“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

When the above verse is cited, it’s usually used in the commonly accepted sense that dark, spiritual influential forces, from an everlasting fiery locale, will continually lash out against the church. It will be to no avail, though, because they won’t win.

However, the word “hell” in our Bibles is translated from four words: “sheol,” “gehenna,” “tartarus,” and “hades.” They each have different meanings. In the case of the above verse, “hell” is translated from the Greek word “hades.” So it is the gates of hades that won’t prevail against the church.

Hades was the original name of a mythological god who oversaw and governed the realm of the dead. In the New Testament Bible, “hades” means “the grave.” This is what Jesus is symbolically referring to in the verse—the realm or the city of the dead.

In Jesus’ time and before, walls with gates surrounded cities. The gates were the power, the strength and protection of the cities. Therefore, when those cities were attacked, it was often the gates that were first focused upon.

In the above verse, Jesus is speaking in the context (that continues through vs. 21) of Him having to leave His disciples; that though He, the Christ, must die; upon His death the church will survive. He is not saying that gates, which can’t move, are in the process of coming against His people. He is saying that because the gates of death, meaning the power of death, cannot hold Him, it cannot hold His church either.

Jesus has conquered death. Death is no longer master over Him. Therefore, death won’t prevail against those in Him.

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Read details of the nature of hell in my article Hell-Fire. Click here.