Is The Outer Darkness Eternal?

When I am researching one topic in Scripture, it often leads me to another.  While putting together my previous post about the outer darkness, I made a mental note to do a word search for “eternal.”*  I was specifically looking for passages where Jesus talks about eternal punishment or eternal damnation. 

Here is what I found:

Matthew 25:46: And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

This passage refers to the second coming, the time when Jesus returns to earth to establish His millennial kingdom, and will judge the nations; separating the sheep from the goats.  The goat nations are the ones that will receive everlasting punishment, while the sheep nations will be permitted to enter the millennial kingdom — and as saved nations — will receive eternal life.

Mark 3:29: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

In this passage, Jesus is addressing the experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem.  In his commentary, Guzik states that these scribes were an official delegation of experts who came to observe and assess the ministry of Jesus, and that that many people valued their opinions.  Jesus was telling them that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a sin that will never be forgiven, and results in eternal damnation.

While the passage below is not from Jesus directly, I am adding it for clarity.

Jude 1:7: Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

We are being told to remember God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha.  This is a pretty strong warning that while God is loving, He is also a God of judgment.  

Jude 1:14-15 further states:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

After looking at these passages, I am even more convinced that the outer darkness is not hell, or a place of eternal damnation.  The three passages that mention outer darkness (Matthew 8:12, Matthew 22:13, and Matthew 25:30) provide no indication that the outer darkness is place of eternal punishment.

 

*When I do a word search, I start at BibleGateway, then go to the NET Bible website (I prefer the classic version) to see what the actual Hebrew or Greek words are.  The Net translators provide their translations, along with definitions from Strong.  It is a great tool to see if the same word is being used in multiple passages you are researching, or whether they are different words.  In this case, the same word was used for eternal in all the passages above.