The late Christian musician Keith Green wrote a song based on Matthew 25 called “The Sheep and the Goats.” The song ends with: “And, my friends, the only difference between the sheep and the goats, according to this Scripture, is what they did—and didn’t—do!!” Green suggests that Christians’ judgment and salvation is based on their works, which is not surprising when one considers how much Green was influenced by Charles Finney, a Pelagian.
But in its context in Matthew, the story or parable of the sheep and the goats is likely not about a judgment that Christians or even everyone will face, but about Jesus’s judgment of non-Christians for how they treat or fail to treat Christians.
From Matthew 25:
31 “Now when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. 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 something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me as a guest, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for 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 something to drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you as a guest, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ 40 And the king will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, in as much as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will also say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat, I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not care for me.’ 44 Then they will also answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and not serve you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, in as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Mt 25:31–46
.
The language and the context of this passage have several parallels to Joel 3 (Joel 4 in the Hebrew). And since Matthew’s Gospel seems to have as one of its purposes to show how Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures, finding echoes or parallels in the Hebrew Scriptures may be one of the best ways to properly understand it.
From Joel 3 (Joel 4 Hebrew):
1 For look! In those days, and in that time, when I will return the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 I will gather all the nations, and I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will argue a case against them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations, and my land that they have divided. 3 For my people they cast lots, and they traded the male child for the prostitute, and the female child they sold for wine and they drank it.
4 What are you to me, O Tyre and O Sidon, and all of the regions of Philistia? Are you repaying to me what is deserved? If you are recompensing me, I will return swiftly and quickly what you deserve on your head! 5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, and my beautiful treasures you have carried into your temples. 6 And the sons of Judah and Jerusalem you sold to the sons of the Greeks, in order to remove them from their border. 7 Look! I am rousing them from the place where you have sold them, and I will return what you deserve on your head! 8 I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans and to a nation far away, for Yahweh has spoken.
9 Proclaim this among the nations:
Prepare for war!
Stir up the mighty warriors;
let them approach and come up;
let all the men of war approach.
10 Beat your cutting tools of iron into swords
and your pruning hooks into spears;
let the weakling say, ‘I am a mighty warrior!’
11 Hurry and come,
all the nations, from all around,
and gather yourselves there.
Bring down your mighty warriors, O Yahweh!
12 Let the nations be roused and let them come up
to the valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit to judge
all the nations from all around.
13 Send forth the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe!
Go tread,
for the winepress is full!
The vats overflow,
because their evil is great!
14 Commotion, commotion
in the valley of decision!
For the day of Yahweh is near
in the valley of decision!
15 The sun and the moon grow dark,
and the stars have withheld their splendor.
16 And Yahweh roars from Zion;
from Jerusalem he utters his voice,
and the heavens and the earth shake.
But Yahweh is a refuge for his people,
and a protection for the children of Israel.
17 And you will know that I, Yahweh your God,
am dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain.
And Jerusalem will be a place of holiness,
and strangers will pass through it no longer.
18 And it will happen on that day;
the mountains will drip new wine,
and the hills will flow with milk,
and all the channels of Judah will flow with water.
A spring from the house of Yahweh will come forth,
and it will water the valley of Acacia Trees.
19 Egypt will become a desolation,
and Edom will become a desolate desert,
because of the violence they did against the children of Judah,
in whose land they have shed innocent blood.
20 But Judah will be inhabited forever,
and Jerusalem for all generations.
21 I will cleanse their bloodguilt that I did not cleanse,
for Yahweh is dwelling in Zion.
W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Joel 3:1–21
N. T. Wright concurs:
“Instead of the nations being judged on how they had treated Israel, as some Jewish writings envisage, Jesus, consistently with his whole redefinition of God’s people around himself, declares that he will himself judge the world on how it has treated his renewed Israel. Judging the nations is, of course, regularly thought of as part of the Messiah’s task (e.g., Psalm 2:8–12
