Matthew 25:31-46

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” [1]

We come now to the last recorded teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew’s Gospel: the parable of the sheep and the goats. But it is not strictly a parable. It is a dynamic description of the last judgment, using a few symbolic elements: a shepherd, sheep, and goats. This story is unique to Matthew and is an appropriate ending to the chapters in which Jesus speaks of his return.

The story builds on the two previous parables and on the illustrations in chapter 24. The illustrations in chapter 24 and the first of the parables in chapter 25 stressed the need to be ready when Christ returns. The parable of the talents taught the need for treasuring God and his gracious love rather than burying it in a hole. The final story is of the judgment itself. There is also a progression. In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, the women who were not ready are only shut out from the banquet. In the next parable, the wicked, lazy servant is thrown out into the darkness. In the story of the sheep and the goats, those who have ignored the needs of Christ’s brothers are cursed with an eternal punishment.[2] This judgment parable describes the ultimate judgment.

Here is how we will handle this text this morning. We’re going to look for its light bulbs, its question marks, and its arrows: A Light Bulb: anything that shines out in the passage and draws attention. It can be something important or something that particularly strikes the reader. A Question Mark: anything that is hard to understand; something that the reader would like to ask the author about. An Arrow: anything that applies personally to the reader’s life.[3]

LIGHTBULBS

We will start with a long list of light bulbs, details that are important and, hopefully, interesting.

  1. This “parable” is technically not a parable. That is, unlike all the previous parables in Matthew we don’t find terms like “like”—the kingdom of heaven is “like a grain of mustard seed” (13:31) or “like treasure hidden in a field” (13:44) or “like a master of a house who went out early in the morning” (20:1) or “like ten virgins” (25:1). Here Jesus gives a statement of fact: “When the Son of Man comes . ..” (25:31). The only parabolic elements are the simple similes of likening the righteous to sheep and the unrighteous to goats and the structure —the use of parallels (e.g., hungry/hungry, food/no food) and a climactic end statement. But we’ll still call this a parable.
  2. This parable is about the second coming of Christ. That first phrase— “When the Son of Man comes in his glory” (25:31) refers to his return. Let’s remember we are in the Olivet Discourse, and a good half of it is about Jesus’ parousia. Let us also remember that unlike his first coming in obscurity (a babe in a manager in a cave in Bethlehem) his second coming will be the most public event of all time.
  3. As Jesus teaches here, and as we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed, Jesus “shall come to judge.” Here Jesus depicts himself as a shepherd king who like David (Ezekiel 34:23, 24) has come to bless God’s people and punish his enemies. Yet, more than David, he has come to set all the nations aright (Psalm 2). The Olivet Discourse begins with the prophetic pronouncement of God’s coming judgment upon Israel (the fall of Jerusalem), and it ends with Christ’s coming judgment upon every nation. Human beings won’t be judged before “the bar of history” but in the court of Christ.
  4. Jesus is more than the Davidic king (the Son of David); he is also the divine King (the Son of God). Paul writes of the kingdom of heaven as “the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Here Jesus expresses his divine sonship in verse 34 when he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”
  5. Related to Jesus’ divine sonship is his divine nature. Jesus applies to himself language and imagery used only of God in the Old Testament. The most prominent examples come from Daniel 7 and Isaiah 66. Like “the Ancient of days” (God Almighty), Jesus claims that at his return he likewise will be enthroned as judge (Daniel 7:9), in the presence of angels (Daniel 7:10), and as the one who will reward the righteous (Daniel 7:18) and punish the wicked (Daniel 7:26). And like the Lord (YHWH) in Isaiah 66:18, Jesus claims that he “is coming to gather all nations and tongues” so that “they shall come and shall see my glory” (cf. Joel 3:2).
  6. Notice the glory and authority associated with Jesus. This is a parable about the glorious and powerful second coming of Christ. The picture here of Jesus is awesome! God alone is glorious and powerful, and yet here what do we see? Jesus will come “in his glory” and “sit on his glorious throne” (v. 31). He possesses his own glory; he possesses his own glorious throne. And who will be with him? Some of the angels? No. “All the angels” (v. 31; cf. “his angels,” 24:31). And who will stand before him? The Jews? The Gentiles? Some of the people of the world? No. “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people . ..” (v. 32). Do you see the picture? Jesus is the sole judge of the world, and absolutely every angel circles around him, and absolutely every person stands before him. What absolute glory and authority!
  7. Jesus is then called not “a king” but “the King” (v. 34) —the divine King, also known as “the Son of Man” (v. 31). This “Son of Man” proceeds to judge the world based on people’s relationship to his person and will. Note all the first-person personal pronouns in verses 35–46. You can count the word “I” eleven times, “my” two times, and “me” fourteen times. If this reminds you of the end of the Sermon on the Mount when Judge Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (7:21), good. It should.
  8. Jesus’ judgment involves gathering and separating. The language of gathering has a hopeful sound to true believers. The elect who have been scattered throughout the world are now gathered “from the four winds” (24:31) for salvation. Their final salvation, however, comes by means of an awful separation. C. S. Lewis called it “the Great Divorce.”
  9. While Jesus separates people into two groups, the phrase “one from another” (v. 32) suggests the personal selection of every person from every nation, implying that we will all stand as individuals before the judgment seat. That reading especially fits the Parable of the Talents with its stress of individual responsibility, and accountability. Related to this point of individual judgment is the individual judging. For Jesus to know who is a sheep and who is a goat requires not only a knowledge of human actions, but intimate knowledge of the motives of each human heart.
  10. Jesus’ judgment is based on works—on what one did or didn’t do. This is not an unfamiliar theme in Jesus’ teaching. Earlier in 16:27 he said, “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.”
  11. The works are works of love. Six basic physical and expected social works are mentioned. The only act on the list that jumps out to me is visiting those in prison. Are those in prison wicked or pious criminals? That is, are they lawless citizens who broke the law of the land or lawful Christians who broke the law of the land by preaching and/or living out the kingdom of God —people like Peter, John, and Paul mentioned in Acts and the Epistles (e.g., Colossians 4:18; Hebrews 10:34) or John the Baptist and Jesus mentioned in Matthew? When prison is mentioned in the New Testament, it is usually Christians behind bars being persecuted for righteousness’ sake (5:10).
  12. These works are illustrative, not exhaustive, and representative, not comprehensive. Even Jesus himself didn’t act out all of these actions. He certainly fed the hungry (14:13–21; 15:32–39) and visited the sick (8:14–17). But we have no record of him welcoming a stranger into his home (he had no home per se in his adult ministry) or visiting the imprisoned. However, here we are not to ask the question, did Jesus do all six, and do you do all six? but rather to affirm the statement, “Jesus would do all six and six thousand more, and you and I should go and do likewise.” We are always expanding upon ways to live out Jesus’ ethics.
  13. These works of love are lowly, unspectacular, and seemingly nonreligious. Here Jesus doesn’t say, “The one who worked for Caesar and influenced important political decisions gains approval.” He doesn’t say, “The one who visited the sick man and healed him gains approval.” He doesn’t say, “The one who visited the imprisoned woman and freed her gains approval.” And he doesn’t say, “The one who prayed or fasted or attended church or tithed or preached a great sermon on this parable gains approval.” In fact, there are no distinctly Jewish or Christian religious acts mentioned. Not even faith is mentioned. Here only love abides. Is this because miracles can be counterfeited and to speak in the tongues of angels can be self-serving? Or is it because only love is the true test of faith? Maybe both.
  14. These lowly, unspectacular, seemingly nonreligious works of love are thus democratic. That is, most people—unless there is a major physical or mental impairment—can feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, or visit the sick. The rich can; the poor can; the learned can; the unlearned can; men can; women can; Jews can; Gentiles can. It takes no special talent. It only takes willingness. It only takes a Spirit-wrought new heart.
  15. Those judged by Jesus meet opposite fates. The righteous “come” to Jesus (v. 34), and the unrighteous “depart” from him (v. 41); the righteous are “blessed” (v. 34) and the unrighteous “cursed” (v. 41); the righteous are granted “eternal life” (v. 46b) and the unrighteous “eternal punishment” (v. 46a); the righteous “inherit . . . the kingdom” (v. 34) and the unrighteous “eternal fire” (v. 41).
  16. Both types of people (there are only two types in the world according to this parable) have a place “prepared” for them (vv. 34, 41). Implied is that these places are prepared by God. For the unrighteous, Hell has been “prepared for the devil and his angels” (v. 41) and those who act like them; for the righteous, the kingdom has been prepared for them (“for you”) “from the foundation of the world” (v. 34). The phrase “foundation of the world” tells us that God had a grand plan in place either before he created everything or during the creation itself. God’s kingdom for God’s people was no afterthought.
  17. There is a fearsome finality to Jesus’ judgment. There are no second chances during the second coming. The too-late verdict of 25:11, 12 gives its haunting echo here. Those who had time to make wise decisions for themselves about the course of their lives will at the final judgment have a final decision about their final fate made for them with irresistible finality. They are the party poopers.
  18. Both the righteous and the unrighteous are surprised. Perhaps both are surprised because both are professing Christians. Like the two preceding parables, is this parable about judgment upon the church? When the righteous answer Jesus, they say, “Lord” (v. 37); when the unrighteous answer, that same confession is on their lips, “Lord” (v. 44; cf. 7:21, 22). The second “Lord” on the lips of the unrighteous is the acknowledgment that everyone will have when Jesus judges— “every knee [will] bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10, 11)? So the righteous weren’t surprised that they were saved, but they were surprised that their little actions to the little people to whom they gave little thought were a big deal to Jesus. Conversely, those on the left are surprised that their last-minute profession of faith is not enough and that their lack of little actions to the little people are a big deal to Jesus. Pascal in his Pensées phrased it perfectly: “The elect will be ignorant of their virtues, and the outcast[s] of the greatness of their sins.”[4]
  19. While the surprise of the right and the left surely surprised Jesus’ original hearers, such surprises shouldn’t surprise us now. That is, the moment after we read this parable we know what Jesus is looking for on judgment day.
  20. While Jesus is the glorious Son of Man, he identifies with the neediest people. Put differently, the high Lord is found in the low human —the widow and orphan, the needy and powerless. Those who suffer a lack of basic needs—food, drink, clothing—he not only labels “the least of these my brothers” (v. 40), but he finds with them some sort of indefinable solidarity: what was done to them was done to him. The language “I was hungry” (v. 42) and “I was a stranger” (v. 43) —whatever the mystical or metaphorical or literal connection—is an almost incomprehensible picture. The cosmic Lord of creation hungry, naked, sick? It’s as incomprehensible as the incarnation, as Immanuel— “God with us.” It’s as incomprehensible as the crucifixion—the living God without life.
  21. As it was in the Parable of the Talents, the sin of lacking regard for the bridegroom leads to the damnation of the do-nothings. Moreover, here the foundational idea is not merely that a life of service saves and a lack of service damns but that a life of service to needy neighbors is a life of service to Christ (little acts done in love are done unto the littlest ones’ leader).
  22. Typical of Jesus on the reality of Hell, he is pictorial. That is, he gives us graphic pictures of punishment—here “eternal fire” (v. 41), in the last text “outer darkness” (v. 30). So, is Hell literally fire or is it literally darkness? That’s the wrong question. Jesus is not giving a realistic proposition but is picturing a reality—a reality of which you’d just as well not have a realistic view. “Eternal fire” may indeed be metaphorical, but it is a metaphor for the awful. It can mean either a qualitative awfulness (a fire that has eternal consequences) or quantitative (a fire that lasts for eternity). The natural reading—due to the antithetical parallelism (“eternal life”/ “eternal punishment,” v. 46)—is the latter. Either reading, however, pictures the awful and the eternal.
  23. Also typical of Jesus on the reality of Hell, he is neither sadistic nor sensationalistic. That is, he doesn’t flesh out the fire metaphor like a medieval mosaic or like a turn-or-burn preacher. He doesn’t say, “Have you ever touched a flame with the tip of your finger? Now imagine your whole body burning in Hell forever!” Jesus gives just enough of a visual to make us step back and catch our breath, not enough to bend over and throw up. Jesus finds no delight in the judgment of the wicked.

QUESTION MARKS

Those are the twenty-three lightbulbs. From all those observations there arise three key questions. The first question is: Who are “the least of these”?

There are two hotly debated options. The majority opinion of Bible commentators from the second century until the nineteenth century is that “the least” represent Christians, while the majority opinion of the nineteenth century onward take “the least” to represent everyone in need, whether Christian or not. I think “the least” primarily refers to those in the Visible Church. But I obviously don’t think we can or should neglect to love our neighbors and the world’s poor, thus following all that Jesus modeled and commanded elsewhere. So when we get to the three arrows, we will apply this passage accordingly.

I hold that “the least of these my brothers” (v. 40) are Christians for two reasons. First, the word “brothers” (or “brethren” in the older translations) is used often throughout the New Testament for Christians. This is true of Matthew’s Gospel as well. The two closest references to our text both use it that way. In 23:8 Jesus said to his disciples, “you have one teacher, and you are all brothers,” and in 28:10 Jesus told the women at the tomb, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” The “my” there and here seems to highlight this Christ-and-his-church connection (cf. 12:48, 49).28 In fact, the phrase “my brothers” in the four Gospels is only used by Jesus for his followers.

Second, in the Olivet Discourse Jesus is talking primarily to his disciples, the church. Matthew 24:3, 4 (cf. 26:2) records who the original hearers of Jesus’ last sermon were— “the disciples [who] came to him privately.” Also of importance is what Jesus said to them about what would happen to them. According to 24:14, as the first-generation believers testify to the nations about the gospel of the kingdom, they will be persecuted by the nations. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (v. 9).

Isn’t that a splendid short summary of early Christianity? The gospel went out, and God’s messengers (whether they were officially commissioned witnesses like Paul or unofficial witnesses like those saints in Hebrews who lost their homes) suffered the persecutions of prison, poverty, homelessness, sickness, thirst, hunger, and inadequate clothing. Jesus identifies himself with the fate of his followers and makes compassion for them equivalent to compassion for himself.

The second question is: does Jesus teach works righteousness in this passage? Can we earn salvation through meritorious works? The answer is no. Look at the way the righteous replied. If they were trying to earn eternal life by doing good works, they wouldn’t have been surprised when Jesus commended their works. They would have replied that they knew exactly what they were doing when they fed the hungry. They would have known that these seemingly unimportant little works were their ticket to heaven.

The elect are surprised that their little actions of weak faith were judged as evidence of Christ’s righteousness. The lost were shocked at what they thought were great works that should earn them great reward yet were considered evil. The key to readiness for judgment is a regard for the bridegroom rather than for yourself. Readiness looks like hope (the Parable of the Ten Virgins), like faith/trust into God’s one-way love (the Parable of the Talents), and like love of neighbors (the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats).[5]

Moving to the larger context —the whole of Matthew’s Gospel— we move into this issue of genre. First, this is a parable, and no one parable contains within it a whole theological system. There is nothing comprehensive here about the Bible’s theology of personal salvation. Second, this is a parable in one of the Gospels. In the Apostle Paul’s letters he often gives us propositions—e.g., “Love is . . .” —and then provides a definition. In the Gospel genre, however, the writers provide us with pictures, not propositions. Matthew nowhere writes, “Faith is . . .” and then provides a definition. Rather, he shows us what faith looks like. It looks like a Gentile centurion coming to Jesus for a miracle on behalf of another. It looks like little children trustingly sitting on our Lord’s lap for a blessing. It looks like welcoming other Christians in love and providing for their basic needs. That’s faith in Jesus.

The third question is: Is the neglect of loving service to others so wicked that it deserves eternal fire? The answer is yes. The Bible teaches us clearly that every sin carries hell in it. Our next thought, word, or deed of sin deserves as much damnation in and of itself as do each and every one of our sins throughout our lives. The church is plagued with a high view of man’s goodness and a low view of God’s holiness. To even ask the question, does this sin or that sin really deserve damnation? shows that the sinfulness of sin is not so sinful to us. You see, just as we have a hard time getting into our heads that God is perfectly holy and every sin is thus damnable, we have an even harder time believing that trust in Jesus is all that will save us from the eternal wrath to come.

ARROW

We have looked at 23 light bulbs, answered three question marks, and have finally come to the arrow. When we think of all the evil and suffering and injustices in this world, we tend to ask God, “Why?” But the question more often posed by the people in the Bible is not “Why?” but “How long?” The final judgment is final justice, that day when God’s righteousness will finally flow like a river (Isaiah 48:18), and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Jesus’ teaching on judgment is that it allows us to see the glory of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness upon the black backdrop of sin, death, and Hell. Our churches need the restoration of God’s judgment message for the sake of the message of God’s grace! Our churches need the full gospel. And isn’t the full gospel summarized so well in John 3:35, 36? It couldn’t be a better summary of everything here in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

 

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 25:31–46.

[2] Boice, 540.

[3] O’Donnell, 747-748.

[4] Pascal, Pensées, 514, quoted in Bruner, The Churchbook, pp. 571, 572.

[5] O’Donnell, 755.