The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Matthew 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 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 invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’’40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41 Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves 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 take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that 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.”
The parable before us this morning is the last parable in the series of three told by Jesus on the Mt. Olives. This text is the last extended teaching of Jesus before His Passion.
His last parable and His last major theology class is all about the Last Day, Judgment Day. This section has been named the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.
While the image of the sheep and the goats get most of the attention, in this parable the Christ is portrayed with different names. He is the Son of Man comes in His glory. He is human flesh yet He is elevated to the highest place and receives all authority. In crafting the parable, Jesus is invoking a well known Old Testament prophecy from the book of Daniel. (7:3) “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.”
The Son of Man does not only reflect the glory of God, as we saints do. Christ, The Som of Man has His own majesty. He is the Light that drives back the darkness. He is God equal to the Father.
“All the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.” As He sits down to judge, He sit upon His own throne of glory. It is His throne by right since He is the Son of Man. He sits on that heavenly throne as God in flesh, the Son of Man so that He would be our brother. Hebrews 2:11-12; “For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
Here in the parable of the Sheep and Goats, the parable of Judgment Day, our brother in the flesh calls to us to join Him in our Father’s heavenly home.
The Christ is also the Shepherd, not only here in this parable but in others and in His own self description. “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me.” (John 10:14) This parable builds on this truth.
Just a couple of days before His crucifixion Jesus compares Himself to a shepherd who separates sheep from goats. He is not just any shepherd. He is THE Shepherd, the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd, I will not want. 2 He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For the sake of His name.”
In this parable Jesus also calls Himself King; not just any king, but the King of kings, the ruler over all authorities and powers in heaven and on earth. When it comes to social status in the ancient world, Kings and shepherds live on opposite ends of the social ladder. During His earthly ministry Jesus was shepherd to His sheep/disciples, yet He was crucified for being the King of the Jews. “Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” (Luke 23:38)
Here in this parable, the Shepherd and King sit upon the throne of the Son of Man where He “will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”
Kings by the way don’t usually ask. They command. That’s the case here. In verse 34 the King issues an imperative. He says “come” and “inherit.He issues another imperative in verse 41,“Depart from Me.” The first imperative the King speaks to His sheep. The second imperative He speaks to the goats. ” It’s not optional. It will be so. Neither group has an option.
Notice also the Son of Man, the Shepherd, and the King is also Lord. He is Lord over all. He is King over all tribes and nations. He is Lord over all, rich and poor, young and old, male and female, and slave and free.
In fact in the parable He is called Lord by both the sheep and the goats. “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 invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’’
The sheep call Him Lord because He has redeemed them from sin, death, and the devil. The sheep call Him Lord because He has called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified them. They have lived their lives in this sinful world and did not regard the works as meritorious. They did not see the things they did in this world as being done unto their Lord.
The goats call Him Lord out of compulsion. They are forced to confess Him against our of terror because in their earthly lives they resisted His grace and did not live by faith in Christ alone. They did not keep His Word. “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” (John 14:23) The sheep kept His Word. They did not consider the works they did to be good works.
The Judge says to the goats. 42 “for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me. 44 Then they themselves 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 take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’”
The Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the King, and the Lord sits on the throne of glory granting access to the Father’s inheritance. The Son of Man is God in flesh. The Good Shepherd is calling His flock to their heavenly pasture for righteousness sake. The King gathers all nations and tribes before Him to receive their judgment. The Lord brings all before him so that every knee will bow. On the Last Day, two groups and only two will stand before the God who sits on His throne.
The first is represented by sheep who enter into the inheritance prepared for them before the foundation of the world was made. The other group is represented by goats and they are sent away to live out eternity without the God they forsook in this world.
Sheep and goats are different. Jesus uses the images of sheep and goats precisely because they have notable differences and the people at that time understood the differences.
In the Old and New Testament sheep are depicted as creatures of faith. They trust their shepherd. They know the voice of their shepherd and when he calls they follow. Sheep are Christians in the Scripture, especially in the parables. To be a Christian is to be a sheep. To be a sheep is to be a Christian.
This brings us to the question how sheep came to be sheep. Without a proper understanding of Christian doctrine, the Bible’s teaching on salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone for Christ’s sake alone, people read this parable and conclude that admission into the Father’s inheritance is achieved by doing good works: feeding, giving to drink, healing, visiting, clothing, etc..
But the sheep are in the sheep line because they are sheep and not goats. Believers don’t make themselves believers. They are made by the Word of God. Faith “is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9).
A sheep is a sheep because it was born one. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) 1 John 5:1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him.”
The Word of God and Holy Spirit created faith and faith has put the creature in the sheep line. And we are in the sheep line because we possess “sheepness,” that is the quality that makes us sheep. True Christian faith.
So we have to dynamics at work in this parable. We have the Son of Man bringing His titles and offices (Son of Man, Shepherd, King, and Lord) together seated on the throne of glory and we have believers (represented by sheep) and unbelievers (represented by goats).
The parable focuses on the judgment of the Shepherd King on kindly deeds of the sheep. The deeds that were done in, for, and in the stead of Jesus Christ. Notice there isn’t a scale involved at all. There is no accounting process. The Shepherd King does not add a point for something good and deduct two points for something bad. They have already been made and judged worthy. They are sheep standing in the sheep line.
Sheep do good works on account of Christ because Christ washed them clean in the blood of the Lamb. He makes us clean and so our works are also clean. Good fruit comes from a good trees. Christians can’t help, but do good works.
There is a Bible verse in the book of James that is greatly misunderstood. It’s James 2:16-17, “[If] one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” This passage, along with many others teaches that if works are absent in the life of a person who regards himself to be a Christian, then faith too must be absent. The parable of the Sheep and Goats is coming at the issue of believers and unbelievers from this kind of direction. It looks to the fruit of faith or the absence thereof.
Goats did not do works in or for Christ. They did works for themselves. They were born and tainted in sin. While their works may appear good, without true, nothing they do is good and acceptable to God. They are in the goat line because they are goats and not sheep.
Sheep and goats are different. Sheep by the way are rather humble creatures in contrast to goats. Sheep, for example naturally bow their heads and graze, while goats tend to keep their heads held erect, proud, and eat anything they can reach. Goats have an attitude about them. The tails of the sheep are pointed downward (in humility), while the tail of goats are almost always pointed upward.
Sheep are timid creatures. They flee from any possible danger to the safety and comfort of their shepherd. Goats are about nosey, pushy, combative, and intrusive as they come. Goats are independent creatures. Sheep prefer to stay in the flock. When a sheep gets itself into trouble it is usually because they are short sighted and thick headed. They wander off and get into trouble. Goats go look for it and often cause it.
Even though faith and grace are not directly mentioned in the judgment, everything about the sheep is saturated by grace. From the Father’s undeserved grace making us sheep in His flock to the blessing that we will inherit the kingdom prepared for us before the foundation of the world was made He did long before we could do a single good work.
We will the stand before the throne of the Son of Man, The Shepherd, King, and Lord and He will declare to us “As you did it to the least of these, you did it unto Me” and “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:23)
The world scoffs at the Bible’s teaching of Judgment Day. The people of this world think they can save this planet from the destruction that is to come. But the parable and lesson that Jesus teaches before turning His face to Maundy Thursday, the betrayal, trial, scourging, crucifixion, and resurrection is both a warning and a comfort to the sheep and the goats. Our inheritance on His way.
Amen
May the peace that surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.