established to this failed rebellion as a warning to all others who would attempt such a thing again, and more so as a celebration of the vindication of God Ix
The combination of these events described in Ezekiel, and the events described in Revelation 20, link very interestingly to an event described in Numbers When Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and the 250 princes with them rebelled against God’s representatives, Moses and Aaron, we know that they were openly judged by God In the case of the 250 princes, their judgment was (once again) in the form of an accepted sacrifice — fire came down from heaven and consumed them x As we have noted, sacrifice is the language describing the judgment against latter-day rebels On the other hand, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and all the families of Dathan and Abiram, were killed by being cast into a pit in the earth This is an echo to the dragon of Revelation 20 that is described as being cast into a bottomless pit XI
The end result of this rebellion is what interests us The 250 princes who had been destroyed by fire did, in some sense, live on throughout Israel’s generations Though they died in that fire, the judgment on them became a memonal when God commanded Aaron to take their censers, beat them flat, and cover the brazen altar (the altar of burnt offerings) with them This was, said God, “to be a memorial unto the children of Israel “XII
Perhaps then, although opposers of God will be judged and destroyed at a particular point in time, the judgment will be memorialized in some way In that way the judgment may be considered to last forever
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One