Studies in Revelation: The Great White Throne Judgment of the Unbelieving Dead (Revelation 20)

With the close of the millennial kingdom of Jesus and the rebellion led by Satan, God institutes the final judgment of the unbelieving human race. A preliminary judgment has been made when each person dies, placing their spirits in Hades, a place Jesus describes as a place of torment (Luke 16:23), but now a more thorough judgment is made.

¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴ Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵ Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15, NIV)

Who is the one seated on the “great white throne”? It should be Jesus. He declared in John 5:22, “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” Is the earth and heavens fleeing from his presence literal or figurative? Probably figurative, though God is about to remake the heavens and the earth in preparation for heaven coming to earth (Revelation 21). The figure conveys the absolute fear of the judgment.

Two kinds of books are used to determine the sentence each person will be handed down: the books recording the deeds of the dead, and the book of life. The books show how one’s life was lived, the book of life shows whether you trusted in Jesus for salvation. Of course, no one’s name here is found in the book of life. These are “the dead” John has already mentioned in 20:5. They are the “rest of the dead” who did not participate in the first resurrection, over which the second death has no power. That is, these are the dead who will suffer the second death, who will be raised, what is elsewhere called the resurrection of the unjust (“those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned,” John 5:29; see also Acts 24:15; Daniel 12:1,2).

The sea gives up its dead (bodies not buried) and so does death and Hades (the bodies buried) and of course the souls to whom those bodies belong. They’re judged and then thrown into the lake of fire, the second death. Because there is a judgment of one’s deeds, it is likely that there will be degrees of punishment in the lake of fire. Jesus said that the judgment would be more tolerable” for Sodom and Gomorrah, and for Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 10:15; 11:22, 24) than for those who saw his ministry.

Revelation 20:10 says of the beast and the false prophet that they will be “tormented day and night forever and ever” and so we may presume that is the fate of the unbelieving dead, though again, there may be lesser or greater degrees of torment.