for I hungered, and ye gave me to eat; I thirsted, and ye gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
naked, and ye clothed me; I was ill, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came to me.
The scene is the King on His throne after His return. The nations stand before Him, and He separates them like sheep from goats. The kindnesses listed here — clothing, visiting the sick, coming to a prisoner — raise two questions. Who were these sick and imprisoned people? And do such acts earn the sheep their place?
This is not the judgment of the dead. It is the King taking up His rule over the living world.
Now the "King" — a title used only here — begins the formal judgment of His throne, and all the nations must appear before it... The Lord and the apostles pressed hard the coming judgment of living people on earth, in the middle of their busy, selfish, greedy and sinful life.
A third group appears in this scene, besides the sheep and the goats.
Notice, too, that there are three groups — the sheep, the goats, and the brothers of the King. That fact alone settles how we read the whole scene. It shows clearly that this is the judgment of the living nations, after the Son of Man appears in His glory and takes His throne.
The clothing, the visit, the prison call — these were shown to people the King calls His brothers.
In the closing years of the Jewish age, a remnant of Jews will preach this Gospel. They are "brothers" of our Lord by natural descent. They will move among the nations of the world and give their startling testimony. They will preach the Gospel that announces the King and His Kingdom are near. How will the nations receive them?
The specific hardships named in this verse are not random misfortunes. They are the cost of carrying that message into a hostile world.
Those who announced the news of the coming King did so against the greatest difficulties... The people around them wanted neither God's King nor God's righteousness. So hunger and thirst, exile, nakedness and prison lay ahead of these preachers. The King identifies Himself with these servants, just as He did with another persecuted group when He stopped their persecutor, Saul of Tarsus.
The King does not say the kindness was like kindness to Him. He counts it as done to Himself. He counts neglect the same way.
The sheep make no claim to have shown any regard to the King Himself. But He takes as done to Himself everything they did for His messengers, whom He owned as His brothers. The goats, on the other hand, claim they never failed the great King. But by the same rule, the indifference they showed toward His messengers counts in the King's heart as indifference toward Him... He always thinks of His own as if they were Himself.
Because the acts listed are ordinary human kindnesses, the verse is often read as a promise that good deeds will secure a person's standing before God. Commentators warn against this reading in strong terms.
People commonly think our Lord means acts of charity — hospitals and prison work, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked through church work or charities. They think that if a person does these things and stays faithful in them, the King will approve of them in the judgment. Many a soul builds on this foundation of sand. All this is completely wrong.
So why do the kindnesses matter at all?
So everything rests on Christ, though His grace makes the most of what others might think small. Faith working by love in the one group, and complete unconcern in the other, showed plainly who was fit and who was unfit to inherit the kingdom. With all God's people, works are the evidence, faith in the Word is the instrument, Christ's work is the ground, and God's grace is the source.
Though this scene is still future, the principle already works. Onesiphorus is one example.
This godly man was not ashamed of Paul or his chain. He was in Rome, and he searched hard for him, and did not rest until he found him. The Lord used him to bring refreshment to the imprisoned Apostle... And the Lord saw this good service, and valued it as done to Himself.
- Throne — When He appears, the King judges the living nations on earth. This is not the judgment of the dead. Three groups stand in the scene, not two.
- Brothers — The hungry, naked and imprisoned ones are His messengers. They carry news of the coming kingdom into a world that wants neither Him nor His righteousness.
- Identification — He counts their prison bars as His own. He thinks of His own as if they were Himself, so coldness toward them is coldness toward Him.
- Evidence — The kindness does not buy the kingdom. Works are the evidence, faith is the instrument, Christ's work is the ground, God's grace is the source.
- Now — The principle is already live. What Onesiphorus brought to a prisoner in Rome, the Lord received as brought to Himself.
Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungering, and nourished thee; or thirsting, and gave thee to drink?
The King has just named six kindnesses done to Him: food, drink, welcome, clothing, care in sickness, a visit in prison. The people He praises cannot remember a single one of them. Their reply is not modesty but genuine bewilderment: when did any of this happen?
This is not a general judgment of the dead at the end of all things. The wording settles it: nations, not the risen dead.
A careful look at our Lord's words shows that He does not speak about resurrection. He says: "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations" (vv. 31, 32). The reference is therefore to His appearing and kingdom, and to His judgment of the living, not of the dead. We do not speak of "the nations" in respect of the dead: this term describes the living.
The absence of any mention of rising from the dead is itself part of the argument.
Notice especially that there is no reference to resurrection here for either "the righteous" or "the accursed." On both sides they were Gentiles living in their natural bodies, for they are expressly said to be "all the nations" when they were gathered before the glorious throne of the Son of Man.
Their question is not a formality. They are learning something at that very moment which they had never known before.
Notice what they answer: "Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?" Could a Christian say such a thing in heaven, where we will know even as we are known? … However blessed this scene may be, it is still the Lord as Son of Man judging all nations. He blesses the righteous from among them. Up to that moment they did not know that in showing acts of love and kindness towards Christ's messengers, they had done so much towards Christ Himself. Their last lesson was the first that Paul learned on the road to Damascus. That truth startled his soul: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."
The King answers by pointing to a third group in the scene — the people He calls His brothers. Kindness to them reached Him.
The sheep showed them love, care, sympathy in their sorrows. So these brothers of the King must have gone through tribulation before the King appears. The conclusion is obvious. In that day, the ground on which He will deal with the nations will be this — "How did you behave towards My messengers?" … Those who honour the message treat the messengers well. They care for them and identify themselves with them. The Lord remembers this, and counts what was done to His messengers as done to Himself.
The acts listed were not random decency. Who received the kindness matters as much as the kindness itself.
Some had shown more than kindness, self-denial, or moral excellence in any marked degree. They had shown love in various ways to the servants who preached in the King's name. Those servants preached the same truth which He had preached at the start of His public ministry. But it was faith which worked in their love. If the King and His coming kingdom had been only a myth in their eyes, they would have at least ignored His messengers as impostors.
One woman in Jericho shows the same pattern.
We may see Rahab's case as an early picture of this. She believed. At that time judgment was gathering over Jericho, a picture of the world. It is written of her, "And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?" She had faith and showed it by works. And so these nations believe the messengers and treat them with kindness. Grace covers them because they believed.
Many read this scene as praise for charity work in general. Commentators warn that this misses the point.
How great the confusion is among Christians about the meaning of these words! Often the interpretation given strikes at the very foundations of the gospel. People think our Lord means charitable acts: hospitals and prison work, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked through church work or charitable institutions. … If anyone does these things and is faithful in them, the King will approve of them in the judgment — and many a soul builds on this foundation of sand. All this is completely wrong. The works have an entirely different meaning.
The forgetfulness of these people is held up as the shape real service takes.
John Newton had been writing about A B C Christians, and a young clergyman wrote to him and said he had been testing himself by it and found he was in the "C" class, the highest. John Newton wrote back and said there was one thing he had forgotten to mention — namely, that those in the "C" class did not know it. … So in Matthew 25, those who pleased Him were quite unconscious of what they had done. And the principle is the same for us.
What is forgotten below is not lost above.
He forgets nothing that is done for His sake, though they have no recollection of what He speaks of. Faith does what is right and thoughtful without expecting any recognition for it. As the hymn says, "Little things we had forgotten He will tell us were for Him."
- Faith first. The sheep did not earn their place by good deeds. Their kindness to the King's messengers proved they had believed His message.
- Faith hidden. Their question shows they never counted their acts as service to Christ. They showed love to His messengers and thought no more of it.
- Faith reaching. The King ties Himself to His brothers: help given to them reached Him. Paul learned the same lesson on the Damascus road.
- Faith mistaken. Reading this scene as a reward for charity work is a foundation of sand. It turns a judgment of belief into a scorecard of good causes.
- Faith rewarded. Christ forgets nothing done for His sake; the little things we no longer remember He will name as done for Him.
and when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and clothed thee?
The sheep do not accept the King's praise — they cannot remember ever taking Him in or clothing Him. Their reply raises two questions: who did they help, and why does the King count it as done to Himself?
This scene is a judgment on earth, not a judgment of the dead. Two details in the text show it.
The reference is therefore to His appearing and kingdom, and to His judgment of the living, and not of the dead. We do not speak of "the nations" in respect of the dead: this term describes the living. And notice too that there are three groups — the sheep, the goats, and the brethren of the King. That fact alone settles how we read the whole scene.
The King tells them they showed kindness to "the least of these my brothers." Naming that third group explains who stood at their door, and why he needed shelter.
Who are "these my brethren?" We have had the sheep and goats — the righteous and the unrighteous Gentiles; but who are the King's brethren? Those whom the Lord will send out before He comes in the glory of the kingdom; men sent to announce that He is coming in His kingdom. The sheep showed them love, care, sympathy in their sorrows. So these brethren of the King must have gone through tribulation before the King appears. The conclusion is obvious that, in that day, the ground on which He will deal with the nations will be this — "How did you behave to My messengers?"
Feeding and clothing sound like plain decency. But the King does not reward kindness in general. He rewards kindness aimed at one group, and that aim shows what the giver believed.
What some had shown was not just kindness, self-denial, or notable moral character. It was love, shown in many ways, to the servants who preached in the King's name the same truth which He had preached at the beginning of His public ministry. But it was faith which worked in their love. If the King and His coming kingdom had only been a myth in their eyes, they would have at least ignored His messengers as impostors. They believed the message to be of God and therefore treated its preachers with kindness.
One woman did the same long before, while judgment hung over her city.
We may look at Rahab as an early foreshadowing. She believed. At that time judgment was gathering over Jericho — a picture of the world. "By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies." She had faith and showed it by works. The preachers going about are persecuted and hated by others — suffering, hungry, some thrown into prison. And so these nations believe the messengers and treat them with kindness. Grace covers them because they believed.
Their question is not false modesty.
They had shown such kindness to poor Jewish preachers of the gospel of the kingdom, but had not thought of their deeds at all as done to the Lord Himself.
Their surprise also shows where they stand. One man learned their lesson first, and learned it the hard way.
Could a Christian say such a thing in heaven, where we will know even as we are known? But these godly Gentiles are clearly still in their natural bodies, and the Lord is teaching them even after He appears in glory. However blessed this scene may be, it is still the Lord as Son of Man judging all nations and blessing the righteous from among them. Up to that moment they did not know that their acts of love and kindness towards Christ's messengers were so much done to Christ Himself. Their last lesson was the first that Paul learned on the road to Damascus — the truth that startled his soul: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."
Their forgetting is not a fault — it is how faith works.
He speaks to them of showing Him many kindnesses in times of special need. For He forgets nothing that is done for His sake, though they have no recollection of what He speaks of. Faith does the things that are right and considerate without expecting any recognition. As the hymn reads, "Little things we had forgotten He will tell us were for Him."
- Living, not dead. Christ judges the nations alive on earth when He appears. The third group in the scene — the King's brethren — settles how we read it.
- The stranger had a name. The hungry, homeless visitor was one of the King's messengers. He carried news of the coming kingdom, and suffered for it.
- The welcome was the evidence. Nobody shelters a messenger he thinks is a fraud. Taking him in showed faith in the King who sent him, as Rahab's welcome of the spies did.
- The surprise was real. They never linked the coat they gave to the Christ now on the throne. He counts kindness to His own as kindness to Himself.
- He keeps the record. Faith acts without expecting credit. The small things the doer forgot are the ones the King names back to him.
and when saw we thee ill, or in prison, and came to thee?
The King has just listed six kindnesses shown to Him, and the righteous cannot place a single one of them. Their surprise raises two questions: who is on trial here, and why do the accepted not remember the deeds that mark them out?
The scene is often read as the last judgment of everyone who has ever lived. Commentators point instead to a detail in the text. Besides the sheep and the goats, the passage names a third group — the King's brethren.
Could anybody show me a single passage about a general resurrection? There is no such thought in Scripture. You get Matthew 25 quoted for it, that the goats and sheep represent the two classes; but He has come in His glory down here. He is not sitting on the great white throne: before this heaven and earth flee away. Here He is come and sits on His throne. When He does come and sits there, He gathers all the Gentiles, the nations, to judge them. It is the judgment of the living. You have three sets of people, not two; and you have nothing of resurrection. You have sheep, goats, and brethren.
The kindnesses in this question went to people in real trouble. That points to who these brethren were and what they went through.
We have had the sheep and goats — the righteous and the unrighteous Gentiles. But who are the King's brethren? They are the men the Lord will send out before He comes in the glory of the kingdom, sent to announce that He is coming in His kingdom. The sheep showed them love — care — sympathy in their sorrows. So these brethren of the King must have gone through tribulation before the King appears. The conclusion is obvious. In that day, He will deal with the nations on this ground — "How did you behave to My messengers?"
The righteous are not being modest. They truly do not know, and one writer asks whether anyone in heaven could speak like this.
Could a Christian say such a thing in heaven, where we shall know even as we are known? … However blessed this scene may be, it is still the Lord as Son of Man judging all nations and blessing the righteous from among them. Up to that moment they did not know that their acts of love and kindness towards Christ's messengers were done towards Christ Himself. Their last lesson was the first that Paul learned on the road to Damascus — the truth that startled his soul: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting."
If the sheep did not know they were serving Christ, what made their kindness count? One writer answers: how they treated the messengers showed what they thought of the One they represented.
God knows the true state of every heart quite apart from works. Yet public judgment is always according to works, since works show plainly and without fail what that state is. So everyone watching can see that God's judgments are right. These messengers, whom the King calls "My brethren," had gone out as His representatives. People treated them according to the view they took of the Son of Man whom they represented. Those who believed in Him stood with His messengers and cared for them in their rejection and suffering. Those who did not believe in Him paid them no attention at all. Those who had faith declared it by their works. Those who had no faith equally declared it by their works.
One writer applies their unawareness to service today.
In Matthew 25, those who pleased Him were quite unconscious of what they had done. And the principle is the same for us.
What the doers forget, He keeps.
He speaks to them of showing Him many kindnesses in times of special need. For He forgets nothing that is done for His sake, though they have no recollection of what He speaks of. Faith does what is right and considerate without expecting any recognition for it.
- Three, not two. Sheep, goats and "these My brethren" stand before a throne set up on earth. This scene says nothing about resurrection.
- The brethren. They are messengers sent out ahead of the King. Their hunger, sickness and prison show they passed through tribulation.
- The test. How the nations treated those messengers decides the case. It showed what they thought of the King who sent them.
- The evidence. Works are not merit; they are the visible proof of faith or unbelief, so that everyone can see the judgment is right.
- The surprise. The accepted cannot recall one kindness. That is the point: faith serves without keeping score, and He forgets nothing done for His sake.
And the King answering shall say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.
The King has taken His throne, the nations stand before Him, and He has just given His verdict — now He gives His reason. It is startling: He counts kindness shown to poor, suffering people as kindness done to Himself — so who are these "brothers" whose treatment decides everything?
One writer says the common reading of this scene gets it wrong. The sorting of sheep and goats belongs to the living, not the dead:
It is commonly supposed that the judgment spoken of in this chapter is the last judgment — the general judgment. This is a mistake. It is the judgment of the nations living on the earth, and not of the dead. There is no question of resurrection here. It is the judgment of the nations… People think it is the judgment of the dead because of this sentence: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." But that only means the judgment of the living will be final, just as the judgment of the dead is final.
Many assume the sheep are all the saved and the goats all the lost. But the verse names a third group:
Almost everyone in the Christian world believes that "the sheep" stand for all God's people, from the beginning of time to the end. They believe "the goats" stand for all the wicked, from first to last. But if that is so, what are we to make of the third party referred to here, under the title of "these My brethren"? The King addresses both the sheep and the goats about this third class. Indeed, the very ground of judgment is the treatment of the King's brethren. It would be an obvious absurdity to say the sheep were themselves the people referred to. If that were so, the wording would be quite different. Instead of "as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers," we would hear the King say, "as you did it to one another."
Darby identifies the brothers as Jewish messengers who will carry the message of the coming kingdom to the nations.
The "brethren," I have no doubt, will be the remnant who will have preached the gospel of the kingdom among the Gentiles. The welcome given to those messengers decides the outcome for those who now appear in judgment. Just as surely, I believe they are Jews who will carry this testimony, and whom Jesus calls His brethren at that time.
A meal sounds too small to settle anyone's eternity. But see what it cost the giver, and what it showed:
The pressure against His messengers will be enormous. If any receive them well, it will be from faith. I grant that the measure of their faith is small. They do not yet know that honouring His brothers is honouring Him.
This is why an open judgment can proceed on deeds without making deeds the source of blessing:
The true state of every heart is known to God quite apart from works. Yet public judgment always goes by works. Works show exactly what that state is. So everyone can see that God judges rightly… Those who had faith declared it by their works. Those who had no faith equally declared it by their works.
The sheep are surprised by the King's praise. They do not remember feeding Him:
They were, up to that moment, ignorant that in showing acts of love and kindness toward Christ's messengers, so much was done toward Christ Himself. Their last lesson was the first one Paul learned on the road to Damascus. The words that shook him were these: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." The Lord taught Paul that to persecute His people on earth is to persecute Christ in heaven. They and Christ are one.
The scene is still future, but the truth behind it works now:
Those who would strike a blow at Christ today strike at His saints. Those who would serve Christ today care for and serve His saints. What is done to even the least of His brethren, He will accept as done to Himself… Real devotion to Christ shows itself in service to His cause and His people, far more than in warm words.
And nothing is too small to be filed away:
We know this verse applies to others, not to us, but the principle still holds for everyone. The act here is done in secret. Where the heart is moved by love for Christ to show even the smallest kindness, the Lord will not forget it.
- Throne — Here the King judges the living nations, not the dead. The outcome is eternal, and that is what makes it final.
- Three — Sheep, goats, and "My brothers" are three separate groups. How people treat the brothers decides the other two.
- Test — Food, water, shelter, clothing, and prison visits came under heavy pressure. They were not simple charity. They were faith at work when turning away would have been safer.
- Me — The King takes every act as done to Himself. That is the truth that stopped Paul on the road: to touch His people is to touch Him.
- Memory — The righteous had forgotten what they did; He had not. The smallest kindness done for love of Christ is never lost.
Then shall he say also to those on the left, Go from me, cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels
The King's last word to those on His left hand sends them away, into a fire never built with them in mind. Two questions press: who stands there, and why does a place "prepared for the devil and his angels" become the portion of human beings?
This scene is not the judgment of the raised dead. It is a sifting of people alive on earth when the Son of Man takes His throne. William Kelly points to the mixed crowd itself as the proof:
He separates them one from another. At the great white throne, where the dead stand to be judged, there is no need of separating them there. But here there is a mingled company. Such a mixture is never found in heaven or hell, but only on the earth. So every clause gives proof that our Lord speaks of a judgment of the living on the earth.
Their sentence turns on what they left undone toward the King's messengers.
The remarkable thing about the latter is that their judgment, as here set out, rests only on what they had not done. It looks as if they had tried to take a middle course between being "for" and "against." They had not joined the followers of the beast. Those men rose in open rebellion against the King, and the sword killed them (Rev. 19:21). But neither had they identified themselves with His cause and with His servants. They had seen the servants persecuted and killed. They gave them neither help nor sympathy, and so showed the state of their hearts. Is not the lesson here that in divine things there can be no middle ground?
The two sentences in this chapter are not mirror images. To the sheep the King says they are "blessed by my Father." Here He stops short. Kelly makes the omission speak:
Notice, He does not say, Cursed by My Father, matching "Blessed by My Father." God hates putting away. So when the awful moment comes to pronounce the curse on these wicked nations, He says, "Depart from Me, you cursed." I believe this is the deepest sorrow to God. It throws the whole weight of destruction on those whose own sin it was. They rejected His love and holiness and glory when they rejected His Son.
The kingdom was "prepared for you." The fire was not. That difference shows where the responsibility lies.
In a word, then, it is plain that God has "prepared" a kingdom of glory, and "vessels of mercy" to inherit that kingdom. But He has not prepared "everlasting fire" for men. He prepared it for the "devil and his angels." And He has not fitted the "vessels of wrath" — they have fitted themselves.
Kelly adds a note of pity from the same passage:
Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it, but it was prepared for the devil and his angels. There was no hope of deliverance for these fallen angels — no redemption for them. They left God deliberately, and no one tempted them. Man was tempted by an enemy, and God feels for guilty man, drawn away by a rebel mightier than himself, even if not more guilty.
The chapter closes by setting eternal punishment beside eternal life. W. W. Fereday weighs the wording:
The awful future of the ungodly could hardly be stated more clearly than in the Scripture before us: "These will go away into eternal punishment." The same word covers both "punishment" and "life." The length of the one is the length of the other. Yet eternal fire was not prepared for men. It was prepared for the devil and his angels. But those who prefer the voice of the devil to the voice of God while on earth must share his doom for ever.
Later Scripture gives the fire a name and a place. Fereday describes it:
Somewhere in God's universe there will be a restricted area ("a lake"). God will shut evil up there and punish it for ever. No one there will be able to act in sin, though hatred in the heart towards God and His Son must remain. Neither new birth nor repentance is possible there. God will enforce complete subjection (Phil. 2:10-11). Satan and all those he deceived, whether angelic or human, will be found together.
- Prepared — God prepared a kingdom for the blessed. He prepared the fire for the devil and his angels, and He fitted no one for it.
- Chosen — those who take no side have still taken a side. Refusing help to His servants showed hearts already turned away.
- Cursed — He says "you cursed," not "cursed of My Father," and so lays the whole weight of ruin on the sinner's own choice.
- Shared — people who preferred the devil's voice on earth end up sharing the devil's portion for ever.
- Eternal — one word covers both the life and the punishment. Its length is the same on both sides of the throne.
for I hungered, and ye gave me not to eat; I thirsted, and ye gave me not to drink;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye did not clothe me; ill, and in prison, and ye did not visit me.
In this verse the King finishes His charge against those on His left, and every count is something they failed to do. So who is the "Me" they never welcomed or visited, and how can doing nothing end in such a sentence?
Notice the shape of the accusation. Nothing is said about robbery, violence, or open hostility — only about supplies never offered.
"I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink" (Matthew 25:42). Christ does not say you took away My food, but you gave Me none.
One writer connects this silence about active wrongdoing with another story the Lord told, where a man is condemned without a single act of cruelty being named.
He does not point to the evil they did. He points to the way they ignored Him, seen in the way they ignored the needs of His brethren. This is their serious sin of omission. Nothing is said about the active guilt of the rich man in Luke 16, though he lived in ease and luxury. But he ignored the poor man Lazarus, who was laid at his gate wanting only the crumbs from his table.
The King speaks as if He Himself stood at their door. Commentators ask who was turned away, and point to a third group in the scene — neither the sheep nor the goats.
Who are "these My brethren"? We have had the sheep and the goats — the righteous and the unrighteous Gentiles. But who are the King's brethren? They are the men the Lord will send out before He comes in the glory of the kingdom, sent to announce that He is coming in His kingdom... The conclusion is obvious. In that day, He will deal with the nations on this ground — "How did you behave towards My messengers?"
One writer sets the goats' claim of innocence beside the King's question to Saul.
"The goats," on the other hand, claim they never failed the great King. But by the same principle, the indifference they showed towards His messengers counts in the King's heart as indifference towards Him... He always thinks of His own as if they were Himself. "Why," He says to Saul, "do you persecute Me?"
These people seem to have wanted a middle path. That choice was itself an answer.
It seems as if they had tried to take a middle course between the "for" and the "against"... Still, they had not joined themselves to His cause and to His servants either. They had seen those servants persecuted and even killed. They gave them no help and no sympathy, and so showed the state of their hearts. Is not the lesson here that, in divine things, there can be no middle ground?
The deeds on both sides point to something deeper.
In the one group there was faith working by love; in the other, complete unconcern. This laid bare whether they were fit or unfit to inherit the kingdom. In every case of the saints, works are the evidence, faith in the Word is the instrument, Christ's work is the ground, and God's grace is the source.
Many readers take the scene as the final judgment of everyone who has ever lived. One writer answers that the scene holds a third party — "these My brethren."
Almost the whole professing Church believes that "the sheep" stand for all the people of God, from the beginning of time to the end, and that "the goats" stand for all the wicked, from first to last. But if that is so, what do we make of the third party mentioned here, called "these My brethren"?... It would be plainly absurd to say that the sheep were themselves the people He means.
His words to those on the left do not mirror His words to those on the right.
Notice, He does not say, "Cursed by My Father," to match "Blessed by My Father." God hates putting away... Of the kingdom He said it was "prepared for you." He does not speak that way about the curse. Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it, but it was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Placing this scene in a future day does not put us outside its reach.
The theme of each part of Matthew 25 is "omission." The foolish virgins failed to take oil with their lamps. The wicked servant failed to use the talent entrusted to him. Those condemned as "goats" failed to serve the Lord, because they failed to serve His brethren in their need... If people with little light will be treated so severely for neglect, what can we with our much light expect, if we do the same?
- Omission. The charge lists no violence — only a welcome refused, clothing never given, a visit never made. What was never done is enough to condemn.
- Identification. The stranger and the prisoner are His messengers. What you do to them, the King counts as done to Him.
- Neutrality. Trying to stay out of it was not safety. Commentators read the refusal to help as the verdict the heart had already reached.
- Evidence. The deeds do not earn the kingdom; they reveal whether faith was there. Works are the evidence, grace the source.
- Application. Commentators differ on when this scene happens. But if neglect condemns those with little light, it warns those with much.
Then shall *they* also answer saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungering, or thirsting, or a stranger, or naked, or ill, or in prison, and have not ministered to thee?
The King has just told those on His left why He is sending them away. Now they answer back, asking when they ever saw Him in need at all — the same question the righteous asked a few verses earlier, but from a very different heart.
This is not the judgment of the dead. The Lord's own words fix who is judged, and when.
But even a brief look at the words our blessed Lord used will show that He does not mention the subject of resurrection... The reference is therefore to His appearing and kingdom, and to His judgment of the living, not of the dead. We do not speak of "the nations" in respect of the dead: this term describes the living. And notice, too, that there are three groups here — the sheep, the goats, and the brethren of the King. That fact by itself settles how the whole scene should be read.
The popular reading treats the sheep as all the saved and the goats as all the lost. That reading has nowhere to put the people the King keeps pointing at.
Almost everyone in the professing Church believes that "the sheep" stand for all the people of God, from the beginning to the end of time. And "the goats," on the other hand, stand for all the wicked, from first to last. But if this is so, what are we to make of the third party referred to here, under the title of "these My brethren"? The King addresses both the sheep and the goats about this third class. Indeed the very ground of judgment is the treatment of the King's brethren.
The goats speak as though they never once met Christ in need. They had — in the messengers who carried His testimony.
Such was His affection for His faithful servants, and so much did He value them, that He judged the people He sent the testimony to by the way they received these messengers. Whether they received them well or badly, He treated it as done to Himself. What an encouragement for His witnesses during that time of trouble, when their faith would be tested in service!
So one question decides the case for every nation.
So the conclusion is clear. In that day He will deal with the nations on this ground — "How did you behave to My messengers?" The King's messengers will go out just before He appears in glory, preaching the gospel of the kingdom everywhere. When the King takes His throne, those among the nations who received that message are recognized as "sheep," and those who despised it perish as "goats." Those who honour the message treat the messengers well. They care for them and stand with them. The Lord remembers this, and He counts what they did to His messengers as done to Himself.
Notice what is not charged against them. There is no list of crimes here — only a list of absences.
The remarkable thing about the goats is that their judgment here rests only on what they had not done. It seems as if they had tried to take a middle course between the "for" and the "against."... They had seen the servants persecuted and killed. They offered neither help nor sympathy, and that showed the state of their hearts. Is not the lesson here that, in divine things, there can be no middle ground.
The sentence falls on withholding, not on robbery.
"I was hungry, and you gave Me no food: I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink" (Matt. 25:42). Christ does not say you took away My food, but you gave Me none.
This is not a plea for mercy. It is a defence.
But notice: the display of glory around them does not shame them. Firm in defending themselves, the wicked answer, "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Oh, the daring spirit of self-righteousness! Does not even the solemnity of this awful court strike you with terror and break you down?
Kindness does not buy the kingdom. The deeds show what was already inside.
Thus everything rests on Christ, though His grace makes the most of what to others might seem trivial. One group had faith working by love. The other showed complete unconcern. That laid bare which of them was fit to inherit the kingdom and which was not. In all cases of saints, works are the evidence, faith in the Word the instrument, Christ's work the ground, and God's grace the source.
- Three, not two. The scene holds sheep, goats, and a third group — "these My brethren." Everything turns on how the first two treated the third.
- The messengers are the test. They carry the announcement of the coming King; the welcome given them is the welcome given Him.
- Christ counts it as His own. Help given to the least of them, He receives as given to Himself. Help refused, He takes as refused to Himself.
- The charge is omission. Not what they seized, but what they never gave. In divine things there is no middle ground.
- The reply exposes the heart. They defend themselves before the throne. But works were only ever the evidence — Christ's work the ground, God's grace the source.
Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have not done it to one of these least, neither have ye done it to me.
This is the King's verdict on those at His left hand — the mirror of what He had just said to those on His right. Everything turns on one question: who are these "least" ones, and why does their treatment decide the fate of nations?
The King's own words point to a group standing apart from both the sheep and the goats.
Almost everyone in the professing Church believes that "the sheep" stand for all the people of God, from the beginning of time to the end, and that "the goats" stand for all the wicked, from first to last. But if that is so, what are we to make of the third party mentioned here, called "these My brethren"? The King speaks to both the sheep and the goats about this third group. In fact, the very ground of judgment is how the King's brethren were treated. It would be plainly absurd to say that the sheep were themselves the people He means. If they were, the wording would be quite different. Instead of saying, "As you did it to one of the least of these My brethren," we would hear the King saying, "As you did it to one another."
Commentators here identify the brethren as messengers who will carry the message of the coming kingdom.
There are three groups of people in this scene: the goats, the sheep, and His brethren. The judgment of the first two depends on how they treat the third. To do these things to one of His brethren is to do them to Himself. Not to do them to one of the least of these is not to do them to Himself. The "brethren," I have no doubt, will be the remnant who will have preached the gospel of the kingdom among the Gentiles. The welcome given to those messengers decides the fate of those who now stand in judgment.
Look again at the list in verses 42–43. Not one item accuses these people of violence.
Notice that the King does not charge the condemned with persecuting and imprisoning His servants, but only with ignoring them — treating them with neglect. It fits in with the great question of Hebrews 2, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" On that day all will see that if men treat Christ with neglect, by neglecting His servants, they came under eternal condemnation.
The wording itself is precise about this. The accusation is not robbery but withholding.
"I was hungry, and you gave Me no food: I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink" (Matt. 25:42). Christ does not say you took away My food, but you gave Me none.
Listen to how the two groups answer the King in verses 37 and 44.
"The sheep" make no claim to have paid any attention to the King Himself. But He counts as done to Himself everything they had done to His messengers, whom He owned as His brethren. "The goats," on the other hand, claim they never failed the great King. But by the same rule, the indifference they showed toward His messengers counts in the King's heart as indifference toward Him... He thinks always of His own as if they were Himself. "Why," says He to Saul, "are you persecuting Me?"
These people were not open enemies of the King. They simply stayed out of it.
The remarkable thing about the goats is that their judgment here rests only on what they had not done. It would seem as if they had tried to take a middle course between the "for" and the "against"... They had seen the servants persecuted and killed, and gave them neither help nor sympathy. That showed the state of their hearts. Is not the lesson this: in the things of God there can be no middle ground?
The kindness shown or withheld is the visible proof of something underneath it.
So everything rests on Christ, though His grace makes the most of what others might think trivial. Faith working by love in the one group, and complete unconcern in the other, laid bare who was fit and who was unfit to inherit the kingdom. For every believer, works are the evidence, faith in the Word is the instrument, Christ's work is the ground, and God's grace is the source.
Placing the scene in the future does not remove its edge from the present.
The theme of each part of Matthew 25 is plainly what was left undone. The foolish virgins failed to take oil with their lamps. The wicked servant failed to use the talent given to him. Those condemned as "goats" failed to serve the Lord, because they failed to serve His brethren in their need... If the nations with their little light face such severe judgment for neglect, what can we with our much light expect, if we do the same?
- Three, not two. The scene holds sheep, goats, and a third group — "these My brethren." How that third group was treated is the whole ground of the verdict.
- The least. Commentators here take the brethren to be messengers of the kingdom, so how people met those messengers is how they met the King.
- Not done. The charge is never cruelty; it is the food not given, the stranger not welcomed, the prisoner not visited.
- Not to Me. What you withhold from His own, you withhold from Him. It is the word that met Saul: "Why are you persecuting Me?"
- No neutral. Trying to stand between "for" and "against" is itself the verdict. The deeds only expose the faith or the unconcern already there.
And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.
This verse ends the Lord's long prophetic speech. It gives the verdict on the scene He has just described: the King on His throne, the nations before Him, the sheep divided from the goats. Everything hangs on one word — "eternal" — and on the two destinies it measures.
The verse is not a stray remark about hell. It sums up a whole scene.
In the closing paragraph of Matthew 25 the end has come. The Son of Man is King. The disciples who endured to the end are saved. The nations come under judgment. The good and the evil are now fully separated, and the result of the judgment is eternal. Three times the word eternal occurs. The punishment of the wicked and the fire into which they go are eternal; the life into which the righteous pass is eternal. The opposite of life is not the ending of existence, as it would be if life merely meant existence... it is punishment, because eternal life means the whole realm of blessed and eternal realities in which the righteous will move for ever. The point here is not that the life is in them, but that they pass into it.
This scene is not the same as the later judgment of the dead. The clue is the crowd itself: two kinds of people stand mixed together.
He separates them one from another. At the great white throne, where the dead stand to be judged, there is no need of separating them there. But here there is a mixed company. Such a mixture is never found in heaven or hell, but only on the earth. So every clause proves that our Lord is speaking of a judgment of the living on the earth... Here the judgment is calm but very solemn. Its results last for ever. It follows the distinction the Lord makes between one person and another.
The King gives His reason before He passes this sentence. It rests on what these people did, or failed to do, for those He calls His brothers.
Who are these brothers of the King? They are the men He will send out before He comes in the glory of the kingdom, sent to announce that He is coming. So the conclusion is obvious. In that day, the ground on which He will deal with the nations will be this — "How did you behave toward My messengers?" Just before He appears in glory, the King's messengers will go out preaching the gospel of the kingdom everywhere. When the King takes His throne, those among the nations who received that message are recognised as "sheep," and those who despised it perish as "goats."... The Lord remembers this, and counts what was done to His messengers as done to Himself.
Two words here repay a close look: "eternal" and "punishment." Scripture uses both elsewhere, and those other uses fix what they mean.
Notice one thing. In Matthew 25 our Lord uses the same word for "everlasting life" and for "everlasting punishment." It is the word used for the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God (1 Timothy 1:17). Note also that the word translated "punishment" must be translated "torment" in 1 John 4:18: "fear has torment." Happy are those who agree with childlike simplicity to wholesome words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Older translations render 1 John 4:18 "fear has torment"; the ESV reads "fear has to do with punishment.")
Some argue that the fire means the wicked simply stop existing. What the fire produces points the other way.
The explanation shows that the thought is not extinction. That idea is only a conclusion drawn from what fire does to weeds. The effect of the fire, like that of the outer darkness, is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So the effect is not a ceasing to exist, as they claim. It is suffering — suffering called everlasting (Matthew 25:46), in contrast with everlasting life.
The same word covers both halves of the verse. It cannot mean one thing on one side and something else on the other.
Both the life and the punishment are eternal. No one seems anxious to prove that eternal life is not eternal. Multitudes labour to explain that eternal punishment is not eternal. Why? It is simply a case of the prisoner in the dock revolting against his sentence!... there is no reason to deny to "eternal" in the first half of the sentence what everyone grants it in the second. Scripturally both parts stand or fall together.
The same test runs across the rest of the New Testament, where the word attaches to things no one wants to shorten.
If the destruction in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is not really "everlasting," then the salvation in Hebrews 5:9 is not either. If the fire in Jude 7 is not "eternal," neither is the glory in 2 Timothy 2:10.
- Scene — The verse closes a judgment of living nations on earth. Sheep and goats stand mixed together, and the King separates them.
- Ground — The dividing line is how people treated the King's messengers. What they did to them, He counts as done to Himself.
- Word — "Punishment" here is the word translated "torment" elsewhere. It means suffering, not the end of existence.
- Measure — One word, "eternal," covers both destinies. Shorten one and you shorten the other.
- Destination — The righteous do not just receive life. They pass into it — into the whole realm of blessing where they will move for ever.