The new section of the Hell book that we read together in Hebrew class on Tartarus was really sobering and good last night. I went home and just wanted to get on my face. Jesus have mercy on me – to think about being in a place where you can’t be forgiven while you’re alive.
Good to know that our friend Jesus always walks beside us. Thankful to have a part with what God is doing & thank you Pastor John for caring for us all these years! 
Rebekah E.
*Attached is the new section.
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Chapter Three
Tartarus and the Abyss
IS TARTARUS A PLACE OF TORMENT?
References to Tartarus anywhere in the ancient world are rare, but one is found in Homer’s Iliad (8.13), written centuries before Jesus was born. There, Zeus, the Greeks’ supreme god, threatened any of the gods who might dare to disobey his command, “I’ll catch him and throw him down into Tartarus! A black hole that! A long way down! A Pit under the earth! Iron gates and brazen threshold! As far below Hades as Heaven is above the earth!” So, the Greeks believed that Tartarus was a place far beneath the surface of the earth.
The word Tartarus is used but once in the Bible, in verb form, by Peter: “God spared not the angels who sinned, but tartarized them and consigned them to chains of blackness to be held until the Day of Judgment” (2Pet. 2:4). In most English translations, 1 including the King James Version, the phrase, “tartarized them” is translated as “cast them down to Hell”. So, English translators, by and large, have accepted as true the ancient pagan notion that Tartarus, like Hell, is somewhere below the surface of the earth. But that is not true. Tartarus is a spiritual condition; it is not a location.
It is revealing that Peter and Jude both said that the fallen angels are already “under 2 gloomy darkness” and are already in chains of darkness, being held there until the time comes for their final judgment. So, fallen angels are not yet in torment, though they are already in Tartarus. They themselves seem to know that the time for their eternal torment is yet to come: “When Jesus had come to the other side, to the territory of the Gergesenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so extremely fierce that no one could travel along that road. And, behold, they cried aloud, saying, ‘What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’” (Mt. 8:28–29). Peter’s teaching concerning the tartarization of angels matches that of Jude: “Angels who did not keep to their own domain, but left their proper abode, God 3 has reserved in eternal chains, under gloomy darkness, until the Judgment of the Great Day” (Jude 1:6). Nothing is said of them being tormented at the present time.
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See Appendix, “Tartarus”. 1
See Appendix, “Fallen Angels”. 2
This is apparently a reference to Genesis 6:1–2. We are told that angels in Heaven do not marry (Mt. 22:30; Mk. 3 12:25), but it appears that some of them left their heavenly bodies (“their proper abode”), came down from Heaven (“their own domain”), and possessed men so that they could mate with beautiful women (the “strange flesh” they went after – Jude 1:7). Afterward, it appears that God would not allow them to return into their angelic bodies, but condemned them to a bodiless existence, unless they could find someone or some animal to possess.
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So, the answer to our question “Is Tartarus a place of torment?” is no. Tartarus is not a place at all; it is a horrible spiritual condition.
WHO IS TARTARUS FOR?
Peter’s mention of tartarized angels is in a chapter that is not about angels at all (2Pet. 2); it is instead devoted to warning God’s children to be faithful, lest God tartarize them! God’s tartarization of some of His angels is but one illustration among several that Peter used to demonstrate how severely God deals with treachery in His kingdom.
It is significant that Peter said nothing about sinners being tartarized. This is because only those who have received the Spirit of God and been born anew into God’s family can be, as Jude put it, “twice dead and uprooted” (Jude 1:12). All who are now in Christ were once dead in sin (cf. Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13), but when God tartarizes a believer, that believer is made dead in sin again, but this time permanently. Solomon warned God’s people in the Old Testament, “He that, being often reproved, hardens his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1). Tartarization, then, is a curse reserved for self-willed, treacherous servants of God, whether heavenly beings or men. On earth during the Old Testament, that meant treacherous against the law of Moses, but in this covenant, it means treacherous against the Son of God, of whom that law spoke.
In their comments on the subject, both Peter and Jude focused on those tartarized believers who act as leaders among God’s people, but God has also tartarized some who are not leaders, such as those in Israel, mentioned previously, who mocked God’s call for repentance (Isa. 22:12–14). Likewise, Jesus warned his followers that whoever dared to 4 blaspheme the holy Spirit would never be forgiven, in this life or the next (Mk. 3:28–29). Such children of God are damned while they live, cursed to live out the rest of their lives in sin, with no hope of forgiveness.
So, the answer to our question “Who is Tartarus for?” is that it is for treacherous members of the kingdom of God.
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IF TARTARUS IS NOT A PLACE,
THEN WHERE ARE TARTARIZED BELIEVERS?
Peter revealed the answer to this question when he warned the saints that they would be “among you” (2Pet. 2:1) being “preserved under punishment until the Day of Judgment” (2Pet. 2:9). Having received the Spirit, they are children of God, but they as cursed with blindness and continue worshipping with the body of Christ without having any hope of eternal life (cf. 2Pet. 2:13).
That is, whoever among believers. Blasphemous sinners can be forgiven, as was the apostle Paul (1Tim. 1:12–13). 4
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So, the answer to our question, “Where are tartarized believers?” is that they are among believers.
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CAN SOMEONE IN TARTARUS REPENT?
No one, of himself, is capable of godly sorrow for sin, for repentance is the work of God within a heart. Jesus told a group of his fellow Jews, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him” (Jn. 6:44). The earliest believers understood this, and when the believing Jews in Jerusalem heard that some Gentiles had received the Spirit, they rejoiced – not because those Gentiles had decided they would repent and believe the gospel, but because God had “granted repentance to the Gentiles” (Acts 11:18). In Tartarus, however, no soul is ever granted the godly sorrow that produces repentance. Such is the spiritual condition of Satan, as described by God Himself: “His heart is hard, like a stone. Yea, it is hard like a lower millstone” (Job 41:24). And it is God who hardened it so; that is tartarization.
God grants no repentance to those in Hell, either, but the great difference between Hell and Tartarus, and the condition which makes Tartarus far worse is that a tartarized soul is condemned to stay alive in their sinful condition, without hope of forgiveness because forgiveness follows repentance, and God will not grant it. Those in Hell cannot add sin to their record and make their Final Judgment worse, but for souls in Tartarus, just the opposite is true. They are cursed to continue to live according to their own will until God allows them to die. As Peter said, they are cursed children of God who can no longer cease from sin. They are continually making their final judgment worse. For souls in Tartarus, to be in Hell, where they can do nothing, would be a blessing.
Judas the betrayer discerned that he would never be forgiven for what he had done. He was with Jesus at the Last Supper, perhaps looking into Jesus’ eyes when the Lord said, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It were good for him if that man had not been born” (Mt. 26:24). And later that same night, after betraying Jesus, rather than continue living out what he knew was now a damned life, Judas killed himself – and awful as that was, suicide was for him the best option.
The beauty and goodness of life on earth is that it is a place of almost boundless hope, a place of opportunity to do what is good in God’s sight, a place of opportunity for growth in understanding and righteousness, a place where we may be corrected and change, a place where choices are still available and responses can still be made to God’s love. For tartarized believers, however, that no longer holds true.
So, the answer to our question “Can someone in Tartarus repent?” is no; God will not allow it.
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DO TARTARIZED PEOPLE KNOW THEY ARE TARTARIZED?
Referring to tartarized people, Peter made the following comments: “They are spots and blemishes . . . reveling in their deceitful ways while they feast with you. . . . For if after escaping the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, their last state is worse than the first. It would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them” (Excerpts, 2Peter 2).
Peter’s description of tartarized souls leaves no doubt that tartarized children of God are blind to their condition and that they feel that they belong among the saints; indeed, they may even feel qualified to lead them. If they understood their true spiritual condition, they could not possibly “revel” and “feast” with the saints, as Peter said they do. They are the “impostors” whom Paul said would come, “deceiving and being deceived” (2Tim. 3:13).
That those in Tartarus do not know they are there is one element which makes Tartarus the most horrific of all spiritual conditions. The tartarized leaders of Israel certainly did not realize how wretched their spiritual condition was: “Strangers consume his strength, but he does not know it; yea, gray hair is showing up on him, but he does not know it. The pride of Israel shows on his face, but they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek Him in all this” (Hos. 7:9–10). Tartarized ministers of this covenant are like them.
Swift Destruction?
For years before I understood tartarization, I wondered how Peter could have said that “swift destruction” would come upon false teachers in the body of Christ and that “their destruction is not asleep”, inasmuch as he also said that those false teachers would enjoy successful religious careers. Tartarization was the answer, for that is the “swift destruction” which comes upon those who stubbornly refuse to obey the truth God has shown them. It is a destruction that is so complete that they do not even know that they are destroyed.
Concerning tartarized believers who are ministers, Peter gave this warning to the saints: “There will be false teachers among you, who will introduce opinions that lead damnation. . . . These, like unreasoning beasts of nature, . . . speak evil of things they do not understand. . . . They cannot cease from sin, and they seduce unstable souls. They are cursed children [of God], having forsaken the right way and gone astray in following the way of Balaam, who loved the reward of unrighteousness . . . . They are wells 5
See Appendix, “The Way of Balaam”. 5
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without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom is reserved the blackness of eternal 6 darkness. . . . Making pretentious, vain speeches [sermons], they entice to sensuality through lusts of the flesh those who once had truly escaped from those who live in error. Promising them liberty, themselves being servants of corruption” (excerpts, 2Peter 2).
Tartarized believers are among the third kind of soil in Jesus’ parable of the Four Kinds of Soil (Mt. 13:3–8, 18–23). According to that parable, the first kind of soil rejected the truth because of ungodly influences; the second kind of soil turned away because of persecution; but the third kind of soil failed because of the deceitfulness of riches and desire for worldly things. Those of this kind of soil do not cease worshipping with the saints, and they may think they are doing well, but their spiritual growth has been stopped and they bear no fruit acceptable to God. As Peter said, they continue “feasting” with the saints, though they are “spots and blemishes” on the fabric of the congregation’s fellowship. Indeed, they may even become leaders of the congregation, delivering impressive sermons which attract men’s souls (cf. 2Pet. 2:1, 18–19). And in the end, when Jesus rejects them, they will be very surprised (cf. Mt. 7:21–23).
The misguided confidence of such believers is a most fearsome curse. Under this curse, some of these consider themselves to be apostles of Jesus (2Cor. 11:13). They light their own fire, Isaiah said, setting others on fire with their doctrines, who in turn become little sparks reflective of their leader, and those sparks pass on to others their vain form of service to God (Isa. 50:11). Under this curse, tartarized leaders of Israel spent fortunes evangelizing others (Mt. 23:15). Under this curse, God’s own servants are transformed into ministers of Satan (2Cor. 11:15), with a heart as hard as Satan’s, proclaiming a gospel that contradicts the truth and persecuting the upright, “thinking they are offering a service to God” (Jn. 16:2). And because of them, Peter said, “the way of truth will be spoken evil of ” (2Pet. 2:2).
Paul taught that God is just, to turn over to darkness those who have been given the light of His Son but who then choose not to walk in it. Said Paul, “Because they did not receive the love of the truth, God will send them a strong delusion,” causing these formerly loved sons and daughters to “believe the lie, so that they all might be damned who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness” (2Thess. 2:10–12). And before he came to earth, Christ prayed for God to likewise blind those in Israel who would reject him as their Messiah: “Return, O LORD, a recompense upon them according to the work of their hands. Give them hardness of heart, your curse upon them. In your anger, pursue and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD!” (Lam. 3:64–66).
BLESSED AND USED BY GOD
When God blesses tartarized saints, it is only to blind them to their true spiritual condition and make them bold in their error. Such children of God often often have a
6 This is a reference to Proverbs 25:14: “A man who boasts of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.”
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sense that God is using them, and they are correct in that, but they do not realize that God is using them only to try the hearts of His other children who still have hope. My father drifted away from God once, yet continued in his ministry. Sinners would be convicted by his preaching, he told us, and would come fall down and weep for their sins. Then he added, “They looked up to me as a holy man, but I would have given anything to be as free in spirit as they were.” Thankfully, he was not tartarized; God allowed him to feel his need of forgiveness, and he repented and was forgiven. For those who are not granted repentance, however, Jesus described what their plea will be in the end when they are condemned: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord! Lord! Haven’t we prophesied in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and performed many miracles in your name?’” (Mt. 7:21–23; cf. Mt. 25:31–46). It is sobering to consider that even after being tartarized, these cursed children of God were still able to use their blessings, including spiritual gifts, to minister to others. It is admittedly difficult to imagine a cursed child of God still healing the sick, prophesying, rejoicing in the Spirit, etc. But that is our own way of thinking. Jesus said it would happen with some of God’s children. Too late, though, those children will learn that God has only been using them, even in their fallen state, for others’ good.
We cannot help but see the harshness of this; at the same time, it is true. And it is a truth which makes every wise soul tremble. God’s judgments against sin can be extremely harsh. But whatever God decides to do with anyone is perfectly just because God is perfect and just.
A Mixture
Although souls in Tartarus still have choices and are free to make changes, no choice or change they make can please God, regardless of how good those choices appear to men. Jesus warned his disciples, “That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Lk. 16:15), and so it is with tartarized ministers. They may be highly esteemed by thousands, but they are used by God to minister in spiritual blindness, leading the blind from the deepest ditch of all. As Peter said it, “promising [their listeners] liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption” (2Pet. 2:19).
God hates wickedness, of course, but He hates a mixture of wickedness and goodness even more. There was a pastor in Laodicea whose love for God was mixed with love for the world. Jesus said to him, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16). “Mixed” is an apt description of Tartarus, for it is a mixture of blessings with the greatest curse, a mixture of life and death. They are blessed with life, but cursed with the kind of life they must live. They are blessed with the ability to change, but they can only change from one
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sinful thing to another. They can still grow (they have no choice about that), but they can only grow more damned – and this, they constantly do.
Paul described such believers as abandoned by Christ, being “reprobate concerning the faith” (2Tim. 3:8; cf. 2Cor. 13:5). Of such apostates, Jeremiah said, “Men will call them ‘rejected silver’, for the LORD has rejected them” (Jer. 6:30). That is a tragic end to a life once sanctified by the Spirit of God; yet, heartbreaking as it is, we must confess that it really happens. To deny that it happens is unwise, and it changes nothing.
So, the answer to our question “Do tartarized people know they are tartarized?” is no. =====
CAN WE KNOW WHO HAS BEEN TARTARIZED?
God is incomparably merciful and very slow to anger. He has joyfully welcomed home many a believer who drifted away from righteousness and wanted to come back to Him. Jesus’ parables of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15:11–32) and the Ninety and Nine (Mt. 18:12–13) powerfully showed this to be true. James spoke of backslidden believers being restored in faith: “Brothers, if anyone among you is led astray from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns the sinner from his wandering way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Jas. 5:19–20).
Jesus said, “There is joy among God’s angels over one sinner who repents” (Lk. 15:10), but that is only because the angels follow God’s lead. If He were not rejoicing over that repentant soul, the angels certainly would not. Heartfelt repentance is a gift from God (cf. Acts 11:19), and it makes God happy for one of His beloved, backslidden children to receive that gift.
But how do we know (1) who has fallen away, since many ungodly believers continue to be religious, and (2) who will God still allow to repent, and who He will not? The answer is that, as Jesus told his disciples, “With men, it is impossible.” God alone knows where each soul stands with Him. He does, in many cases, reveal to His servants the true spiritual condition of someone, but apart from such revelation, it is impossible for us to discern between a backslidden soul whom He will still allow to repent and a tartarized soul whom He has rejected.
Paul wrote Timothy concerning two men, Hymenaeus and Alexander, who had ruined their good conscience and “made shipwreck of their faith” (1Tim. 1:19). Moreover, he said, they had begun teaching a doctrine that was so detrimental to the saints that Paul had “turned them over to Satan” (1Tim. 1:20). But Paul seemed to have a healing purpose for doing so! He told Timothy that he had turned Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan, “that they may be taught not to blaspheme.” In other words, those two foolish believers might still learn to do right. The lesson in Paul’s words is clear: judge no one, but wait on the judgment of God. God has children who have done some very wicked deeds; still, no one is hopeless unless God says so.
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Hymenaeus and Alexander may never have learned their lesson and repented; we are not told. There are believers who die without heeding God’s call to repent. Paul speaks of some Corinthian believers who did that (1Cor. 11:29–30). But he then adds that God judged them with sickness and, in some cases, death so that they would not be condemned with the world (1Cor. 11:32). So, it is possible to die without repenting of something with which God is displeased, and yet still have hope.7
To die that way is sad, certainly, but a harsh chastisement meant to punish and save is not nearly as bad as being cursed to live a life that is already damned. For someone who has done that, John said not to waste your breath by praying for him: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not call for death, he shall ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sins that do not call for death. There is a sin that calls for death; I do not say that he should pray for that. All unrighteousness is sin, but there is a sin that does not call for death” (1Jn. 5:16–17). And again, only Jesus knows who has committed which kind of sin – Jesus and those to whom he chooses to reveal it.
So, the answer to the question, “Can we know who has been tartarized?” is no – unless God chooses to reveal it to us.
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Examples of this may be Ananias and Sapphira, whom God killed for lying to Peter (Acts 5:1–11). If a premature 7 death was the only punishment for their error, they were blessed, compared to being cursed by God to live on among His saints in a damned state.
