MATTHEW 25:31-46
AS BELIEVERS WE ARE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK. That is, we recognize and appreciate that God has given us a sure revelation of himself and his will in the Bible. But it’s one thing to believe that the Book is special—inspired, authoritative, sufficient, etc.—and it’s another thing to know how to read it.
As people of the Book, how do we read the Bible? How especially do we read something complex such as the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, 25) or perhaps even more complex—a parable within the discourse itself? In this chapter I’m going to teach you how to read the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, so that we might together think what we’re to think, feel what we're to feel, and do what we are to do.
My strategy for this strange chapter of mine is simple and borrowed. There are a number of helpful methods for Bible reading. Perhaps you have heard of the method called COMA, which is not a method that is intended to put you into deep sleep but to wake you up to the life of the living Word. The C stands for context, the O for observation, the M for meaning, and the A for application. The method I want us to walk through is even simpler than COMA, and I hope even more lively! It is called the Swedish Method. It was named that by Ada Lum, a staff worker with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students after she saw Swedish college students using it for their Bible study.
Here is how it works.
After the group has read aloud the text to be studied, each person goes off on their own, looking for three things.
1. A Light Bulb: anything that shines out in the passage and draws attention. It can be something important or something that particularly strikes the reader.
2. A Question Mark: anything that is hard to understand; something that the reader would like to ask the author about.
3. An Arrow: anything that applies personally to the reader’s life.
Before the group reconvenes to share, each person must write down at least one and no more than three thoughts under each category. In this chapter I will stick to that rule for the Question Mark and the Arrow. I will ask and answer three questions and will supply you will three applications. With the lightbulbs, however, I found the limit of three too limiting. Thus, if you’ll allow me (what choice do you have), I will share with you twenty more than allowed.
A Lightbulb
We’ll begin with my long list of lightbulbs—details that I think are interesting and/or important.
1. This “parable” is technically not a parable. That is, unlike all the previous parables in Matthew we don’t find terms like “like”—the kingdom of heaven is “like a grain of mustard seed” (13:31) or “like treasure hidden in a field” (13:44) or “like a master of a house who went out early in the morning” (20:1) or “like ten virgins” (25:1). Here Jesus gives a statement of fact: “When the Son of Man comes...” (25:31). The only parabolic elements are the simple similes of likening the righteous to sheep and the unrighteous to goats and the structure—the use of parallels (e.g., hungry/hungry, food/no food) and a climactic end statement. So let’s just call it “a revelatory discourse” or “a majestic vision” or “an apocalyptic prophecy” or a “two-verse analogy” with a thirteen-verse explanation. Oh, bother, let’s just call this a parable.
2. This parable is about the second coming of Christ. That first phrase— “When the Son of Man comes in his glory” (25:31) refers to his return. Let’s remember we are in the Olivet Discourse, and a good half of it is about Jesus’ parousia. Let us also remember that unlike his first coming in obscurity (a babe in a manager in a cave in Bethlehem) his second coming will be the most public event of all time.
3. Jesus teaches here, that he “shall come to judge.” Here Jesus depicts himself as a shepherd king who like David (Ezekiel 34:23, 24) has come to bless God’s people and punish his enemies. Yet, more than David, he has come to set all the nations aright (Psalm 2). The Olivet Discourse begins with the prophetic pronouncement of God’s coming judgment upon Israel (the fall of Jerusalem), and it ends with Christ’s coming judgment upon every nation. Human beings won't be judged before “the bar of history” but in the court of Christ.
4. Jesus is more than the Davidic king (the Son of David); he is also the divine King (the Son of God). Paul writes of the kingdom of heaven as “the kingdom of his [i.e., God’s] beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Here Jesus expresses his divine sonship in verse 34 when he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”
5. Related to Jesus’ divine sonship is his divine nature. Jesus applies to himself language and imagery used only of God in the Old Testament. The most prominent examples come from Daniel 7 and Isaiah 66. Like "the Ancient of days”, Jesus claims that at his return he likewise will be enthroned as judge (Daniel 7:9), in the presence of angels (Daniel 7:10), and as the one who will reward the righteous (Daniel 7:18) and punish the wicked (Daniel 7:26).8And like the Lord (Yahweh) in Isaiah 66:18, Jesus claims that he “is coming to gather all nations and tongues” so that “they shall come and shall see my glory” (cp. Joel 3:2).
6. In this same vein is the glory and authority associated with Jesus. This is a parable about the glorious and powerful second coming of Christ. The picture here of Jesus is awesome! God alone is glorious and powerful, and yet here what do we see? Jesus will come “in his [own] glory” and “sit [a position of authority] on his glorious throne” (v. 31). He possesses his own glory; he possesses his own glorious throne. And who will be with him? Some of the angels? No. “All the angels” (v. 31; cp. “his angels,” 24:31). And who will stand before him? The Jews? The Gentiles? Some of the people of the world? No. “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate [insert—“all the”?] people...” (v. 32). Do you see the picture? Jesus is the sole judge of the world, and absolutely every angel circles around him, and absolutely every person stands before him. What absolute glory and authority! Might we rightly say that Jesus’ final sermon in Matthew’s Gospel “ends where John’s Gospel begins”?
7. Jesus is then called not “a king but “the King” (v. 34)—the divine King, also known as “the Son of Man” (v. 31). This “Son of Man” proceeds to judge the world based on people’s relationship to his person and will. Note all the first-person personal pronouns in verses 35—46. I count the word “I” eleven times, “my” two times, and “me” fourteen times. If this reminds you of the end of the Sermon on the Mount when Judge Jesus said, “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” (7:21), good. It should.
8. Jesus’ judgment involves gathering and separating. The language of gathering has a hopeful sound to true believers. The elect who have been scattered throughout the world are now gathered “from the four winds” (24:31) for salvation. Their final salvation, however, comes by means of an “awful separation.” C. S. Lewis called it “the Great Divorce.”
9. While Jesus separates people into two groups, the phrase “one from another” (v. 32) suggests the personal selection of every person from every nation, thus implying that we will all stand as individuals before the judgment seat. That reading especially fits the Parable of the Talents with its stress of individual gifting, responsibility, and accountability. Related to this point of individual judgment is the individual judging. For Jesus to know who is a sheep and who is a goat requires not only a knowledge of human actions, but intimate knowledge of the motives of each human heart.
10. Jesus’ judgment is based on works—on what one did or didn’t do. This is not an unfamiliar theme in Jesus’ teaching. Earlier in 16:27 he said, “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person [No. 9] according to what he has done [No. 10].” We'll return to that theme later.
11. The works are works of love. Six basic physical and expected social works are mentioned. The only act on the list that jumps out to me is visiting those in prison. Are those in prison wicked or pious criminals? That is, are they lawless citizens who broke the law of the land or lawful Brethren who broke the law of the land by preaching and/or living out the kingdom of God—people like Peter, John, and Paul mentioned in Acts and the Epistles (e.g., Colossians 4:18; Hebrews 10:34) or John the Baptist and Jesus mentioned in Matthew? When prison is mentioned in the New Testament, it is usually Believers behind bars being persecuted for righteousness’ sake (5:10).
12. These works are illustrative, not exhaustive, and representative, not comprehensive. Even Jesus himself didn’t act out all of these actions. He certainly fed the hungry (14:13-21; 15:32-39) and visited the sick (8:14-17). But we have no record of him welcoming a stranger into his home (he had no home per se in his adult ministry) or visiting the imprisoned. However, here we are not to ask the question, did Jesus do all six, and do you do all six? but rather to affirm the statement, “Jesus would do all six and six thousand more, and you and I should go and do likewise.” We are always expanding upon ways to live out Jesus’ ethics, thinking about how we can use medicine, economics, politics, education, etc., to help the needy of our cities, our country, and all over God’s green and brown and blue earth.
13. These works of love are lowly, unspectacular, and seemingly nonreligious. Here Jesus doesn’t say, “The one who worked for Caesar and influenced important political decisions gains approval.” He doesn’t say, “The one who visited the sick man and healed him gains approval.” He doesn’t say.
“The one who visited the imprisoned woman and freed her gains approval.” And he doesn’t say, “The one who prayed or fasted or attended church or tithed or preached a great sermon on this parable gains approval.” In fact, there are no distinctly Jewish or Christian religious acts mentioned. Not even faith is mentioned. Here only love abides. Is this because miracles can be counterfeited and to speak in the tongues of angels can be self-serving? Or is it because only love is “the true test of faith”? Maybe both.
14. These lowly, unspectacular, seemingly nonreligious works of love are thus democratic. That is, most people—unless there is a major physical or mental impairment—can feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, or visit the sick. The rich can; the poor can; the learned can; the unlearned can; men can; women can; Jews can; Gentiles can. It takes no special talent. It only takes willingness. It only takes a Spirit-wrought new heart.
15. Those judged by Jesus meet opposite fates. The righteous “come” to Jesus (v. 34), and the unrighteous “depart” from him (v. 41); the righteous are “blessed” (v. 34) and the unrighteous “cursed” (v. 41); the righteous are granted “eternal life” (v. 46b) and the unrighteous “eternal punishment” (v. 46a); the righteous “inherit... the kingdom” (v. 34) and the unrighteous “eternal fire” (v. 41).
16. Both types of people (there are only two types in the world according to this parable) have a place “prepared” for them (vv. 34, 41). Implied is that these places are prepared by God. For the unrighteous, the grave has been “prepared for the devil and his angels” (v. 41) and those who act like them; for the righteous, the kingdom has been prepared for them (“for you”) “from the foundation of the world” (v. 34). The phrase “foundation of the world” tells us that God had a grand plan in place either before he created everything or during the creation itself. God’s kingdom for God’s people was no afterthought.
17. There is a fearsome finality to Jesus’ judgment. There are no second chances during the second coming. The too-late verdict of 25:11, 12 gives its haunting echo here. Those who had time to make wise decisions for themselves about the course of their lives will at the final judgment have a final decision about their final fate “made for them” with irresistible finality.
18. Both the righteous and the unrighteous are surprised. Perhaps both are surprised because both are professing Believers. Like the two preceding parables, is this parable about judgment upon the Ecclesia? When the righteous answer Jesus, they say, “Lord” (v. 37); when the unrighteous answer, that same confession is on their lips, “Lord” (v. 44; cp. 7:21, 22). Or is the second “Lord” on the lips of the unrighteous the acknowledgment that everyone will have when Jesus judges—“every knee [will] bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10, 11)? I think it’s the latter. So the righteous weren’t surprised that they were saved (they are not “anonymous Believers” as Karl Rahner called them), but they were surprised that their little actions to the little people to whom they gave little thought were a big deal to Jesus. Conversely, those on the left are surprised that their last-minute profession of faith is not enough and that their lack of little actions to the little people are a big deal to Jesus. Pascal in his Pensees phrased it perfectly: “The elect will be ignorant of their virtues, and the outcasts of the greatness of their sins.”
19. While the surprise of the right and the left surely surprised Jesus’ original hearers, such surprises shouldn’t surprise us now. That is, the moment after we read this parable we know what Jesus is looking for on judgment day. (I'll further apply that concept later.)
20. While Jesus is the glorious Son of Man, he identifies with the neediest people. Put differently, “The high Lord is found in the low human”—the widow and orphan, the needy and powerless. Those who suffer a lack of basic needs—food, drink, clothing—he not only labels “the least of these my brothers” (v. 40), but he finds with them some sort of indefinable solidarity: what was done to them was done to him. The language “I was hungry” (v. 42) and “I was a stranger” (v. 43)—whatever the mystical or metaphorical or literal (!) connection—is an almost incomprehensible picture. The Lord hungry, naked, sick? It’s as incomprehensible.
21. As it was in the Parable of the Talents, the sin of neglect leads to the damnation of the do-nothings. Moreover, here the foundational idea is not merely that a life of service saves and a lack of service damns but that a life of service to others (that is, using your talents for the little people) is a life of service to Christ (little acts done in love are done unto the littlest ones’ leader).
22. Typical of Jesus on the reality of the grave, he is pictorial. That is, he gives us graphic pictures of punishment—here “eternal fire” (v. 41), in the last text “outer darkness” (v. 30). So, is the grave literally fire or is it literally darkness? That’s the wrong question. Jesus is not giving a realistic proposition but is picturing a reality—a reality of which you’d just as well not have a realistic view. ‘“Eternal fire’ may indeed be metaphorical, but it is a metaphor for the awful.” It can mean either a qualitative awfulness (a fire that has eternal consequences) or quantitative (a fire that lasts for eternity). Either reading, however, pictures the awful.
23. Also typical of Jesus on the reality of the grave, he is neither sadistic nor sensationalistic. That is, he doesn’t flesh out the fire metaphor like a medieval mosaic or like a turn-or-burn preacher. He doesn’t say, “Have you ever touched a flame with the tip of your finger? Now imagine your whole body burning in Hell forever!” (Father Arnall’s three fiery sermons on Hell in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the perfect example.) Jesus gives just enough of a visual to make us step back and catch our breath, not enough to bend over and throw up. Jesus finds no delight in the judgment of the wicked.
A Question Mark
Those are the twenty-three lightbulbs that went off in my head. From all those observations there arose in my mind three key questions. The first question is:
Who are “the least of these”!
There are two hotly debated options. The majority opinion of Bible commentators from the second century until the nineteenth century is that “the least” represent Believers, while the majority opinion of the nineteenth century onward take “the least” to represent “everyone in need, whether Believers or not.”
I think “the least” primarily refers to Believers. But I obviously don’t think we can or should limit our application by neglecting to love our neighbors and the world’s poor, thus following all that Jesus modeled and commanded elsewhere. So when we get to my three arrows, I will apply this passage accordingly.
I will, however, here and now give a brief defense for my view. This is not a mountain I’m willing to die on; it’s a hill—a hill as high as Mount Olivet. I hold that “the least of these my brothers” (v. 40) are Believers for two reasons.
First, the word “brothers” (or “brethren” in the older translations) is used often throughout the New Testament for Believers. This is true of Matthew’s Gospel as well. The two closest references to our text both use it that way. In 23:8 Jesus said to his disciples, “you have one teacher, and you are all brothers,” and in 28:10 Jesus told the women at the tomb, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” The “my” there and here seems to highlight this Christ-and-his-Ecclesia connection (cp. 12:48, 49). In fact, the phrase “my brothers” in the four Gospels is only used by Jesus for his followers. Paul will use that same phrase only for the Ecclesia alone as well. Moreover, the word “least” is the superlative form of the adjective “little,” and Jesus called his disciples “little ones” in 10:42 and 18:6, 10, 14. In fact, the term was used in chapter 18 to refer specifically to those disciples who were often marginalized due to a lack of wealth, health, giftedness, or spiritual maturity.
Second, in the Olivet Discourse Jesus is talking to the Ecclesia. Matthew 24:3, 4 (cp. 26:2) records who the original hearers of Jesus’ last sermon were—“the disciples [who] came to him privately.” Also of importance is what Jesus said to them about what would happen to them. According to 24:14, as the first-generation believers testify to the nations about the gospel of the kingdom, they will be persecuted by the nations. "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (v. 9).
Isn’t that a splendid short summary of early Christianity? The gospel went out, and God’s messengers (whether they were officially commissioned witnesses like Paul or unofficial witnesses like those saints in Hebrews who lost their homes) suffered the persecutions of prison, poverty, homelessness, sickness, thirst, hunger, and inadequate clothing. So do you see how this reading of “the least of these my brothers” fits with a passage like Paul’s conversion—from persecuting Christians to proclaiming Christ? Listen afresh to the start of his story:
Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Acts 9:3-5)
D. A. Carson summarizes well where I stand: By far the best interpretation is that Jesus’ “brothers” are his disciples… The fate of the nations will be determined by how they respond to Jesus’ followers, who, “missionaries" or not, are charged with spreading the gospel and do so in the face of hunger, thirst, illness, and imprisonment. Good deeds done to Jesus’ followers, even the least of them, are not only works of compassion and morality but reflect where people stand in relation to the kingdom and to Jesus himself. Jesus identifies himself with the fate of his followers and makes compassion for them equivalent to compassion for himself.
The second question is this: Does Jesus teach works-righteousness here— that is, that we, through our meritorious works can earn our salvation? The answer is no. This concern is easily put to rest simply by pointing out the way the righteous replied. If they were trying to earn eternal life by feeding the hungry and so on, they wouldn’t have been surprised when Jesus commended their good works. They would have said something like, “Lord, we knew that feeding-the-hungry thing was the ticket to the Kingdom. That’s why we did it.”
I also answer no to the allegation that this text teaches works-righteousness based on the context and the genre. I reminded you in the last chapter about the immediate context, showing you how the three parables in Matthew 25 answer the question of readiness for Christ’s return. Note that the question raised then was not, how does one enter the kingdom? but rather, what does readiness for Jesus’ return look like for those already in? Note also that each picture is important and inseparable. Readiness looks like hope (the Parable of the Ten Virgins), faith (the Parable of the Talents), and love (the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats).
Moving to the larger context—the whole of Matthew’s Gospel—we move into this issue of genre. First, this is a parable, and no one parable contains within it a whole theological system. There is nothing comprehensive here about the Bible’s teaching of personal salvation. Second, this is a parable in one of the Gospels. In the Apostle Paul’s letters he often gives us propositions—e.g., “Love is... — and then provides a definition. In the Gospel genre, however, the writers provide us with pictures, not propositions. Matthew nowhere writes, “Faith is... and then provides a definition. Rather, he shows us what faith looks like. It looks like a Gentile centurion coming to Jesus for a miracle on behalf of another. It looks like little children trustingly sitting on our Lord’s lap for a blessing. It looks like welcoming other Believers in love and providing for their basic needs. That’s faith in Jesus.
So, let’s have some fun with this works-righteousness worry we might have, a worry that I think either stems from an insufficient attention to the words in our Bibles or a deficient view of the gospel itself. Are you familiar with the famous Evangelism Explosion diagnostic question, “Why should God allow you into his Kingdom?” Let’s pretend Paul gets to the gates of the Kingdom and is asked that question. What would he say? I think Paul would answer, “The Apostle John once wrote, ‘whoever believes in the Son has eternal life’ (John 3:36a). I believe in Jesus! That’s why you should let me in.” Next, if Matthew came to the same gates and was asked the same question, what would he say? He would say, “The Apostle John once wrote, ‘Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life’ (John 3:36b). I have obeyed Jesus! That’s why you should let me in.” You see, John—in the very same verse—parallels the phrase “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” with “whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life,” and none of the early Christians thought that was a typo. Pre-Reformation Christians, even the ones who wrote our Bibles, weren’t suspicious about the conceptual connection between faith and works. They all believed that one cannot be a Christian and not be compassionate. Put positively, they all believed that faith, works, and love were lawfully wedded.
Even Luther himself had these shining moments, such as when he wrote in his “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans”:
O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever.
The commentator from whom I got that Luther quote went on to say, “Isn’t Luther’s last sentence (“Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever”) exactly the teaching of our parable—and of all three Parables of Judgment, and, indeed, of Matthew’s whole Gospel?”
The third question is: Is the neglect of loving service to others so wicked that it deserves eternal death? The answer is yes.
In a work entitled “Temptation and Deliverance,” Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Every sin naturally carries the grave in it!" He went on to explain and exhort, “Let us then consider, that though the next voluntary act of known sin shall not necessarily and unavoidably issue in certain damnation, yet it will certainly deserve it.” Today the Ecclesia is plagued with a high view of the goodness of man and a low view of the holiness of God. But Edwards’s era didn't suffer from our disease, or at least not as much. To even ask the question, does this sin or that sin really deserve damnation? shows that the sinfulness of sin is not so sinful to us.
Let me add another answer to that first and foundational reply. If my reading of “the least of these my brothers” here refers to Brethren, then a lack of loving service to the Ecclesia demonstrates a lack of true saving faith. In a sense two sins of omission are seen here, one stated and the other implied. What is stated is a lack of loving service; what is implied is a lack of saving faith. People today can somewhat understand how a lack of love might be viewed as something wrong. There is something terribly wrong with a person if an orphan knocks on the front door in the dead of winter asking for some food, clothing, and shelter, and you turn her out. Such a sin of omission is an overtly sinful act. But according to Jesus, turning him out by not acknowledging him as Savior and Lord is a far deeper and more damnable sin. You see, just as we have a hard time getting into our heads that God is perfectly holy and every sin is thus damnable, we have an even harder time believing that trust in Jesus is all that will save us from the eternal wrath to come.
An Arrow
Having looked at twenty-three lightbulbs and having answered three question marks, finally we come to the arrows. I have three to stick in you. (I’ll stick them in myself too.)
Our first application is a more generic one based on the end of the three parables in Matthew 25 and the whole tenor of the Olivet Discourse and most of Jesus’ sermons in Matthew. Our first application is that we should be thankful for Jesus’ clear teachings on the final judgment. We should be thankful because on that day finally the world will be set aright. Like a murder mystery—what Eugene Peterson labels “the cleanest, least ambiguous moral writing that we have”—we know that by the end the murderer will be found out and captured. So much like the story line of the Bible itself, no matter how confused we are or misled by various clues and characters, justice shall prevail! When we think of all the evil and suffering and injustices in this world, we tend to ask God, "Why?” But the question more often posed by the people in the Bible is not “Why?” but “How long?” The final judgment is final justice, that day when God’s righteousness will finally flow like a river (Isaiah 48:18), and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
Moreover, we should be thankful for Jesus’ teachings on judgment because such teachings are intended to create a discomfort that will keep us pressing on. Our Lord knows that we all want to sit down and relax on the comfortable couch of commitment, and so he has placed these pointed prophetic rocks in the cushions to keep us up and to keep us going.
Another added value to Jesus’ teaching on judgment is that it allows us to see the glory of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness upon the black backdrop of sin and death and the grave. One writer said it this way: “Our churches need the restoration of God’s judgment message for the sake of the message of God’s grace!” I agree. Our Ecclesias need the full gospel. And isn’t the full gospel summarized so well (of all places) in John 3:35, 36? I have quoted only the middle of it. Here is the whole picture John gives. It couldn’t be a better summary of everything here in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.
The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Rescue from wrath through faith in Jesus as Lord is what makes grace so amazing.
Our second application I will say in two ways—one more theoretical, the other more practical. The theoretical is this: allegiance to Jesus is ecclesial. That is, how you treat other Believers (especially the little ones) demonstrates the nature of your relationship with Jesus. The even more practical way of saying that comes straight from the pen of Paul. In Galatians 6:10 he writes, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
As followers of Jesus, this parable should motivate us to do good to everyone. We are to prepare for the parousia—that day when we will enter into his joy—by joyfully loving our neighbors, especially those in great need.
Thankfully, Believers have been, are now, and (Lord willing) will be on the front lines of every issue of social need and injustice. We couldn’t count the number of children adopted and sponsored and mouths fed and homes built because of Believers motivated to act based on 25:40. That one verse has benefited the world’s poor more than a million Marxist mantras, a thousand Socialist slogans, and a hundred welfare initiatives! Tolstoy said, “Where love is, there is God also.” I say “Where love is, there are Believers also.” The Red Cross, the YMCA, World Vision, Compassion International, Food for the Hungry, Tear fund, One Day’s Wages, and Samaritan’s Purse are but budding leaves from our compassionate Christ’s mustard seed.
Furthermore, as followers of Jesus, this parable should motivate us to do good to Believers. We believe in baptism and the Lord’s Supper—where the Lord is spiritually present to us in the elements of water, wine, and bread. We can add another without being sacrilegious— we encounter the real presence of Christ in other Believers. Luther said, “He who wants to find Christ, must first find the Ecclesia,” and conversely I’d add, “He who finds the true Ecclesia has truly found Christ.” Allegiance to Jesus is ecclesial: we love the least of our brothers and sisters in this Ecclesia because we love Jesus.
On this theme Tertullian’s famous “peculiarities of the Christian society” is worth quoting, at least in part. Of the Ecclesia in his day (late second century), he writes:
We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that offering a prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications... We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers, and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation... On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he is able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parent, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their confessions. But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another.
Our third application is to glory in the cross of Christ. Now you might say, “Preacher, where are you getting that theme from? There is no mention of the cross in this text.” Correct. However, there is mention of it in chapters 26, 27, and 28. In the very next section—what we’ll look at in the next tract—we will see Jesus’ body anointed, in his words, “for burial” (26; 12). And we will witness in section after section—from that anointing until he hangs his lifeless head—Jesus suffering and dying. Matthew has already told us why Jesus was born—to “save his people from their sins” (1:21). He will put one huge exclamation point on that mission as we soon witness Jesus betrayed, denied, arrested, tried, falsely accused, convicted, spit on, flogged, crowned with thorns, mocked, pierced with nails, and hung on a Roman tree between two criminals for us and our salvation.
I say all that to remind you not merely of the fact of Jesus’ death but to emphasize what Jesus is here emphasizing in his last sermon to his first disciples—that it is the Son of Man, the glorious divine King, who is going to the cross for us. Look at 26:2—Jesus’ next words after his final sermon: “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” This is not merely the post-transfiguration take two, but the post-transfiguration times ten. Jesus, the beloved Son of God, will come down from this final mountain top—Mount Olivet—to mount a tree on a hill far, far away. You see, it is not just what Jesus did that matters but who did what.
If you didn’t come to this text as a charismatic for Christ you’d best become one now. Shout “Amen.” Raise your hands in adoration. All glory and honor and praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ! All glory and honor and praise be to the One who now reigns in his heavenly glory, who was crushed for our iniquities but who now sits upon the throne, who was then entombed for our sins but who now reigns over the righteous in his eternal kingdom, who gave his own life for us. You see, the one who will be mockingly charged as being “the King of Jews” is in fact the King of the Nations. The one whose death will bring the shadow of darkness over Jerusalem is the one who will come in the light of the glory of God to judge Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)