Matthew 25

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.”

There is a cartoon from an old issue of Leadership Journal that made me chuckle a bit. We are viewing a pastor at his pulpit staring out at his congregation and speaking to them. The words of the pastor are printed beneath: “In the twenty years I’ve been here, I feel I’ve come to know most of you pretty well.” Seated before him in the pews are his congregants: presented as interspersed sheep and goats.

It is likely the case that somebody who had not read Jesus’ words at the close of Matthew 25 would be pretty confused by the cartoon, for it is drawing on Jesus’ categorization of human beings as being either sheep or goats, that is, either the people of God or those who reject God.

Even for the believer the cartoon might be a bit problematic. After all, can pastors really claim to know who is actually a sheep and who is actually a goat? And yet, it is likely the case that, right or wrong, we all have opinions on who belongs to which group.

Ultimately, of course, only Jesus can divide the sheep from the goats. Our text reveals to us that the day will come when He will do precisely that.

The eternal destiny of mankind has a radically dichotomous character.

The first thing we note of our text is that it presents a radically dichotomous picture of the possible eternal destinies of mankind. There are two possible destinies and they are radically different. One is to eternal life and the other is to eternal death. Jesus presents this starkly as the “separation” of sheep and goats.

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.

Notice that none escape being in one or the other of these groups: “Before him will be gathered all the nations…” Everybody is either a sheep or a goat. The sheep are the people of God. The goats are those who are not in the family of God. There is no third option.

This dichotomy is presented all throughout scripture. In Joshua 24, for instance, the two choices and their respective outcomes are depicted as the choice between the true God and false gods.

¹⁴ “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.¹⁵ But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household,we will serve the Lord.”

This dichotomous character is also clearly seen in Deuteronomy 30 and its call for the correct choice to be made between the two options.

¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live

In Matthew 3, Jesus draws on the agriculture dichotomy of wheat and chaff.

¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

In Matthew 7, Jesus employs the travel imagery of the gates and paths to communicate the two eternal options.

¹³ “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

In Acts 26, when Paul speaks of his conversion experience, he uses two dichotomies: light and dark, and God and Satan, the former of each speaks of salvation and the latter of each speaks of damnation.

¹⁸ to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

The contrast of light and dark is stated again by John in 1 John 2.

⁹ Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

It is also difficult not to see the two criminals crucified on either side of Jesus as symbolic of the dichotomous nature of mankind’s two possible eternal destinies: “And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left” (Mark 15:27). The penitent thief is saved and the unrepentant thief is damned.

This is important in our day which cannot seem to abide clear distinctions or, indeed, clarity itself. We desperately want to muddle things, to obscure these realities, to say that they must be amazingly complex. Yet, scripture presents the eternal destinies of mankind and the paths that get us there in starkly binary terms: There are only two options. You must choose.

The evidence that one is a member of the family of God will be seen in faith made visible in works.

What evidences are there that one is a sheep or a goat? Our text makes it clear that the ultimate evidence is your life and the way you behaved.

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.”

So the people of God:

• feed the hungry;
• give drink to the thirsty;
• welcome the stranger;
• clothe the naked;
• visit the sick;
• visit the imprisoned.

And, in the end, they discover that in doing this to the least of these they were indeed doing it to Jesus!

In contrast, the goats do not do these things. They too come to see that their not doing them meant that they were withholding kindness and love from Jesus Himself.

I said that our lives are evidence of our status. This is true. But this does not mean that our lives merit our status. I simply reject the idea that our passage must be divorced from the wider New Testament teaching on salvation: that it is “by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8–9). No, Jesus’ words here are not to be understood to mean that mere acts of kindness merit salvation. There is also the need for forgiveness, the need to be born again. And this, the scriptures reveal, is by grace through faith. We receive the grace of God through faith.

But works are evidence of our faith. You do not earn “sheep” status through works, but your works reveal that you are indeed a sheep! Jesus’ words in our text will be echoed later by James in James 2.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

It has been said that “faith alone saves but faith that saves is not alone.” I believe this to be true. Merely going “baaa baaa baaa” does not a sheep make! Merely saying “Lord! Lord!” does not a Christian make. But neither does doing good works outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ, as Jesus makes clear in Matthew 7:

²¹ “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. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Do you see? It is as if Jesus says, “Yes, you did good deeds, but we never had a relationship.”

Matthew 7 stands beautifully alongside Matthew 25 to create a full-orbed understanding of salvation: We need to be known by Jesus, to be in a relationship with Him by grace through faith. But if we are in a relationship with Him it will be manifestly clear in how we live our lives.

The dichotomous destinations of humanity will be final and irrevocable.

There is a final note in our text and it is precisely that: It is final.

⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

The sheep go into eternal life.

The goats go into eternal punishment.

There is not a third option.

There is no coming back.

Abraham’s words to the rich man in hell in Luke 16 could not be clearer.

²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

As B.H. Carroll, the first president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, memorably put it, “The lost are forever lost, and hell admits of no evangelism.”[1]

Eternal punishment.

Eternal life.

The dichotomous nature of eternity.

There is a starkness to this, yes, but also a sublime simplicity. It means we need not live in confusion. We can come to Jesus, trust in Him, and know that we will be saved.

Set aside your baaaa-ing and ask yourself this question: Does my life look like that of a sheep or a goat?

Set aside your religious language and ask yourself this question: Am I known by the Savior I profess to know?

The day will come when the great separation will be made. Are you ready? Are you in the family of God?

There is frankly no reason other than stubborn rebellion why a person would be cast into hell.

Choose you this day who you will serve!

Choose life!

 

[1] Carroll, B.H. Ecclesia. The Baptist Distinctives Series, Number 38 (Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 2006), p.61.