THE PARABLE OF THE
'SHEEP AND THE GOATS'
Matt. 25. 31-46
The opening verse of this parable
indicates the time of its application. It refers to the period of Christ's reign over the
earth, from His assumption of power at the commencement of the Millennium to the cleansing
of the world from the last trace of evil. "When the Son of Man shall come in his
glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory;
and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another,
as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats" ('Matt. 25. 31-32). Jesus cast this
parable against the background of Daniel's vision (Dan. 7. 9-10) in which that prophet saw
the "Ancient of Days" seated upon a throne of splendor with myriads assembled
before Him for judgment, one "like the Son of Man" coming with the clouds of
heaven to be brought before Him, and the kingship of earth being formally committed to
that Son of Man and his companions, the "people of the saints of the Most High"
that they might possess the kingdom for ever. Meanwhile the evil powers and institutions
of the old world were being destroyed in a great holocaust of fire. Jesus knew himself to
be that "Son of Man" and his disciples and those that should afterwards believe
on His Name to be the "people of the saints of the Most High" that were to be
joined with Him in that Kingdom, and in this parable He set down the purpose and the
character of his kingship over the nations during the Age of his glory.
The disciples must have understood this
parable more clearly than any other parable. They were so accustomed to this view of the
Messianic reign. How often in the Temple services would they join with intense feeling in
the inspiring strains of the twenty-fourth Psalm "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and
be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King
of glory? The Lord strong and mighty..." How they must have conned over the mystic
vision of Zechariah "Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH ... he shall build the
temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne;
and he shall be a priest upon his throne" (Zech. 6. 12-13). Jewish literature of the
date of the First Advent is full of such references, and Jesus himself must have been
thoroughly familiar with them. It is thought that the very phraseology of this parable was
suggested to his mind by passages in the Book of Enoch, a book with which He would
certainly be well acquainted: "On that day mine Elect One shall sit on the throne of
glory and shall try their works ... and I will transform the earth and make it a blessing
... for I have provided and satisfied with peace my righteous ones, and have caused them
to dwell before me: but for the sinners there is judgment impending with me, so that I
shall destroy them from the face of the earth". "And the Lord of Spirits seated
him upon the throne of his glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him,
and the word of his mouth slays all the sinners ... and they shall be downcast of
countenance, and pain shall seize them, when they see the Son of Man sitting on the throne
of his glory" (I Enoch 45. 3-6 and 62. 2-5). Another passage in the same work, quoted
by Jude, runs "And behold! he cometh with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute
judgment upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly; and to convict all flesh of all the
works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things
which ungodly sinners have spoken against him" (I Enoch 1. 9: compare Jude 14-15).
Here is a reference that parallels the various sayings of Jesus regarding the
"angels" or messengers that will be with him at his coming, the members of his
Church, raised from the sleep of death, or changed "in the twinkling of an eye"
as the case may be, united with him and revealed with him to the world in glory.
The vision of the Great White Throne of
Revelation 20:11 is parallel to that of Daniel 7 and to this parable. In Revelation there
is the same standing of the nations, the "dead, small and great", before the
Throne, the same judgment and separation between good and evil, and the same condemnation
of sin and sinners. These three pas-sages between them afford a wonderfully vivid picture
of the work of judgment that is carried on throughout the Millennial Age, a work that
divides and separates men into two classes, those who choose righteousness and life, and
those who choose unrighteousness and death.
The basis of the selection, feeding or
not feeding the hungry, clothing or failing to clothe the naked, and so on, is an allusion
to the very practical ideas held by thinking men in Jesus' day as to what constituted
fitness or unfitness for eternal life. Such "good works" have always been
features of the religious life of true Jews. There is a parallel to the Lord's words in
the "Secrets of Enoch" (not to be confused with the Book of Enoch just now
mentioned, and usually known as 2 Enoch to distinguish it from that book), a work which
was known to pious Jews during His life-time, or at any rate shortly thereafter. The book
itself is of no particular value to Christians; it presents the truths of religion as they
appeared to orthodox Jews of the First Century and was to them what many theological works
are to us today; and was strongly colored with Greek and Oriental 'philosophies. But the
passage in question is interesting: it describes Enoch's visit to Paradise, in the third
heaven (compare Paul's use of this term when writing to the Corinthians) and his guides
say to him "This place, O Enoch, is pre-pared for the righteous who endure every kind
of attack in their lives from those who afflict their souls: who turn away their eyes from
unrighteous-ness, and accomplish a righteous judgment, and also give bread to the hungry,
and clothe the naked, and raise the fallen, and assist the orphans who are oppressed, and
who walk without blame before the face of the Lord, and serve him only. For them this
place is prepared as an eternal inheritance". The likeness of these words to the
parable is obvious. The following reference to the sinners is also highly significant.
They are said to be cast into hell in the third heaven. That is a fitting description of
that death which comes to sinners in or at the end of the Millennial Age, the third heaven
of which Paul spoke. "And I (Enoch) said, Woe, woe, how terrible is this place! And
the men said to me: This place, Enoch, is prepared for those who do not honor God: who
commit evil deeds on earth ... oppressing the poor and spoiling them of their possessions
... who when they might feed the hungry, allow them to die of famine: who when they might
clothe them, strip them naked ... (2 Enoch 9 and 10). If in fact Jesus was familiar with
the book and did take these passages as the basis of his parable it is easy to see how
readily his hearers would grasp his meaning, and connect the "sheep" and
"goats" who "did" or "did it not" with the final judgment
upon righteous and evil men. At any rate the similarity of thought shows that the
sentiment portrayed was one that was quite familiar to Jewish ears.
In the parable the "sheep"
are those who manifest the practical Christian virtues toward their fellows; feeding the
hungry and thirsty, sheltering the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and
delivering those in bondage. It has been pointed out that of the seven obligations laid
upon the Christian in the New Testament only one; visiting the fatherless; is omitted in
this parable. The reason is not hard to discern; there will be no, fatherless in the
Millennium! All will have been restored to conscious life by the Redeemer, Jesus, and all
may thenceforth become sons of God by reconciliation to him. But there will be many
hungry, naked and in prison, at first. Men, returning from the grave, will have the same
characters and dispositions that were theirs at death, and the result will be that,
although physically whole, many will still `be mentally and morally sick, in prison by
reason of bondage to their past vices and depravity, naked as respects fitness for the new
world into which they have come, and whether they realize the fact or not, hungry and
thirsty for the blessings of life and knowledge that the Kingdom is designed to give them.
There is a link here with the Parable of the Good Samaritan; it will be remembered that
Jesus gave that parable in answer to a question "What shall I do to inherit eternal
life?" and the Samaritan who undertook the care and healing of the distressed
wayfarer was the one shown to be worthy of such. So it will be in the Millennial Age; the
man who is making progress toward perfection and harmony with God will be actively
employed in helping and assisting his fellows in every conceivable way; the selfish and
the sinner will be indifferent to such service and Jesus in the parable points to this as
a touchstone by which the true state of the heart can be indicated.
The question put both by sheep and
goats "When saw we thee an hungered, or athirst..." and so on, is a rhetorical
one, put into the mouths of the characters in order to row into prominence tike essential,
principle of these "good works"; inasmuch as ye did it--or did it not-unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye did it-or did it not-unto me. Our Lord's concern for
those He came to seek and to save is such that every service or disservice rendered to
them He feels as if rendered to Him. More; since He gave his own life, at the coast of
great suffering, for the salvation of .men, and is to establish his thousand year reign on
earth for the purpose of persuading as many as can possibly be persuaded to "turn
from sin to serve the living God", it follows that every service or disservice
rendered to men in that day is either a help or a hindrance to the execution of the King's
plans, and therefore can be aptly said to be done, or not done, unto him. No one in that
Age can escape working, either for or against the purposes of God--and all will be judged
accordingly.
"Then shall the King say unto them
on his right hand. `Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world' " (vs. 34). This "kingdom" is not the
same as the Millennial Kingdom of Christ. That is a kingdom in which all men are under
discipline, and all, good and bad alike, are present in that kingdom and must perforce
remain so until they have come to a full knowledge of the truth and made their choice
between "life and death, good and evil". This is a kingdom entrance into which
is granted only to the proved righteous, to those who have passed the test and are in no
sense unclean. It thus corresponds to the Holy City of Rev. 21 and 22, into which nothing
unclean or that defileth will ever enter. It is the kingdom of the earth after the
Millennial Age, which men inherit as kings in their own right, living, moving and having
their being in God the Father and con-ducting their own affairs on a basis of equality
with each other in harmony with the laws of righteousness.
"Then shall he say also unto them
on the left hand, `Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels" (vs. 41). Here we have the antithesis to the Holy City, the
lake of fire of Revelation 19 and 20, symbolic
of utter destruction. The allusion is,
of course, to the valley of Gehenna outside Jerusalem, where perpetual fires destroyed
the- refuse of the city. Jesus took the illustration from the apocalyptic literature of
his day, and his hearers would realize quite naturally what He meant. The final verse of
the parable perhaps makes this more clear "These shall go away into everlasting
punishment", where "punishment" is kolasin, disciplinary restraint,
and not timora, which is the word that indicates penal infliction in the sense of
the English word punishment. Kolasin, derived from the verb kolazo, which
means to lop or prune trees, hence to check, curb or restrain, is very descriptive of the
purpose of God with irrecoverable sinners. "They shall be as though they had not
been"; they will be "cut off from among the people" and so the expression
"everlasting" (or enduring) punishment can be accurately rendered "final
cutting-off". That cutting-off is as permanent and everlasting as is the eternal life
of the righteous mentioned in the same verse.
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