Matthew 25

Matthew 25:31-46

Subdivision 3. (Matthew 25:31-46.)The day of manifestation. Thus Israel and the professing church have been before us in their relation to the coming of the Lord; and now we have the Gentiles similarly, - the judgment of the living nations, when, having come, and His throne established upon the earth, He casts out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and those that work iniquity - a judgment not to be confounded with the final judgment of the “great white throne,” which is a judgment of the wicked dead alone. To those who see in Scripture but one general resurrection of saint and sinner at the last day, with one general judgment in which the righteous will be manifested and separated from the wicked, the scene that the Lord puts before us here seems naturally to picture what is in their own minds. If their view be right, it is, of course, quite clear that it must picture it; and this it is to which we must confine our attention here: does it indeed represent a judgment of all the generations of men; Jew, Christian; heathen, dead and living, at the end of the world? Is this what it states or what it implies? If so, we must heartily and unreservedly accept this, assured that it will be found, of necessity, in conformity with all other scriptures; and that if it plainly declares this, we may accept it even without going further. But it must plainly declare it. Now the coming of the Son of man in His glory with all His holy angels with Him, we have already seen in its relation to Israel, and to the prophecy of Daniel, to which our Lord Himself directly points us. In Daniel He comes to receive a kingdom which He shares with the “saints of the most high” and which stands for ever; first of all, breaking in pieces and consuming the kingdoms of the earth (Daniel 2:34-35). There surely can be no doubt, except to those entirely prepossessed with other thoughts, that this is a kingdom yet to be set up. To speak of the saints reigning now is a thought utterly foreign to Scripture. It is to the overcomer that the Lord promises that he shall sit with Him on His throne, even as He also overcame and is set down with His Father upon His throne (Revelation 3:21). Who could sit with Christ upon the Father’s throne?

And notice He is speaking in this promise as Son of man; walking in that character among the candlesticks (Revelation 1:13). If Christians “reign as kings without” the apostles, (who certainly never did) it is a rebuke simply to mention it (1 Corinthians 4:8). Thus the Kingdom in Daniel is the Kingdom for which still we wait, introduced by that personal and manifest coming in the clouds of heaven of which Matthew (as well as Daniel) speaks, and it is when the Son of man so comes and sits on the throne of His Kingdom that the nations are gathered before Him in the manner spoken of here. There is no hint of resurrection here, and for a good reason. The first resurrection has already taken place before His appearing, for when He appears, we shall appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:4). This is indeed a truth which Matthew does not reveal to us, though we have seen the living saints called forth to meet the Bridegroom. But it is a thing made known afterwards to Paul “by the word of the Lord,” that the dead saints are to join this blessed company and rise to “meet the Lord in the air,” together with them (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17). Thus it is plain why there is no mention of resurrection after He is come, and that there could not be any.

The wicked dead are yet in their graves, and will only come forth after the millennium is at an end, to stand before the “great white throne” for judgment (Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-13). The company gathered before the Son of man when He appears and sets up His throne on earth, is simply of living men who have never died, and of Gentiles only. The judgment is a selective judgment, - the righteous separated from the wicked, the “sheep from the goats.” But the saints alive or dead of the present or the past dispensations, will not (as we have seen) stand in such a promiscuous assemblage, to be picked out from the rest by the judgment of their works. The first resurrection will have separated them wholly and for ever. Raised or changed, the saints caught up to meet the Lord in the air will be already in His likeness (1 Corinthians 15:42-44; 1 Corinthians 15:52). Give account of themselves they will, and their works will be appraised for suited recompense, but personally into judgment they cannot come (John 5:24, R.V.). Thus it should be absolutely clear that they are not among the mingled company which the King judges here. But a difficulty arises in the mind immediately - one of those difficulties by which, if fairly met, we are led on to fuller apprehension of the truth itself. It may be naturally asked, if the Lord thus takes away to Himself all the living saints before His appearing, how can there be any “sheep” to put upon His right hand when the Son of man appears? What are they who now are welcomed by the King, as blessed of His Father, to inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world? A similar question, it will be remembered, is asked of John in Revelation (Revelation 7:13) by one of those elders whom he has seen in heaven; sitting upon thrones around the throne of God, and heard singing the song of redemption in the presence of the Lamb (Revelation 5:7-10). Here is another company, distinct from these, as also from the 144,000 sealed out of the tribes of Israel, just before seen. They are Gentiles, “out of every nation and tribe and people and tongue,” with blood-washed robes and palms in their hands, and the elder asks, “Who are these? and whence do they come?” He asks, and has himself to answer: “These are they who come out of the great tribulation” - not simply “out of great tribulation,” which might apply very generally to Christians, but out of the tribulation of which Daniel and the Lord in Matthew speak. Thus they are a company precisely defined and limited, and to the very time of the prophecy before us, - a time in which, if we compare the scriptures, Christianity in the true sense of that term is taken from the earth. Once more, Jew and Gentile, even in blessing, form distinct companies; temple-worship is again going on, till the abomination of desolation stands in the holy place; it is in short that “end of the (Jewish) age,” which is nothing else than the cut-off end of Daniel’s seventy weeks, - the last week. In it we see the “everlasting gospel” going out (Revelation 14:6-7), declaring (gospel as it is) “the hour of God’s judgment” to have come; and here the instrumentality used is, no doubt, Jewish. Thus we can understand the special character of the judgment itself which turns entirely upon how men have treated the King in His “brethren,” the time being that in which “His brethren,” instead of being separate, as while the natural promises and privileges were in abeyance, have returned, as Micah prophesies they will, unto the children of Israel (Micah 5:3). Even the apparent ignorance, on the part of the righteous, of the glorious King can in this way be accounted for; because it is only when they look upon Him whom they have pierced that the veil drops completely off Israel’s own face (Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:6). No wonder if the Gentiles, turned by their means to God, should not be in advance of the ministry they have received. Thus there is fullest harmony; and we see that this last week is indeed a seed-time for Israel and the earth. Before it begins, the Lord has called His saints of the past and present up to Himself, and removed the candlestick of Christianity from the earth, spuing out, as in the threat to Laodicea, the mere lukewarm profession. Darkness then covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, but the light begins to rise upon Israel, the morning (stormy as it is) of an unending day (Isaiah 60:1-22 : There needs not much more to be said of this closing part of the Lord’s prophecy. For the righteous there is eternal life, death being for them completely abolished. They “go into eternal life,” - which is not yet said even of the Christian; and the immensely lengthened life of that time Isaiah witnesses (Isaiah 65:20-22). On the other hand the wicked go away into eternal punishment - the fire prepared, not for man but “for the devil and his angels.” They share the portion of those to whom they have chosen to unite themselves. All Scripture declares, with this passage, that it is strictly eternal.*
I do not know of another scripture which treats definitely of such a sessional judgment of the Gentiles as that which the Lord puts before us in this prophecy. The fiftieth psalm seems about as unique with regard to a similar judgment in Israel, when Jehovah having come and shining in glory out of Zion gathers before Him the covenanted people, and when there are, apparently, as here among the Gentiles, the wicked whom He addresses. Psalm fifty-one follows with a general confession on the part of the nation; who own their guilt in the rejection of Christ (see “Notes”). But the Lord’s words in Matthew, in accordance with the character of the New Testament generally, bring in more clearly the eternal consequences. In general the judgment of the nations when the Lord appears is set" before us, as even in Revelation (Revelation 19:1-21), as a smiting with the sword. In the symbolic language of the Apocalypse, Christ is pictured as a Warrior upon a white horse, whom the “armies in heaven” follow. The beast and the kings of the earth and their army are gathered together to make war with Him that sits upon the horse, and with His army. The beast and false prophet are taken and cast alive into the lake of fire; while those that follow them are slain with the sword that proceeds out of the mouth of Him who thus manifests Himself as the “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Taken with arms in their hands, in open rebellion; there is no need of judicial inquiry in such a case. But, undoubtedly, with the “rest of the dead” (Revelation 20:5) they await the judgment of the “great white throne” for their measured out award. And this marks a wide difference between the selective judgment of Matthew and the distributive judgment which closes up the record.

That in Matthew, being simply selective, requires but the one point to be raised - for Christ or against? While that of the great white throne, being judgment according to their works, requires the whole life-history to be brought into account. As forming no part of the “first resurrection,” the “resurrection of life,” all is settled for these as to the company with which they stand: it is of the “few stripes,” or the “many” that alone there is question. An Old Testament prophet confirms with his testimony that of Revelation. “And it shall come to pass in that day,” says Isaiah (Isaiah 24:21-23), “that Jehovah shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison; and after many days they shall be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed: for Jehovah of hosts shall reign in mount Zion; and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously.” Revelation shows us both the punishment of the “host of the high ones on high,” as implied in the binding of Satan (Revelation 20:1-3) and casting him into the abyss, and that of the “kings of the earth upon the earth.” But the great assize is not then. The millennium intervenes before their “visitation” comes, and final judgment. The Old Testament doctrine is in necessary harmony with the New and with the so-called “premillennial” interpretation of it. The Old Testament also shows us Gentile nations outside of the empire of the “beast” and his associates, - the “Latin” nations. “Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal” is neither in the empire, nor in alliance with it; and the names given and the powers connected, show not obscurely Russia and the east (Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29). Daniel’s “King of the north” is as certainly Greek, all through his closing chapters; and his position and might, which is not his own (Daniel 8:24) suggest that his connection is with the colossus at his back. All these are to find Jerusalem “a burdensome stone” to them, and meet their judgment at the day of the appearing of the Lord. But these are the banded armies, behind which are the nations themselves; and we hear of spared ones sent to them (Isaiah 66:1-24 : And so His Kingdom still extends, not by a sudden revelation; as we might expect, and divine power alone, but by the aid of human instruments, with an economy of that which at such a time we might think would cease to be held for miracle, instructive to realize. Christianity, it must be remembered, has entirely passed away. The true saints in Christendom having been taken up to meet the Lord in the air, those that have refused His grace while the day of grace continued, have been given up to strong delusion; to believe the lie of Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12). These swell the ranks of the followers of the beast and false prophet; and their doom is fixed (Revelation 14:9-11). But the mercy of God still finds its objects, those whom divine wisdom and love may count never to have really had the truth before them, so as to have rejected it, and to these, as well as those outside all profession; the everlasting gospel may bring salvation yet. To the Old Testament prophets Christianity is a thing unknown, and in their writings we must not expect to find it. The book of Revelation it is that adds all this to the Old Testament. Among the nations outside of the Latin powers, it would seem that the same power of delusion will work in gathering after “false prophets,” if not after “false Christs.” The Lord warns of these in that day, as if there were more than the one special form of Antichrist which we find in the land of Israel. Satan has usually more than one device, and although never really “divided against himself,” can work upon men by deceits of diverse kinds. Thus the Grecian king of the last days, - quite distinct as he is from the more conspicuous form of evil, - is spoken of as a king “of bold countenance, and understanding dark sentences” and who “stands up against the Prince of princes.” This is usually taken to be Antiochus, or else Mohammed; but both are negatived as the complete fulfilment by the time specified for the fulfilment by the interpreting angel, “for the vision belongeth to the time of the end,” “the end of the indignation” - of God against Israel, - “the appointed time of the end” (Daniel 8:17; Daniel 8:19, R.V.). Such expressions a comparison with what we have had in Matthew should make absolutely clear. How little we realize what “he that restraineth” (2 Thessalonians 2:7, R.V.) is keeping back, and the flood-tide of evil ready to roll in; when in righteous compensation for the refusal of God’s fullest grace, “he is taken out of the way.” It is surely the Spirit of God as now working out His purposes as to the Church, that is the restraining power. He alone is competent for it. But the wearing out of divine patience is already manifesting itself for those that have eyes to see. The fearful “end” is not far off. It is the “cutting off” of the Gentile church, which the apostle at the beginning distinctly threatened (Romans 11:21-22), and thus the absence of Christianity from the world when Old Testament prophecy resumes its now suspended course of fulfilment, which necessarily baffles every interpreter who does not recognize this. For he must in that case necessarily bring in what he looks for, and apply what relates to Israel wholesale to the Christian church. It must be so: for while the Church is the object of God’s favor upon earth, the Jews (nationally) are “enemies for your sake” (Romans 11:28). Christianity and Judaism cannot go on together; and the “end of the age,” the Lord’s prophecy here shows fully to be Jewish. For this to come, the Church, as well as the Holy Spirit indwelling her, must be taken out of the way; and “then” only “shall that wicked one be revealed,” who for this reason cannot be the papacy, for it will have then no Christian “temple of God” to “sit in” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Any neglect of landmarks so definite as these must work confusion as to the interpretation of prophecy. Thus the “everlasting gospel” sent out to the nations (Revelation 14:6-7) is applied without question to the missionary labors of the present day, although we may be thankful to know that the devoted men who give themselves to this blessed work, could scarcely find their Christian evangel in the words of the angel there, and most certainly do not say, what is so characteristic of the time to which it really refers, “the hour of His judgment is come.” They say on the contrary, and rightly, with the apostle, “Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation.” But upon all this here is not the place to enlarge further. We pass on to very different themes from this.