a sample from The Son of Man, volume three
Work goes well on the last volume of the commentary that combines Matthew, Mark, and Luke into a single study. I hope to have it done sometime in November, at which point I’m going to begin preparations for a historical study on the church and how we have debated various issues like slavery and how to interpret the Bible, going back to the mid-19th century. This was not something I was planning on doing until very recently. For a long while I had though my 2020 would be devoted to the Book of Acts, with a two-volume commentary in the works that would ultimately complete my commentary on the New Testament.
Instead, while doing work for my Masters degree I had an idea and now I have to pursue it. So Acts will go on the back-burner until the second half of next year and in its place is Debate Decorum, a book whose title is far less interesting than the subject matter (I hope).
In the meantime, I’m neck-deep in the Lord’s final days and just finished writing about His speech on the Kingdom. Here’s a sample…
MATTHEW 25:31-46
The two parables mentioned in this text are easily applied to the second coming, though I think they specifically refer to the coming of Jesus’ Kingdom. This last second of the chapter is not a parable, and it too has obvious “second coming” imagery, but as with the rest I see it as a speech describing the Kingdom more than the return of Jesus.
Jesus describes the Son of man coming in His glory. Is that a second coming phrase or one describing His ascension and beginning of reign? You can apply it to the former, but Daniel uses similar language to describe the latter (Daniel 7:13-14).
The Lord mentions the angels being with Him and most immediately jump to Paul’s prophetic description of the second coming (1 Thessalonians 4:16, though Paul only mentions one angel in that case).
Note, however, how easily that language can be applied to Jesus’ ascension and to the beginning of His Kingdom. Where did Jesus sit after His ascension? On His throne. Where is His throne? In Heaven. Who surrounds His throne? The angels. Therefore, it seems to me that Jesus is describing His ascension to His throne, with all the angels surrounding Him.
Therefore I read this as a description of the church, not of Judgment. I read it as a description of who will enter into the church/Kingdom, not of who will go to Heaven or Hell in the last day. And even though this is not a “once upon a time” parable, there certainly seems to be a heavy dose of symbolism in the way Jesus describes the scene.
The Kingdom is the great separator, open to all nations of the earth, where those who are in it are sheep and those outside it are goats. The Lord adds to His church (Acts 2:47) and thus separates the sheep from the goats, with the former going to His right (favored) hand and the goats to His left (unfavored) hand.
What do the sheep hear the reigning King say? “Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” What is the Kingdom? It’s the church. Into what is Jesus inviting people? Into the church. It is the Kingdom/church that has been prepared from the foundation of the world (John 14:2) and it’s the church that Jesus will open to the world when He sits upon His throne (Daniel 7:13-14).
Why are we twisting ourselves into knots trying to make this about Judgment Day when it is so much more obviously about the Kingdom? When Jesus spoke these words the Kingdom was barely over a month away from being opened; that which He had been preparing was about to be ready. Of course He’s going to be talking about it!
Who will enter the Kingdom? Who belongs to the church? What kind of people will Jesus be adding to His spiritual body? He describes them here as people who fed Him when He was hungry, gave Him water when He was thirsty, opened their home to Him when He was a stranger, clothed Him when He was naked, aided (visited) Him when He was sick, and visited Him when He was in prison.
Naturally, the righteous citizens of the Kingdom never had the opportunity to visit Jesus in prison? None had the occasion to tend to Him when sick? Few of us ever even saw Him hungry or thirsty, etc. but still that’s who Jesus describes. Does that describe me even though I never had the chance to do those good deeds to the Man Himself? Yes! Because Jesus says when we are good to “the least” of the people in the world, it is as if we were good to Him.
In all three sections of this chapter, Jesus constrasts those prepared to enter the Kingdom with those ill-prepared. In the two parables, it was because of foolishness and presumption that the unprepared are denied entry into the Kingdom. What’s the sin on display in this third section?
It’s a lack of universal compassion.
Jesus says that the Kingdom is no place for those who refuse to feed Him when He’s hungry, give Him water when He’s thirsty, open their home to Him when He’s a stranger, clothe Him when He’s naked, or visit Him when He’s sick and in prison. Of course, the sinners will tell themselves and even tell Jesus that if they ever saw Him in such a state they certainly would help. He will remind them, in that case, that by refusing to help the least of the people of the world, they are refusing to help Him.
Thus, the uncompassionate will be denied entry into the Kingdom. They will, like the man in the second parable, be cast from the church into “everlasting punishment.” The righteous citizens of the Kingdom, on the other hand, will enter into “life enteral.”
But wait, you say: aren’t everlasting punishment and eternal life “judgment day” concepts? Sure they are. They’re also adequate descriptions of the lost and the saved, here and now. The saved have eternal life, according to John (1 John 5:13, 20). If the saved have eternal life right now, what do the lost have right now? Eternal condemnation.
The great thing about the salvation of Jesus is it does the impossible: It changes you from eternally lost to enterally saved. As long as you walk outside of the light of Jesus you will be eternally lost, but as long as you are in the light of Jesus, you will be enterally saved.
Now, I conceded that there’s a distinction between “condemnation” and “punishment.” One is the sentence, the other is the suffering that follows. However, in the highly symbolic way in which Jesus speaks in this chapter, I’m okay with conflating the two in this context. I think we do damage to the text by overly compartmentalizing concepts like condemnation and punishment. They go hand in hand so why not treat them in a hand-in-hand matter?
If I am outside of Christ my punishment is assured, part in parcel with my condemnation. If I am in Christ, my eternal reward is assured, perpetually linked to my salvation. If the New Testament clearly conflates the good side of that equation (and it does—again, 1 John 5:13), then why not conflate the bad side of it too?