Not long ago I had believed Matthew 25:31-46 depicted a time when Jesus would judge the whole world, i.e. every man and woman who ever lived. The problem with this understanding is, it removes it from the context of the rest of the Olivet Discourse. The Olivet Discourse concerns events that would transpire in the Apostles’ expected lifetimes. Remember, the Apostles were troubled over Jesus’ prediction that the Temple would be destroyed (Matthew 23:37-39; 24:1-2). Therefore, later, four of them approached Jesus privately and asked: when these things would take place, and what would be the sign of his coming and the end of the age (Matthew 24:3). For Jesus at this point to then speak of universal judgment, i.e. every man and woman who ever lived, snatches this parable out of the context of the first century AD.
I have been demonstrating that all the events mentioned in the Olivet Discourse referred to matters that occurred in the first century and culminated in Jesus judgment of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. If Matthew 25:31-46 cannot point to that event, then, however well my argument may have been presented for things prior to verse-31 and following, it must be rejected, because my interpretation depends upon the Olivet Discourse being a single united prophecy.
Matthew 24:30-31 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (31) And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Here we have Jesus coming in glory (verse-30), with his angels (verse-31), judgment is implied in that the tribes (of Israel) mourn, and the elect are gathered together. The fact that this occurs at the sound of the trumpet also indicates resurrection (see 1Corinthians 15:52; 1Thessalonians 4:16), which, once again, places the context at the time when the books are opened and the living and the dead are judge out of them (cf. Revelation 20:11-15). Notice, as well, that at this time Jesus sits on his throne (Revelation 20:11), which answers to Jesus sitting on the throne of his glory in Matthew 25:31. All these things I have demonstrated in previous studies concerned Jesus’ coming and his judgment upon Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.
Finally, we could consider once again Jesus’ statement to his Apostles and the crowds with them in Matthew 16. There, Jesus spoke of his suffering and death (Matthew 16:21), and anyone who followed him wouldn’t be treated differently by the authorities of that age (Matthew 16:24-26). Yet, Jesus promised there would come a day of reckoning, a day of judgment of the wicked, and a day of vindication for the righteous. Notice how what Jesus claimed in Matthew 16:27-28 can be compared with what he said in Matthew 25:31:
| Matthew 16:27-28 | Matthew 25:31f |
| Coming of the Son of Man (v. 27-28) | Coming of the Son of Man (v. 31) |
| Coming in Glory (v. 27) | Coming in Glory (v. 31) |
| With the angels (v. 27) | With the angels (v. 31) |
| Coming in judgment / reward (v. 27) | Judgment / reward (v. 32-46) |
| Coming in the Kingdom (v. 28) | Then shall he sit on the throne (v. 31) |
| There are some standing here that shall not taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom (v.28) |
Therefore, there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for removing Matthew 25:31 and following from the context of the rest of the Olivet Discourse. It remains a single, united prophecy about Jesus’ judgment upon Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. At that time and from thenceforth, the nations (Matthew 25:32) would be judged by Jesus for how they received (or rejected) the Gospel.
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10 responses to “Judgment of the Nations”
You are right that Matthew 24-25 is one seamless unit. But I don’t think AD 70 can bear the weight of Jesus’ language in the parable of the sheep and the goats. The ‘nations’ are to be judged based upon how they treated Christ’s missionary brothers. This looks toward not a destruction of Jerusalem but an end of pagan rule over the Roman empire. This seems to me where the kingdom of God and coming of the Son of Man imagery lands—on the collapse and conversion of the Greco-Roman world.
Greetings Alex, and thank you for taking the time to comment to my study on the Judgment of the Nations.
AD 70 can’t bear the weight of **modern interpretation** of what Jesus said in the Olivet Prophecy, **but** Jesus tells us in that prophecy that “this generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.” If this is true, then we need to honor Jesus’ words by interpreting the Olivet prophecy, not according to our imagination, but according to Scripture. Indeed, 70 AD cannot beart the weight of **our imagination** but it can bear the weight of Scripture.
The nations are judged, not according to how they treated the Lord’s representatives, but according to how humanely they treated their fellow citizens. In Matthew 25 no one knows the Lord, but the Lord identifies with the powerless and judges the powerful accordingly.
Only Jerusalem was judged according to how they treated the Lord and those whom he sent to them. We see this in Matthew 23:29-38. In verse 36 Jesus said all that judgment would occur on his generation–the generation of Jews that rejected him and killed his apostles. In verse 37 he names Jerusalem as the killer of the prophets and those sent to them by God. Where does Jesus or any of the writers of the New Covenant Scriptures say that Jesus said anything like this to the Greco-Roman world?
Hi Eddie,
As usual, I am sitting in the middle between both positions here. It’s not a choice between EITHER the Jewish nation OR the Gentile nations – it’s a “both / and” interpretation of the judgment of the nations.
About this judgment, you asked Alex, “Where does Jesus or any of the writers of New Covenant Scriptures say that Jesus said anything like this to the Greco-Roman world?” Well, we have both Peter and Paul mentioning a judgment that all the nations of the world would share in AD 70, as well as Jesus in this Matthew 25 context. The bewilderment of both the righteous and the unrighteous at not knowing how their actions in this life could have been done for or against Christ Jesus shows us that these were individuals from the centuries SINCE CREATION that had never even heard of Christ’s name. They are judged, not on their *head knowledge* of Christ, (since the vast majority of them lived and died long before Christ was born). Instead, they were judged on their hearts, and the actions that proceeded from what was in their hearts. Those actions revealed who they truly belonged to – the sheep family, or the goat family.
The 70 AD resurrection was a judgment shared by all nations who had lived even before the Old Covenant was made with Israel, as well as those of Israel who had lived under the Old Covenant, during Christ’s ministry, and afterwards until the AD 70 resurrection. AD 70 was the resurrection judgment of the “past AGES” (plural) up until then. Colossians 1:26 is one text that proves there are more ages prior to the single OC Age connected to Israel.
Paul’s message in Acts 17:22-31 to those on Mars Hill in Athens was most urgent. “And the times of this ignorance” (of Gentile nations worshipping idols) “God winked at; but NOW commandeth ALL MEN EVERYWHERE TO REPENT: Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge” (“is ABOUT TO JUDGE”) “the WORLD in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto ALL MEN in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
This was a warning of the soon-approaching AD 70 resurrection, in which those Athenians who died before then would face that same Christ in a resurrection judgment. The dead from the Gentile nations were most certainly going to participate in that AD 70 resurrection judgment, or Paul would not have been giving these Athenians a warning.
Peter also included all groups in this resurrection judgment in I Peter 4 and 5. After telling these “elect sojourners scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (I Pet. 1:1) that “the end of all things is AT HAND” (I Pet. 4:7), he then told these believers that “…the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it FIRST begin WITH US” (God would bring persecution to perfect and refine His believing saints before His AD 70 coming), “what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved” (because deception was rampant in those last days, even among the churches), where shall THE UNGODLY” (the disobedient Jews who rejected Christ) “and THE SINNER appear?” (the Gentile sinners of the nations who had not repented before their death prior to AD 70’s resurrection. The word “sinner” was a title usually applied by the Jews to anyone living in the pagan Gentile nations, as Galatians 2:15 shows us.)
Peter included the dead from all of these groups: of the believers, the “ungodly” Jews, and the Gentile “sinners”, who would all face the returning Christ in the AD 70 resurrection judgment of the sheep and the goats “when the chief Shepherd shall appear”. (I Peter 5:4). This glory of the “shief Shepherd’s” appearing was a “glory that is ABOUT TO BE REVEALED” in Peer’s time, as he stated in I Peter 5:1.
Jerusalem and the disobedient Jews in Israel who rejected their Messiah and persecuted God’s prophets throughout history would indeed reap the greater share of judgment in the “Great Tribulation” of AD 66-70. (After all, “To whom much is given, much shall be required”, yes?) However, that doesn’t exclude other areas of the Gentile nations where the Jews had migrated and were living. Synagogues of the Jews were in almost every nation of the known world in those days, which would necessitate a judgment falling on those vicinities as well, in whatever nation the Jews had established a community.
continued from above…
Even Jesus on trial before Pilate told him that the Jews who had delivered Him unto Pilate had “the GREATER SIN” (John 19:11). By comparison, Pilate and the Roman soldiers who carried out the Jewish leadership’s malevolent plans to crucify Christ had LESS sin accounted to them, but they weren’t completely off the hook of culpability in this affair. Some of that “Great Tribulation” period’s tumultuous conditions did spill over onto the Roman world. Wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, all of these in DIVERS PLACES from Matthew 24:6-14 were also experienced by the Gentile nations of the Roman world during those years of upheaval before AD 70 – though not as drastic as the conditions that Israel, Jerusalem, and the Jewish nation experienced under God’s days of vengeance poured out upon them.
God intended the gospel to be preached in “ALL the habitable earth” for a witness to ALL nations before the end came (Matt. 24:14), which WAS done by the end of the OC Age in AD 70, as testified by Paul in Colossians 1:6 and 23, and other scriptures. That evangelistic coverage of ALL the nations was needed because ALL the dead from the entire habitable earth were going to face a resurrection judgment in AD 70. Speaking about the Gentiles in Colossians 1:27-28, this is why Paul said he was “warning EVERY man, and teaching EVERY man in all wisdom; that we may present EVERY man perfect in Christ Jesus.” This was more than just a matter of Jewish concern.
And none of this above eliminates the reality of Christ’s THIRD coming in our future, for a resurrection judgment which will come at the end of the New Covenant Age for all who have lived and died since the AD 70 resurrection. The Great White Throne judgment is not a single, one-time-only event.
My issue is with the idea that in AD 70 God somehow judged “the nations” (Matthew 25:32). Surely Israel was judged then, but not “the nations.” A judgement on the nations would mean the collapse of the whole pagan imperial system (just as judgement on Israel meant the collapse of the whole Second Temple system)—which did occur through the testimony of the church. But admittedly this did not happen within the generation.
The nations in the sheep and the goats are judged based on how they treated “the brothers of the king,” that is, brothers of Christ. The only people who are siblings of Christ are believers.