Revelation 1:18

18. He that liveth With an underived essential life, the fountain of life, from which all finite life is a stream.

Was dead Became dead. A contradiction in terms, harmonized in the real history.

Alive for evermore Death shall never come into his future history. Through death he has attained a dominion over human destiny.

Keys The symbols of possession or authority over treasures, or cities, or kingdoms.

Of hell… death This reading, which is spurious, reverses the true order, which is, death and hell, or hades, the invisible region of departed spirits. See our note on 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The words death and hades are not personifications, but designations of two realms. The realm of death includes “the pale nations of the dead,” the kingdom of material graves and corpses. To hold the keys of this realm is to be lord of life and death.

Hades is the realm of departed spirits, who wait the resurrection and judgment day. Of both these realms the dying and ever-living Christ has attained the right of lordship. Hengstenberg wishes to understand by hades, hell or gehenna; since Christ is lord of the destiny of the finally damned.

But that is included in his lordship over hades, inasmuch as he is lord of the destiny of the dwellers in hades.