The Bible is a lot weirder than we often give it credit for. An example of this is 2 Peter 2:4: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.” What on earth!? A key to understanding this passage lies in the term “hell.” If you read this passage in the ESV, the footnote says: “Greek Tartarus.” The traditional Greek term for hell (γέεννα) does not show up in this passage. Instead, as the ESV footnote indicates, these demonic minions are not thrown into “hell” or “the Lake of Fire” but into “Tartarus.”
In Greek mythology, Tartarus was a deep abyss, a dungeon or pit, of punishment and torment where Zeus imprisoned the Titans, a rebellious group of divine beings. I think Peter is using this term in a similar way—namely, Tartarus is where evil angels are bound until the time of judgment. To make things even more strange, Rev 9:1 mentions that during the Great Tribulation the devil will be given “the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.” The Greek word for “bottomless pit” is abyss (ἄβυσσος). When the devil opens the pit, the nastiest, most vile creatures you can ever imagine pour forth to inflict misery upon mankind (Rev 9:4). Fun! I take these creatures released in Rev 9:1 from “the abyss” by the devil to be the same demons chained in “Tartarus” mentioned in 2 Pet 2:4.
Maybe you’ve never heard of this type of teaching. That’s okay—I didn’t stumble upon it until recently, maybe a year or two ago. The biblical teaching on the supernatural world may shock us. That’s good, because it leads us to remember that God’s plan of redemption is far more complex, majestic, and awe-inspiring than we can ever imagine. Embrace the weird!
Pastor Chance Sumner
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