Jesus’ unsound theology
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” –Matthew 25:31-46
I don’t feel qualified to exegete this passage, so I won’t. I’ll just share a few thoughts and leave you hanging.
Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. Faith without works is dead (meaning, not in existence). So how do these words of Jesus fit in? Perhaps in our evangelical fear of giving the wrong impression (that we must earn our salvation or do works to keep it), we tend to ignore this passage in its entirety because it seems to be on the verge of being theologically unsound (wait, can Jesus be theologically unsound?) and we just focus on the first part, the nice part where, at the end of the sermon, we all feel like going to volunteer at the local soup kitchen.
In fact, I find that I am afraid that if I try to make sense of this passage, readers might begin to think my theology is messed up. So, maybe I’ll just leave this passage here for you to ponder, and I’ll ponder it too, and let’s all ask God to unveil our eyes so that we can understand and accept what Christ is calling us to in this passage. I don’t fully understand it, but every time I read it, I am disturbed. However, I’m going to stop running from that disturbed feeling and confront it and see what cool thing God makes of it. One thing I know, God doesn’t say ANYTHING He doesn’t mean.
