Transcript
Okay, I’m here with Zane Hodges and we’re going to be discussing the outer darkness today. Zane, I thought we’d start with kind of an overview if that’s okay.
That’s a good idea. Let’s try to do that.
Okay, the first thing we might talk about is the literalness of the expression the outer darkness. For example in Matthew 8 and verse 12, “But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A lot of people when they hear this they assume the outer darkness is someplace like we would think when I say Chicago we’re thinking of a certain place. Well they think this is referring to a literal place where there’s darkness and where it’s outside the kingdom of God. So if that’s the case though it must be hell. Is there reason? And of course we could look at the others. They all say the same as far as the Greek.
My question is is there reason to question whether this is literally talking about a place and maybe this should be understood as a figure?
Okay that’s a fair question. And I think maybe the place to start is to just remind people that the phrase outer darkness is confined to the Gospel of Matthew. It’s not a phrase that’s scattered out through the rest of the New Testament. Certainly not a phrase that is ever used in connection with hell. That’s important to start out with.
The other thing is that the three passages in which it does occur, chapter eight verses 10 to 13, the passage we’re covering, chapter 22 verses 1 to 14, and 25:14 to 30, are widely separated in the Gospel of Matthew. And yet they use this particular term followed by a reference to weeping and gnashing of teeth in all three places.
Yes. So that suggests to us very strongly that these three cases in which this terminology is used are related to each other.
Now if we were to start, which we would naturally start with Matthew chapter 8, we have the briefest of all the accounts in which this terminology is used. When we get to Matthew 22 we have a longer one and we have an elaboration but maybe a slightly longer one in Matthew 25.
Yes. So all that we really do in Matthew chapter 8 is to get a quick glimpse of the idea.
All right. When we come to Matthew chapter 8 we find Jesus talking about people coming from the east and the west and sitting down in the kingdom of God and the sons of the kingdom being cast into the outer darkness. Or as far as this statement goes it might be possible to think in terms of outer darkness being literal. And if we did think of it that way we would be talking probably about Jewish people who are unsaved. Right? Sons of the kingdom. So the Gentiles. It could refer especially in light of the east and the west sounds like Gentiles.
So exactly. So we might come to that conclusion based on Matthew 8 alone. Although it’s kind of odd to call unbelieving Jews sons of the kingdom. There’s a part of me that would say you tend to more think it was believing Jews that were sons of the kingdom.
Exactly. And that’s a problem that remains unresolved if we just read Matthew 8.
Right right. While we could possibly interpret sons of the kingdom as I’ve said the question arises doesn’t this more naturally refer to the regenerate people? And then we move along a little bit in the Gospel of Matthew we find this term occurs again clearly of regenerate people in Matthew 13.
Oh you mean the sons of the kingdom in 13:38?
Yeah. So the sons of the kingdom terminology is a little problematic to start out with becomes more problematic when we get as far as 13.
Right. And that’s the only other use of the expression sons of the kingdom in Matthew as far as I know. So that should be quite telling if it’s only used twice and the other one in the parable the wheat and the tares. Well the wheat are the sons of the kingdom it’s the tares who aren’t.
That’s right they’re the sons of the evil one.
Yeah. So we obviously now when we read Matthew 13 and look back at Matthew 8 we say this is even more problematic than I thought because this may not refer to unsaved Jews at all because in Matthew 13 it appears clearly to refer to regenerate people.
It’s a good point. And even the idea some people say well weeping and gnashing of teeth is always used in relation to hell. But when you look at it that expression occurs how many times in Matthew? Is it six times? I think it’s six times in Matthew and another time in Luke and that’s all that it occurs. And of the six times in Matthew at least four of them refer if we develop this study further to believers.
That’s right. I think we can show by close exegesis that four of the six refer to believers. We haven’t shown that yet in this passage but this is one of the passages that would ultimately go that way.
But the person who says we’ll see because it says weeping and gnashing of teeth it must be hell they’re jumping lots of hoops before they’re supposed to be there. They’re jumping to conclusions.
Right. Absolutely. It shows they live in the Western culture because in the Orient the expression of grief is much more uninhibited than it is in the Western culture. So if you go to a funeral in the Orient you’ve been to a funeral people weeping and gnashing their teeth over the body. Here’s a husband who’s lost a wonderful wife or his teenage son. He’s going to weep and gnash his teeth over that.
It’s jumping to a massive and inaccurate conclusion to say the terminology weep and gnash your teeth has to refer to hell.
Yeah. Well in fact they used to hire mourners at funerals. That’s right. So that the weeping and gnashing of teeth would be sufficient for the dignity of the person who died and they wouldn’t be earning their money just if they solved a little bit. They had to demonstrate grief.
Right. You know this is an oriental concept and it makes sense that Jesus would use this in any kind of a context where a very serious loss would occur. That means it could be used in the context where people go to hell but it also means that it could be used in other contexts where serious losses of a spiritual nature have occurred.
Of course that would mean we’d have to be open to the possibility that after this life is over when believers appear at the judgment seat of Christ there could be such a result at the judgment seat of Christ for the believer that they would experience great grief.
That’s right. And for example in 1 Corinthians where Paul talks about if any man’s work shall be burned he shall suffer loss. If you have a life full of works that have burned up at the judgment seat of Christ something’s wrong with you if you don’t cry.
Yeah. You know especially if you are a glorified person who now has new sensitivity to what he should have done with his life. To see that go up in flames you don’t have the capacity to cry? From the past he’d be sorry for that. You wouldn’t be as glorified as you look.
Yeah. We’ll be more able to cry then.
Exactly. Because one of the things that stops us from mourning over our sins is that we don’t see them as seriously as God sees them. We don’t feel them as deeply as we ought to feel them if we were holy people.
That’s great. So the idea that Christians at the judgment seat of Christ couldn’t find anything to weep about even though their lives are being destroyed by the assessment that Jesus puts on them is an unrealistic view of the future.
So part of the reason why someone would come let’s say the beginning one the one without much detail Matthew 8:10 through 12 and say well this has to be referring to hell is because they don’t have any concept in their theology for any kind of negative outcome at the judgment seat of Christ. Therefore this can’t be referring to anything else if everything is going to be absolutely glorious.
But if we understand like I’m thinking of another verse like 1 John 2:28 the theme verse of 1 John my little children abide in Him so that when He appears we may have confidence and might not shrink back in shame at His coming. Well if our theology doesn’t have the possibility of either boldness or shame then we need to rethink it.
Right. Absolutely. John’s theology had it.
Yeah. So we need to have it at all and John has heard these three teachings yeah on the outer darkness. Far as we don’t hear it all three of them.
Yeah yeah.
Okay well another question that I had was was there not a time in your own life and ministry when you were teaching at Dallas Seminary when you understood at least Matthew 8 and maybe even 8 and 22 as referring to hell in your own personal experience of interpreting the Bible?
Yes there was such a time. And obviously over a period of time as I studied this more closely and I was assisted by a student who did a thesis under me on all three passages a very fine piece by Mike Huber.
Yes exactly. And he convinced me that it was it was really not tenable to take the three passages that we refer to in different senses because you used to take Matthew 25 clearly as referring to believers but the other two you were leaning the other way. So in your own case you’re stepping on your own feet here.
I’m stepping on my own feet. They’re old feet so hopefully they can endure that. But certainly I’m backing up on that.
And one of the things that happens here is it seems to me that’s very clear that Matthew 25 refers to a Christian. But then when you look at 22 the most natural reading is also that it refers to Christians because here’s a guy that shows up at the wedding supper he accepts the invitation. Right? The story is about people who reject the invitation don’t even show up. He’s even called a friend.
That’s right. So he comes to the wedding celebration so that already marks him as different from the people who rejected the invitation.
Right. So it becomes much easier and I think necessary to take the passage in Matthew 22 as a reference to Christians. And that’s only Matthew 8. And by this time the dominoes have toppled down on it. We look at this again and we discover that if we allow the other passages to speak to us in terms of what the outer darkness refers to that that fits perfectly in Matthew chapter 8 and that we should take this passage in the same sense as we take the other.
Now you were saying before we started taping that Matthew 8 has the least information and you mentioned at the beginning when we were talking that it opens up more fully. And before we were taping you said you think that that’s sort of the way the Lord often works and that He will expand on something He said before. And so therefore we would be fools to understand Matthew 8 without looking at anything else in Matthew.
Absolutely. And one of the things we were also saying is that Jesus often talked in a fashion where His initial statements of these were readily and easily misunderstood. Of course the classic one is in John 2 where He says destroy this temple in three days I will raise it up. And that made them pooh-pooh and holler that you know how could you do that this temple took this long to build and how are you going to destroy it and raise it up in three days?
Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
Jesus of course anticipated that He would be understood literally because how else would you expect Him to be understood in that context. Right? But as the writer makes clear that He wasn’t to be taken literally He was talking about the temple of His body.
Yes. The other example I think we mentioned is Lazarus. Lazarus is sleeping and I’m going to wake him out of his sleep. The disciples say well that’s great you know if he’s sleeping he’ll get well. And Jesus said plainly to them now Lazarus is dead. So but He knew they were going to take it that way.
Lazarus is sleeping and I’m going to wake him out of his sleep.
Right. Yes. So it was part of this teaching technique to start out with statements and maybe even elaborations that weren’t immediately obvious. But after all isn’t that part of good teaching? If everything I say from the moment I begin to lecture or teach is transparent where do I get the interest where do I get the attention of people? It’s more memorable.
Absolutely. If you say the person who eats My flesh and drinks My blood. That’s right people are definitely going to hear what you’re saying.
The person who eats My flesh and drinks My blood.
That’s right. And they did take Him as literal in John 6 they thought what’s He saying we’re gonna be eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Yeah except this is cannibalism. Yeah paraphrasing.
Right. Yeah. And you know they walked away from it they gave up the discipleship to it. And but He says to the other disciples that the words are spirit and they are life the flesh profits nothing. That’s a way of saying I’m not talking literally about eating flesh. I’m talking about something that is spiritual. The flesh profits nothing because He’s the bread of life earlier in the passage. The one who eats the bread of life will never hunger he who drinks the water of life will never thirst.
That’s right. And His flesh and blood is a reference to His humanity and His humanity is taken in when we believe in Him.
That’s great. And it’s not taken in as a literal consumption. So the person who just superficially sees something and says well it must mean this literal thing and then they walk away because they see it that way well they’re stopping short of what they should be doing which is God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Absolutely. And they have nobody but themselves to blame for approaching the scripture superficially like that. The Scriptures invite our attention in depth to what they say and this is one of the ways Jesus has of doing it.
So we might in reading the Gospel of Matthew and hearing this passage in Matthew 8 for the first time we might say which should be our initial response. Yeah we shouldn’t just say oh okay this means I’ve got to work my way to heaven. No. And we certainly shouldn’t say this means that people could lose their salvation. Right? Those should be no-brainers from the Gospel of John.
I mean if we know anything in the Bible we know that isn’t true. So therefore when we come to this if we don’t know what it means we can always say well I don’t know what it means but I know it can’t mean you lose eternal life and I know it can’t mean you’ve got to work for eternal life. So I’ll suspend judgment until I find Matthew 13:38 about the sons of the kingdom or the wheat or until I see what Matthew 22 says and Matthew 25 says.
Exactly. And in fact you know just to make a practical application if I’m reading the Gospel of Matthew for the first time and come to the conclusion that you just mentioned it wouldn’t be inappropriate for me to say in my heart Lord I don’t understand this help me to understand it. And then I arrive at 22 and I arrive at 25 and suddenly you know the possibility of understanding is there.
Well this raises a terrific point prayer should be a part of Bible study.
Yes sir. And if we don’t do that then you know when we’re the proud person you know God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. It’s when we pray and say you know I don’t get it Lord please show me He’s gonna answer that prayer.
Right right. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Psalm 119:18.
Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Exactly. Yeah. If I can give a commercial from my Greek teaching days I used to say to them in seminary you can easily get the notion that if you study your Greek language and you know how to use all the tools and you know how to read the commentaries that you can interpret the Bible without the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Now nobody would ever quite say it that crassly but that’s what they felt.
And there were a large number of students who thought that the way to interpret the Bible is just getting all the technical stuff lined up right and it would lead you right to the truth just turn the right cranks. Problem is people get the same technical information still disagree about what the Bible means. They can miss it by miles by miles. So this should tell us something.
This is God’s Word this is understood no man understands the things of God but the Spirit of God. So He’s the only one that can teach us. So we need for all these passages.
Yeah. I love that one in Luke 24 where the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and He opens their eyes the scripture says they might understand the things spoken in the prophets concerning the Messiah. Yes. And when He gets back into the company of the disciples it says then He opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures. He has opened their minds for them they were not understanding the Scriptures correctly.
Then He opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures.
And for that reason they didn’t understand the cross they didn’t understand the resurrection the significance of all that. So He had this a spiritual work.
Exactly. And He had to open their minds to this. Now that’s I think that’s Luke 24:45 and He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
That’s true for every single believer. Absolutely. How can we understand the Bible inspired book if God doesn’t open our minds to understand it? That’s presumption on our part then I can understand what God is talking about just let me use my brain.
So one error one error is the extreme postmodern view which is God can’t possibly communicate with people we couldn’t possibly God is so far transcendent from us that we couldn’t possibly receive anything from God. But the other extreme is to say the Bible is a purely human book and we can understand everything it says without any work of the Spirit in our lives.
Yes. And the postmodernists are at the dead end of their street where they belong because from the very beginning they never thought they needed help from God. So what did they wind up with? We don’t know anything we’re not sure about anything. Of course you’re not.
You know and apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the teaching of God through His word we’re not going to know anything. And the sooner we I think as a church and I speak here particularly of the grace movement the grace movement has to understand that whatever comprehension we have it is one of the truth God has given it to us.
Yes. And if we want more you don’t have to give it to us. And when you pray a prayer like okay I’m reading Matthew 8:10 through 12 and I say Lord I don’t understand this please show me the answer may not come that week or month it might even be a decade later.
Absolutely. And so part of it is this is an ongoing process where as I continue to meditate on God’s Word and pray about the truth of God’s Word new insights over time. God is not if I may say it reverently an American Express organization. He’s not committed to deliver instantly.
Yes. We know what things He wants us to ask about but we leave the timeframe to Him. That’s part of His prerogative as a sovereign God.
Yeah. So I’m gonna pray this prayer the first time I read Matthew 8 and like you say it may be a year later ten years later that I really understand this.
One of the things that I have tried to do and I think really each Christian ought to do this I’m not saying it because I do it but because our discussion leads inevitably to this conclusion I try every day to pray that God will help me understand His word more deeply and accurately. And I think that’s a key to understanding Scripture. And unless we’re really dependent upon God we are in danger of going seriously astray in all sorts of theological areas.
Well just on a quick aside on that and I know you’ve spoken many places and fielded questions and I have too. And one of the things I find is oftentimes when people ask about the outer darkness they almost do it like they’re snickering. They almost act like you’d have to be an idiot to take any view other than the one they take that it’s talking about hell. And it seems like it’s exactly just the tone of the question the way it’s sometimes asked makes me feel like here’s a person who really doesn’t want to know what God says.
In other words I can then lay out very solid reasons why the outer darkness doesn’t refer to hell and they’re not listening.
That’s right. You know what I mean?
Yeah. And if we were ungracious and spirited we’d be tempted to ask such a person how many prayers have you prayed over this passage?
Mm-hmm. That’s good.
Yeah. How much meditation have you done in depending on the Lord for understanding? I think we would be very surprised that people who flippantly say oh well it can’t be anything but that I’ve had a very superficial taste of the passage and no sense of dependence upon God to understand it. If we approach Scripture that way we have only ourselves to blame if we have miscomprehension. And that’s true of grace people absolutely.
We shouldn’t just assume because okay I read Zane Hodges’ book and Zane Hodges just says this and that and therefore that must be what it is. And when we talk to somebody else and they raise some possibility we just say it can’t possibly be. We can fall in that same danger.
Right. Absolutely. And Zane Hodges is not infallible he might wish he were the reality is he’s not. Like you say you’ve changed your view on Matthew 8:10 to 12.
Yeah. And like I say I try to pray every day because how do I know what the Lord may be wanting to clear up for me or to make plain to me from the Scriptures that I haven’t seen yet?
Yes. So yeah the grace movement has to do this. And this is I know I don’t want to harp on that I mean harp on the postmodern thing but the postmoderns talk about this community hermeneutic and that the idea is we’re part of a community of faith and there are four or five or six acceptable views of every passage and as long as we hold one of those four or five or six we’re fine.
Well what that means is there’s no need to pray about could there be an understanding other than those four or five because those are the only options.
That’s right. The very fact of their talking about community understanding is quite different from talking about what God understands that what God wants us to understand. But not believing that God has a desire for us to understand leads them to the community view which from one point of view is a pooling of ignorance by the way. That’s another great point.
In other words our perspective as we’re praying Lord show me what your word says should be that’s what He delights in doing.
That’s right. He didn’t give us the Scriptures so that we would be ignorant of them. And it’s really amazing I’ve been around the Christian movement for a long time and it’s really amazing how often Christians simply repeat what they’ve heard from others. And it’s pretty evident they’ve done no thinking no studying probably no praying about the stuff that they’re saying. It’s just a repetition of the traditional approach of this passage or that passage.
Okay let me ask this could you briefly just summarize 10 11 and 12 in terms of now I realize we haven’t yet gotten to 22 and 25 and in your summary you’re going to have to draw upon what we’re going to talk about later but could you summarize what Matthew 8:10 through 12 actually is saying in light of these other passages?
Yes I’ll try. I think what the Lord is referring to here and ultimately is that we can conceptualize a banquet a wedding banquet. And when we do conceptualize that wedding banquet as part of the kingdom experience what we discover is that there will be Gentiles from east west and so on who sit down at that banquet with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and other believers sons of the kingdom who will not be allowed to sit down at that banquet with Isaac and Jacob and will be expelled into the darkness outside which is a metaphor and a figure for the darkness all around the brightly lighted banquet. In chapter 22 actually says it’s brightly lit.
Right. Yes. And let me add that because I think that’s crucial be good even though we’re going to discuss that at another time. The image is set up for us neatly by the Lord in Matthew 22 because what we have is a banqueting hall where the wedding supper is going to be held. The people who are allowed into the wedding supper go into this brightly lighted banquet hall.
So here’s a guy who’s really unprepared to participate in the wedding supper but he walks in. But when he walks in he’s looked over by the inviter the king and the king says you’re not dressed for this. And he says to his servants tie him up hand and foot and cast him into the darkness outside.
Well first of all even the most careful Bible students do not believe that unsaved people are going to be tied up hand and foot literal. And so there’s already imagery there.
Right right. But the outer darkness is meaningful in the context of the banqueting hall which was brightly lighted understanding of course that wedding suppers and so on were carried on at night in the ancient Middle East. That’s when you can get your guests together. So you have this brightly lighted interior and outer grounds that are dark.
And I always say when I’m working with Matthew 22 we don’t have a bunch of torturers out there who suddenly take these poor guys and tie him hand and foot and start torturing them. The imagery there is one of exclusion and limitation on activity. That’s what the tying hands and feet means they can’t really do anything.
Right. An exclusion from what? Exclusion from the brightly lighted banqueting hall which I think we will discover is a synonym basically for co-reigning with Jesus Christ. We have a lot more territory to cover before we can reach that conclusion. But basically it seems to be what the Lord does in Matthew 8 is to say I can foresee a table at which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are sitting and I can foresee people coming from all over the world and sitting at that table and I can foresee people who belong in the kingdom being allowed to sit at that table and being thrown into the darkness outside.
All right. But like we were saying earlier that just whets the appetite. You could what does that mean you know oh how can you see that but kind of an image are you producing here? And you sure don’t want to be the person that doesn’t get to be at the banquet.
No no whatever it means you want it.
That’s right. So you say you know I’m really puzzled by that but then as you move on to Matthew 22 it’s your blueprint. And I think because Matthew 25 makes a substantial addition to our conception of this once you take all three of the passages together that I think you will see the image. And this is a reward scene and that the Lord is a rewarder. Essentially our sharing in the kingdom joy of the King of kings and Lord of lords and the exclusion from this reward scene is what it means to be cast into the outer darkness. Not a literal place it’s not a literal experience of darkness it’s an image a parabolic image of exclusion from the privilege of co-reigning with Jesus Christ. We’ll have to talk about it but I think that’s where we’re going.
Okay well next time we’ll talk about chapter 22 and then after that chapter 25.
Let’s do it.
Okay thanks.