123. The Lord’s Prophecy of the Last Judgment

Matthew 25:31–46

The Lord now completes his prophecy of his return. He begins again: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.” On that day Christ will appear in his full divine glory. His divine glory and majesty, which in the days of his flesh was hidden by the form of a servant, will then be revealed to all the world. And he will then sit on the throne of his glory, on his royal throne. It is the King who is coming, and he is coming to establish the kingdom of his honor and glory. The throne of Christ the King is here initially thought of as a judgment seat. He now wants to glorify himself through judgment and justice. It is the Son of Man who sits on the throne, on the judgment seat. God has given the Son power to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man (Jn 5:27). The Son of Man, who walked in humility on earth, who redeemed people through suffering and death, is also the Judge of the world. And now all nations will be gathered before him. The holy angels will gather the elect from the four winds (Mt 24:31) and will also gather all offenders and evildoers (Mt 13:41). Even the generations that have previously sunk into the grave will not be missing. All who are in the graves will hear the voice of the Son of God and will come out of the graves (Jn 5:28,29).

The first act of judgment is separation. The judge will separate those who are gathered before him from one another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are those who willingly followed Christ, the Shepherd, who listened to the Shepherd’s voice—the believers. The goats, on the other hand, are those who were stubborn, who rebelled against the Shepherd, who were not obedient to the Gospel, that is, the unbelievers, the hypocrites among the Christians, the apostates, “together with the crowd of the godless world” (Luther) who despised, blasphemed, and persecuted the Gospel. The believers and unbelievers, who are now still mixed together, will then be separated from one another forever. And the Lord will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. On the right hand of the King is the place of honor. The disciples of the Lord will then be honored when their Lord appears in glory. The Lord, as soon as he is revealed, will make it clear that these are his own, his sheep, and that he is well disposed towards his own, that the others, on the other hand, have no part in him and can expect nothing good from him.

The separation is followed by the Judgment. Both those on the right and those on the left receive their judgment. The judgment, which has already been pronounced on those who believe and those who don’t and is written in their hearts and consciences, is then confirmed and proclaimed before the whole world. It is a long conversation that the judge has with those on the right and those on the left. The Lord is speaking to us humans here in a truly human way about the great things that are to happen on that day. “Christ makes a long excuse both for those who have done and not done those works, etc., which will all happen in an instant; for then the hearts of all people will be open to all creatures, and, as is preached here, so everything will be accomplished there” (Luther).

First, the king turns to those on his right. He welcomes them in the name of his Father, greets them as those blessed by his Father, and opens to them the gates of the heavenly kingdom, which has been prepared for them from the beginning of the world, which the Father has granted them out of pure grace even before the foundation of the world. And now he supplies evidence for his sentence by pointing to the works they did while they were alive. He mentions in particular works of mercy. The righteous fed the hungry, gave the thirsty drink and—what requires even more self-denial—sheltered the homeless and brought them into their homes. They clothed the naked, took care of the most depraved people, visited the sick, entered the places of sickness and misery that people usually avoid, sought out prisoners who are excluded from human society and spoke to them with love. Such works the Lord praises and extols on the last day. Not that the righteous have earned heaven by such works. No, the kingdom has been prepared for them by the Father from the beginning of the world, before they have done anything good. The Lord testifies to them that they have served Him with such seemingly small services that they have performed for their lowly brothers. “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” So they have shown with these works how they stand with the Lord. And so on that day the Lord proves their faith through their works, that they belong to him, that they are his sheep. With the obvious fruit of faith the judge justifies his verdict before the whole world. For the court is a public affair. The Lord only remembers the good works of the righteous and the faithful. Of course they have also done many things in their lives that they would rather not have done. But what they have done wrong is over with this life. They have forgiveness of sins through faith. And what God has forgiven, he does not take back from them on that day; it is forgiven and forgotten for all eternity.

The King will speak and act quite differently with those on the left. To them he will say: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” He will banish them, pronounce the curse on them, and send them into the eternal fire. This is actually prepared for the devil and his angels, who who have seduced people, not the people to whom God wanted to send a Savior. But those on the left have rejected the Savior and have not obeyed the Gospel of Christ. And so they themselves are the cause of their own damnation. And now the Lord appeals to works here too and shows from their evil works their evil nature, their unbelief. Among the evil works of the godless, the most serious is what they have done to the humble brothers of Christ, the poor Christians. And how terrified will the hypocrites among the Christians, who have only the appearance of godliness but deny its power, be on that day when they realize how heavy the scales are that they have neglected mercy. The serious, powerful words which Christ addresses to those on the left are an emphatic warning for all who are already reading or hearing them in the Gospel, a warning for the godless who are sowing the seeds of destruction here, for the hypocrites who bear no fruit all their lives, but also for the Christians who still have the lazy, stupid flesh in them, that they should pay attention and not forget love and lose faith with love.

“And they will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Thus the fate of the pious and the wicked is sealed for eternity. Whoever wants to escape eternal punishment and partake of eternal life should therefore consider in this time, on this side of the day of judgment, what will lead to his peace.