Matthew 8:10-13 "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, 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. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour."
In the tenth verse above, Jesus is talking about the faith of the Gentile centurion who had come seeking healing for his servant. The word translated as marvelled could mean to “wonder” (to be surprised at something), but it could also mean to “admire (see Strong’s). Knowing that Jesus was verily man and verily God, it is far more likely that Jesus was speaking in admiration (or affirmation) of the faith of the centurion. Jesus plainly declared that the faith of this Roman soldier far exceeded the faith of those that should have been anticipating His coming.
Jesus went on to declare that people would come from everywhere and find fellowship with the faith of the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven. The fact that He only spoke of east and west should not be seen as excluding people from the north and south. In Psalm 113:3 we find this language, “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised.” The sun rises in the east and sets in the west for everyone in the world.
The Gentiles (that is most of us) would come and be grafted into (Romans 11:17-24) this glorious kingdom of heaven that we are blessed spiritually to live in today. The children of the kingdom in verse twelve is speaking about the Jews to whom the kingdom was given according to the law covenant. They had grown so self-righteous and self-reliant that they despised the teachings of Jesus. Let us take heed that the same thing does not happen to us.
While many connect the phrase, “outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,” with eternal banishment from God, we need to consider the origin of this phrase. According to the Jewish scholar Alfred Edersheim, this phrase originated from a custom in Israel for dealing with misbehavior of children. The “houses” of the early nomadic Israelites were one-room dwellings used mostly for sleeping as a protection from the wild beasts of the night, and a single lamp was left burning to keep the absolute darkness at bay. If a child became unruly and disobedient, the father would often put them outside in the greater dark. What the child did not know was that the father was keeping watch by the window to make sure no harm came to the child, but that did not prevent the child from experiencing the outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth that went along with the discipline.
Dear ones, when we come to Jesus for help, let us come as the centurion of old, recognizing our unworthiness and yet in full assurance of Jesus’s ability to help us. Let us never waiver in our faith that He can do all that He has promised and more than we can imagine. Let us rejoice that He has called us into His kingdom and let us be careful how we judge those that He may have put into outer darkness. Remember, some of them were children of the kingdom before we were.