Revelation 20 does not support the idea that non-Christians will all burn in hell forever
An (Unusual) Introduction
A good friend of mine recently commented on the unusual fact that I’m now all over the internet writing about satanic forces. Yes, if you had asked my former atheist self three months ago if I would be openly talking about “the dark forces” and putting my name publicly to my testimonies, then I would not have believed it. Yes, somewhere in the UK, there is a doctor talking openly about signs of God and encounters where Jesus protected me from Satan. I’m half expecting one of my medical colleagues to refer me to a psychiatrist (but in the British National Health Service at the moment there probably aren’t any appointments, so hopefully I’ll be OK for a while).
I do it in the hope it will bring at least someone, somewhere, closer to Jesus (God might have inspired me to write this whole article just for one person — that’s very much something he would do). There is a reason Jesus called me, just as there is a reason he is calling you. I don’t especially want to write about the existence of an evil force, I’d rather write about the joy of faith again (Joy is integral to faith in Jesus | by Christopher David | Jan, 2024 | Medium), but here I am, about to discuss Revelation Chapter 20. It’s too important not to, because it appears to state that non-Christians actually aren’t going to burn in hell forever. The idea that your relatives and colleagues of other faiths will go to hell forever is not in keeping with the spirit of a supremely just, loving God. So this idea actually repels some people from Jesus’ love. This cannot be a good thing.
I say “appears to” because I’m conscious there might be strong feelings about this and this article should absolutely not destabilise anyone in their faith. It does not add or take away anything (Revelation 22:18–19; Matthew 5:18). It is not really for believers, but for non-believers — the wineskins that are empty (the beautiful old wineskins that are already full up should be all good!) I’m also a new convert, not a preacher, and I believe part of being humble includes an awareness that you might be wrong. I love Jesus and I have been guided since I was converted. As with my previous articles, I put my complete trust in him. If anyone ever tells you they know exactly what is going to happen in the end times, a good place to direct them is Jesus’ own words about the day he returns in Matthew Chapter 24 (and especially verse 36):
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Jesus is speaking here specifically about the moment he returns but the point remains that there are things we, as humans, cannot be certain about. Some churches have traditionally struggled with uncertainty. Which is odd, because many Christians accept that there are limits to how much we can know, for example about the nature of the father-son-spirit. Yet the prideful human desire to be right has led to people being excluded, even killed, if they say the “wrong” thing. The Catholic churches believe a lot of different things to the Protestant churches. The plurality of church interpretations proves there is uncertainty. The desire for certainty leads to “my truth is the only truth” which leads to error and a lot of negative consequences. So obviously I do not know, and I would be very wary indeed of any human who says they definitely do.
You’ll need to embark on your own journey and ask Christ, in humility, for truth.
Revelation 20 seems to explicitly state that all non-Christians do not automatically go to hell forever. It also states that God throws death and hell itself into a lake of fire, which suggests he gets rid of hell into some kind of oblivion.
So (now that I’ve assured you that I might have no idea what I’m talking about!) here follows the article itself:
If The Word Jars Against The Spirit
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)
My previous article last week discussed spiritual truth. It’s a big subject; I don’t pretend to have done it justice as one lone voice. Nonetheless, I was astounded to read Genesis and find that the scriptures explicitly stated to me that there were other humans around when Adam and Eve were created. I was amazed how Genesis (the beginning) was compatible with science (Isn’t it amazing that Genesis 1 still makes sense to a scientist today? | by Christopher David | Feb, 2024 | Medium). I was humbled in reverence by a spiritual truth I experienced that Genesis 1 foreshadows Christ.
This week I have been moved to write about Revelation 20. I was similarly astounded to learn that the scriptures explicitly state that non-Christians may not, actually, burn in hell for all eternity — a notion so horrible that it used to help keep me in atheism. I would humbly suggest that this would not seem like differential justice. This exclusionary idea keeps many away from Jesus’ love, so it cannot be good. It does not seem in keeping with Jesus’ spirit of love, or with his supremacy, or with his supreme justice.
I am not a Bible scholar, or a preacher. Maybe someone will come to me with loads of passages which support the idea for them. But the fact remains that many people are repulsed from Jesus by the perception that the Bible says all who don’t believe in him go to hell for eternity. Yet here is a passage which explicitly says that’s not what is going to happen.
Revelation 20 (what happens in the end) does not support it. John on Patmos writes of his divine vision:
1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
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.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
10 And 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.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
In other words, the “rest of the dead” (i.e. everyone other than those people of Jesus who are mentioned in verse 4) did not live again until the thousand years were finished. The martyrs of Jesus and those who had resisted the beast/antichrist will experience a first resurrection and live with Jesus for a period when evil is banished. After this period of relative peace, evil will have a resurgence and then, after that is dealt with, all the dead souls will be brought out from wherever they are. There seem to be two separate states from which these dead people get delivered (“death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them”). After this, these people, who seem to be those who did not make the first resurrection, are judged “according to their works”. Christians themselves are saved by Christ, and loving Christ with their whole heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37–40), and not by their works (Ephesians 2:8–9). These other people described here in Revelation 20:12–13 seem to be those not in Christ when they were alive on Earth. They receive a separate judgement according to what they did, which makes sense because they had not believed in Christ as their Saviour — so on what else should they be justly separated?
Then death and hell are gotten rid of (cast into the lake of fire). So here it explicitly states that hell and the lake of fire are different. Hell might be thought of as separation from God/love. Torment might be thought of as the knowledge of being separated from that. And if you think I’m watering down how bad hell is, what could actually be worse than burning with the knowledge that you separated yourself from God? I would rather have the literal fire than that. Whatever hell is, God gets rid of it into the lake of fire. Finally, anyone who was not saved, and is neither in the book of life because of crimes they’ve chosen to do, also goes to whatever oblivion the lake of fire is. The book of life seems positive (a book of life, not death) — God is doing all he can to save as many people as possible in this book and give them life after death. The lake of fire not being hell, and fire known to consume/destroy, it seems likely that this lake can be interpreted as an oblivion, perhaps with (Satan, the false prophet, the beast/antichrist), or without (some humans who could not be saved because of crimes they chose to do), the burning torment of awareness of eternal separation from God? Atheists think death is oblivion anyway, so this would be good news for atheists, that their primary idea of what happens to everybody they love is God’s worst case scenario for the fewest humans as possible. If you look at the charge sheet for the forces of evil, there’s not much a supreme sacred justice can do for them without compromising that supreme sacred justice. And if anyone still might feel bad for the forces of evil, there was a millennium of love and, even after this, evil did not give up. God made it so as many as possible could be saved, without compromising his supreme justice. Eternity might seem harsh for a human, but that’s what God (and science, actually) deals in on this issue of what happens in the end. Ultimately, God is getting rid of death and hell — saving absolutely everyone he can. A supreme mercy.
I am a recent convert to Jesus, my faith is not mature, so I do not know what better Christians than me are teaching, but for now, (at the very least) I think it’s a profoundly interesting (and divinely beautiful) fact that Revelation 20 does not say that all non-Christians will burn in hell forever.
In my life, I meet many beautiful people, of all faiths, of all kinds, and they shine, they are God’s beautiful creations, so it is not in keeping with the spirit of Jesus as I understand it that these people are going to burn in hell for eternity. How can it be? How could I politely smile in people’s faces as I go about my day, but behind my smile be thinking “you’re going to hell and I’m not”? Would that not be quite far away from the spirit of Jesus? If we actually believed that these people were destined for an eternity in hell, would every Christian not be obliged to immediately quit their day job and do everything in their power, every moment of their life, to prevent that happening to our fellow non-Christians? In general, most Christians I see around me seem quite relaxed when it comes to meeting people of other beliefs. If they truly have the revelation that their Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist or other friends and family are going to hell forever, would they not behave slightly differently in this life?
Dark Forces?
(i) Extremes of evil
Some of the things that happen in the world are unnaturally horrible. Most people do not need to be told the extent of the horrific things that have happened and are happening on Earth. The Bible does not shy away from it. I actually started to include links to some of these events but they were so bad that I deleted them as it wouldn’t be appropriate to write them out: literally unspeakable. For me, it has been important to realise that the evil we see happening in the world, or read in the history textbooks, is far beyond that which is explainable without the dark forces being real. Atheists in particular tend to think people are a bit mad when they start openly talking about Satan or demons. I previously wrote about truth and receiving the truth of the Bible as a spiritual sacred truth. Some people (quite a lot of people, far outnumbering atheists) have faith. So presumably quite a lot of them think the dark forces actually exist. Some people may think they are a spiritual truth which they conceptualise as coming from the human heart: something internal that we manifest. It is not for me to challenge anyone else. It is not for me to present my truth as the only truth, as I have received it, as myself, in the present day. Atheists have to concede that as they go about their day, all around them are people who believe in something vastly different to them. In fact, if you’re one of the approximately 200-300 million atheists in the world outside China and Vietnam, you are (I say this tongue-in-cheek) a bit of an outlier.
Why am I able to be playful here? Because Revelation 20 told me you’re probably not, actually, going to burn in hell forever for your atheist ways. This might have been the moment I would have burned in a literal human fire for heresy if I’d written this 500 years ago in Europe, but even today people are lighting the flames of exclusion, invoking Jesus’ name as they do it, all over the world.
(ii) A Christian perspective on evil
This article is essentially my testimony of my reading of Revelation 20. To fully understand it, there had to be some comment on the unspeakable things that happen in the world every day.
For me, because Jesus revealed that he is real, I had to accept that if Jesus is real then his deliverance ministry, the expelling of demons, and the existence of evil is real. I also personally experienced God protecting me from the so-called “dark forces”. In fact, one of the many surprises of my conversion from atheism is that once you tell Christians that you believe, many of them start openly talking about Satan, but when I was an atheist people did not really do that. My feeling is that it is better to speak explicitly and openly to everyone. If we truly believe in Christ, if we truly believe the scriptures, then we should be ready to openly talk about the demons mentioned by the Bible (or at least that we actually think the world doesn’t make sense without an evil force). That doesn’t mean doing it inappropriately and running around shouting “the Devil’s gonna get you”; but in my opinion, unbelief that an evil force exists is a factor keeping many atheists in darkness. Whether Satan is representative for evil or literal, no one human will prove to another.
(iii) Unbelievable evil
When, before, as an atheist, I used to read about horrific acts, I explained these as coming entirely from the human. I now see that whilst this explanation might explain some crimes (we cannot just blame everything on Satan), it does not explain the most horrific and unspeakable things we see happening. In truth, the world does not make sense unless you believe Satan exists, at least spiritually as an evil force (from whatever source), if not literally. Whether you believe in evolution or divine creation (or both, which would be compatible with Genesis), it does not make sense how humans will do the things we’ve done. As mentioned above, I deleted the most horrific acts from this article — they are, quite literally, unspeakable. They are not one-off freak occurrences. If you believe in evolution, it makes no sense why evolutionary descendants of apes would do these things. Kill someone for their peanuts? Maybe. A crowd of humans deriving entertainment pleasure from the spectator sport of feeding Christians to lions in a colosseum? It does not add up. If you believe in a literal Genesis, it makes no sense that descendants of Adam and Eve would just do these things because of original sin disobeying God and eating of a forbidden fruit. It makes no sense that the gift of free will would lead to the unspeakable atrocities occurring with such frequency throughout history. Without an evil force the horror of the history books and the current world news do not make sense. To me this is now on a rational, spiritual and scientific level. Many preachers talk openly about Satan, but as long as atheists don’t believe in that aspect of the scriptures, that part of the truth is obscured for them in darkness. They think it is a myth and that suits the dark forces just fine.
(iv) Against evil
An interesting question, especially for an atheist perhaps, is: so here’s this guy who’s publishing he believes Satan is real and demons are real — why isn’t he terrified? Some atheists might say, well because he’s mad. Others might shrug and say “no idea” then go about their day. I find it a testament to Christ’s supremacy, that I have encountered the dark forces, been protected from them by Jesus, and have no fear. That is not to say that I would engage with them directly (Jude 1:9). I put my trust in Christ. I defer to Christ or invoke the name of Christ. Nothing more. In this, there is nothing to fear.
I hope this article is not received as rambling, but to understand Revelation 20 requires at least some exploration of what the force of evil is.
Whatever anyone believes to be true about Satan, it should be something most people can accept that the dark force is the opposite of love — and love is something we can all understand. Isn’t it amazing the universality of love, even for those who have not yet been afire with the agape love of Jesus?
Closing Remarks
1 John Chapter 4 Verse 7–21 says:
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
What a blessing these words are.
It does not seem right that some are preaching that all non-Christians will automatically burn in hell, invoking extreme physical Earthly pain, forever, because they did not believe in Jesus.
This idea keeps some people in darkness, but is it definitely true?
It does not seem consistent with the spirit of Jesus, which is of love.
It does not seem consistent with Jesus’ supremacy.
It does not seem consistent with a supreme justice.
If anyone tells you that you’ll burn in eternal hell for not being a Christian, I would immediately (and gently) ask them whether that statement is consistent with the spirit of Jesus. I would also ask them to study what is actually written (repeatedly — both verse 12 and 13) in Revelation 20.
Non-Christians are still loved and still forgiven.
True followers of Jesus have the greatest reward. When they die and leave this world he brings them to heaven/union with him right away. When Jesus reigns for a millennium of peace he is with these people. He also walks with them in this life and so elevates them to a state of unsurpassed joy and blessedness in this world.
It makes sense. It aligns with Jesus’ spirit. It aligns with the Word. It aligns with God’s supreme love and his justice. Could it be true?
Isn’t it amazing that millions of people think Jesus doesn’t love them because of what man (not God) has done and because of what man has told them is definitely settled in the scriptures?
Rejoice, because Jesus loves you.
Jesus still loves you no matter who you are.
There’s a place for the Catholics and the Protestants.
There may, ultimately, be a place for the Jews, the Muslims and others who have not walked with Jesus while alive on Earth.
There may be a place for those who’ve gone off the path of truth (kind readers might, at this point, be concerned for your author’s salvation, but don’t worry, nothing here threatens your own).
Rejoice that there may be a place in Jesus’ eternal love for all your loving family members past and present.
Is this not the same spirit in which we worship by singing about the “reckless love of God”? — “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t”.
If you’ve done horrible things and repent, he’ll forgive you, no matter what.
Even if you’ve done beheadings in the desert, if you repent he will transform you, save you, and bring you home. Can you imagine such a radical message? Such a love. But if you’re doing beheadings in the desert and you don’t repent, when God himself has done literally everything humanly and divinely possible to save you — then what else do you want God to do? What more could the creator of the universe have done for you, who was even prepared to incarnate himself on Earth, let himself be humiliated, spat on, tortured and killed, to try to save you? You can’t blame it on some evil trinity. God doesn’t owe you anything, he’s done all he can for you. Even in the end, he’s going to forgive as many as it is possible to forgive.
That’s his radical message.
That’s his merciful supremacy. His justice.
Nothing is added or taken away from his Word — you must only study the Bible in humility for yourself. Do not push or pull, simply trust in Jesus. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. I can give you nothing, I am just a servant who knows nothing and has nothing except that which is given by God’s grace — you need only Jesus.
Jesus himself said (Mark Chapter 2):
17 They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.
25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?
26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?
27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
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Welsh Christian Revival
Sunday 25th February 2024
