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”
Greetings Alex and thank you for your comment.
According to Revelation 11:15-19, at the sound of the seventh trumpet, the Lord Jesus reigns over the nations. The nations became angry over this fact, but, according to the Scriptures the time of the Lord’s judging them had come! The question is: do we still look for this to occur or did it occur already with the Lord’s judgment of the Jews in 70 AD?
Moreover, how long would the judgment of the nations take? Jerusalem took roughly 4 to 6 years, depending upon whether you believe the destruction of the nation came with the capture of Jerusalem (70 AD) or Masada (72 AD). How long would it take to judge the nations, and by whom would that judgment be carried out? The Lord judged Jerusalem with Rome and her allies. Centuries before Christ, the Lord judged the nations by empowering the Jewish nation to either defeat other nations or shame their armies. Later, as Israel became corrupt the Lord used corrupt kings from the nations to judge and destroy different nations and kingdoms, Jewish or gentile. How, then, would the Lord judge the nations today, or more precisely, once Jerusalem was taken out of the way (cir. 70 AD)?
According to the Scriptures, we are the ones (Gospel preaching believers) who have been empowered to tear down strongholds, but those strongholds are that of the mind (1Corinthians 10:3-6). We destroy the enemies of God by making them children of God. The judgment of the nations, indeed, has come and continues to this day, and that judgment is administered by God through us (believers). If you can’t agree with this, then how are the nations judged, and who does the Lord use to do that work? He has always used someone to do that service, and only rarely used angels or fire falling from heaven and the like. Who does Christ use today to judge the world?
Lord bless you, Alex, as you consider these things.
Greetings Patricia, thank you for reading and for your comment, but I’m uncertain about what point you are making. I see you have a continuation, so I’ll reserve my commentary and reply to both this and your next reply after reading your second comment.
Greetings once again, Patricia.
I’m still wondering why you spent so much of your comment to conclude the gentiles were also judged in 70 AD. We have no disagreement here. On the other hand, perhaps it is that I questioned Alex about when a future judgment of the nations would be. I believe you know that I don’t look for such an event in our future, so my question for Alex was in hope he would also see there is none (perhaps I did that poorly, don’t know). There was an **end** of the Jewish nation in 70 AD, but there was not an **end** for the nations of this world. Why? Does this mean they weren’t judged? Of course not. We both agree the gentiles were also judged. In fact, everyone who had ever lived, prior to 70 AD came before the judgment seat of Christ.
Now in your final paragraph I can see you are putting forth (what I consider to be) the real reason for your comment, namely, the 3 resurrections (your doctrine), which I assume require 3 judgments. Is that true? My question for you, then, would be the same that I put to Alex: through whom would a future judgment of the gentiles come? Jesus judged the Jews in 70 AD through Rome and her allies. Through whom would he judge the nations? I conclude Jesus uses believers to judge them—you know, tear down every stronghold and bring every heart to him. Our weapons, of course, are not physical ones like the nations use. Rather, our weapons are spiritual, because the Lord is overcoming the hearts of his enemies and adopting them into his family.
Lord bless you, Patricia, and thanks again for reading my studies.
Hi Eddie,
Sorry for the hitch in the post above – I must have accidentally hit “post” before I finished the comment. You asked if the three resurrections that I claim for my doctrine requires three judgments. Yes.
The first resurrection judgment was written about in Daniel 7:10, when “the books were opened”. This was for the AD 33 “First Resurrection”, (as Rev. 20:5-6 calls it). It was a saints-only resurrection, with the “First-fruits” raised along with Christ. Christ was given a SINGLE kingdom then (Dan. 7:14), with ONE crown only, which pictured His permanent high priesthood as the Son of Man (Rev. 14:14). It would not be until the end of the Old Covenant Age when Christ would finally be wearing “MANY crowns” after the next resurrection judgment (Rev. 11:15 cp Rev. 19:12). We don’t read of the Book of Life being opened in Daniel 7:10, because ALL of these raised to life again in AD 33 were in the Book of Life – no unrighteous ones were included at that time.
This “First Resurrection” included the number of 144,000 “First-fruits” saints who were given their glorified bodies then (the Matt. 27:52-53 saints, seen in Jerusalem), and these were told to “rest for a little season” (Rev. 6:11) by remaining on the earth until the AD 70 resurrection, in order to evangelize the nations and “edify the body of Christ” in the interim (Eph. 4:12).
The second time the books were opened for a resurrection judgment was at the end of the OC Age in AD 70. The “just and the unjust” stood before God then, as Paul said was ABOUT TO happen in Acts 24:15. This was the resurrection judgment predicted in Rev. 20:12; a little bit different than the Daniel 7:10 resurrection judgment, because this time “ANOTHER book was opened” – the Book of Life. Any of the dead NOT written in this book experienced a “resurrection to damnation” in the AD 70 Lake of Fire taking place in Jerusalem. This was when the city was experiencing its “second death” (compared to the first time it was burned down by the Babylonians in 586 BC).
All the rest of the souls of the righteous (besides the 144,000 First-fruits saints) were then given their own glorified bodies, changed into incorruptible ones, and together all of these were taken to heaven by Christ who had bodily-returned to the Mount of Olives location back then.
Where you and I part company, Eddie, as you have noted, is that I see scripture presenting a culmination point of human history in our future in a third resurrection (although NOT an end of the planet itself, which “abides forever”). God has been incrementally working toward a time when evil will be COMPLETELY eradicated from our universe. That is, no more “dogs, sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 22:15). During our current New Heaven / New Earth reality, these evil influences still exist outside the gates of the New Jerusalem that we are now inhabiting as believers, but one day these evil ones outside the gate will be no more.
God has already opened the books twice. He will yet open them a third time to judge those who have lived and died under the New Heaven / New Earth conditions of the New Covenant Age. Why should we not have our day of accounting and rewards, just as those in the past two resurrections had theirs? Why would God grant a physically-resurrected , glorified body to the “First-fruits” Matt. 27 saints, and neglect to give the same hoped-for reward to us in the family of God who will be the “Last-fruits”, so to speak? As “fellow-heirs” with Christ, we are all destined to inherit the same shared, glorified state that Christ is currently in, who calls Himself our brother.
In the meantime, the New Jerusalem’s Tree of Life is presently yielding fruit continually, and its leaves are continually available for the “healing of the nations”. One individual soul after another. The saints living in this city on earth currently have a “ministry of reconciliation” among the nations, as Paul called it, which I’m sure you agree with.
Eddie, you have asked, “…through whom would a future judgment of the Gentiles come?” Actually there really isn’t a Jew / Gentile classification system per se anymore; that system was outmoded and gotten rid of by the establishment of the New Covenant. As far as any present-day, temporal judgment of the nations is concerned, God still practices the raising up of one nation against another in judgment, to keep mankind’s evil in check, though apparently not in the same world-empire style as portrayed by Daniel’s image of the four world-wide kingdoms from antiquity. Plus, as you are emphasizing in your recent comments, the saints through Christ are exercising spiritual authority over the nations by the influence of the gospel.
For the issue Alex has raised – that somehow a judgment on “the nations” would have required a collapse of the pagan imperial system, I would say this. God did indeed bring a collapse within the pagan imperial system in AD 70; just not of the political variety that Alex is probably thinking of. What God did by crushing Daniel’s entire statue of the four kingdoms to dust, all at THE SAME TIME in AD 70, was to crush the demonic world to extinction that had been operating behind the scenes in every one of those four ancient kingdoms until then.
Christ once called Satan “the prince of this world”. He boasted to Christ in Luke 4:6 that the power of all the kingdoms of the world had been given to him (which was when Adam and Eve abdicated their dominion over the world by the Fall in the Garden of Eden). Some of Satan’s angels were originally members of God’s “divine council” who had fallen by accepting human worship. Their original mission of being the “Watchers” over the world’s affairs then became twisted into evil intentions against those nations instead.
This is why we have demonic princely powers opposing righteous angelic princes in Daniel 10. After AD 70, however, that entire “divine council” system was disbanded, and the entire demonic kingdom destroyed. The nations of the “world to come” after the AD 70 end of the OC Age would no longer be “subjected” to either the supervision of the good angels or to the deceptive intrusion of the evil angels. (Heb. 2:5 – “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.”)
The “collapse” Alex mentioned above on Mar. 8 wasn’t really a judgment on the POLITICAL systems of the nations in AD 70, but a judgment on all of the evil angelic SPIRITUAL powers, who had been corrupting those nations by deception until then.
Ever since AD 70, any present evil in the world now remains entirely the responsibility of the evil desires within the hearts of mankind alone; evil which will be finally judged at the third resurrection judgment in our future. “For we must ALL appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” (II Cor. 5:10). No exceptions. For believers with Christ’s imputed righteousness covering us on that day, this doesn’t have the same terrifying prospect for us that it will have for those with no such covering on that day.
Greetings Patricia, and thank you, once again, for your willingness to discuss these things on my website. Lord bless you.
I really wasn’t looking to debate the “three resurrections” (and judgments) with you. We discussed this before, and nothing resulted from that discussion. I mentioned them, because you seemed to be tying them into some “agreement” we have. I don’t mean to be unkind, Patricia, but I believe in only one resurrection from the dead and one judgment. The “first resurrection” as it is called in Scripture, is a spiritual one, whereby the saints have been “resurrected” out of their spiritual darkness (Ephesians 2:1-10). This resurrection has nothing to do with rising out of the graves, or the 144000 being given glorified bodies. You are reading your interpretation into the text.
Concerning Matthew 27:52-53, which you seem to interpret as the 144000 coming out of the graves with Jesus and remaining on earth until 70 AD, where does the text say anything like this? The 144,000 coming into Jerusalem and appearing to folks should have created quite a stir. To whom did they “appear”? Certainly, none of the disciples knew about them during the whole day of Jesus’ resurrection. As far as they were concerned, even Jesus was a spiritual apparition. He had to eat some of their food and have them handle him before they would even consider he had actually risen out of the grave! So, where is this 144,000 who appeared to folks in the city of Jerusalem after Jesus rose from the dead? The Scriptures are silent, and your interpretation simply isn’t supported there.
Concerning Daniel 7:14, once more, your interpretation doesn’t work, because there the Scriptures claim that the Son of Man was given dominion over all people, nations and languages. So, whether you consider that to be one crown or many, it is still a dominion over all nations. Daniel 7:14 doesn’t claim what you want it to say.
Concerning a culmination point, you are correct that we disagree here. We are in the age that has no end (Ephesians 3:21), as far as I am concerned. But, this isn’t, as I mentioned above, the place where we part company. We part company at the point of Jesus’ resurrection. No one–**no one** rose out of the grave with him. The Scriptures simply do not support that doctrine.
This isn’t what you claimed in one of the posts previous to your most recent reply:
In the 70 AD judgment, all nations were judged, according to what you claim above, and I agree. How was that so, and by whom did/does the Lord judge them then and now?
Jesus claimed that **all things** that were written in the prophets would be fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 21:22; cp. 24:44). There is no future judgment for the nations, whether Jews, gentiles or some non-descript mass of humans having no national identity.
Lord bless you, Patricia, and, again, I apologize if I have been rude here. I read over this several times before posting, but I don’t know how to say these things in a kinder manner. If my rudeness still shows, please put it to the account of ignorance on my part.