Revelation 19:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There are two deaths. One is the separation of the soul from the body, and the other is the casting into Gehenna. Applying this to those who rise against God together with the antichrist, we suppose, not without reason, that the first death, the bodily one, will be inflicted on them by the sword, or by the command of God. Afterward the second will also overtake them. This is just. If it is not so, then together with their deceivers they will share in eternal torments, the second death. The being filled with flesh must be understood here as before. Just as God said through Isaiah to sinners, "You have become a satiety to Me" (Is 1:14), so every fleshly desire is unpleasant and abominable to His saints.

By the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the breath of His mouth, all who believed the devil will be slain (cf. Isa 11:4; 2 Thess 2:8). Their corpses will be given to the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth (cf. Deut 28:26; 1 Sam 17:44, 46; Jer 16:4; 19:7).

It is said: "Both were thrown alive into the lake of fire," while the rest were slain by the sword. O highest justice! He did not deem the instigators of the war and their accomplices worthy of one and the same punishment. The two, that is, the devil and the antichrist, are condemned to the fire, in which they remain alive eternally. This is precisely what their being thrown alive into the fire means. The rest will be struck down by the sword. Certainly a swift punishment by the sword is far better than fire.

We need not understand this so carnally as to believe that the saints, who seek higher things, would be filled with the bodies of the ungodly. Rather, the justice of the holy divine judgment was revealed. According to that justice, after forming the fullness of the elect, God determined that the rest should be condemned. The saints were nourished by the knowledge of that righteousness for which they hungered. They thirsted for it in this life, but were unable to contemplate it perfectly. Isaiah also said of the ungodly: "They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh" (Is 66:24). I think this refers to the supper of the birds in our passage.

According to Saint Andrew, there are two kinds of death. One consists in the separation of the soul from the body, and this is the death common to all. The other consists in being sent to Gehenna for eternal torment, which awaits only unrepentant sinners. Therefore it is believed that the antichrist and the false prophet will not die the common death, but will at once be condemned to the second death in the lake of fire. The remaining opponents of Christ, the accomplices of the antichrist, will be slain by the command of God and will die the common bodily death. After this they will be condemned to the second death, the lake of fire.