Hope of Glory said:
Well, you seem to be claiming that unsaved people will be cast into outer darkness, and that's where saved people are thrown, then you must be claiming that unsaved people will be in heaven!
(I'm getting good at the Diggin method of debate! Use the preconceived conclusion as the "proof" for itself!)
"Children (sons) of the Kingdom"
This phrase is found in two places in Matthew (8:12 and 13:38). In the first it refers to unsaved Jews who will be cast into outer darkness; in the second it refers to saved people who will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (13:43).
The fact that Matthew 8:12 refers to the unsaved can in no way be invalidated by appealing to Matthew 13:38 -- for several reasons:
(1) Every single one of "the sons of the kingdom" in Matthew 13 is said to "shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father"; whereas it is "the sons of the evil one" who are all "cast" into the furnace of fire with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The reverse is true in Matthew 8:12 -- there it is "the sons of the kingdom" who are excluded from the kingdom, being "cast" out into outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
These two passages simply cannot be harmonized apart from understanding the different meanings of "sons of the kingdom" in each passage.
(Note, by the way, that there is no middle ground here in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares; it's either "shining forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" or being "cast into the furnace of fire" -- no middle ground of a supposed "outer darkness" separate from the "furnace of fire".)
(2) The "kingdom" referred to in Matthew 8:12 is NOT the same as the "kingdom" referred to in Matthew 13:38 (and 41). Thus this too shows that "sons of the kingdom" in each passage means two different things.
The kingdom spoken of in Matthew 8:12 is the prophesied, covenanted, glorious earthly kingdom of the heavens. The kingdom spoken of in Matthew 13:38 (and 41) was not even revealed at the time of Matthew 8:12. For Matthew 13:38 (and 41) refers to a hitherto unrevealed mystery-kingdom (Christendom) intervening from the rejection of the King by Israel until He returns in glory to this earth to establish that prophesied, covenanted, glorious earthly kingdom of the heavens of Matt. 8:12.
The "sons of the kingdom" in Matthew 13, therefore, speaks of those who are real/genuine ones in this mystery-kingdom; as the "sons of the evil one" speaks of those who are not real/genuine ones in the mystery-kingdom -- but false professors.
This mystery-"kingdom" is a peculiar sphere of profession (Christendom), consisting of both the genuine ("the sons of the kingdom") and the non-genuine ("the sons of the evil one"); i.e., the true and the false, the good and the bad; though it started out with only the genuine, yet certain men crept in unawares by the operations of the devil.
In Matthew 13 "the sons of the kingdom" are such (genuine ones) because they are the real believers, the good seed, properly belonging to and put ("sown") by the Lord into that peculiar sphere of profession/witness/testimony on earth, during the course of His national rejection and period of absence, until He returns in glory to establish His prophesied, covenanted, glorious earthly kingdom of the heavens (into which only the real will enter at its initial establishment, 8:12).
3) In addition to all this, Matthew 8:11-12 is elucidated by Luke 13:27-29, which thus defines for us who "the sons of the kingdom" are which are spoken of in Matthew 8:12.
"But I say unto you, that many shall come from the rising and setting sun, and shall lie down at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens; but THE SONS OF THE KINGDOM shall be cast out into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 8:11-12).
"I tell you, I DO NOT KNOW YOU WHENCE YE ARE; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves cast out. And they shall come from east and west, and from north and south, and shall lie down at table in the kingdom of God" (Luke 13:27-29).
It is a strange objection coming from men such as Hodges & Dillow to argue the illegitimacy of "the sons of the kingdom" applying in two different senses in two different passages, especially when they themselves admit the validity of making such distinctions when they (albeit wrongly) apply "weeping and gnashing of teeth" to saved people in one set of passages and to unsaved people in another set of passages.
--James Ventilato
http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/hodgesgn.htm
If you had read the other article I posted about "Outer Darkness", you would have seen that the saved are NOT cast into outer darkness. I guess your conscience is already "seared"--you will not hear the truth of God.