Matthew 25:31-46

§ 119. PICTURE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT, Matthew 25:31-46 .

1 . In the passage Matthew 24:29-31, the introductory circumstances of the judgment day are described. But as they are there introduced for a given purpose, namely, to contrast the sudden shock of that day with the slow process of the destruction of Jerusalem, the Lord suspends the conclusion in order to attend to other points of the contrast, and to give parabolic illustrations of the nature of the coming of the Son of man. Now it is time that the commenced picture should be completed. Accordingly, a cursory examination will show that both parts of the picture perfectly fit to each other. This latter passage presupposes the other. Let them be read in connection and they will form one complete narrative.

2 . There is not the slightest reason for calling this description a parable. In all the preceding parables the likeness, or parabolic similarity, is expressly declared. The kingdom of heaven is likened unto its illustration. All the terms here are literal. Surely the Matthew 25:29-31 describe literal things by their literal names. And in this passage the literal Son of man, (not a parabolic husbandman or master of servants,) in his literal person, at his literal coming to the literal judgment, so often alluded to in Scripture, is described. The folly of calling it “a parable of the sheep and goats,” (of which even Olshausen is guilty,) is exposed in our comment on Matthew 25:32.

3 . A certain class of expositors as strenuously maintain that this passage is an allegory symbolizing the destruction of Jerusalem. They do this for the purpose of maintaining the tenets of universal salvation, by removing from the Bible the doctrine of a future judgment and a future retribution. In this they have had, we regret to say, but too much aid from the expositions of orthodox commentators of the present day. It is unnecessary for us to say how inadmissible such a perversion of the passage is, for it appears from our whole mode of explaining this discourse. We view the whole discourse as a distinguishing and not a blending of the two events, (the destruction and the advent,) which the disciples specified in their two questions.