What will Jesus say on judgement day?

Our Lord Jesus Christ said to the people of His day, as recorded in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy name have cast out devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” Such people then may have been very active in what is called Christian work - they have preached, they have cast out demons, that is, their influence has been such that men and women have found deliverance from satanic power through their ministrations in the name of Jesus, they have professed with their lips, they have accomplished many wonderful works, but they are found in that day among the lost, and when they plead their great activity and their earnestness in Christian testimony, the Lord says to them, “I never knew you.” Notice, He does not say to them, “I used to know you, but you have forfeited My favor and I do not know you any longer.” He says, “I never knew you.”

But there is a very solemn back-ground to the blessed entrance into the kingdom: "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" (ver. 41). Observe, He does not say, Cursed of My Father, answering to "Blessed of My Father." God hates putting away. So when the awful moment comes for the curse to be pronounced on these wicked Gentiles, it is "Depart from Me, ye cursed." I believe it is the deepest sorrow to God, and throws all the onus of destruction on those whose own sin it was, who rejected His love and holiness and glory in rejecting His Son. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." In the other case the kingdom was said to be "prepared for you:" not so when speaking about the curse. Hell was not prepared for poor guilty man. He deserves it; but it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Where the souls rejected the testimony, he does pronounce them cursed. He is the King, the judge. But whether it be the great white throne, or this earthly throne, it is "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." There was no hope of deliverance for these fallen angels — no redemption for them. They wilfully and without a tempter departed from God. Man was tempted by an enemy; and God feels for guilty man, drawn away by a mightier, if not more guilty, rebel than himself. How solemn to think that it was prepared for others, and that men share it with these rebellious spirits? It was not in the heart of God to make a hell for miserable man: it was prepared for the devil and his angels. But there were those who preferred the devil to God; and to such He says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The same test is applied to them as to the godly before — the treatment of the King and of His messengers, or rather of Him in them.

The Lord, as the Apostle of our profession at His first coming, spoke the word of God; and when He returns to judge the world, He will judge by the word which He has spoken, as He says, "The word that I have spoken the same shall judge you." The Lord's testimony was of grace, expressive of all that God was in grace to sinners. And when He comes again, He will come judging by it. Having given the mind of God, He returns to heaven; and then He returns as King to judge by the word which He had spoken.

Next comes the final public testimony of our Lord, given in this Gospel. "But Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on Me believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me; and he that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that sent Me. I am come a light into the world, that every one that believeth on Me may not abide in darkness. And if anyone have heard My words and not kept (them), I judge him not, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that slighteth Me and receiveth not My words hath one that judgeth him; the word which I did speak, that will judge him in the last day, because I did not speak from Myself, but the Father Who sent Me hath Himself given† Me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak; and I know that His commandment is life eternal. What things then I speak, as the Father hath said to Me, so I speak" (verses 44-50). φυλάξῃ cf. [Luke 11:28], ℵABDKLKΠ, etc.; πιστεύσῃ, "believed," EFGHMSUΓΔΛ, etc. † δέδ, ℵABMX, many cursives, etc.; ἔδ, Text. Rec., DLΓΛΔΠ, etc.

The Lord spoke with earnestness, as elsewhere and always;243 and it was due to men in His grace, considering the solemn issues at stake, and the Divine glory concerned. It was a question of His Father Who sent Him, no less than of Himself. To believe on the Son, to behold Him, was to behold and believe on the Father. They were inseparably one, as He had already declared; and he who had the Son had the Father also. Further, the Lord was come as light into the world (for it was no question of Israel only) that every believer on Him might not abide in darkness.244 He has the light of life, and not life only; He is light in the Lord. It was therefore ruin to have heard and not kept His words; but such was the grace in which He came, that He could add, "I judge him not, for I came not that I might judge the world, but that I might save the world." How, then, would His glory be vindicated in his case who slights245 Him and receives not His words? He has that which judges him — the word. "The word which I have spoken, that shall judge him in the last day"; and the more surely, because Jesus spoke not from Himself, as if He sought His own will or glory, but was simply and uniformly subject to the Father, Who not only sent Him, but enjoined what He was to say and speak; the Father's commandment He knew to be life eternal. (Ps. 133:3.246) Jesus was as subject to Him in His utterances as in His doings, being here to declare Him and do His will.

"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." It is a careful and divine discrimination — not a mere act of vengeance which deals with masses, in which all might be overwhelmed in common ruin. 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. Thus every clause gives proof that our Lord speaks of a judgment of the living on the earth. He separates them "as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." It follows that the persons meant by "the sheep" and "the goats" are respectively the righteous and the ungodly among the nations then living on the earth, when our Lord comes to judge in His quality of Son of Man. It is not now what we have seen in Matthew 24, where He shines suddenly like lightning. Here it is the calm, but most solemn judgment, with everlasting results, according to the discrimination which the Lord makes between individuals. When the judgment of the dead takes place before the great white throne, the heavens and earth are fled away; so that the Lord must have come before then, or there would be no earth as it is now to come to, as we all confess He shall come.

Our Lord, then, is here separating the godly from among the ungodly in those living nations. He disposes of them thus: "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" (ver. 34). However blessed they are, He does not describe them as children of their Father. I do not deny that they are children of God; but He says, "children of My Father." No doubt the words said to them are very precious; but do they reach up to the height of the blessing the grace of God has given us in Christ now? There is nothing here about "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." They are called to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. When God laid the foundations of the earth, He was looking onward to this blessed time. Satan's getting power over man was only a fearful interruption, but not one whose consequences the Lord could not overmaster and purge out: He means to do it; and to have this world the scene of incomparably greater blessedness than its present misery is through Satan's work. God means to give the kingdom of this world to His Son — yea, He will have the whole universe put under Christ. Our Lord had a right in His own glory to everything; but He humbled Himself, and laid down His life to deliver us and creation out of Satan's hand, and establish a new and righteous title over all, and bring it back to God.

So the King puts the difference of the two classes on the only ground that could apply to “all the nations” then before His earthly throne, after such a preaching as had by grace reached them before the end. Now it had come: the new age had begun. The King had done what none else could: He separated them all individually and with unfailing discernment. Instead of their giving account to Him, He recounts to them why He set some on His right and some on the left. It turned on faith that it might be according to grace, or sadly, on unbelief where there was no grace, but only self. Hence He said to the wondering righteous, “Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it to Me.” How awful on the other hand for the unjust to hear, in answer to their more hurried summary, “Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of these least, neither did ye [it] to Me.”

Thus all rests on Christ, though His grace makes the most of what to others might seem trivial. The faith working by love in the one class, and the utter unconcern of the other, laid bare respectively their fitness or unfitness for inheriting the kingdom. In all cases of saints, works are the evidence, faith of the Word the instrument, Christ's work the ground, and God's grace the source.

But here, not only is there the company on the right hand — "the sheep"; but there are also those on the left hand — "the goats." And the remarkable thing about the latter is that their judgment, as here set forth, is simply on the ground of 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 not been among the followers of the "beast," taken in high-handed rebellion against the King, and slain with the sword (Rev. 19:21). Nevertheless, neither had they identified themselves with His cause and with His servants. They had seen the servants both persecuted and slain, and had extended neither succour nor sympathy, thereby showing the state of their hearts. Is not the lesson here, that, in divine things, there can be no middle ground. Men are for the Lord, or against Him, as He has already declared.

We have a remarkable scene of this character in Matt. 25. Having established His throne in righteousness, all nations are gathered before Him for judgment. This is expressly connected with His kingdom: "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." (vv. 31, 32.) It is the only time that our Lord applies the title of King to Himself: "Then shall the King say unto them etc. (vv. 34-40.) This shows that the kingdom has been founded — marking, indeed, the commencement of His millennial sway. If now we examine the features of this session of judgment, it will be manifest that there is no pretext whatever for confounding it with that of the great white throne (Rev. 20), or for deducing from it the popular idea of a general judgment — of believers and unbelievers together. It is, in fact, a judgment of living nations; for there is no scriptural precedent for terming the dead "the nations." There are three classes here apparent — the sheep, the goats, and the "brethren" of the King. It will be observed that the way in which the nations had treated the King's "brethren" becomes the ground of their classification, whether among the sheep or among the goats. This fact is therefore the key to the whole scene. Who then are the King's "brethren"? Very clearly they must be Jews — His kinsmen according to the flesh, but also His true servants. We may thus probably find a clue to them in Isaiah 66, in a passage already adduced. There we find that after the Lord has come in judgment some of the saved are sent to declare His glory among the Gentiles. So in the scene before us, the King's "brethren" have evidently gone forth as His messengers among the nations, and they are therefore invested with a special place and authority, even as the ambassadors of a sovereign now are clothed with all the honour and dignity of the one they represent. The principle on which they are sent forth is that on which the Lord sent out the twelve: "He that receiveth you receiveth me." (Matt. 10:40.) Hence the King says to those on His right hand, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me;" and they are made to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. In like manner He says to those on His left hand, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. 25:34-46.)

It is a Man who will sit upon the throne of glory, but mark His perfect discrimination between sheep and goats. That Man is "God manifested in flesh" (1 Tim. 3:15) who knows the secrets of all hearts. Note the quiet assertion of His dignity in "the Sermon on the Mount": "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord … then will I profess to you, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7:22-23). The Man who moved up and down amongst men so graciously and familiarly is the final Judge of all created beings.

"And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from Whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God [or 'the throne'], and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell [Hades] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell [Hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:11-15). It is a "great" throne, for the most momentous of all questions is to be settled there; "white" because of the holiness and righteousness of all that is there enacted. All who are not raised in the first resurrection must then rise, the mighty voice of the Son of God calling them from their tombs. The sea comes forward with its contingent, as Hades delivers up the spirits to be reunited with the bodies. The books tell their tale, all is faithfully recorded by a holy God. The Word of God will be there, even as the Lord Jesus said, "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day" (John 12:48). Every word heard, every chapter read, only increases responsibility, if not received by faith in the heart. How does the reader stand in view of all this? Has the reader been cleansed from his sins by the blood of Jesus? Is forgiveness yours, and justification and acceptance in the risen Christ?