Matthew 25.31-46.
The next story in Jesus’s Olivet Discourse, where he taught his students about the End Times, is usually called the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. It all comes from verses 32-33, in which Jesus compares the division of humanity into camps of righteous and reprobate, like a shepherd segregating his flock by species: Lambs on one side, kids on the other. One group to get shorn, one to get milked. Or in this case, one group to go one way, the other to go another.
This story terrifies
Wait, is that what legalists do? Nah. Usually they’re too busy getting all paranoid about the rules they designated for themselves, or
More often, Christians just ignore this passage altogether. We figure we’re saved by grace (which we are), but this passage sounds like
Of course you realize I’m gonna apply historical context to it, and explain what it’d mean to Jesus’s students who heard it, and point out how entirely consistent it is with God’s grace. Probably to the degree it’ll outrage many a legalist Christian. But whatever. Let’s begin with
Matthew 25.31-46 KWL - 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, all the angels with him,
- he’ll then sit on his glorious throne
- 32 and every nation on earth will be gathered together before him.
- He separates them like a shepherd, lambs from kids,
- 33 and will place the lambs at his right, and the kids at his left.
- 34 The King will then tell those at his right:
- ‘Come, you who’ve been blessed by my Father!
- Inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the world’s foundation!
- 35 For I hunger and you feed me. Thirst and you water me.
- A foreigner and you include me. 36 Naked and you clothe me.
- Weak and you look out for me. Imprisoned and you come to me.’
- 37 In reply the righteous lambs will then say, ‘Master?
- When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and water you?
- 38 When did we see you a foreigner and include you, or naked and clothe you?
- 39 When did we see you weak and imprisoned and come to you?’
- 40 In reply the King will tell them, ‘Amen! I promise you:
- Whatever you do for one of the lowest of these people in my family, you do for me.’
- 41 “The King then says to those at his left:
- ‘Get away from me, you damned people!
- Go to the fire of the age, prepared for the devil and its angels!
- 42 For I hunger and you don’t feed me. Thirst and you don’t water me.
- 43 A foreigner and you don’t include me. Naked and you don’t clothe me.
- Weak and imprisoned and you don’t look out for me.’
- 44 In reply the kids will say, ‘Master?
- When did we see you hungry, thirsty, a foreigner, naked, weak, or imprisoned, and not serve you?’
- 45 In reply the King will tell them, ‘Amen! I promise you:
- Whatever you don’t do for one of the lowest of these, you neither do for me.’
- 46 These people will go to the correction of the age to come.
- The righteous, to life in the age to come.”