Who is the Destroyer in John’s Revelation?

In Revelation we have a character named: Abaddon/Apollyon. He is a destroyer. His purpose is to punish bad people.
Does the Destroyer act on the orders of God or satan?
Is he an angel of satan or is he an angel of God?
Let’s investigate.
1 – A star falls from the sky and holds the key to the abyss. The star does not come out of the abyss. She opens the abyss from which the locusts and other beings emerge:

“The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key for the shaft to the abyss was given to him. He opened the shaft to the abyss (12), and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.” – Revelation 9:1-2

What does the word abyss (12) mean?
biblehub.com dictionary:
• abyss, unfathomable depth, bottomless, deep, pit.
• a boundless, bottomless, deep (bottomless) abyss.
• abyss, depth, bottomlessness, primal chaos.

The paper version of Strong’s Greek-Polish Dictionary says:
• something bottomless, endless,
• hell,
• hole,
• abyss,
• designation of a place also called Orcus. According to of the ancients, it was a deep abyss, even an abyss in the lowest regions of the earth, which was the place of residence of condemned people and, above all, a prison of demons,
• in the NT it is understood as the deepest part of hell, which (like paradise) is located in Abyss, meaning in the land of the dead.
2 – This shooting star is a messenger from heaven who has the key to the abyss:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key to the abyss (12) and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time.” – Revelation 20:1-3.

3 – The king of the abyss is an angel named Abaddon/Apollyon. He governs the locusts/entities that have emerged from the abyss:

“They had as their king the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon (623).” – Revelation 9:11.

4 – The locusts/beings that came out of the abyss could not destroy the servants of God:

“They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree, but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.” – Revelation 9:4.

Who is Abaddon/Apollyon?
He is a destroyer. His task is to direct the locusts and other plagues so that they strike people who did not have the seal of God, that is, people opposed to God. As further verses from chapter 9 of Revelation write, these people worshiped demons, idols, murdered, practiced witchcraft/pharmacology, fornication/pornography, and were thieves.
Some researchers consider Abbadon/Apollyon to be a demon.

However, the Bible does not confirm this. The first verse of the ninth chapter informs us that the shooting star had the key to the abyss. From the following verses we learn that an angel from heaven had the keys to the abyss, the angel who caught satan.
Would an angel belonging to satan catch satan?
Would God entrust the fulfillment of such an important prophecy as putting satan in prison to an evil spiritual figure/demon?
Do we have other examples in the Bible of destroyers doing God’s will?
The Destroyer could not kill God’s servants:

“When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, He will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter your houses to strike you.” – Exodus 12:23.

The angel YHWH belonged to YHWH:

“Then God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but when the Angel was about to destroy the city, the Lord looked, relented concerning the destruction, and said to the Angel(destroyer) who was destroying the people, “Enough, withdraw your hand now!” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.” – 1 Chronicles 21:15.

The Lord’s Angel belonged to God:

“But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mariam as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Yeshu, because He will save His people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:20-21.

YHWH sends the destroyer:

“and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every valiant warrior, leader, and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria.” – 2 Chronicles 32:21.

God created the destroyer:

“Look, I have created the craftsman who blows on the charcoal fire and produces a weapon suitable for its task; and I have created the destroyer to cause havoc.” – Isaiah 54:16.

The above verse is very interesting.
Isaiah informs us that just as God created the blacksmith to perform specific tasks, he also created the destroyer to bring destruction.
Was God’s created destroyer a demon?
NO.

God created only good characters. He was satisfied with His work. This means that God uses His angels, good spiritual figures, to fulfill tasks, prophecies, and to punish bad people.
The next verse documents this conclusion for us:

“On an appointed day, dressed in royal robes and seated on the throne, Herod delivered a speech to them. The assembled people began to shout, “It’s the voice of a god and not of a man!” At once an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died.” – Acts 12:21-23.

Author: Robert Brzoza

Help with verses: Roman

Translation Hubert B.