Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:17-18).
These are the first words Christ speaks in the book of Revelation. And as I was reading them in my quiet time recently, I was struck by that last sentence: “I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
In the modern world, we generally think of death as a state of being, or possibly a process, and Hades as an old-fashioned word for the place where the dead go, but with those definitions, this passage doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Okay, Jesus might have the keys to a place if it can be locked, but what could it mean to hold the keys of death? That’s the modern world, though. What about the world of the people who first read Revelation more than nineteen hundred years ago?
The word translated “death” in this passage is thanatos. But this word doesn’t just mean what modern people think of as death. Anyone living in the time and the culture in which Revelation was written would have recognized that Thanatos was also the name of a pagan god. As was Hades. In fact, John himself, the author of Revelation, portrays them that way later in the book. In chapter six we read:
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth (Revelation 6:7-8).
Death – Thanatos – rides a horse in this passage, and Hades follows him. Those are clearly the actions of… well, not people exactly, but some sort of beings. And later, near the end of the book, John writes:
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death (Revelation 20:14).
This verse also describes Thanatos and Death as though they are creatures; neither a state of being nor a place can be thrown into a lake of fire, or anywhere else.
Getting back to the keys then, Christ isn’t saying that he has the keys used to lock the doors to Hades and to death (what would calling something a door to death even mean?). Rather, he’s saying that he now holds the keys that used to belong to Death and Hades. Death no longer has the power to bind or release. Nor does Hades have that power. By taking their keys, Christ has taken away their power. As it says in Hebrews:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
And:
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).
Death has been conquered. Hades has been conquered. They will continue to exist for a while longer, but as shadows of themselves, frightening people with empty threats that they no longer have the power to carry out.
Does that mean Jesus is saying these pagan gods are real? Not necessarily. The original readers of this book might well have understood this image to be a metaphor. Either or both of these beings would be fitting names for “him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil.” Whether or not Death and Hades are real beings is an interesting question, but one that, ultimately, misses the point. What matters is not the beings, real or metaphorical, who used to hold the keys, it’s the one who holds them now, namely Christ.
This is a truth that, if I believe it, changes everything about the way I live my life. Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades. No one else. My body may die, but even then I will be under Christ’s power and not the power of the evil one. Death is no longer a threat. Not to me, and not to anyone who is in Christ.
But there’s more about keys here in the first few chapters of Revelation. Jesus told John to write to the church in Philadelphia (in Asia Minor, not Pennsylvania):
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open (Revelation 3:7).
This passage obviously points back to Christ’s words about holding the keys of Death and Hades, but it is also a reference to a prophecy Isaiah had given centuries earlier, directed to a man named Shebna, who was the palace steward and corrupt:
In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. (Isaiah 22:20-22).
There’s that same phrase: “what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.” At the time of Isaiah, the palace steward controlled access to throne room. He had the power to decide who would be allowed to make their appeal to the king, and who would be shut out. That is what Isaiah meant by opening and shutting the door; the steward’s decision was final.
The parallel is obvious. Just as the palace steward controlled the only access to the king, so Christ controls the only access to God’s throne room (John 14:6). But that’s not the only kind of door that we see Jesus controlling. In the very next verse he says:
See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut (Revelation 3:8).
This statement, given to a church persevering against opposition, is not talking about access to God, but about the opportunity to bear witness about Christ. Paul uses the image of a door in exactly the same way:
But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me (1 Corinthians 16:8-9).
and:
Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:12-13).
and also:
And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains (Colossians 4:3).
This is saying, then, that if the believers in Philadelphia will be faithful, no one will be able to silence their message. It is not chance that created the opportunity they now have. Christ, the key holder, does not just have power over death, but also over the circumstances of life.
But these two pictures of open doors are not as separate as they seem at first. An open door for ministry is really an open door to the throne of God, allowing all those who hear and respond to be received in grace. A door opened by Christ that can not be shut by anyone else.
In this light, the third mention in Revelation of a door is rather shocking:
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me (Revelation 3:20).
Although this verse is often quoted while sharing the gospel, it is actually addressed to a church which has fallen away. The church in Laodicea was failing in just about every way, but Christ did not want to destroy them. He called them to repent.
So it’s in that context that we see this image of Jesus standing at their door, knocking to be let in. It’s an amazing picture of Christ’s humility, that he is knocking on a door that has been shut in his face. Anger would certainly have been justified, but Christ is acting in love. What’s more, he holds the keys. He can force open their door at any time, but he chooses instead to ask them to open it. Rather than treating the “believers” in Laodicea as the enemies they’d shown themselves to be, Jesus wants to restore their relationship.
But there’s one more door in Revelation that’s worth looking at:
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it (Revelation 4:1-2).
The voice of Christ that John had heard on earth (Revelation 1:10-11) is the same voice that calls him into heaven. The door is open, and there’s no question who opened it.
But notice that John did not say he went through the door. All he says is that he was immediately “in the Spirit” and in God’s throne room. Which actually makes a lot of sense. Like the rest of us, John couldn’t fly. He could not, by his own power, go through a door in the sky. When Christ called John to “come up here,” he was telling him to do something that was impossible. But in the Holy Spirit, it was not just possible, it was done at once. That’s a lesson that I don’t think we should overlook. Jesus opened the door to heaven, but even with the door open, it was only by the Holy Spirit that John was able to enter.
From the key, to the door, to the throne room. This is a theology of pure grace; no effort of John’s, or of mine, will bring either of us to God. And at the same time, it’s a theology that demands a response. Jesus and no one else holds the keys. The door he opens can’t be shut, and if he closes the door, it can’t be opened. And when he opens a door, the Holy Spirit gives me the power to obey even impossible commands. Like take my place, with Christ, on the very throne of God (Ephesians 2:6-7). How can I claim to believe this without it changing everything in my life?
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).