The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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Before Satan is cast into the lake of fire to be tormented forever, Revelation 20:1-3 details a thousand-year imprisonment:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time. 

The Greek word abyssos, rendered “abyss,” “pit,” or “bottomless pit” in many English translations, occurs nine times in the New Testament. In most occurrences, it refers to a place of temporary confinement for certain evil spirits. For example, in Jesus’ encounter with “Legion,” the demons who possess this Gerasene man beg Jesus not to banish them to the abyss – no doubt a place evil spirits fear (Luke 8:31). 

Later, both Peter and Jude refer to a place where particularly nasty evil spirits are kept in reserve for judgment. Peter uses the Greek tartaroo (transliterated “Tartarus” in 2 Pet. 2:4 HCSB), and Jude describes it as a place where certain rebellious spirits are kept in “eternal chains in deep darkness” (Jude 6).

In the Book of Revelation, demonic “locusts” and a murderous beast emerge from the abyss, and Satan is cast there for a time (Rev. 9:1-11; 11:7; 20:1-3). The only exception seems to be Romans 10:7, in which Paul uses abyss as a synonym for the grave (or perhaps the underworld), contrasting Jesus’ descent into it with the Savior’s ascension into heaven.

Note several characteristics of the abyss. First, it is under God’s sovereign control. An angel must be given the key for the shaft to the abyss, for the angel has no authority to open it on his own (Rev. 9:1; 20:1). The beast upon whom the “Mother of Prostitutes” rides comes up from the abyss, only to go to destruction (Rev. 17:5, 8). Demons fear the abyss and seek to avoid it, although Jesus has the final say (Luke 8:31). And Satan is seized, bound, and thrown into the abyss for a thousand years – a sentence he cannot appeal or shorten (Rev. 20:1-3). 

We also may note the relative unimportance of Satan in these verses. It is not the Father, the exalted Son of God, or the Holy Spirit who deals with the evil one. Rather, an unnamed angel is dispatched to lock Satan in the abyss.

Second, the abyss is a place of confinement. Like Satan, evil spirits seem to desire freedom to prowl the earth (1 Pet. 5:8). They crave autonomy – independence from God, and both the ability and opportunity to oppose him. In the abyss, however, they are kept under lock and key. Jude describes it as a place where some evil spirits are “kept in eternal chains in deep darkness” (Jude 6).

No doubt, the expression “chains” is used figuratively since evil spirits are non-corporeal beings and physical chains cannot bind them. Nevertheless, they are imprisoned, and God, who is spirit (John 4:24), knows full well how to keep spirits he created in their place. 

Third, the abyss is a place of temporary punishment. Satan is kept there for a thousand years, only to be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented night and day forever (Rev. 20:10). Like hades, the abode of the dead where the wicked go between physical death and final judgment, the abyss is imprisonment, with no parole, for evil spirits. Ultimately, both “death” and “Hades” are cast into the lake of fire, for they are temporary states of punishment and are no longer needed after final judgment (cf. Rev. 20:14).

Similarly, once Satan, evil spirits, and wicked people are cast into hell, the abyss serves no further purpose. Though temporary, the abyss is a place of genuine punishment, for confinement prevents Satan and evil spirits from carrying out their wicked campaign against God and God’s people.

Fourth, the abyss is intended for Satan and evil spirits, not people. The departed spirits of human beings reside in a temporary place called sheol in the Old Testament and hades in the New Testament. Of course, followers of Jesus go directly into his presence in heaven upon physical death, where they await resurrection, glorification, and everlasting life in the new heavens and new earth (2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-24; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21-22). But nowhere in Scripture are people described as being in the abyss. 

Death and hades, which John personifies in Revelation 20:14, clearly impact all humanity. But believers should take heart. The risen Christ holds the keys of death and hades (Rev. 1:18) and ultimately casts them both into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14).

Finally, the abyss is a reverse image of heaven. Just as “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17), the abyss spews nothing but wickedness from below. As Walter Elwell and Barry Beitzel point out:

This is in keeping with the metaphor and the picture throughout Revelation in which the Dragon and the Beast attempt to duplicate the power and glory reserved for God alone. Just as heaven is a source of all that is worthwhile, the bottomless pit is the source of all that is evil.

Next: The Millennium