Third section the judgment upon the church itself second picture of judgment



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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The final Judgment. General Remarks.—The new salient points of the last judgment are: 1. The Son of Man as Judge unfolds His perfect kingly and judicial glory2. He exercises judgment now upon all the nations of the earth, and upon all the generations of men3. He judges individuals according to their personal conduct, with as much strictness and reality as He judges the collective whole4. He finds in all the consummate character of their inner life and nature so expressly stamped upon them, that He can divide them as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats5. He Judges, therefore, according to the perfected consummation of the spiritual life in the works, and according to the fundamental idea of all good works—love and mercy6. He judges according to the standard of the universal life of Christ among men of all times, as well as of the historical Christ7. His sentence introduces a separation which must bring the earth itself, in its ancient form, to an end; for, the good are received into the kingdom of the Father, and the wicked are cast into hell.—Thus viewed in all its extension, it presupposes the general resurrection, and forms the conclusion of the Lord’s coming and parousia in this present state of things, of the one last day of a thousand years in a symbolical sense, that Isaiah, of a full and perfect judicial æon. Thus, as the first parable ( Matthew 24:45) must be placed at the beginning of these thousand years, and the second and third exhibit the further development of the kingly, judicial administration of Christ, this last judgment forms the great conclusion, as it is exhibited in 1 Corinthians 15:24 and Revelation 20:9.

This decides the question as to whether it is merely a judgment upon Christians, or upon other than Christians, or upon all, both Christians and not Christians. The first was maintained by Lactantius, Euthymius, Grotius, and others; the second, by such as Keil, Olshausen, Crusius;[FN52] the third, by Kuinoel, Paulus, Fritzsche. In favor of the first view—that Christians alone are here judged—it is alleged that the doctrine of the divine election comes in, Matthew 25:34, of the righteous, Matthew 25:37, etc. But, on the other hand, such also are spoken of as never had the consciousness of being in personal relation with Christ. It is supposed to decide in favor of the second hypothesis—those not Christians being the objects of the judgment—that the judgment proceeds not according to the law of faith, but according to the law of works and of love to man. But that Christians also will be judged at last by works, the fruits of faith, as being faith developed, is proved by Matthew 7:21; Romans 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Galatians 6:8, and the whole tenor and spirit of Christianity; and that, on the other hand, all the works of men will be judged, not according to their outward appearance, but according to their spirit and motive, or according to their real, though unconscious, faith in Christ, and love or drawing toward Him, is proved by an equal number of passages; e.g., Matthew 10:40; Acts 10:35; Romans 5:18, and the universally valid word: “The Lord seeth the heart.” De Wette urges, in favor of the third supposition, that in Matthew 13:37-43; Matthew 13:49, we find the plain idea of a final judgment upon Christians and those who are not Christians. De Wette here confounds good and bad with Christians and not Christians.

Our section certainly presupposes the universal nominal Christianization of the world, which must take place before the end of the world: the Christianization of mankind in this world ( Matthew 24:14; Romans 11:32), and of the whole of mankind in the other ( Philippians 2:10; 1 Peter 4:6). Such a Christianization would necessarily follow from the advent of Christ in itself; so far as it must constrain the nations to submission, and continue throughout an entire period of judgment, Revelation 20. The common notion, which terms every supposition of a more extended final period Chiliasm or Millennarianism, does not merit notice. It is beyond all things necessary that we should distinguish between a concrete and a fantastic doctrine about the last things. The differences are: 1. The former regards the thousand years as a symbolical number, as the mark of an æon, or the period of transition for the earth and mankind from the earthly to the heavenly condition (Irenæus; see Dorner’s History of Christology, I. p245). But millennarianism interprets the thousand years chronologically, and seeks to define their beginning2. Concrete eschatology regards the last period as the manifestation of a judgment, already internally ripe, on the ground of the perfect redemption accomplished through Christ. But millennarianism is not satisfied with the first redeeming appearance of Christ; i looks forward to the second as of greater importance3. Concrete eschatology expects with the advent the beginning of a spiritual transformation of the present state of things; millennarianism expects a perfect glorification of things here as they are4. The former sees in the first resurrection only a revelation of the full life of the elect, destined to be helpers of Christ in the glorification of all humanity; but millennarianism regards that period as the time of the realization of Jewish, Jewish-Christian, pietistic, sectarian prerogatives and spiritual pretensions. [FN53]



[We add here the remarks of Dr. Nast on the different views as to the subjects of the final judgment: “According to the premillennarian view, advocated by Olshausen, Stier, and Alford, the judgment here described does not include those that constitute the Church triumphant; that Isaiah, those who, at Christ’s personal coming to introduce the millennium, are either raised from the dead, or, if still living, are glorified and caught up together into the air, to meet the Lord ( 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:25; 1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52)—to reign with Christ, and with him to judge the world ( 1 Corinthians 6:2). The term ‘all nations,’ (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη,) it is said, is used in the same sense as the Hebrew ‘the nations, or Gentiles,’ as distinguished from God’s chosen people, and stands here in antithesis to the ‘brethren’ of Matthew 25:40, who had already received their reward as wise virgins and faithful servants. In support of this view the following arguments are advanced: 1. ‘Those only are said to be judged who have done it or not done it to my brethren; but of the brethren themselves being judged there is no mention.’ In this argument we can see no point. The love of the brethren is the mark by which, our Saviour says, all men shall know that ye are my disciples2. ‘ The verdict turns upon works, and not upon faith.’ Surely this will be the case with every believer or Christian, when he is brought before the judgment-seat of Christ, whether at the beginning or close of the millennium, in so far as works are the fruit of faith, or true saving faith is only that which worketh by love ( Matthew 7:21; Romans 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Galatians 6:8), and in so far as our good works spring from sincerity of heart, to which the Lord looketh ( Acts 10:35). Moreover, unless the plan of salvation is entirely changed in the millennial state—which, if we mistake not, the premillennarians deny—the nations living during the millennium will be judged according to their works, no more and no less than those that lived before the millennium3. Another objection to the common view is stated by Alford thus: ‘The answer of the righteous appears to me to show plainly that they are not to be understood as being the covenanted servants of Christ. Such an answer it would be impossible for them to make, who had done all distinctly with reference to Christ, and for His sake, and with His declaration of Matthew 10:39-42, before them. Such a supposition would remove all reality, as, indeed, it has generally done, from our Lord’s description. See the remarkable difference in the answer of the faithful servant ( Matthew 20:22).’ The reply that the language in question is that of humility is said not to be satisfactory; but we know not why. Besides, the difficulty appears to us to be the same with regard to the people that have lived during the millennium. If they are to be saved, they also must have done their works for Christ’s sake, and, if Song of Solomon, they must have been conscious of it. We have given the grounds on which the premillennarian interpretation is based. In objection to it, it may further be urged that it is against common Scripture language to call any other than believers, the members of Christ’s mystical body, ‘sheep,’ or ‘righteous,’ or ‘the blessed of the Father, for whom the kingdom was prepared from the foundation of the world.’ With regard to the difficult question of our Lord’s second advent, Alford makes, at the close of his comments on the twenty-fifth chapter, a declaration breathing the docile spirit of the true Christian and of the thorough scholar. He says, (p. Matthew 238:) ‘ I think it proper to state, in this third edition, that having now entered upon the deeper study of the prophetic portions of the New Testament, I do not feel by any means that full confidence which I once did in the exegesis, quoad prophetical interpretation here given of the three portions of this chapter25. But I have no other system to substitute, and some of the points here dwelt on seem to me as weighty as ever. I very much question whether the thorough study of Scripture prophecy will not make me more and more distrustful of all human systematizing, and less willing to hazard strong assertion on any portion of the subject. July, 1855.’ ”—In the fourth edition Alford adds: “Endorsed, Oct1858.”—P. S.]

The representation of this judgment is not a parable or simile, as Olshausen thinks. It contains some of the elements of a parable; but really sets the judgment before us in its concrete form.



[ Matthew 25:31. Jerome remarks on the time of this discourse: “He who was within two days to celebrate the passover and to be crucified, fitly now sets forth the glory of His triumph.” This contrast deepens our view of the divine foresight and majesty of our Lord, and the sublimity of this description.—And all the [holy] angels with Him.—As witnesses and executive agents who take the deepest interest in man’s destiny and final salvation, comp. Hebrews 1:14; Matthew 13:40; Matthew 24:31; Luke 12:8. Bengel: Omnes angeli: omnes nationes: quanta celebritas! “The first-born of God, the morning stars of creation—beings that excel in strength, whose intelligence is immense, whose love for God and His universe glows with a quenchless ardor, and whose speed is as the lightning. Who can count their numbers? They are the bright stars that crowd in innumerable constellations every firmament that spans every globe and system throughout immensity.”—P. S.]

Then shall he sit.—Expression of finished victory.

Matthew 25:32. And before Him shall be gathered.—Intimating a perfect voluntary or involuntary acknowledgment and submission; comp. Philippians 2:10.

And He shall divide them.—This is not merely the beginning, but the fundamental outline of all that follows.—As the shepherd divideth.—He was Himself the Shepherd, also, of the goats,—the Shepherd of all mankind. Hence He knows how to distinguish them perfectly, as they are perfected in good or evil.—The sheep from the goats.—Properly: the lambs from the Hebrews -goats, ἔριφοι. Goats and sheep are represented as pasturing together (comp. Genesis 30:33). They were classed together under the name of small cattle. The wicked are here exhibited under the figure of goats. Why? Grotius: “on account of their wantonness and stench.” De Wette says (referring to Ezekiel 34:17, where, however, it is otherwise): “The goats ( Hebrews -goats) are of less value to the shepherd; they are wilder, and less easily led.” Meyer: “Because the value of these animals was held to be less ( Luke 15:29); hence also, in Matthew 25:33, the disparaging diminutive τὰ ερίφια.”[FN54] But the main point of distinction is the gentleness and tractableness of the sheep, which points to a nobler nature; and the wild stubbornness of the goats, exhibiting an inferior, egotistical nature.[FN55]

Matthew 25:33. On his right hand.—The side of preference and success.—On the left.—The opposite. On the omens of the right and left, see Schöttgen and Wetstein; comp. Virg. Æn. vi:542 sqq.

Matthew 25:34. The King.—Not parabolical, as Olshausen thinks; but Christ in His advent comes forward with all His real kingly dignity.

Ye blessed of My Father.—They are the really blessed, as the regenerate, penetrated and renewed with the Spirit, life, and blessing of the Father, Ephesians 1:3.

Inherit the kingdom.See Romans 8.—Prepared from the foundation of the world.—De Wette finds here the idea of predestination, Romans 8:28. But what is here spoken of is the eternal foundation of the kingdom for the subjects of the King. There is no contradiction to John 14:2. For here the calling and foundation is referred to; there, the actual building up of the heavenly community.[FN56]

Matthew 25:35. Ye took Me in, συνηγάγετέ με.—Meyer: As members of My household. Deuteronomy 22:2 : συνάξεις αὐτὸν έ̔νδον εις τὴν οἰκίαν. Oriental hospitality was an essential form of love to our neighbor. See, in Wetstein and Schöttgen, the rabbinical sayings concerning the promise of paradise to the hospitable.

[ Matthew 25:35-36. Heubner: “The acts of love here named are not such as require merely an outlay of money, but such as involve also the sacrifice of time, strength, rest, comfort,” etc. On the other hand, Webster and Wilkinson justly observe on Matthew 25:36, that the assistance to the sick and prisoners here is not healing and release, which only few could render, but visitation, sympathy, attention, which all can bestow. But whatever good they did, was done in faith and in humility, and consequently the product of divine grace. For charity is the daughter of faith, and faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who unites us to Christ.—P. S.]



Matthew 25:37. Lord, when saw we Thee?—De Wette: “The language of modesty.” Olshausen: “The language of unconscious humility.” Meyer: “Actual declining of what was imputed, since they had never done to Christ Himself these services of love. The explanation is given in Matthew 25:40.” Certainly, they have not yet any clear notion of the ideal Christ of the whole world. But this is connected with their humility; and it must not be lost sight of, since the opposite characteristic among the reprobate is exhibited as self-righteousness. [Origen: “It is from humility that they declare themselves unworthy of any praise for their good deeds, not that they are forgetful of what they have done.”]

Matthew 25:40. To one of the least of these My brethren.—Not the apostles alone, but Christians generally, and pre-eminently the least of them. They are the least, the poorest, the last, in whom the divine life, which the Lord here recognises as brotherly love, is awakened.

[Stier, confining this judgment to the heathen, infers from this description that “a dogmatically developed faith in the Lord is not required of all men,” and condemns “all narrow dogmatism that would set limits to God’s infinite love.” Alford, taking a similar view of this section, remarks: “The sublimity of this description surpasses all imagination—Christ, as the Son of Prayer of Manasseh, the Shepherd, the King, the Judge—as the centre and end of all human love, bringing out and rewarding His latent grace in those who have lived in love—everlastingly punishing those who have quenched it in an unloving and selfish life—and in the accomplishment of His mediatorial office, causing even from out of the iniquities of a rebellious world His sovereign mercy to rejoice against judgment.” But we must not weaken the fundamental principle: out of Christ there is no pardon and no salvation. Every consideration of God’s justice and mercy, and every impulse of Christian charity leads us to the hope that those will be ultimately saved, who without knowing Christ in this life have unconsciously longed after Him as the desire of all nations and of every human soul, but it can only be through an act of faith in Christ, whenever He shall be revealed to them, though it be only on the judgment day. We cannot admit different terms of salvation.—P. S.]



Matthew 25:41. Ye cursed.—Through their own fault penetrated by the curse of God. The appended “of My Father” is not now found here as in Matthew 25:34. And so also, “from the beginning of the world” is not added to “prepared” here. Nor is it said, “prepared for you,” but, “for the devil.”[FN57] The great judgment of fire is prepared for the devil, as a punishment for devilish guilt. Thus, these are here represented as having plunged themselves into the abyss of demoniac reprobation. The Rabbins disputed whether Gehenna was prepared before or after the first day of creation. According to the gospel, it will not be finished and made effective till the final judgment of the world (see Revelation 20:10). The scholastic theology of the middle ages,[FN58] instead of making it a final period, as in the gospel, gradually dated it back to the beginning, as the Rabbins.

[ Matthew 25:42-43. Only sins of omission are mentioned here; showing that the absence of good works, the destitution of love, or the dominion of selfishness, disqualifies man for blessedness, and is sufficient, even without positive crimes, to exclude him from heaven.—P. S.]



Matthew 25:44. And did not minister unto Thee?—As if they would always have been ready to serve Him. But there is nothing of the spirit of love in their assumed readiness; only in the spirit of servitude they would have waited on Him had they seen Him. The ignorance of the blessed was connected with), their humility, as a holy impossibility of knowing; the ignorance of the cursed was of another kind, and closely connected with self-righteousness.[FN59]

Matthew 25:46. Into everlasting punishment.—Comp. Daniel 12:2 (εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον ... εἰς αὶσχύνην αιἰώνιον). Meyer finds the absolute idea of eternity in endlessness, and thinks even that ζωὴαἰώνιος describes an endless Messianic life. But in this last idea the intensive boundlessness of life is expressed (an abstract endless life might be also merely an endless existence in torment); and, therefore, the predominant notion of the opposite is an intensive one, too. We say only, the “predominant” one. For here also, as in the doctrine of the parousia of Christ, we must distinguish between religious and chronological notions and calculations.[FN60]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The section is a parabolical discourse[FN61] concerning the general judgment of the human race. Hence the essential ideas and the symbolical features are to be distinguished.



The following are the prominent dogmatic points:—(1) Christ is the Judge of the world; compare Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31; the Symb. Apost. (2) The judgment shall be exercised by Him upon all mankind: all nations shall appear before the throne—not merely those existing at the end of the world, but all generations. Therefore the general resurrection is included, so that all nations may be assembled. (3) The standard of judgment will be the question, how they reputed and dealt with Christ in the world; how they regulated their conduct toward Him in His own person, and in His unseen life in humanity as the Logos; how, therefore, they honored or dishonored the Divine in themselves and in their fellow-men; how they showed christological piety in christological humanity; or how, in short, they behaved toward Christ in the widest sense of the word. (4) The demand of the judgment will be the fruit of faith in Christians love of men, or human love of Christ. Thus not merely, (a) doctrinal faith; or (b) external works without a root of faith—of actual trust in Christ, or love for the divine in humanity (done it unto Me, done it not unto Me); (c) nor merely individual evidences of good; but decided goodness in its maturity and consistency, as it acknowledged Christ or felt after Him, in all His concealments, with longing anticipations. (5) The specific form of the requirement will be the requirement of the fruit of mercy and compassion; for the foundation of redemption is grace, and faith in redeeming grace must ripen into the fruits of compassion: see this in the Lord’s Prayer. Sanctified mercy, however, is only a concrete expression for perfected holiness generally, or the sanctification of Christ in the life; see Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15; Revelation 22:6. (6) The finished fruit of faith and disposition is identical with the man himself, ripe for judgment. (7) The judgment appears to be already internally decided by the relation which men have assumed toward Christ, or the character which they have borne; but it is published openly by the separation of those who are unlike, and the gathering together of all who are like; it is continued in the sentence which illustrates the judgment by words, and confirms it by the extorted confession of conscience; it is consummated by the fact of the one company inheriting the kingdom, and the other departing to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (8) This perfected separation implies also the total change of the earth: on the one side, the view opens upon the finished kingdom of God; on the other, the view opens upon hell, now unsealed for the lost. (9) The time of the judgment is the final and critical period in which all preparatory judgments are consummated: (a) the judgments of human history in this world; (b) the judgments in Hades in the other world (see Luke 16:19); (c) the great judgments which will begin at the manifestation of Christ (see chs 24,25; Revelation 20:1 sqq.). The more precise description of the form of this crisis is found in Revelation 20:7-15.

As symbolical features of the scene, we may notice prominently:—(1) The enthronization of the Son of Man upon the judgment-seat: a figure of His perfected victorious glory ( 1 Corinthians 15:25). (2) The administration of Christ in the form of the separating shepherd: for He is still a shepherd; and one great reason of the judgment is the perfecting of the redemption of the good, the revelation of the kingdom ( Revelation 21). (3) The sheep and the goats, with their separation, expressing the nature of their respective characters, as now perfectly stamped upon them in the resurrection. (4) The placing on the right hand and on the left; all the ideal characteristics of the judged being exhibited as personal relationship to Christ, and the whole sequel of the judgment being thus presented in one anticipatory act of decisive division. (5) The colloquy of the Judge and the judged: a disclosure of humility, on which the piety of the pious rests; and of pride, on which the reprobation of the wicked rests; and, at the same time, a clear exhibition of the oft-repeated truth, that men will judge themselves by their own words.

2. The historical judgment of Christ will be the simple, though solemn revelation[FN62] of that spiritual judgment which, as to its beginning, is already decided in difference of character. It is the last quiet perfecting of a state already ripe and over-ripe. The blessed of the Father are already filled with blessing; and the kingdom, the foundation of which was laid before the foundation of the world, is already in full glory, finding now in the glorification of the world, of the heaven and the earth, its new form. The accursed are also, on their part, penetrated by the curse; and the hell to which they go is the kingdom of darkness in its consummation, separated from the kingdom of light and consigned to its proper place. “From the fall of Satan downward the eternal fire began to work on him and his; and, in connection with this development, there is going on in humanity also a great spiritual torment, a great fellowship in his destruction.”

3. “The coming of Christ would not be historically that which it was to be, if it were not at the same time spiritual; it would not be spiritually that which it was to be, if it were not historical also.”

4. Concerning the succession of the æons or epochs of which Revelation 14:11; Matthew 19:3; Matthew 21; Matthew 22; and 1 Corinthians 15:26-28, speak, nothing more is here said. But in the ζωὴ αιώνιος unlimited intensity is the first point, unlimited extension the second (for an endless existence is also imaginable as endlessly tormentel), and hence the opposite conception also must be understood in the religious and dynamic sense.

5. Otto von Gerlach: “The circumstance that the righteous also stand before the Judges, while the contrary seems to be stated in John 5:24; 1 Corinthians 6:2, is no serious difficulty. For, every one must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ( 2 Corinthians 5:10; comp. John 3:15); although the Christian knows full well that he will be no more hurt by the last judgment than he was by those earlier judgments which fell upon him in common with the wicked.” We must carefully distinguish therefore between judgment to condemnation and judgment generally. The manifestation of the good will be the concrete judgment of the ungodly.

6. Prepared for you.—Gerlach: “From the foundation of the world: this shows that the reward in the future life will be a reward of grace. The for which follows states the ground of vocation to blessedness only so far as the works which the Lord mentions bear witness to the existence of faith.” It should be said rather, “bear witness to His life in believers;” for the final judgment will be not merely the confirmation of justification, but its perfected development in life.

7. “Christ manifestly assumes the personal existence of the devil, when he says that wicked men will suffer the same doom with him.” Heubner.

8. “The great facts of the divine retribution, says Morison, the eternal bliss of the righteous, the eternal woe of the wicked, are indisputable, and the images of uplifting or appalling grandeur in which they are enveloped cannot act too powerfully on the heart of man. But the particulars, the blissful or terrible details, are wisely withheld from our mind, which in its present state of knowledge could not comprehend them, and would only be confounded or misled by any description of them in human language.”—P. S.]

9. There is an eternal election to life, but no eternal foreordination to perdition (except as a secondary or conditional and prospective decree); there is a book of life, but no book of death. But “they who will serve the devil must share with him in the end.”—P. S.]



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