Reserved Unto Judgment

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. (2 Peter 2:4)

The text says, “They were cast down to hell, to be reserved unto judgment.” To be reserved. Where? “In hell.” How long? “Unto judgment.”

Here is an important consideration. It is generally thought, by the multitude who are daily quoting this text, that the hell of which it speaks is a place of endless torture; but the language employed directly contradicts such an idea. It simply says, “The angels shall be reserved in hell unto judgment;” not reserved there endlessly, but unto a certain time. It is like this: When a man is guilty of a capital offence, he is doomed to prison, to remain till the day of his execution. He is reserved there unto judgment or punishment. So with these messengers. They were reserved in hell unto judgment. The text then limits their continuance in hell. This fact wholly rescues it from the hands of those who employ it to prove the eternity of woe. You can prove by it no punishment in hell after the judgment of which it speaks.

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Author: Otis A. Skinner

Keywords: Tartarus, Hell, Angels that sinned

Bible reference(s): 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6

Source: An Inquiry into the Scriptural Import of the words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna, translated Hell in the Common English Version. Revised, with essays and notes, by Otis A. Skinner (Boston: A. Tompkins, 1854).

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