Matthew 25:31-40
The Eternal State
The Parable of the Pounds presents the evocative picture of a nobleman going away to a far country to receive a kingdom and then return.
Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, 'Engage in business until I come.' [Luke 19:13]
So, since we are the servants waiting for the King to return, what is the business that we ought to be engaged in in preparation for the eternal state?
• While in the world we ought to be not of the world; we cannot be separate from the world but as long as we keep close to the cross of Christ we will live separated/separable holy lives.
• Since Christ the King will return in glory we should glorify him now by making a study of how he conducted business in his Father's house here in his time on earth and especially how he finished the work that the Father gave him to accomplish on the cross.
• Since the inheritance that we will come into when the King returns is God himself we ought to share the blessing as much as we can in anticipation. There is a supply for every need so we cannot begrudge freely giving what we have freely received. This is an opportunity for investment in the future that God has planned for us but it is beyond our imagination to describe what that future will be like because we can't extrapolate from the price paid in Jesus' blood on Calvary's cross to all the blessings that flow from it. Those things that make a small difference here on earth echo the huge difference Christ made on Calvary so the returning echo to our 'cup of cold water' is a whole river of righteousness and we can't anticipate what shall be obtained then by merely doing what is fitting here and now.
Matthew 25:31-40
The Eternal State
… what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, … [2 Peter 3:11-12]
If we're talking about the new creation in the eternal state then surely we're done talking about the Law of God and the Ten Commandments? Not so, because we find ourselves always talking about what happens then in relation to what happens now. If we are to live lives of holiness and godliness — in other words, if we are to hasten the coming of that day that we are waiting for — then we must love the Lord our God with all of our heart and we must love our neighbour as ourselves. Both tables of the Law make demands on us as we seek to glorify God here on earth but how are we to reconcile the conflicting demands of God and my neighbour?
Here's how. Who is both God and my neighbour? Simple answer is Jesus Christ but the more complex answer, waiting for the return in glory of the King of the Ages, is
'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
We get ready for the separation of the sheep and the goats on that day by this day reconciling the tables of the law in our behaviour by loving God who is my neighbour.
Matthew 25:31-40
The Eternal State
We might well be bothered about our inability to distinguish the Shepherd's voice when he comes but any fears we might have about listening for the Shepherd ought to be allayed by the practice of listening to the Shepherd.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. [John 10:16]
We have the opportunity to hear the voice of the Shepherd:
• as we receive answers to our prayers
• as we learn to keep in tune with the Spirit of God
• as we read the Word and meditate on it.
Matthew 25:31-40
To Make Up His Treasured Possession
The SheepfromGoats Protocol
As Close as we Come to as Good as it Gets.
Although the details of what we shall be in the eternal state are not yet known to us, nor can we (with the use of whatever kind of science) hope to grasp what hasn't even entered into the fringes of the imagination of the heart of mankind, we can anticipate its glory somewhat from such data as our own bodily experience here in the world of now, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance and the promise that, when we see him, we shall be like him, whom to know is already life eternal.
Matthew 25:34-40
34 • Then the King will say to those on his right,
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.
35 • For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
36 I was 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 welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?'
39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'
40 And the King will answer them,
'Truly, I say to you,
as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,
you did it to me.'
The eternal state is as good as it gets and this invitation is as close as we come in the here and now to getting a glimpse of what that will be like. Such will be the satisfaction of seeing the King —
Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar. [Isaiah 33:17]
— that all questions about what we shall be will be answered when and as we see him [1 John 3:2.] The questions will be about when we might have fed, watered, welcomed, clothed, visited or succoured such a glorious being, for surely we'd have remembered someone so bright. (You know, glowing/glorious, not someone like Richard Dawkins.) And what's more when would someone so glorious have needed sustenance, care or emancipation from the likes of us?
The question will be 'When?'
• Not, 'How?' Because the connections of how are obvious; when someone is hungry what else will you do but feed them?
• Not, 'Why?' For why else would you give a drink than if someone were thirsty?
• Not, 'Who?' Because it's not at issue that Christ has received these things. The question is, 'When?'
It will turn out that 'when' was 'whenever' — whenever the righteous have done to one another as they would have done to themselves. The King calls the recipients, brothers, because they are fellow heirs who have received the adoption.
Just as there is a fitness between the need felt and the help supplied and between doing it to the least and it being accepted as if having been done to the greatest, just so there is a fitness about believers inheriting the kingdom.
The kingdom will be inherited
• as it has been prepared from the foundation of the world
• by those who receive the familial blessing of the King of kings
• along with the King of Glory whose own entrance into the glory prepared for him is to be marked and made complete by his bringing many sons to glory [Hebrews 2:10.]
Matthew 25:32-33
32 • Before him will be gathered all the nations,
• and he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 • And he will place the sheep on his right,
but the goats on the left.
Well, how do you go about separating sheep from goats? We're not talking about classifying representative pictures of sheep and goats into order or arranging stuffed animals in a display, for although such a differentiation can be done quite 'scientifically' that task would be merely childsplay in spite of the obvious similarities between them.
If we try to separate sheep from goats on religious grounds we are in trouble for the opposite reason since both are kosher, parting the hoof and chewing the cud, and may be eaten by observant Jews accordingly, and when it came to sacrifice, a sheep and a goat were of roughly equivalent value, much as pigeons and turtledoves were.
The two main occasions where one kind was specified rather than another were when lambs were specified for Passover and goats for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Here we are getting closer to the idea of separation because on the original night of Passover, the lamb's blood was placed on the doorposts of the houses where the Passover was to be eaten to separate those inside from those outside the protection of the blood. On Yom Kippur the two goats were separated by lot (a good method to separate two goats but not sheep from goats) the one goat was for sacrifice to the LORD, the other (the proverbial 'scapegoat') was 'for Azazel,' and whatever happened to that goat when it was led into the wilderness, its blood was not shed.
The clue about how the sheep and the goats are to be separated lies in the text itself. We need to ask how does a shepherd separate sheep from goats? And the answer is given elsewhere by the 'Good Shepherd' himself:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. [John 10:27-29]
Matthew 25:31
31 • "When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
• and all the angels with him,
• then he will sit on his glorious throne."
The gloriously eternal God created both humans and angels for his own glory. Some of the angels and all of mankind fell short of God's glory because of the entrance of sin. In accordance with God's counsel, the Son of God, also eternally glorious (… not count[ing] equality with God a thing to be grasped,[Philippians 2:6]) left heaven's glory in order to restore fallen humanity through his death on the cross. On his being raised from the dead he returned to heaven with the promise that he would return in glory.
Here we have the tripartite glory of the returning Christ displayed. Two parts of that glory will be complete on his return (his own glory as the Son of Man, the judge and the glory of his glorious throne, the seat of judgement.) The third part of his glory will be to be completed, not that the angels are not glorious in themselves, but that this glory of his will be made complete when to the number of the angels will be added those (both male and female) adopted from among mankind to be God's heirs who, with Christ and the angels will make up the number of the sons of God at last.
The company of the holy, elect angels, saved from ever falling into sin will be joined by the complete company of holy, elect people redeemed from sin by the glorious death on the cross of him, who knowing no sin was made sin for us.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2 Corinthians 5:21]
