Revelation 20:13 clearly teaches that God will raise the dead to be judged from three different places; that is, the sea, death, and hell. Strictly speaking, this event cannot be a resurrection, and God does not call it a resurrection. A resurrection can only be to life. These dead are still dead as they stand before God. Prior to this judgment of the dead, God will have already raised the living part of the dead for Him to recreate to be righteous humans to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:3. These regions of the dead can only be three separate places. The word "sea" indicates water which is incompatible with a fiery hell. Likewise, the place called "death" indicates darkness and emptiness which is also incompatible with a fiery hell. In John 3:19-20, Jesus likened spiritual death to darkness into which some men retreat in order to get away from the light, which is symbolic of Christ, because they love their sins. Immediately following physical death, Christ will judge all people not saved by grace to be cast into one of these three places according to how they lived. Only Christ has the right to judge each person according to His complete knowledge, but as a general rule, one can assume that the worst of humanity will no doubt go into the fiery hell. Hebrews 9:27.
During Jesus' ministry on earth, He sometimes taught about hell, death, and the sea. This account begins with His teachings about hell.
In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus mainly taught believers, but He also inserted some dire warnings to unbelievers. In Matthew 5:22-25, Jesus taught that in order for believers to be right with God, they must first forgive and be reconciled to any person with whom they have been angry and have called pejorative names. But in the last sentence of verse 22, Jesus extended a solemn warning to certain types of unbelievers that could be called sociopaths. The sociopath possesses such extensive, excessive pride that he has allied himself with the rebellion of Satan. He harbors such a solipsistic attitude toward humanity that he considers everyone to be fools except himself. This fierce attitude accounts for why the sociopath has no feelings of empathy for the pain and suffering of others. In his mind, others amount to a kind of figment of his imagination. Jesus warned these types of people that He would sentence almost their whole being to the lake of fire. But even the worst sociopath retains a little goodness that God gave him, and God will recover that goodness in the end and use it in His recreation of a new, righteous human race.
In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus taught both believers and unbelievers one of the central truths of the Bible; that is, that sins of weakness are completely unavoidable. In Matthew 5:29-30 and Matthew 18:8-9, Jesus symbolically taught about the terrible power that sin can gain in a person's life. The Devil invented sin to be excessive systems. Sin causes excessive pleasure, excitement, and pride. Excessive systems are usually addictive and destructive. For example, those addicted to excessive pride rarely get saved by grace because they refuse to humble themselves to God and admit that they are lost sinners. In these verses, Christ taught symbolically that unbelievers can stay out of hell by forcing themselves to give up addictive sins as excruciatingly painful as that might be. For example, persons addicted to drugs or alcohol must often go through terrible withdrawal symptoms in order to free themselves from these addictions. Even then, some of these addictive effects will often last for a lifetime. After physical death, Jesus will probably sentence most of the worst sinners to the place called hell. Jesus warned that hell is such a terrible place that unbelievers should force themselves to give up their worst sins as painful as that effort might be. Christ sentences unrepentant sinners to the places called the sea, death, or hell. The lightest sentence is to the sea, the harder is to death, and the worst by far is to hell.
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