The worst prisons around the world today have unimaginable conditions. The Gitarama Prison in Rwanda was built to hold 400 inmates and has over 7,000 crammed in. People stand and sit in their own human mess all day long and it is common for feet and toes and legs to be amputated because of the infection from all the unsanitary conditions created by the overcrowding.
Camp 22 in North Korea is a political prison forcing inmates to live in isolation, work in intense slave-like labor, be regularly brutalized, and all while living in nearly starving conditions.
You can explore other notorious prisons from around the world to see how bad prisons can be on this earth. In doing so you will begin to get a glimpse of the suffering of certain angels who are on death row.
Jude mentions in verse 6 that there are certain angels who are imprisoned and awaiting their final judgment. These are Death Row Angels. Jude says that his audience is already familiar with these examples. I wish we were as acquainted as they were! I think we can learn some things though.
Read Jude 5-7, and then verse 6 again. Then turn and read 2 Peter 2:4
Our sermon is simple today. We have two headings: the Punishment of these angels and the Sin of these angels. We’ll go in that order.
THE PUNISHMENT OF THESE ANGELS
Jude says these angels are “kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains…” Second Peter 2:4 speaks of the same issue and it says, “For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment.” Both Jude and Peter tells us that these angels sinned and they are now bound with chains in darkness waiting for final judgment. Peter gives us an extra detail: God sent them to “Hell.”
There are a lot of things intersecting here. Lets start with the word hell. We use the term hell today and it makes us think in very fuzzy generic ways about “hell.” Flames, suffering, agony, cries, moaning. Its the place bad people go when they die, is the way people think. It’s the place unbelievers go when they die, Christians think. All true, but there’s more going on with “hell” than we realize. The word “hell” does not appear in the Bible. Actually, in the Bible there are different words used to describe the underworld and it teaches us more specifically what “hell” is like.
The Bible teaches that there is a place called Sheol, or Hades. Sheol is Hebrew and Hades is Greek, and they are speaking of the same place. When the NT quotes the OT about Sheol, it uses the word Hades. (Acts 2:27 and Ps 16:10). Remember the OT was written in Hebrew, the NT in Greek.
Everyone who died went to Sheol-Hades, both the righteous and the unrighteous. Job wanted God to hide him in Sheol until his suffering was over (14:13), and Psalm 16:10 was the Christ speaking, “You will not abandon me to Sheol.”
While everyone went to Sheol-Hades after death, there were two sides to it. Not everyone went to the same side. The righteous went to “Abraham’s Bosom” while the unrighteous went to “Abbadon.” Luke 16 tells us that when Lazarus and the rich man died Lazarus went to a place called Abraham’s bosom where he was in comfort and blessing and rest. The rich man went to another side, separated from Abraham’s bosom by a great chasm, where he was in suffering and agony. And they could see each other and talk to each other from across the chasm but they could not cross over to each other.
The unrighteous went to the other side of Sheol-Hades, apparently called “Abbadon.” In
If this sounds a little far-fetched let me point out a few things. One, when God created the earth he made the Garden of Eden within it. When the Temple was built, there was within it the Holy Place, and within that was the Holy of Holies. In the new creation there will be the New Jerusalem, and outside of it will be a place where the condemned are consigned. There are places within places. It’s not just a giant all-purpose room.
However, ever since Jesus, Abraham’s Bosom – the place of the righteous – has been emptied out and all those spirits who filled it are with Christ in heaven. The reason we understand this is because in the OT the souls of the righteous dead went down to Abraham’s bosom, also referred to as Paradise, but after Christ, in the NT, Paul said he was caught UP to Paradise. So Sheol-Hades still exists right now, but the only ones populating it are the unrighteous. You could say one side is empty and the other side, Abbadon (“the pit”) is full. It is filled with the spirits of all the unrighteous humans from all of history.
But they’re not the only ones there. Apparently there are different compartments or regions of Sheol-Hades. There are places within in Sheol-Hades that are prisons for angels as well. One place is called the Abyss. The other is Tartarus. The Abyss is a place of torment where evil angels can be sent into and released out from, as we see in Luke 8 and Revelation 9. In Luke 8 demons running loose on earth beg Jesus not to send them into the Abyss. In Revelation 9 the Abyss is opened and a demon army is released on the earth led by their demon king whose name in Hebrew is “Abbadon”
But Tartarus is a special prison within a prison. It is a place where certain angels have been confined and will never get out until they are released for their execution on the day of Judgment. They are on death row.
The only place this word appears in the Bible is in 2 Peter 2:4 where it says, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell [tartarus], putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment…” “Hell” there is the word Tartarus. Its the only place in the NT where the word is used. While it is so rarely used in Scripture, Tartarus was well known in Greek culture and thinking. It was a region lower than Hades reserved for the worst of the worse.
All the imagination of the worst afterlife imprisonment and suffering that “Tartarus” aroused in people’s minds Peter was using to arouse in his readers minds regarding the suffering of these evil angels. And Peter didn’t elaborate on all of it, just like Jude referred to it and didn’t elaborate on all of it. Mentioning it was enough. But both Peter and Jude were mentioning this because the consequences these angels faced for their wickedness is like the same consequences awaiting those false teachers in the churches of Jude’s readers. Jude would say in the next verse, “they [Sodom] serve as an example of those [false teachers] who suffer eternal fire” and then in verse 13 referring to the false teachers again, “blackest darkness has been reserved for them forever.” This is all connects with what Jude said in verse 4, “for certain individuals whose CONDEMNATION was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you…” Their judgment was written down long ago.
Which raises the question: If Tartarus is not the final place of judgment for these angels then what is? Well, its not the prison Sheol-Hades, and its not the prison Tartarus which is in Sheol-Hades either. It’s something else. Turn with me to Matthew 25:41. Then Revelation 20:11-15.
The place called Sheol-Hades that we refer to as Hell is not the final destination of wicked men or demons and Satan. That place is called the Lake of Fire. It isn’t until after the 1,000 year kingdom of Jesus that Sheol-Hades gives up the wicked dead in it and everyone and everything is thrown into the Lake of Fire: wicked men, evil angels, Satan, even Death and Hades are said to be thrown in. The lake of fire is called The Second Death. It is the permanent place of suffering for all eternity that awaits all the enemies of God.
Now another question should arise in our minds: Why did some angels get put into a prison while others are allowed to roam around the earth? Also, why did some get thrown into the Abyss where they could be released upon the earth, but these angels were so bad they were confined permanently until they would be thrown into the Lake of Fire? Lets look at their sin.
THE SIN OF THESE ANGELS
These angels are guilty of abandoning their positions. “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling…”
What does that mean? What does it mean that these angels gave up their places? What “positions” did they abandon? What is their “proper dwelling” and why would they abandon them?
Jude says they abandoned. They did not keep. Two phrases driving home the point that these angels quit, defected, gave up. Second Peter 2:4 speaks of the same event, and says that what those angels did was sin. “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned…”
What did they give up? What was it they abandoned that was a sin to abandon? Jude says they abandoned their proper dwelling, or let go of their proper places of authority.
Yeah, but what does that mean? What was their proper dwelling? Their position of authority? Some might say that this refers to the time when Satan led a third of the angels against God and they lost their place in heaven.
However, the problem with that view is that Satan and many demons still roam around the earth and are not imprisoned. Jude and Peter say these angels are imprisoned until the day of judgment – death row with no parole. Yet the Bible teaches us that Satan “roams around looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8), and that at one time he had his throne in the city of Pergamum (Rev 2:13). Demons run loose on the earth spreading doctrines of demons through humans (1 Tim 4), possessing people (Mark 5), scheming and harassing people (2 Cor. 2), masquerading as angels of light (2 Cor. 12), and getting “footholds” in people’s lives (Eph. 4). High ranking powerful demons are assigned as heads over human nations, like the prince of Persia (Dan 10:12, 20). Many demons are free to do all that. But some demons are not. Peter and Jude mention those that are not. Why? What “sin” (2 Pet. 2:4) did they commit that God in his justice demanded they be locked up in torment all the way until the great day of judgment?
Probably the most common understanding of this verse, and for good reason, is that these are the specific angels who not only defected with Satan, but who came down in Genesis 6 and co-mingled with human women. Turn with me to Genesis 6:1-4.
A solid interpretation is that the “sons of God” are angels. They came down and procreated with human women and created the race of giants, the heroes of old. It could be that they somehow manifested in human form, or they possessed certain men. Either way, there are a couple reasons for seeing “sons of God” as angels and not humans.
First, the use of the phrase sons of God shows up 5 other times and every time it is a reference to angels. In Job 1 and 2 the “sons of God” are said to come before God for worship, and Satan came with them. It is clearly angels. In Job 38:7 it says that while God was creating the sons of God sang for joy. Man wasn’t created until the last day of creation, so how could man sing for joy if he wasn’t created yet? Its a reference to angels.
Second, the language in Genesis 6:1-4 makes a contrast between “sons of God” and “humans born on the earth.” It makes a contrast between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.” It highlights a distinction – a distinction between species of creatures: one creature is human women (daughters of men) and the other creature is called “sons of God.”
The term “son of God” used of Adam in Luke’s genealogy and of angels points out to us that “sons of God” are those who are made directly by God’s hand and not by human procreation. Jesus is the ultimate “Son of God.”
Third, the context of Genesis 6 is judgment. There is nothing wrong with human men taking human women as wives and “mingling” with them. Now, some see the sons of God as the “godly line” of Seth, and they married the ungodly women who were descendents of Cain. That doesn’t work though because the verses refer to all of mankind increasing on the earth and daughters being born to all mankind. And how “godly” is Seth’s line if they all started marrying Cain’s line? If that was even a thing.
Since these angels procreated with human women they had to either take on human form or possess human men. The extra biblical book of Enoch even names the demons who led this whole cross-species mingling. Interesting to note: Jude quotes Enoch.
But how could angels, which are spirits, “mingle” with human women and marry them? We have to keep in mind the human-like form of angels seen in Scripture. Abraham prepared a meal for 3 men and stood there as their servant while they ate. Those three men were the LORD GOD and two of his angels. Those same 2 angels who looked like and were called “men” went down to Sodom and the men of Sodom wanted to “mingle” with them. The angels visiting Daniel were called “men” and looked like men, even though they were angels (10:5-6, 18) just like the angel in Ezekiel’s vision (9:2). We are told we have even entertained angels without even knowing it (Heb:13:2), which seems to imply they looked “human” enough that we didn’t even know they were angels? (I know I married an angel though!)
What does all this mean? If Genesis 6 is teaching that angels crossed over into the human world somehow and took human women to themselves, and had children with them, then this is a great sin in God’s eyes. This could very well be what Jude is talking about that all his readers would have been familiar with: these angels “left” their positions in the angelic realm; they left their proper dwelling in the angelic realm to intrude into the human realm in such a gross violation of God’s created order for each species.
Interestingly, the word “authority” is actually “arche” in Jude 6. They quit their positions of authority. They quit their positions of “arche.” The word means “first in a sequence” or “original” or “first in rank.” Often it is used in the NT to designate the authority and dignity of a position held by human or angelic rulers. All these meanings make sense when you consider the order of angels and humans. Angels were created first in sequence, then humans. These angels were created originally for their proper dwelling in the angelic realm before they abandoned what God designed them for. These evil angels gave up their dignity to commit a gross sin with human women. And angels are higher in rank in the created order than humans. “What is man that you are mindful of him, O LORD? You made him a little lower than the angels.” (Psalm 8; Heb 2:6-8 and 9!). In this way, these particular angels left their proper dwelling, their dignified, God-designated place, and sinfully entered into the human realm co-mingling the angelic with the human.
If that seems far-fetched lets come back to Jude. Remember that before Jude wrote verses 5-7 he wrote verse 4. In verse 4 Jude had these false teachers in mind. These false teachers are a danger to the church. Look at the particular sin these false teachers are promoting that is a danger to the church: “They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for sexual immorality….” Sexual immorality. Jude is worried that these false teachers would lead the church into sexual immorality through their teachings, and thereby defile the believers and make it a bad day for the believers when they stand before Jesus.
But after pointing out this threat in their midst (“secretly slipped in among you”), having in mind these ungodly rebels who deny Christ as Sovereign and Lord, meaning they reject Christ’s authority over their lives – especially their sex lives – what does Jude think of? He thinks of other historical examples of ungodly characters who denied the sovereignty of God over their lives and who engaged in sexual behavior.
The first example in verse 5: the Israelites who were led out of Egypt were unbelievers Jude says. And they were – as we explored several weeks ago. But they also engaged in sexual immorality (Numb. 25:1-9; 1 Cor. 10:8) and God killed 23,000 of them in one day for it.
Then the third example is Sodom and Gommorha, who also rejected God’s authority and “gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.”
So far, two out of three of the examples are guilty of sexual sin. But could the angels in our verse be guilty too? Well remember the men of Sodom tried to “mingle” with the angels of the Lord that entered the town. And there is a strong argument from Genesis 6 that angels actually did mingle with women. So the whole context of Jude verses 4-7 highlights the sin of sexual immorality and sexual perversion. And the theme is the condemnation of those who reject God’s authority and go after sexual immorality. Jude wants his readers to associate the false teachers in their midst with those historical examples who were guilty of the same things. Since his readers were so familiar with those three examples, and felt the wickedness of those examples, Jude wanted them to realize that the men in their midst were in the same category and they should feel towards those men as they do towards those 3 examples.
APPLICATION: Be sexually pure. Do not engage in sexual immorality. Sexual immorality always follows when you stop following Christ. The false teachers Jude warned about said God’s grace was a license for immorality. But God says that His grace teaches us to say “NO” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and it teaches us to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (Titus 2:11-12)
APPLICATION: Do not abandon the place of dignity in Christ you have been given. Meaning do not mingle with the godless world, do not mix your light with the surrounding darkness. Stand solidly in Christ, letting the light of your new creatureliness shine, keeping yourself separate from the wicked and their wickedness all around you.
CONCLUSION: CHRIST’S PRISON
If we speak of the suffering of fallen angels, we must speak of the suffering of the Son of God. His prison was a cross, and the unimaginable wrath of God he endured there is invisible to our human eye. But the full weight and force of it was all His. He suffered so that we could be saved. He suffered so that you could be saved. Consider these words we sang as we enter into Communion:
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!