The Judgment of the Nations in Matt. 25:31-46

     One verse which is often brought up as a prooftext against universalism is Matthew 25:46, which states that “these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal” (KJV). Doesn’t this demonstrate that unbelievers will be tormented eternally in hell? And if ‘eternal life’ is truly everlasting, then doesn’t that mean that the punishment of unbelievers must also be everlasting, because they are contrasted in this way?

    This post will exegete this verse in the larger context of Matthew 25:31-46 to demonstrate that, even ignoring the debate over whether αιωνιος means ‘everlasting’ or merely ‘age-lasting’, the judgment spoken of in this passage cannot be describing the condemnation of all unbelievers to the Lake of Fire. As with all other judgment passages, the timing of this judgment will be examined first, followed by the recipients of the judgment, and concluding with the consequences of the judgment.

    Matthew 25:31-46

“Now when the Son of Man may come in his glory, and all the messengers with him, then he will sit on [the] throne of his glory. And all the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the kids. And he will indeed set the sheep on his right hand, and the kids on [the] left. Then the King will say to the [ones] on his right hand, ‘Come, those blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from [the] foundation of [the] world. For I hungered, and you gave to me to eat; I thirsted, and you gave to me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.’

“Then the righteous will answer to him, saying, ‘Lord, when [did] we see you hungering, and fed [you]? Or thirsting, and gave drink? Now when [did] we see you a stranger, and took [you] in? Or naked, and clothed [you]? Now when [did] we see you sick or in prison, and came to you?’

“And answering, the King will say to them, ‘Verily I say to you, inasmuch as you did [it] to one of these - my brethren, the least - you did [it] to me.’ Then he will say to the [ones] on [the] left, ‘Go from me, those cursed, to the age-during fire prepared for the Adversary and his messengers. For I hungered, and you gave nothing to me to eat; I thirsted, and you gave no drink to me; I was a stranger, and you did not take me in; naked, and you did not clothe me; sick and in prison, and you did not come to me.’

“And then [they] themselves will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when [did] we see you hungering, or thirsting, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve you?’

“Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Verily I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do [it] to one of these - the least - neither did you do [it] to me.’ And these will go away into age-during punishment, but the righteous into age-during life.”

    The Timing of the Judgment

This judgment is almost always associated with the Great White Throne judgment by infernalists and other non-universalists, because they believe that the judgment in Matt. 25:31-46 is the initiation of the final, everlasting punishment of unbelievers (whatever that may be). However, this goes against the explicit statement of Jesus that this judgment will occur “whenever the Son of Man may come in his glory”, that is, at the second coming of Christ. The context confirms this timing, as the three preceding parables also deal with judgment at the second coming of Christ (Matt. 24:45 - 25:30). His second coming will be just over a thousand years prior to the Great White Throne judgment (Rev. 20:5), which precludes the idea that this refers to the final judgment of unbelievers.

    Although premillennialists (or ‘chiliasts’) will agree that these events are just over a thousand years apart, amillennialists and postmillennialists argue that the second coming of Christ and the final judgment actually occur at the same time. This is clearly false, as a harmonization of scripture demonstrates: according to 1 Cor. 15:50-54 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18, the resurrection of believers will occur at the second coming of Christ, and yet 1 Cor. 15:23-24 and Rev. 20:5 state that there will be an intervening period between the resurrection of believers and the resurrection of unbelievers (regardless of whether the thousand years should be allegorized, there must be a gap of some length).

    Amillennialists argue against this by saying that the resurrection of believers in Rev. 20:5 refers to their ‘spiritual resurrection’, which occurs at their conversion prior to Christ’s second coming. Even ignoring the fact that a ‘spiritual resurrection’ is never spoken of in scripture in those terms, we are told explicitly that the saints will reign on the earth in Israel following their resurrection (Matt. 5:5; 19:28 cf. Rev. 20:4; Rev. 5:10), which obviously does not occur following the ‘spiritual resurrection’ or conversion of believers. Therefore, there can be no doubt that there will be a gap between the second coming of Christ and the Great White Throne judgment, most likely of a literal thousand years, and so the judgment in Matt. 25:31-46 cannot be the final judgment of unbelievers.

    The Recipients of the Judgment

Non-universalists believe that this judgment is a judging of individuals, by which every individual unbeliever will be condemned and every individual believer rewarded based on whether they had a saving faith. This ignores the fact that there is never a judgment spoken of in scripture that includes both believers and unbelievers; there is the tribunal seat of Christ at which believers will be judged for their good and evil works (2 Cor. 5:10) and the Great White Throne judgment at which unbelievers will be judged for their good and evil works (Rev. 20:11-15), but no judgment of both believers and unbelievers based on their faith.

    Instead, this judgment is explicitly said in this passage to be a judgment of “all the nations“ (regardless of whether each nation will be judged separately or whether it is a judgment on individuals from all the nations, this implies that it is only Gentiles who are being judged and not Israelites), and they are not judged on their faith, but rather on how they behaved toward “the least of [Jesus’] brethren”. The meaning of this can only be determined by looking at Joel 3:1-3, a passage which describes the same judgment of nations as Matt. 25:31-46:

For behold, in those days and at that time [the coming of Messiah and restoration of Israel], when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people, my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; they have also divided up my land. They have cast lots for my people, have given a boy as payment for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink. (Joel 3:1-3 NKJV)

This will be a judgment of the Gentile nations who have survived the battle of Armageddon, and they will be judged based on their treatment of the Israelite people who are “[Jesus’] brethren”. The ‘sheep’ are not believers, but are actually unbelievers, as they are clearly separate from the group called “[Jesus’] brethren” (a term describing Israelite believers, see Matt. 12:49-50). In fact, we know from elsewhere in scripture that there will be Gentile unbelievers who survive the battle and are allowed to live on earth during Jesus’ Messianic kingdom, as we are told in Zechariah 14:16 that “everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, YHWH of hosts”.

    Therefore, the subjects of the judgment in Matt. 25:31-46 are not every single individual believer and unbeliever; rather, they are very specifically the Gentile unbelievers who survived the battle of Armageddon. The ‘sheep’ are the Gentiles who helped the believing Israelites, Jesus’ brethren, when they were afflicted during the tribulation, whereas the ‘goats’ are the Gentiles who aided in the persecution of Israel. However, both the passage itself and the Old Testament context demonstrate that the judgment in view is not one of every individual, nor of both believers and unbelievers.

    The Consequences of the Judgment

The common interpretation of this passage is that the ‘goats’ are sent into the Lake of Fire at Jesus’ command to be tormented eternally, whereas the ‘sheep’ enter the New Heaven and Earth to enjoy everlasting life. However, as noted already, the punishment for the goats cannot be the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20, because this judgment will take place over a thousand years prior to the Great White Throne judgment. What, then, is the punishment of the goats and the reward of the sheep? Again, we need to take a look back at the prophecy in Joel 3 which refers to the same judgment:

Because you have taken My silver and My gold, and have carried into your temples My prized possessions. Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem you have sold to the Greeks, that you may remove them far from your borders. Behold, I will raise them out of the place to which you have sold them, and will return your retaliation upon your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a people afar off; for YHWH has spoken. (Joel 3:5-8 NKJV)

The punishment upon the ‘goats’, the Gentile unbelievers who persecuted Israel, is to send them far outside of Christ’s Messianic kingdom and treat them as slaves - certainly not to burn eternally in fire. This point cannot be stressed enough: the punishment of the ‘goats’ has nothing to do with literal burning in fire. As Joel goes on to say, “Egypt shall be a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah” (3:19 NKJV). This is elaborated upon in a prophecy of Zechariah:

And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, YHWH of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, YHWH of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles (Zech. 14:17-19 NKJV)

Notice that the recipients of this punishment are the same as in Matt. 25:31-46 and Joel 3, the remaining Gentile unbelievers who came up against Jerusalem. And yet their punishment is not to burn in fire, but to be the slaves of Christ and the Israelites in nations outside of the Messianic kingdom, forced to keep obedience in all things or risk retribution. This punishment is only called “age-during fire” in Matt. 25:41 as a figure of speech, since ‘fire’ is often used in scripture figuratively to describe trials and afflictions (Deut. 4:20; Isa. 48:10; Ezek. 22:20; 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:12). It is not the fire itself which has been “prepared for the Adversary and his messengers”, but the unbelieving nations themselves, who will at the end of the Messianic kingdom be deceived by Satan into going to battle against Israel (Rev. 20:7-9).

    Likewise, the reward of the ‘sheep’ is not to go into the New Heaven and Earth everlastingly, as this judgment takes place over a thousand years before the creation of the New Heaven and Earth. Instead, as Jesus says, their reward is to “inherit the kingdom prepared for you”, that is, the Messianic kingdom in Israel (Acts 1:3-7). Within Ezekiel 47:13 - 48:29, a prophecy outlining the boundaries of the Messianic kingdom in detail, we are told that

“It shall be that you will divide it [the kingdom] by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance,” says the Lord God. (47:22-23 NKJV)

Thus, there will be some Gentile unbelievers who will be allowed to live in the Messianic kingdom and treated as equals with the other Israelites, and this is almost certainly what Jesus had in mind when saying that the ‘sheep’ would go into the kingdom. (Also, note that in both Matt. 25:34 and Ezek. 47:23, the foreigner not only is allowed to own their own land, but actually inherits their land in the kingdom.) These ‘sheep’ will be given “age-during life” (more often translated ‘eternal life’), which simply means that they will receive benefits in the coming Messianic age (Mk. 10:29-31; Lk. 18:29-30).

    Therefore, the consequence of the judgment of nations in Matt. 25:31-46 will have nothing to do with the Lake of Fire, as an examination of the Old Testament context shows, and everything to do with where one is allowed to live during the coming Messianic age. The ‘goats’, unbelieving Gentiles who persecuted the Israelites during the tribulation, will be forced to live outside of the kingdom in Israel and treated as slaves, forced to obey or suffer retribution. In contrast, the ‘sheep’, unbelieving Gentiles who aided the Israelites during their time of trouble, will be given an inheritance within the kingdom itself and receive the benefits of “age-during life”.

    Conclusion

The judgment of the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’ in Matthew 25:41 and 25:46 is often used as a prooftext against universalism, as it describes the condemnation of the ‘goats’ as “αιωνιον fire” and “αιωνιον punishment” (αιωνιος typically being translated as ‘everlasting’). However, a close examination of the New and Old Testament contexts of this passage demonstrates that this judgment (1) takes place at the second coming of Jesus Christ, over a thousand years before the final judgment of unbelievers, (2) is not a judgment of every individual believer and unbelievers, but instead of the unbelieving Gentiles who survived the battle of Armageddon (the ‘sheep’ being those who aided the Israelites and the ‘goats’ those who persecuted them), and that (3) the sentence of the ‘goats’ has nothing to do with the Lake of Fire, but instead they will be forced to live outside of the Messianic kingdom in Israel and be treated as slaves. Therefore, there is no challenge to the doctrine of universal salvation in this passage.