“The Final Judgment”
Matthew 25:31-46
11/23/08
As we approach the end of another Church year, our
attention is drawn to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and
the end of the ages. In the Apostles' Creed we confess that Jesus
was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended
into hell, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven where He
now sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. All these
things have already taken place already. What is still left to
take place is that He will come again to judge the living and the
dead. The Gospel text for today previews for us what this last
judgment of the living and the dead will be like.
When Jesus comes in His glory, He will sit on His
glorious throne, and all the nations will be gathered before Him.
And He will separate the people from one another as a shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His
right and the goats on His left. The first thing we notice here
is that Jesus is no longer living in a state of humiliation. His
days of suffering are over. They ended when He died on the cross
and was buried. A state of exaltation began for Him at His
descent into hell, where He proclaimed His victory over sin, death,
hell, and the devil, and at His bodily resurrection from the
dead. Jesus’ first coming was as a lowly servant. His
second coming will be as a glorious King and Judge, to whom all
authority in heaven and on earth has been given. He has been
given the right and authority to judge by the Father, and He will
judge, and no one will be able to escape that judgment.
The second thing we notice is that all nations will
be gathered before Him. Whether they want to or not, everyone who
has ever lived or will live will stand before Christ the King on this
day of judgment. The Scripture says that "at the name of Jesus
every knee [will] bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father." There will be no exceptions, as we confess in
our catechism, "[God] will at the Last Day raise up me and all the
dead, and give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life.
This is most certainly true."
Some people wonder how this resurrection of all the
dead will be possible. They wonder about those who have been
cremated or eaten by animals or those whose bones have disintegrated in
the sea. Will God be able to raise them up from the dead?
Is anything too difficult for God? With what did God create us in
the first place? Dust. The Apostle John writes in the book
of Revelation, "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the
throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is
the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had
done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were
in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each
person was judged according to what he had done." Everyone, the
dead and the living, will stand before God on that day, and our Lord
Jesus Christ will judge us as He sits on His glorious throne.
The next thing we notice in this text is that the
Lord separates people into two groups. The one group He calls
sheep and places them on His right; the other group He calls goats and
places them on His left. No one will be choosing which side he
wants to be on. The Lord will do the separating on the basis of
whether He judges them to be sheep or goats. Can we know now
which side we'll be on? Can we know whether we are sheep or
goats? The answer is 'Yes,' and the text shows us how.
"The King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you
who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world.'" We can know
that we are sheep first and foremost by the fact that we are blessed by
the Father. The opposite of being blessed is being cursed.
To be blessed by God is to be the object of His favor. To be
cursed by God is to be the object of His wrath. We deserve to be
objects of His wrath. By nature we are goats. How do we
come to be the objects of God's favor? Is it by our works?
No, but by faith in Jesus Christ. The Scripture says that those
who have faith in Jesus are blessed. It is on account of His work
for you that you are blessed and not cursed by God, because He
fulfilled the Law and became a curse for you by dying on a cross, thus
redeeming you from the curse of the Law. "He redeemed us in order
that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through
Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the
Spirit."
The Spirit is the deposit of the inheritance to come
which is yours right now. The Apostle Paul writes that we who
have believed in Christ have been marked in Him with a seal, the
promised Holy Spirit, "who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance
until the redemption of those who are God's possession..." When
was His Spirit given to you? When were you sealed as His very
own? At your Baptism. There you were given not only the
Holy Spirit, but the Father and the Son as well. God gave Himself
to you in Baptism, and you became His child. The blessings that
God gives to you in Baptism are infinite, but they include the
forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal
salvation. This is your inheritance, and it is assured you
through faith in Jesus Christ who earned salvation for you. On
the day of judgment He will invite you to come and enter into that
inheritance that has been prepared for you from the creation of the
world.
That is important for us to remember as we look at
the next section of this text in Matthew, because at first glance, we
might think that the sheep are sheep because of the good works they
have done. The King will invite those blessed by the Father to
enter into their inheritance, "For I was hungry," He will say, "and you
gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you
came to visit me." We might think that it was because the sheep
did all these good deeds (and more) that they are invited into the
kingdom. But if we remember that it is because they are blessed
by the Father through faith in Christ, and that eternal life is their
inheritance, not a wage that is owed them, then we will not make the
mistake of saying that it is on the basis of our works that we receive
eternal life. It is not because of your good works that you will
inherit eternal life. But it is because you are heirs of eternal
life on the basis of what Jesus has done for you. And it’s
because you are heirs that you do good works. It’s these
good works, then, that show that the righteous are sheep and not goats.
We judge whether people are good citizens or bad
citizens in this country by their actions in the community. Do
they abide by the laws of the state? Do they pay their
taxes? Do they steal? Do they commit murder? By their
deeds they prove whether they are good citizens or bad ones. In
the same way, an apple tree shows that it’s an apple tree by
producing apples. It’s not an apple tree because it
produces apples; it produces apples because it’s an apple
tree. We don’t do good works in order to become Christians;
we do good works because we are Christians through faith in
Christ. When our Lord judges all the nations, He will separate
the sheep from the goats on the basis of their works, because those who
are His sheep through faith in Jesus will have shown themselves to be
His sheep by their good works. (And notice that none of the sins
of the sheep are even mentioned. That's because they have been
taken away by Christ.)
Now, what kinds of good works are these? The
text specifically focuses on what has or has not been done for the
brothers of Christ. These are not just anybody; Christ’s
brothers are not unbelievers nor are they your neighbors in
general. They are specifically believers in Christ, down to the
least of them - from Pastors who hold the office of Christ and preach
and teach the Gospel publicly on behalf of His people, to Christians
who bring Christ and the Gospel to those with whom they live and work,
even if they’re garbage collectors, maids, or children.
It's not that doing good deeds for non-Christians is not also commanded
in the Scriptures. But here the works that Jesus focuses in on
specifically are those good works that Christians do towards one
another because they are members of Christ’s body. Anything
done to the members of Christ's body are done to Him. Christ
says, "If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little
ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly
not lose his reward." On the other hand, anyone who harms a
believer in Christ attacks Christ Himself. When the Apostle Paul,
then called Saul, was heading up to Damascus to take Christians back to
Jerusalem to throw them in prison, Christ appeared to him on the way
and said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" In
persecuting Christ's Church, Paul had been persecuting Christ Himself.
But when the King reveals to the sheep that all
their good deeds done towards His brothers have been done towards Him,
they are surprised. They are surprised, because while they were
doing these good deeds, they weren't thinking about trying to earn
points towards eternal life. They weren't thinking about the
works at all. They just did them. The did them, because
they saw their fellow believers in need. Their motivation for
doing these good deeds was neither their fear of hell nor their
expectation of reward, but simply their love for their brothers and
sisters in Christ. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the
Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His
child as well."
The goats, on the other hand, reveal that they are
goats by the fact that they care nothing for God's people.
Whatever they didn't do for the least of Christ's brothers, they didn't
do for Him. Again, just as the good deeds of the sheep towards
God's people reveal that they are believers in Christ, the failure of
the goats to do good towards God's people reveals that they are not
believers in Christ. This doesn’t mean that non-Christians
won’t do good things for Christians. After all, a
non-Christian dentist does just as good a work for me as a Christian
dentist would. But the good works that Jesus is talking about
here are those things that are done for His saints because they are His
saints. In other words, how people receive Christ’s body,
the Church, in this world (especially as they bring the Gospel about
Jesus to them) will reveal whether they are sheep or goats.
It’s just as Christ says to His disciples, “He who receives
you receives me... And whoever gives one of these little ones
even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you,
he will by no means lose his reward.” On judgment day, the
King will tell those who despise, reject, and treat His saints with
contempt to depart, and they will go away to eternal punishment, but
the righteous, the sheep, to eternal life.
On the last day, when the Lord judges all people, He
will separate those who have believed in Christ from those who have
rejected Him. The lives of those who have believed in Christ will
show that they know they have a Savior. This might cause you to
wonder whether you’re a sheep or a goat, and the expectation of
the final judgment may then cause you to fear. But if this is the
case, don't look to your works for comfort, and don’t let the
fear that you have no good works lead you to despair.
Concentrating on your works will never assure you that you are God's
child. Look instead to your Savior, Jesus Christ, and remember
your Baptism in which He claimed you as His own. Then the works
will come, and you will wonder on the last day that you ever did any
good works at all, because all you were focusing on was Jesus and your
neighbor, not yourself. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who came to save
you when you were hungry and thirsty, strangers and in need of
clothing, sick and in prison, and the day of judgment will be a joy for
you, who have already been judged righteous through faith in Christ
right now. On that day the Lord will invite you to come and enter
into that inheritance that has been prepared for you from the creation
of the world, and you will depart into eternal life. Amen.