Revelation 20:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Death and Hades,” says John, “were cast into the lake of fire.” By these names he designates both the devil, since he was the author of death and infernal torments, and the whole company of demons.

The death of soul and body, that is, the death of the whole man, occurs when the soul, abandoned by God, abandons the body. In that case neither does the soul live by God, nor does the body live by the soul.

After this kind of death of the whole man comes the death which the authority of the divine Scriptures has called the second death. The Savior also indicated it when He said: “Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Mt 10:28).

“Hades and death were cast into the lake of fire.” This means either what is written: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26), or that the evil demons will be condemned to the fire. They are the authors of grievous and evil spiritual death. They have Hades as their refuge, and they send there, for condemnation, those who have submitted to them.

As those who dwell in a city are called by the name of the city, so here Hades and death name their inhabitants and authors. Everything created by God is very good. Therefore this fire will consume and destroy everything that is not such, for it is written that God did not make death (Wis 1:13). Death and corruption will be no more, but immortality and incorruption will reign.

This is said to show that, since death has been swallowed up, no one will die anymore. Since the lower world has been condemned, Hades no longer finds anything that it can receive.

Death and the sojourn of unseen and bodiless souls in death are destroyed, since the resurrection has once taken place and every soul has received its own body. Describing this more figuratively, and meaning their destruction, the book of Revelation says that death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. The prophet Hosea does the same when he says: O death, where is your punishment? O Hades, where is your sting? (Hos 13:14). This is called the second death, the lake of fire, because earlier the first, natural death was spoken of, the separation of soul from body. But the second death is spiritual death, punishment and vengeance, whose cause is sin.

In this prophetic vision of John, interpreters of Revelation see the dread Judgment of God. Then the dead will live again (see Jn 5:25), and their souls will be united with their bodies, changed only into a better form and made incorruptible (see 1 Cor 15:35-44). They will appear to give account for their earthly deeds and to receive their due recompense (see 2 Cor 5:10).

“Every body will be composed and restored from that into which it was dissolved, whether it was committed to the earth or to the sea,” says St. Andrew.

After the sentence has been pronounced and carried out, the blessedness of the righteous will be increased. Sinners will return to their own Hades for a double torment (Ps 9:18).

And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is personification. After the universal resurrection no one will die anymore, so death itself will, as it were, die. Hades will no longer be needed. It will be emptied and will disappear. Here there is a rich convergence of concepts and words. Death dies. Hades, the place of torment, will be thrown into the lake of fire, which is appointed for the torment of sinners.

Hades itself and death are depicted as cast into the lake of fire in the sense that they will vanish and cease forever for mankind. Glorified and saved people will no longer fear either death or Hades, as they do here on earth. The lake of fire, or second death, is the eternal condemnation of sinners whose names were not found written in the book of life before the Lord God.