What is the abyss or bottomless pit?
Question 8033
The abyss appears at key moments in both the Gospels and the book of Revelation, and its significance is easy to miss if the word is treated as a generic term for darkness or depth. It is not. The biblical abyss is a specific location in the spiritual realm, described consistently as a place of confinement, and its role in the eschatological narrative is substantial.
The Word Itself
The Greek word abyssos literally means “bottomless” or “without depth,” conveying the idea of immeasurable depth. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is used for the primordial deep in Genesis 1:2 and for the depths of the sea. In the New Testament, it appears nine times, all in Luke and Revelation, and in every case it carries the sense of a realm of confinement for spiritual beings rather than a metaphor for general darkness or evil.
The Abyss in the Gospels
The most vivid Gospel encounter with the abyss comes in Luke 8:26-33, where Jesus meets the man from the Gerasenes inhabited by a legion of demons. When Jesus commanded the spirits to leave, “they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss” (Luke 8:31). The request reveals something important: the demons knew this place existed, feared being sent there, and regarded it as a punishment distinct from their current activity in the world. The fact that they preferred inhabiting a herd of pigs to entering the abyss tells us something about the severity of what confinement there represents.
The Abyss in Revelation
The book of Revelation develops the concept considerably. In Revelation 9:1-2, a star falls from heaven and is given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. When the pit is opened, smoke rises from it like the smoke of a great furnace, and out come the locust-like creatures of the fifth trumpet judgement. The “angel of the bottomless pit” is named in Revelation 9:11 as Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek, both meaning “destruction.” This being governs the occupants of the abyss during this period of the Tribulation.
The beast of Revelation 11:7 and 17:8 is said to ascend from the abyss, connecting the ultimate adversary of the end times to this realm. The most significant eschatological use of the abyss, however, comes in Revelation 20:1-3, where an angel descends from heaven with the key to the abyss and a great chain, seizes Satan, and throws him into it. He is sealed there for the duration of the Millennium, after which he is released briefly before his final judgement in the lake of fire.
Distinguishing the Abyss from Other Realms
Scripture describes several distinct realms in the unseen world, and clarity about their differences matters. Hades is the intermediate state for the unsaved dead, a temporary holding place before the final judgement at the Great White Throne. The lake of fire is the final place of eternal judgement for Satan, his angels, and all whose names are not found in the book of life (Revelation 20:14-15). Tartaros, referenced in 2 Peter 2:4, is where certain fallen angels are currently held in “chains of gloomy darkness.” The abyss functions as a place of confinement specifically connected to demonic beings and, ultimately, to Satan himself during the Millennium. These are not interchangeable terms for the same location but distinct aspects of the spiritual realm as Scripture describes it.
So, now what?
The abyss is not a symbol of vague spiritual darkness. It is a real place in the biblical cosmology, associated with confinement and judgement for spiritual beings whose activity in the present age operates under divine permission and within determined limits. The fact that demons feared the abyss in Jesus’ presence, that it will be used to confine Satan during the Millennium, and that its governing angel bears the name “Destruction” all testify to the seriousness with which Scripture treats the structure of the unseen world. These details are not decorative; they are revelation about the God who governs even the realm of the enemy.
“He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him.” Revelation 20:2-3