What is the Abyss?
The word behind "the abyss" simply means "bottomless," and Scripture uses it for a deep place where evil spirits are held under lock and key. That raises the questions that matter most: is it the same as hell, who controls it, and what comes out of it?
The word and where it appears
A survey of every occurrence shows a small, consistent set of passages, and they all point the same direction.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe word is ἄβυσσος, literally 'without a bottom,' an abyss. From the passages in Revelation we learn that the abyss is where the Satanic powers are shut up, not where they will be punished, which is in the lake of fire. The demons cast out by the Lord in Luke 8:31 begged Him not to send them into the abyss. In Romans 10:7 it is set in contrast to the heavens. In Revelation 9:1-11, a star fallen from heaven is given the key of the abyss, and when it is opened great moral darkness rises, out of which destructive agents come… Satan will be confined in the abyss during the thousand years of the millennium.
The literal sense should not be pressed too hard. One writer notes the same Greek word is used in the older Greek Old Testament for the deep waters over which darkness rested on the first day of creation, and that the abyss stands opposite heaven the way depth stands opposite height — beyond human reach either way.
A dungeon, not the lake of fire
Several terms often get blurred together. One writer separates them cleanly.
A. J. Pollock"The bottomless pit" should be translated "abyss," and it is distinct from hell. Hades is the condition of souls without a body. Death is the condition of bodies without souls. Gehenna is hell itself, spoken of in Revelation as "the lake of fire." The abyss is a place where God can confine the devil and evil spirits at His pleasure.
The clinching argument that it is not hell comes from a surprising place — a verse about Christ's resurrection.
Frederick W. GrantThe abyss is not, however, "hell" — the "lake of fire" — as we may see by the fact that in one passage (Romans 10:7) it is used in connection with the Lord: "Who will descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." Here, as the heavens are out of man's reach for height, so is the abyss for depth.
A prison with a key
The imagery is that of a dungeon, and a dungeon needs a key.
Frederick W. GrantA "pit" is in the Old Testament often another word for a dungeon, and everything unites to show this is the meaning here… So the demons pray that they may not be sent into the deep, or "abyss" (Luke 8:31), and Satan is, in the twentieth chapter, shut up there. In the Old Testament passage parallel to this one in Revelation it is said, "They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison." (Isaiah 24:22.) Here the abyss is clearly the "pit," or prison.
Writers differ over one detail: one suggests "the well of the abyss" in Revelation 9 may be distinct from "the abyss" mentioned elsewhere, while others treat the phrase as simply a fuller description of the same place.
Demons know it and fear it
When Jesus met men controlled by evil spirits, the spirits' reaction told the truth about their own future.
C. E. StuartThere is an order of malicious beings, hostile to God and to man… They can dwell in men and make them their tools… But they must submit to divine power. To the abyss, or bottomless pit, they belong, and that seems to be their prison-house (Revelation 9:1-11)… As the abyss is their prison-house, it explains the point of their urgent request to the Lord, that He would not send them there then, which is what they said in Luke 8:31. How aware they were that One was present who had absolute power over them! Forced to leave their victims at His word of command, they admitted they could go nowhere except by divine permission.
God holds the key over Satan's own region
Revelation 20 pictures an angel with a key and a chain — and the point of the picture is who is really in charge.
Walter ScottThe figures of the key and chain surely show that God is supreme even over the satanic region of the abyss. So, by angelic agency, He locks Satan up (the key) and binds him securely (the chain) in the abyss for a thousand years. His liberty is cut short and his sphere of action narrowed. He is effectively curbed and restrained from doing further harm on the earth until his prison door is unlocked… finally he is cast into the lake of fire for ever and ever.
What rises out of it
The abyss is not only a place things go into. Revelation also shows a world empire coming up out of it.
Numerical Bible NotesHere, then, for the first time, the beast out of the abyss comes plainly into the scene. In Daniel and in Revelation 13 he does not come out of the abyss, but out of the sea; but in the seventeenth chapter he is spoken of as "about to come up out of the abyss," showing beyond doubt that it is the same "beast" as Daniel's fourth one — the Roman empire… the empire that is to meet its judgment at the coming of the Lord does not continue unbroken in power till then. There is a time in which it ceases to be… after which it comes back in a peculiar form, as from the dead.
Summary
- Bottomless. The word means "without a bottom" — a depth as far below as heaven is above, used in Scripture for a place, not a mood.
- Prison, not punishment. The abyss is where satanic powers are shut up; the lake of fire is where they are punished. Keep the two apart.
- Demons' address. Evil spirits belong there and dreaded being sent there — and admitted to Christ that they could go nowhere without permission.
- Key. The key and the chain say God is supreme even over Satan's own region; Satan is locked in for a thousand years, then released briefly, then judged for ever.
- Door swings both ways. Things come up out of the abyss too — the beast, and destroying powers under Abaddon — which is why the key matters so much.