Matthew 25:31-46 - Homiletics

The last judgment.

I. THE JUDGE .

1 . His glory. The Lord was sitting on the Mount of Olives, looking sadly back upon the holy city and the temple which he had finally left. He had been rejected by the hierarchy of the chosen nation; the shadow of the cross was falling on him; in three days would come the awful agony and the tremendous sacrifice. He knew all this with the clear calm knowledge of Divine omniscience; but his thoughts dwelt, that Tuesday afternoon, not on his own sufferings now so near, but on the great results of his incarnation and atonement which were to be manifested in the far-distant future, the salvation of his chosen, and, alas! the condemnation of the impenitent. With the cross in near prospect, he speaks of himself as the King—the king of all nations; the Son of man indeed, still in our human nature, for the two whole and perfect natures, the Godhead and the manhood, once joined together in the one Person of Christ, were never thenceforth to be divided; but coming in his glory, himself in that body of glory of which a passing glimpse had been vouchsafed to the three most favoured apostles on the Mount of the Transfiguration, surrounded by the holy angels, his attendants and ministers. Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, that great white throne which St. John saw in that awful vision of the great day which was revealed to him for our instruction and warning. No human words could describe the glory of the Judge. St. John could only say that from his face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

2 . The gathering of all nations before him. The parables of the virgins and the talents are parables of judgment; but they deal with a portion only of the tremendous subject. Judgment, St. Peter says, "must begin at the house of God." These two parables embrace in their range only Christian people, those who have gone forth to meet the heavenly Bridegroom, and the immediate servants of the Lord. The first parable represents the judgment of the inner life of the soul; the second, the judgment of the outward life of obedience or idleness. Each parable reveals to us one of the many aspects of that tremendous assize. Now parable passes into prophecy. A wider scene is opened out—the judgment of the whole world. Our thoughts are no longer to be concentrated on a portion only of the vast multitude. All nations are gathered together before the Son of man; quick and dead alike; all the countless millions that have been born unto the world from the Creation to the great day; every one from Adam the first man to the new-born babe all, summoned by the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, gathered together by the attendant angels, all shall stand before the Judge. His eye will range over those countless hosts. He knows the whole history of each individual. The books of which we read in the Revelation represent the infinite knowledge of God. "The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." The Judge will divide the thronging crowds with unerring accuracy, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. The division will be as easy to the Almighty Judge; the differences, often almost invisible to us, as clearly marked in his sight. "He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."

II. THE BLESSED .

1 . The welcome. The Lord describes himself as the heavenly King. He knew that in three days the mocking title, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews," would be set above his head as he hung dying on the cross. But he knew also, in his inmost consciousness, that he was indeed King of kings and Lord of lords. The kingdom of heaven was his by right. It was he who should hereafter open that kingdom to the blessed: "Come, ye blessed of my Father," he will say. Come; for it is his will that his chosen should be with him to behold his glory, and to share his glory. Come; for their salvation is his joy, the joy for which he endured the cross. He bringeth home rejoicing the sheep that once was lost. He saith unto his friends, "Rejoice with me." Come; for he loveth them with an everlasting love, a love stronger than death. He calls them blessed, "Ye blessed of my Father;" for the Father had pronounced them blessed. He had chosen them by his electing grace; he had given them to the only begotten Son; they were "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." He bids them take possession of the kingdom—the kingdom of glory, that glory which passeth all that eye hath seen, or ear hath heard, or that hath entered into the heart of man. That kingdom had been prepared for them from the foundation of the world; even before the world was ( Ephesians 1:4 ), God knew, in the fulness of his Divine omniscience, each elected spirit, and predestinated each to be conformed to the image of his Son. The kingdom had long been theirs in the purpose of God; now it was to be theirs in possession.

2 . The ground of the welcome. They had loved the Lord; they had tended him (he said) in distress and sorrow; they had laid him, the Lord God Almighty, under obligations by their love and tenderness. He would reward them now. The righteous are bewildered with that wondrous welcome. It is a joy almost too great for them to bear—a sweetness so penetrating that the heart well nigh faints in the intensity of its rapture. They knew that nothing they had done could deserve that unutterable blessedness now opened to their view. They can see, as they look back on their past lives, no deeds so good and holy as the Lord had said. They had learned of him the grace of humility, those of them who were Christians; those who had not heard the gospel (for surely many heathen men will be among the number of the blessed) had shown the law of love written in their hearts, and were a law unto themselves, doing by nature things contained in the Law ( Romans 2:14 , Romans 2:15 ). None of them fully understood the preciousness of acts of unselfish love. They felt their own shortcomings; in their self-abasement they had ever thought themselves the chief of sinners. But the King now shows to them the meaning of their deeds of love. Charity, that chiefest of graces, springs out of faith. It looks to Christ, and rests in Christ as its ultimate centre. It is so, in some sense, even with the good deeds of heathen men; for Christ is the Saviour of all men. Christ died for all men; and all who in truth and earnestness seek after God, consciously or unconsciously, follow Christ. "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body." The judgment will be, as Holy Scripture says in many places, according unto works; but those works spring out of faith, and derive their whole spiritual value from the faith and love which prompted them. The Lord, in this place, speaks of one class only of holy deeds. He does not exclude other Christian graces, other forms of obedience. All will, we may be sure, be taken into account in the judgment. But in this prophecy, as in many of his parables, the Lord takes one aspect of God's dealings with mankind. He insists on that one aspect, and impresses it forcibly upon his hearers. One important truth is best driven home by being presented alone; other balancing truths can be taught on other occasions. We must study the Scriptures as a whole. One part explains another; one part suggests the necessary qualifications for the interpretation of another.

III. THE LOST .

1 . The condemnation. "Depart from me, ye cursed." Very awful and tremendous words. All the more so as coming from his mouth who bade all men, "Come unto me;" who came not into the world "to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." He had loved those lost souls; he had called them again and again; he had wept over their hardness and unbelief. But they would not come unto him that they might have life. They resisted the Holy Ghost; they closed their eyes in wilful blindness; they persevered in disobedience till their heart was hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and there was no more hope of amendment. Now they must depart from him whom in life they would not hear; they must depart, and that into the eternal fire prepared (not for them; it was not the will of God that any should perish; he willeth that all men should be saved) "for the devil and his angels." They had loved darkness rather than light; they must dwell in the great outer darkness away from the light of God's presence. They had listened to the tempting voice of Satan; they must share his doom.

2 . The ground of condemnation. They had done no good; they had lived only for themselves. They had seen sorrow and distress and poverty all around them; they had shown no love, no pity, no sympathy. And in neglecting the poor, the afflicted, they had neglected Christ the Lord. For the poor are his representatives. "He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord;" and he that careth not for the poor careth not for Christ, who is present in his poor, who bids us love one another as he hath loved us. They who have no pity on the poor would not have ministered to the Lord if they had lived when he had not where to lay his head, when holy women ministered to him of their substance. And these shall go away into eternal punishment. They are not accused of any crime—of theft, or murder, or impurity; but they were without love, and he that loveth not knoweth not God who is love, and cannot enter into heaven which is the home of love. It is a most solemn thought that this tremendous condemnation was incurred, not by crime, not by actual sin, but by neglect of duty, by selfishness and want of love. Let us rouse ourselves to a sense of the danger of selfishness; let us covet earnestly the best gifts, especially that highest gift of love. "The righteous shall go into life eternal." It is love, the Lord saith, which is the mark of the blessed; "charity never faileth."

LESSONS .

1 . The Lord is at hand. He shall sit on the throne of his glory. On which side shall we be set—on the right hand or on the left?

2 . "Come, ye blessed." There is no joy so intense, so rapturous; may it be ours!

3 . Then follow after charity.

4 . "Depart from me, ye cursed." There is no misery so awful; God in his mercy save us from it!

5 . Then follow Christ the Lord; love the brethren; imitate the example of the King.