Special place in hell (for preterists)

[One Bad Pig]

Exegesis while on drugs is bad, mkay?

Pro tip: Greek mythology is not scripture.

[Darfius]

Scripture Verse: Revelation 9

13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.

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Uhhh, why are angels bound at the Euphrates and when were they released to kill a third of mankind? Welcome to another edition of "Questions preterists have never cared enough about God or the truth or anyone to ask, let alone answer."

Scripture Verse: 2 Peter 2

4 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; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;

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These angels must have done something very bad to be "put in chains" and "imprisoned in darkness". We'll get to what they did in a minute, but let's address why Peter used a specifically Greek concept to describe their "special place in hell". In Greek mythology, there were a lot of coups amongst the gods. Chronos led his brother and sister Titans [his generation of the gods] to rebel successfully against their father Uranus to seize power. After ruling during a "golden age", Cronos' own kids, led by Zeus, got the same idea and warred against the Titans, defeating them and casting them into dark imprisonment in Tartarus, described specifically as a place "where light could not enter." Sound like "chains of darkness" to anyone else? Peter, like the other prophets who wrote Scripture, did not select his words at random, but as he was led to by the Spirit of Christ. Also note that he mentions Noah's flood right after this. That's important.

Scripture Verse: 1 Peter 3

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

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Again Peter mentions "imprisoned spirits" in the context of the time of Noah's flood (the "days of Noah"). These are obviously the same imprisoned angels in Tartarus. He even confirms this is who he means by specifically mentioning the "angels, authorities and powers" in submission to Christ--undoubtedly the subject of His proclamation to them. And Peter mentions their "disobedience", which brings us back to why they were imprisoned in the first place.

Scripture Verse: Jude

6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

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Jude mentions these same rebellious (disobedient) angels who are "kept in darkness and chains" (Tartarus). And he also gives insight into the exact nature of their rebellion and disobedience. They abandoned their "proper dwelling", "authority" (another intentional word linkage to Peter) and engaged in sexual immorality and perversion in the same vein as those in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now the particular sexual sins of Sodom can be found in Scripture:

Scripture Verse: Genesis 19

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

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Now obviously having sex with other men was not a foreign concept to the men of Sodom, but also obvious is that they did not rape every man who passed through the city. We know that Lot never had sex with them, though he lived amongst them:

Scripture Verse: 2 Peter 2

7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)

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So it was not mere homosexual lust that drove them to attempt to rape these angels. It was the fact that they saw and recognized them as angels (as Abraham and Lot had done before them) that drove them to their attempt. But why? Why would men desire sex with angels? Now we get to the final piece of the puzzle, the reason the angels were cast into Tartarus, which is for doing the same thing the men of Sodom attempted to do.

Scripture Verse: Genesis 6

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

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Now the obvious meaning of "sons of God" as opposed to "human beings" is angels, and indeed that is how "sons of God" is used throughout the Old Testament, as has been pointed out and ignored on this forum before. But another reason it must mean angels is because this is the only place we have a possible explanation as to the "disobedience" and "abandonment of authority and natural dwelling" that the imprisoned angels in Tartarus stand accused of. And like the men of Sodom, they sought (and engaged in) perverse sex--that is, sex with a creature not of "their kind" (God made all creatures after their own kind).

And this happened "in the days of Noah".

Scripture Verse: Matthew 24

36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

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So now we know that there are angels imprisoned in a "special place in hell" awaiting "the day of judgement". But this cannot mean the judgment following the resurrection before the throne of Christ, because they are said to be released to kill a third of mankind. The "day of judgment" spoken of can only mean the "Day of the Lord", the proverbial "day" that God judges the nations/Gentiles/members of Daniel's "statue" for their rebellion to His rule. This period is also knows as the tribulation. And this period most certainly did not occur in the first century, at the least because angels did not ascend from hell to slaughter a third of mankind.

Good luck spiritualizing this away, preterists.