GEddie, just a quick note before I dash out. Jesus could release the bindings. After all, Jesus can do anything. Later.
True, but the Scripture doesn’t suggest that that will happen. Remember, HE is the king who applies or orders the binding. And if you cast someone into the “outer darkness,” it doesn’t seem like you would go out there later on saying “Here, let me undo your hands and feet, you must be uncomfortable.” The pronouncement seems at least in translation, to have a sense of finality to it. It would sure help to know Greek.
Again, if this were temporary i.e., Purgatory, he’d be made to change his clothes. You can’t change your clothes with bound limbs. And there are no changes of clothes out in the darkness.
Binding is itself a fearful state in Scripture. Remember the man in the Acts of the Apostles, who somehow bound his own limbs with S. Paul’s robe-sash, and said that Paul would be likewise bound and handed over? Everybody grieved, but S. Paul said he was willing “not only to be bound but to die” for our LORD.
Believe me, you never want to be bound
by our LORD. HE is eternal, so are HIS actions. If HE binds you, you won’t move freely again.
On the other hand, when you do become bound, it’s HIM you want to free you. Just as when Lazarus was bound as well as dead, Our LORD turned the breathing back on, and when the man shuffled forth in his bound legs, HE commanded, “Unbind him, let him walk.”
ICXC NIKA.