20:10, where we are told that "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."
The beast and false prophet had already been there a thousand years
when the devil was cast into the lake of fire, and they were tormented
consciously, without rest.
2. Now let us look at what "_Destruction_" means in the New Testament.
We are told by a certain school of religious thought that "destruction"
means destruction. Yes, "destruction" means destruction, but what does
destruction mean? They say it means annihilation, or ceasing to be,
but the Greek word so translated never means that in the Bible, nor
even out of the Bible. In the best Greek-English lexicon of the New
Testament extant, Thayer's translation of Grimm's great work, we are
told that when a thing is said to "perish" (and the verb from which
the noun commonly translated "destruction" and "perdition" is derived,
is the one translated "to perish") it is not meant that it ceases to
be, but that it is "so ruined that it no longer subserves the use for
which it was designed." Furthermore, here again God has been careful to
define His terms. He Himself has given us in the Bible a definition
of "destruction." We read in Rev. 17:8, 11: +"The beast that thou
sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit,
and go into perdition; and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder
. . . and the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is
of the seven, and goeth into perdition."+ Here we are told that
the beast goes into "perdition." The word here translated "perdition"
is precisely the same word that is elsewhere translated "destruction"
and should be so translated here; or else in the other instances it
should be translated, as here, "perdition." Now if we can find what
the beast goes into, then we shall know exactly what "destruction"
means, for we are told that he goeth "into destruction." In the 19th
chapter of Revelation, the 20th verse, we are told exactly where
the beast goes: +"And the beast was taken, and with him the false
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them
that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his
image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with
brimstone."+ Now looking forward to the next chapter, the 10th
verse, which I have already quoted, we read: +"And the devil that
deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are
also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day
and night for ever and ever."+ Putting these passages together
we see that the beast goeth into "destruction," and the destruction
into which he goes is a place in the lake which burneth with fire
and brimstone, where for a thousand years he is in conscious torment,
and where after the thousand years are over he is still there and is
still tormented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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