The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

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Jesus spoke this scene near the end of the Olivet Discourse, in the last days before His death, as the third and final movement in a sequence that began with the ten virgins and continued through the talents. The virgins addressed readiness for an arrival of unknown hour. The talents addressed what a servant does with what he has been given in the meantime. This scene moves from a single household to the whole of mankind gathered before a throne.

"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: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."¹

The Close of the Olivet Discourse

The title Jesus uses of himself here, the Son of man, was not new to this scene. Daniel had already seen him: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."² Daniel's vision supplies the dominion and the kingdom. This scene supplies the moment that dominion is exercised over every nation at once.

The authority to judge in this way is not assumed without warrant. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son."³ The Son who once stood before the judgment of men is the Son who here sits upon his own throne. The scene answers the question the whole discourse has been building toward: what happens when the one who has gone away returns.

The Nations Before the Throne

The image of separating sheep from goats was ordinary work to everyone listening. The two kinds of animal often grazed the same pasture by day and had to be parted at evening, since goats required shelter that sheep did not. Nothing in the flock's appearance while at pasture told a shepherd which was which. The separation was simply what evening required. Jesus takes an unremarkable chore and sets it at the end of history: he separates the nations as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. The right hand and the left were not neutral positions in that world. The right was the place of honor, and the left the place of its absence. The placement of the nations is itself the verdict, given before a single word of the sentence is spoken.

The Mercy the King Names

"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: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."⁴ The six acts named here are not a curriculum drawn up for the occasion. They are food, drink, welcome, clothing, care in sickness, and a visit to a man in prison, none of them beyond the reach of an ordinary household.

The righteous who hear this are surprised by it. "Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?"⁵ They had not served with an eye to reward and had not connected their ordinary acts of mercy with any personal encounter with the King at all. His answer supplies the connection they had missed: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."⁶

My brethren fixes who is in view. The King does not say one of the least of these in need, without further qualification. He says one of the least of these my brethren, and the brethren of Christ are those who belong to him, not the poor of the world taken as a class. The mercy that marks the sheep is mercy shown to the least standing within the body of Christ, and the King receives it as done to himself because it is done to his own. James makes the same demand from within that same family: "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone."⁷ John states the same warning inside the same household: "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."⁸ All three passages describe one failure: a claim of standing with God unaccompanied by mercy shown to a brother within the family of faith.

The Neglect the King Names

"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: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not."⁹ Nothing in this list accuses the goats of an act committed against the King. Every verb is negative: they gave no meat, no drink, no welcome, no clothing, no visit. The sentence falls not on cruelty done but on mercy withheld where mercy was possible.

The goats answer with the same bewilderment the sheep had shown. "Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."¹⁰ Both companies are surprised by the identical connection. What was done, or left undone, to one of the least of these was done, or left undone, to Christ himself, and neither company knew it at the time.

Two Destinies, One Sentence

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."¹¹ The sentence closes the scene in a single verse, punishment set against life, and Matthew adds no further comment on either word beyond what stands here. The judgment falls at a stated hour rather than at the private end of any one life. It comes when the Son of man comes in his glory with all the holy angels, the same coming described earlier in the same discourse, when the sign of the Son of man appears in heaven and the tribes of the earth see him coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.¹² Beyond naming that hour and recording the sentence in the words Matthew gives it, everlasting fire on the one side and everlasting punishment and life eternal on the other, the scene does not go, and this reading of it will not go further than the text.

What the scene insists on without qualification is the connection between the sentence and the mercy shown, or withheld, to the least standing within the family the King calls his own. The sheep did not know they were serving Christ. The goats did not know they were refusing him. The judgment revealed what both companies had already become, one hand at a time, one needy brother at a time, long before the throne was ever set.

Matthew 25:31-33, KJV. ↩
Daniel 7:13-14, KJV. ↩
John 5:22, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:34-36, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:37-39, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:40, KJV. ↩
James 2:14-17, KJV. ↩
1 John 3:17-18, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:41-43, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:44-45, KJV. ↩
Matthew 25:46, KJV. ↩
Matthew 24:30-31, KJV. ↩