Topic
Outer Darkness
The phrase in three of Matthew’s parables for the place outside the feast, the wedding hall and the master’s house, where those who are excluded are thrown.
Also called: outer darkness, the darkness outside, blackest darkness
In each case the setting is a household scene: a banquet, a wedding, a settling of accounts. The one excluded is bound and cast outside, away from light, warmth and provision. The image is exclusion from where life is, not a description of a furnace.
Jude and 2 Peter use similar darkness language, and 2 Peter connects it with angels kept until the judgment. In those texts the imagery belongs to the period before the final reckoning rather than after it.
Being thrown outside, bound, and away from the source of light and sustenance does not suggest long survival. The phrase carries real horror without implying that those cast out continue there without end.
What this is not
Terms in this dispute are routinely collapsed into one another. These distinctions are what keep the argument honest.
- Outer darkness is not Gehenna, and Matthew uses the two phrases in different settings.
- Darkness in Jude and 2 Peter is language of exclusion and detention rather than of fire.
- Darkness and fire are different images, and pressing both literally at once produces an odd picture.
Principal passages
- Matthew 8:12Listed in the Scripture index
- Matthew 22:13Listed in the Scripture index
- Matthew 25:30Listed in the Scripture index
- Jude 13Listed in the Scripture index
- 2 Peter 2:17Listed in the Scripture index
Where this is argued in the case
- S06 Weeping, Gnashing of Teeth, and Outer DarknessWhat the two words mean in their other biblical occurrences, where the phrase is located in each parable, and why it appears with and without fire.
- S23 The Day of JudgmentThe language of a day, and what it means for when full justice is administered.
Objections that turn on this
- S30 Is Annihilation Really Punishment?Two answers: finite experiences genuinely matter, and exclusion from eternal life is itself the ultimate loss.
Related topics
Sources for this topic
- Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth Do Not Indicate Eternal Torment. Rethinking Hell. 2018-11-28 View original of Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth Do Not Indicate Eternal Torment (opens in a new tab) Details
- Joseph Dear. The Bible Teaches Annihilationism. 1st edition, PDF version. 2016. approximately 590 pages View original of The Bible Teaches Annihilationism (opens in a new tab) Details
Found an error or have a counterargument?
This project aims to present the strongest biblical case it can, not to avoid criticism. Factual corrections, better sources, serious counterarguments and accessibility reports are all welcome.
Submit a correction or counterargument