Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse on Tuesday of Passion Week. It seems appropriate to finish our analysis of it on the 1,987th anniversary1 of that day.
Jesus ended his discussion about the Temple’s destruction with a fifth warning, this time referring to the sheep and goats judgment.2 Like the other four warnings, this one pertains to the events in Jesus’ generation, but with a twist. We have shown the relationship of these five warnings in a previous post and repeat the outline here for convenience:
A. Judgment event (distant past): Noah and the flood (Matthew 24:37–42).
B. Interim parable: the goodman and his servants (Matthew 24:43–51)
C. Entrance parable: the bridegroom and the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13)
B.* Interim parable: the lord and the servants (Matthew 25:14–30)
A.* Judgment event (distant future): the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46)
Jesus had applied the judgment of Noah’s generation—an event in the distant past—to the destruction that would surround the destruction of the Temple. God would once again take men to destruction and leave others behind to enjoy the parousia (presence) of Christ.
The Lord now relates a judgment in the distant future to what would happen in his generation. Just as Jesus will separate the righteous from the unrighteous in the final judgment, so he would separate the sheep from the goats in Israel. Just as the sheep (i.e., Christians) will enter the kingdom in an ultimate sense at the end of the Messianic Age (Matthew 25:34, 36), so the sheep in Israel (i.e., Jewish Christians) would continue living in the kingdom after the Temple fell.
On the negative side, the Judge will send the goats (i.e., non-Christians) to eternal torment in the final judgment (Matthew 25:41, 46). In like manner, Jesus would return to take apostate Jews of that generation to destruction (Matthew 24:28; cp. Matthew 7:13).
Christ’s judgment activity, like his parousia (presence), is not a one-time event. God’s judgment in the Old Testament was “a process which sifts men. It separates the righteous from the wicked and thus makes the ‘remnant’ to appear.”3
A single passage shows how this process continues in the New Testament. In defense of his Sabbath healing, Jesus asserted his right not only to heal, but to give spiritual life to whomever he chose: “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 5:21).
Jesus had this right of selection for a simple reason: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John 5:22–23; emphasis added). Jesus executes judgment as people receive the new birth.
The Lord clarified the timing of this judgment: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25; emphasis added). This judgment activity had already started in Jesus’ day. Jesus will act as Judge throughout his parousia (i.e., in the Messianic or Kingdom Age) as he “gives life to whom he will” (John 5:21, ESV).
Jesus also discussed the final judgment in this context.
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. (John 5:28–30; emphasis added)
He will also serve as Judge in the separation of men into their final destinations.
God the Father has now committed that ongoing work to the Son. Christ exercises judgment in his parousia during the Messianic Age.
This process is leading to an all-encompassing judgment at the end of history. Christ’s word will judge men a final time: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
Inmillennialism accounts for the fact that the judgment work of Christ began with his enthronement after his ascent to heaven and that it will last throughout the Messianic Age.
The rest of this post will make a few observations about God’s judgment—now invested in Jesus—in the three phases of the Messianic Age. The “sheep and goats” judgment occurs 1.) in the “last days” (Hebrews 1:2) of the Mosaic age during which God established the kingdom, 2.) throughout the kingdom age (i.e., parousia), and 3.) at the final judgment.
Judgment to end the Mosaic Age
Jesus said the sheep and goats judgment would follow his coming (erchomai). Then he would sit on the throne of his glory and separate the nations (Matthew 25:31–32).
This is the same coming (erchomai) Jesus mentioned earlier in the Olivet Discourse: “and they shall see the Son of man coming (erchomai) in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). Jesus established a clear timeframe for this coming: it would occur in his generation, but the precise day and hour remained unknown (Matthew 24:34, 36).
As we have seen in previous posts, Jesus has had a single subject throughout the Olivet Discourse—the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:1–3). The signs he provided (Matthew 24:4–31) pointed to that event. His time response (Matthew 24:32–36) provided the limits within which the event would occur. And the previous four warnings pertained to that subject (Matthew 24:37 – 25:30).
The Lord also mentioned this coming in his previous warning passages at the end of the Olivet Discourse. It occurs in the account of the distant past judgment of Noah’s day (Matthew 24:42), in the parable of the goodman and his servants (Matthew 24:44), in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:10), and in the parable of the Lord and the servants (Matthew 25:19, 27).
The context urges us to understand the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 25:31) before the sheep and goats judgment as identical to the others in the Olivet Discourse.
Inmillennialism accepts this perspective—when Jesus said, “the Son of Man shall come in his glory” he was speaking about an event in his generation.
That event, as each of Jesus’ warnings shows, was one that separated people; it was a judgment event. The Son of Man would come to judge Israel by separating the sheep from the goats in that nation.
This judgment act would end the Mosaic age,4 but it would do more.
Judgment during the Messianic Age
Jesus had already said the judgment according to works was about to begin: “For the Son of man shall come (erchomai) in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:27–28). The Son of Man would reign in his kingdom before some of Jesus’ hearers died.
In inmillennialism, the coming (erchomai) of the Son of Man completes the transition from the Mosaic age to the Messianic Age. At the beginning of the Olivet Discourse, the disciples asked about the parousia of Christ that would remain after the Mosaic age ended (Matthew 24:3). We have argued that this state-of-being noun represents the Messianic Age. The coming (erchomai) of Christ establishes the presence (parousia) of Christ.
The Messianic Age is the age of Christ’s rule. As Leon Morris says, “there is no question but that on occasion ‘to judge’ and ‘to rule’ are not far apart.”5 This is true in Israel’s experience as a nation. “When we are told that such-and-such a man ‘judged’ Israel this means, to all intents and purposes, that he ruled the nation.”6 For Christ to come to reign meant he would come to judge.
Jesus will function as Judge as long as he reigns as King. For the duration of the Messianic Age, we can say of Jesus what David said of Yahweh: “The LORD reigneth . . . righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne” (Psalm 97:1–2; emphasis added).
Ezekiel prophesied that, during the Messianic Age, God would set a shepherd over his people (Ezekiel 34:23). He would search for his sheep and seek them out (Ezekiel 34:11). The promise to his flock is that he would “judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats” (Ezekiel 34:17; emphasis added). This separation of livestock in the same herd (or flock) resembles the sheep and goats separation in the Olivet Discourse. The Scriptures do not confine this judgment to the end of history.
This shows the sheep and goats judgment is a leading feature of the Messianic Age. It is an age-long judgment. Therefore, Jesus can say to his disciples: “I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28–30; emphasis added). The joint Messianic Age judging role of Christ and his people would last as long as his kingdom.
Yet this does not exhaust the separation process of sheep from goats.
Judgment to end of the Messianic Age
The ultimate division between sheep and goats will occur at the end of the Messianic Age.
The prophet Daniel foresaw the full breadth Messianic Age judgment. He said:
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:1–2)
Based on New Testament revelation, we suggest that Michael in this vision, the “great prince” who represents God’s people, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The “time of trouble” is the “great tribulation” of which Jesus spoke in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:21).
To awaken from sleep in the dust is the same resurrection of which Jesus spoke: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28–29).
If we are correct, Daniel is connecting the “great tribulation” in Jesus’ generation to the final judgment. Speaking of this passage, Jon Douglas Levenson says:
The granting of “eternal life” thus corresponds to—indeed, it is inseparable from—the prediction earlier in Daniel that
the God of Heaven will establish the kingdom that shall never be destroyed, a kingdom that shall not be transferred to another people. It will crush and wipe out all these kingdoms, but shall itself last forever. (Dan 2:44)
The irreversible triumph of life is, in other words, of a piece with the establishment of the kingdom of heaven and the decisive and definitive victory of justice over the injustice.7
Jesus made the same connection as Daniel. His coming (erchomai) would complete the process of establishing the kingdom of God. This kingdom would flourish during the Messianic Age and the parousia (presence) of Christ would comfort God’s people in this age. At the end of the Messianic Age, the King will welcome the sheep “into life eternal” and send the goats “into everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46). Jesus is doing in the Olivet Discourse what Daniel did in his prophecy.
Conclusion
Jesus used two universal judgments to warn Israel of her dire situation. The flood in Noah’s day separated the righteous—Noah and his family—from the wicked. It took the latter to destruction. The final judgment in the distant future would produce the ultimate and eternal separation between the saved and lost. Both judgments illustrate the inflexible justice of a holy God. That justice was about to separate the sheep from the goats in Israel after the flesh (1 Corinthians 10:18).
Scriptures such as Matthew 16:27; Romans 2:6; 1 Corinthians 3:8; Revelation 20:12; Revelation 22:12; etc. show a sobering truth. We should learn the lesson well: “salvation is always regarded as due to the good gift of Christ, whereas judgment is invariably on the basis of works.”8
The sheep and goats passage (Matthew 25:31–46) shows an important truth regarding God’s judgments in the Messianic Age. When he divides people, his verdicts include an announcement of how they treated the Lord Jesus Christ.
The inmillennial prophetic model we have developed in the Olivet Discourse accounts for everything Jesus told his disciples about the destruction of the Temple. Our next post will examine a second New Testament prophetic passage to add details to the model derived on Tuesday of Passion Week in AD 30.
Footnotes
- We published this post on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. We assume a date of AD 30 for the Olivet Discourse. See A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life of Christ (New York: Harper, 1922), 173.
- The picture is a mosaic from the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. Nick Thompson, provided the file—Dividing Sheep and the Goats, 22.4.2010: Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. License here.
- Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment (London: The Tyndale Press, 1960), 23; emphasis added.
- The disciples had asked about “the end of the age” (Matthew 24:3, ESV).
- Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 8.
- Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 10.
- Jon Douglas Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 187. Emphasis added.
- Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 67.
