Why will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell (Matthew 8:12)?

The third picture given is that of the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12; Matt. 22:13; Matt. 25:30; 2 Peter 2:17; Jude 13). This picture too is taken from the earthly reality. Inside the banquet hall there is joy and light, but outside it is night and those who are there do not share in the joy of those inside. This picture depicts the sharp contrast with the atmosphere of joy and light in the house of the Lord, in His kingdom. For this is the banquet hall where the wedding feast is held and where fellowship with God is enjoyed, who is light and in whom is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). The unbelievers have been removed from this realm of light and love. Just like the foolish virgins, they are out in the darkness, faced by a closed door (Matt. 25:10 ff.), and just like Judas, they have gone out into the night (John 13:30). They are separated from God forever and live on in darkness, far from His kindly face. In this place of outer darkness there is not even one ray of light to be seen and there is neither hope nor expectation anymore. There is only an impenetrable darkness. It is a place of weeping, of eternal grief. There is also gnashing of teeth. This may refer not only to remorse, but also to anger; an eternal rebellion against God. Weeping and gnashing of teeth are certainly characteristics both of the outer darkness and of the furnace of fire (Matt. 13:42, 50). This clearly indicates that the two pictures, that of the fire as well as that of the darkness, are about the same terrifying reality.

The principle is then emphatically laid down that to one who has shall more be given, and one who has not shall be deprived of what he first received. This is the clear distinction between one who has faith and one does not. The latter has no intention of pleasing the Lord, and can expect the consequences Of this. This man's being cast into outer darkness is the awesome end In eternal punishment. Weeping indicates remorse, but gnashing of teeth shows there is no repentance, but the bitterness of stubborn rebellion, yet restrained so that it cannot be expressed in action.

To neglect such opportunities is in God's eyes no light sin. Nor will it be then a light matter in the estimation of those shut out. For the Lord proceeds: "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and the west, and the north, and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last" (Luke 13:28-30). Weeping and gnashing of teeth! We call attention to this phrase, elsewhere only used in the New Testament by Matthew (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30), and always, it will be seen, with reference to those who have slighted the offer of grace. Gentiles will accept of grace and sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt. 8:11). Natural descent from Abraham, of which the Jews boasted, and in which they so much gloried, will avail them nothing if grace is rejected. And such, seeing those on whom they looked down in the kingdom with the patriarchs and the prophets, a kingdom of which they had heard, but into which they will never enter, such will weep and gnash their teeth. Everlasting sorrow and regret for their folly in rejecting in this life the proffered salvation they will then manifest.

What humiliation for those who thought they could brazen their way through every obstacle into heaven! These Jewish leaders boasted in their natural fathers -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- and in the prophets of Israel, but they would find they had no spiritual relationship with them at all. "Weeping and gnashing of teeth" would be theirs, while their fathers and the prophets would have the pure joys of the kingdom of God, from which they themselves would be thrust out. For the kingdom will be fully purified from the admixture of which we read in verses 19-21. They will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt.13:41- 42). The weeping is only in self-pity, not in repentance. Wailing is the attitude of complaining, for faith is absent. Gnashing of teeth is a spirit of rebellion, not corrected even by the solemn judgment of God.

Such is our position. Jesus is away and unseen. We hear His word, lay hold of it, and are saved. This is the beautiful way in which we are here given the different bearing of the Lord on the Jew and on the Gentile; but we learn, moreover, that the blessing would be refused by Israel, and the Gentiles would become the objects of mercy, as it is said here, "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (vers. 10, 11), that is, many Gentiles shall come. Neither is this all: "But the children of the kingdom" — the natural children that were the seed, but not the true children according to Abraham's faith, these should be "cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Rejecting their Messiah, the Jews as a nation were going to be rejected. There would only be a line of believing ones; but the mass of Israel should be rejected until the fulness of the Gentiles have come in.

The sentence is dreadfully solemn: bound hand and foot, he is cast into outer darkness. His callous attitude toward the King determines his banishment from the King's presence, Which must be total darkness, for in Christ only is true light. Weeping indicates the remorse of this deserved torment; while gnashing Of tooth shows a rebellious will that stubbornly refuses to yield.

(5) Judgment follows. The refuser of Christ is really outside all the light of God by that very fact. He is but sent to his own place in the darkness outside the rejoicing in the house of God. There the awful sting of remorse must follow him: there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Death is judgment, but not "the judgment." For this, the "resurrection of judgment" must have come in, — judgment claiming for this the body as well as the spirit — the whole man, in short. And here, that separation from God, chosen by the soul itself, becomes manifest in its true horror, and its definitive portion forever. This is the "outer darkness," when God the light of life is withdrawn forever.

It is surely a superficial thought that the sympathy of nature with her suffering Lord is what the darkness falling over all expresses. The Lord, as it passes away, Himself interprets it in a different manner. If God be Light, darkness is the natural sign of His turning away. The three days' darkness in Egypt we have seen to have such a meaning. The final "outer darkness" of the lost is the most distinct and awful expression of it ― darkness outside, — away from the presence and glory of God. It is the rejection by God of those who have rejected Him. It is the necessity of a holy nature which cannot have fellowship with evil. And Christ in the darkness is the sign of His being the Sin-bearer of His people, ― the sign of that which was to Him was the deepest agony that He could suffer, the forsaking of God.

But the death he dies is not the death of Sadducean materialism, but one in which the sinner abides under the judgment to which it has consigned him. It is a condition of darkness — outer darkness — for God has finally and forever withdrawn Himself. It is torment in the flame of necessary anger against sin. These are the elements of a judgment which will not be altered in character, when in the resurrection of judgment the dead stand before the great white throne to receive the discriminate awards of the day of manifestation.