The Spiritual Meaning of Biblical Locations – Part 5
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The Spiritual Meaning of Biblical Locations – Part 5
The Bottomless Pit
Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Introduction
I recall as a 14 year-old child asking my father about this place called “the bottomless pit”. Dad was honest enough to admit he didn’t know where it was, but he emphasized the fact that Satan would be chained and bound in this ‘bottomless pit’ for the entire length of the millennium. I remember clearly asking my father why God let Satan out of that prison after the thousand years, and my father again admitted that he did not understand why God would do that. So it was with many things. Our entire family simply believed what was taught in our church, and no one asked any hard questions. A very popular song that was sung in the church at that time was entitled ‘Farther Along’, I think, and the message of that song was that there are many things which we simply are not meant to understand in this life.
Here are a few of the lyrics that come back to my mind after all these years:
“Farther along we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why. Cheer up my brother, live in the sunlight. We’ll understand it all by and by”.
Soon enough, as I got older I began asking some very simple questions; questions like ‘Why did the translators translate the Greek word ‘pascha‘, which is Greek for ‘passover’, as Easter?” I learned very quickly that everyone else was perfectly satisfied to ‘understand it all about [in the] by and by’.
Not one minister in a thousand will even quote the scriptures beyond this point when preaching a funeral:
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Not one Christian in a thousand can, or even wants to see or hear the very next verse:
1Co 2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
A so-called “bottomless pit” is one of “the deep things of God” which “God has revealed unto us by His spirit” but which very few Christians can locate or understand. I dare say that most Christians do not bother to even question what or where this ‘bottomless pit” is. They are perfectly content to assume that God has not revealed it to us when He has, in Truth, told us exactly where to find this ‘bottomless pit”.
Where is the bottomless pit mentioned in the scriptures?
As will always be the case, the understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, which includes understanding the function of this ‘bottomless pit’, will be hidden within the “line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” method which the Lord has plainly told us He uses to teach and inform “them that are weaned from the milk and are drawn from the breast”. There is also another reason why God uses this ‘line upon line precept upon precept’ method of teaching those who are “made to understand doctrine”, and that reason is to cause us to “go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.”
Isa 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
Isa 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
Isa 28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Isa 28:12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
So let’s go “line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” and see if the Lord will see fit to “teach [us] knowledge… and… [make us] to understand doctrine”, as those virtues apply to knowing and understanding what is and where is this thing which the King James Bible calls “the bottomless pit”.
The verses I have quoted from Revelation 20 at the beginning of this study are actually the last of seven times this phrase is found in the New Testament. Here are the rest of the verses where this phrase appears in the King James Version of the New Testament:
Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Rev 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Rev 11:7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
Rev 17:8 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, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Let’s take all these verses line upon line and precept upon precept and see what they reveal to us about this place called ‘the bottomless pit’.
Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Rev 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
The first three verses of Revelation 9 tell us that an angel (“star” – Rev 1:20, 2:1, 3:1) “[fell] from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit”. Then we are told that when this fallen angel opens this pit, a heavy smoke arises out of that pit, and that smoke is so heavy that “the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit”. Then we are told that locusts come out of the smoke which proceeds out of this bottomless pit.
Smoke is presented to us in its negative sense when it is associated with this ‘bottomless pit’. In the writings of the Old Testament prophets, smoke is often presented as the very symbol of wickedness and as something unpleasant in the Lord’s nose:
Psa 68:2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
Pro 10:26 As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.
Isa 9:18 For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
Isa 65:5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.
The smoke from this ‘bottomless pit’ darkens “the sun and the air”, both of which symbolize the things of the spirit realm – both good and evil:
Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
The smoke that comes out of this pit darkens the sun and the air because it obfuscates the Truth which is the Sun of Righteousness and His words. Verse three makes this even clearer by telling us locusts come out of the smoke that comes out of the ‘bottomless pit’. Locusts are one of the most common symbols of the devourer whose lies and false doctrines consume the kingdom and all the efforts of our rebellious, carnal, old man, even as he thinks of himself as being blessed in every way:
2Ch 7:13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
Nah 3:15 There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
So we have a very good clue in Revelation 9:2 because we now know that this “bottomless pit” produces wicked works and wicked words, symbolized by smoke which darkens the truth, which is symbolized by the sun and the air. Satan told Christ that God had given the nations of this world over to him, and Paul confirms that fact when he calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air”, which Satan is empowered to darken with his lies and the “lusts of our flesh”, which he is empowered to excite within us as “the children of disobedience”.
Luk 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Luk 4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.Eph 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Lest there be any doubt what this “bottomless pit” produces, Revelation 9:11 tells us that these locusts which come out of the smoke produced by the bottomless pit “have a king over them whose name in the Hebrew is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon”.
Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
The Hebrew word ‘abaddon’ appears five times in the Old Testament, and it means destruction:
H11
אבדּון
‘ăbaddôn
Total KJV Occurrences: 5
destruction, 5
Job_26:6, Job_28:22, Job_31:12, Pro_15:11 (2)
The Greek name Apollyon means the same thing. It appears only once here in Revelation 9:11, but its root is:
G622
ἀπόλλυμι
apollumi
ap-ol’-loo-meeFrom G575 and the base of G3639; to destroy fully (reflexively to perish, or lose), literally or figuratively: – destroy, die, lose, mar, perish.
So both of these names are the name of the same person in two languages, and that person is the destroyer, the devil, whom God Himself created for that very purpose:
Job 26:13 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.
Isa 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.
So much for the false doctrine of an out-of-control adversary named Lucifer. Isaiah 14, where that name first appears, and Ezekiel 28 are both speaking of men who will “go down to the grave”, the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre respectively:
Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
Isa 14:10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
Isa 14:11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
This king is the symbol of those who serve the king of the locusts which come out of the smoke ascending up out of the bottomless pit. The king of these locusts is the destroyer himself. The kings of Babylon and Tyre are not the king of ‘the bottomless pit’. They are just men who will be eaten by worms when they go into the grave.
The king over these locusts is the same as “the prince of the power of the air” who is also the father of the “children of disobedience”. He is “[our] father the devil” whose children we all are before we are dragged to know and abide in the words of Christ. Christ Himself tells us who these locusts are:
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Joh 8:35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
Joh 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Joh 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The servants of the king and angel of the bottomless pit are those who “commit sin” while professing to “believe in [Christ]”. These locust servants are those who profess Christ while Christ’s words have no place in them. Yet these locusts are “those Jews [Christians] which [profess that they] believe on Him”. How can I be so sure these locusts are false prophets who bring lying false doctrines? Here is how the scriptures themselves interpret this symbol of locusts which come out of the “smoke which darkens the sun and the air”:
Rev 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
Rev 9:9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
Rev 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
Notice who else in this revelation is said to have crowns. Who in Revelation 20 is also associated with this place called ‘the bottomless pit’?
Rev 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
This is the same dragon of Revelation 20:
Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Every subject of any king is empowered by the king to whom he is subject, and here are those who are subjects of and who are empowered by this “great red dragon”:
Rev 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
Rev 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
Just like “[his] father the devil”] this beast, which rises up out of the sea, also has “seven heads and ten crowns upon his heads”. We will come back to Revelation 13:1 after we have covered every verse in the King James Version which has the phrase ‘bottomless pit’ in it. This verse we will find to be a big help in revealing to us just where this place called ‘the bottomless pit’ is located.
First, let’s notice what this beast does as he relates to God and His Son Jesus Christ:
Rev 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
Rev 13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
Rev 13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
The fact this beast is given to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and he is given power over all men and all nations, explains why we are all first this beast, but it also explains why these locusts are described as “horses prepared unto battle”. At the same time, we are told “their faces were as the faces of men”:
Rev 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
The biblical symbol for a church, whether it is the church of God or the false churches of Babylon, is a woman. Babylon the great is called “the mother of harlots” (Rev 17:3-5), and physical Jerusalem is called a harlot (Isa 1:21). The false churches all want to bear Christ’s name, but they will have nothing to do with His clothing or His food, which they hate:
Isa 4:1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
So what are we told of these locusts which come out of the smoke of this place called the bottomless pit?
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
These locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit appear to be the church of God, when in reality they are a roaring lion seeking whom they may devour. “Hair of a woman… and their teeth… as the teeth of lions”, is just another description of the beast who “had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon”:
Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
This second beast is just a more religious version of the first beast. Both blaspheme God and those who dwell in heaven, both are but different stages of the locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit:
Rev 13:12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
Rev 13:13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
Rev 13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
Rev 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Now let us take note of one more piece of information about these locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit:
Rev 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
This adds one more clue as to the location of this place called ‘the bottomless pit’. These locusts have tails like a scorpion, and what do the scriptures reveal to be the spiritual meaning of this word ‘tail’? This is the spiritual significance of the word tail, and it accords with everything else we have so far shown to be the spiritual meaning of everything which we are told comes up out of ‘the bottomless pit’.
Isa 9:14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
Isa 9:15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.Deu 28:13 And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:
“The prophet that teaches lies… is the tail”, and the fact that these locusts sting like a scorpion just adds to our understanding of who is being stung by these locusts with “tails like scorpions”. Just as the church of Laodicea did not realize they were wretched, miserable, blind and naked, neither do we know we are being stung while we in the the darkness of that smoke filled with these stinging locusts. All of this adds to our understanding of the meaning of all of the symbols. The smoke, the locusts and the tails like scorpions are all these false prophets who teach lies and who darken the light of the truth of Christ and His words with their lies and false prophecies.
We have yet another very revealing clue of where we can locate the bottomless pit. That clue is given us in chapter 11 where we read:
Rev 11:7 And when they [Christ’s witnesses] shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
This verse practically comes out and tells us where to locate the bottomless pit. We are told that the beast himself ascends out of the bottomless pit to make war against and overcome and kill Christ’s “two witnesses”.
Our next verse which has this phrase, ‘the bottomless pit’, repeats:
Rev 17:8 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, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
In this verse we discover that this beast which “ascend[s] out of the bottomless pit… was, and is not, and [yet it] shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”. So now we have one more clue which tells us that whatever “the bottomless pit” is, it has an ‘is, was, and will be’ quality about it which will endure from generation to generation even as the beast in each of us goes into perdition and is delivered from this bottomless pit through the destruction of that beast.
Those are the first five times this phrase ‘bottomless pit’ appears in the King James Version of the scriptures. Here now are the last two, which are the verses I quoted to open this study:
Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more.
From these verses we learn that “an angel [will] come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit.” He has a figurative “chain in His hand”, and this particular ‘angel’ has the power to “lay hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan and [bind] him a (figurative) thousand years” and “shut him up” and set a seal on him so that he will not be free to deceive the nations again until the “thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”
We have now come to the point of needing to know where Satan will be confined for “a thousand years”? Where is this place called ‘the bottomless pit’, and how will Satan be confined there? Let’s go to e-sword and see how many times the Greek word for the English phrase “bottomless pit” appears in the Greek:
G12
ἄβυσσος
abussos
Total KJV Occurrences: 9
bottomless, 7
Rev_9:1-2 (2), Rev_9:11, Rev_17:7-8 (2), Rev_20:1, Rev_20:3
deep, 2
Luk_8:31, Rom_10:7
There is only one Greek word from which the English phrase “bottomless pit” is translated, and that Greek word is ‘abussos‘, and look at that! It actually appears nine times in the original Greek.
We have here the seven entries we have covered so far where it is always translated as ‘bottomless pit’, but we have two more entries where this word is translated as ‘deep’. Let’s look at those two entries and see what more we can learn about the location of this ‘abussos‘ which produces so much blinding smoke and stinging locusts and which will be the prison of the great red dragon for a thousand years.
Here is our first entry where abussos is translated as deep:
Luk 8:30 And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.
Luk 8:31 And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep [the abussos].
Luk 8:32 And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.
This is the story of the legion of unclean spirits which had been residing in this “Gadarene” man (verse 26). It is revealing that even here they do not want to go into the deep, ‘the abussos‘. They much prefer to be given to devour our flesh at their will, which is what they are given to do at this time:
2Ti 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
2Ti 2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
2Ti 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Now let’s examine how this Greek word ‘abussos‘ is translated as ‘deep’ in Romans 10:
Rom 10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
Rom 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
Rom 10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? [Greek: abussos] (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
Rom 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
This entry demonstrates for us that the ‘abussos‘ is the realm of the dead. Descending into the abussos is the same as bringing Christ again from the dead. The people in the millennium are spiritually dead while they are physically alive. Christ entered into the realm of the dead the moment He emptied Himself of His divinity and came into His physical mother Mary’s womb to be offered as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. He even refers to all men who are living without knowing Himself or His Father as the walking dead:
Mat 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Mat 8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
So where is the bottomless pit, the abussos? We have learned that it is the source of all the lying spiritual darkness which blots out the light of the sun. It is the source of the devouring locusts which strip us naked while telling us we are rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing, totally unaware of the blinding spiritual darkness in which we live. We have learned that the abussos is the source of all of the opposition against the saints and the witnesses who have the testimony of Jesus Christ, and we have learned that the abussos is the place from which the beast of Revelation 13:1 arises. We were twice told that the beast “ascends out of the bottomless pit”, the abussos.
Finally we saw that the abussos is the realm of the dying first-man Adam who is himself the beast who “ascends out of the bottomless pit”.
So where is this ‘bottomless pit’, this abussos? It is the very flesh of every man who rises up out of the sea of the flesh of all who are “in Adam”. When we read:
Rev 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
Yes, it is true that the Greek word translated ‘sea’ here is ‘thalassa‘, G2281, which is properly translated as ‘sea’. However, when we read this same story in Mark, the abussos which the devils did not want to enter, and in which the swine die, is called thalassa:
Mar 5:13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea [thalassa].
The beast comes up out of the thalassa in Revelation 13:1, but we are also twice told that the beast “ascends out of the [abussos] bottomless pit”. Clearly “the deep” – the abussos and “the thalassa” – are just two words for the same thing. They are both symbols of the Adamic flesh into which we are all born and out of which we all rise up to blaspheme God and to blaspheme those who dwell in heaven.
Rev 11:7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit [Greek: abussos] shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
Rev 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit [Greek: abussos], and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
If the abussos is simply the sea of flesh, why would Satan object to being locked and chained in that bottomless pit? The answer is that the abussos is flesh only as it applies to Adam and his carnal, natural, clay-and-dust origins. Satan loves to rule over our flesh and devour us for his lunch, which is what is given him to do at this time, but during the thousand years he will be under lock and key within us, and he will be unable to deceive the nations “till the thousand years are expired”. It is analogous to having access to a car, which you were once given as a means of transportation, and then having the keys taken away from you. Being locked up and imprisoned in the very thing that once served him so well in doing what he wanted to do, which for Satan was to go out and deceive the nations, is Satan’s fate during the millennium.
Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Satan is not allowed to drive his car for a thousand years because God’s elect will be in the driver’s seat at that time:
Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.