RR The Sheep and the Goats  By David Harwood

Shalom,

This is a condensed version of Chapter 13 from For the Sake of the Fathers
 
When the Son of Man returns in glory, He takes His throne, and "all the nations" are gathered before Him. He separates them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats — the sheep to inherit the Kingdom, the goats into the fire. And the whole verdict turns on one thing: how they treated the ones He calls "these brothers of Mine."
So everything hangs on two questions. Who are His brethren? And who, exactly, is being judged?
Many assume the answer is obvious — that this is the last judgment of every soul who ever lived, sorted by private acts of kindness. Permit me, friends, to gently offer another reading. I do not think that is the scene.
Start with the phrase Yeshua actually used: "all the nations." In the Greek, panta ta ethne. I went looking for every place it appears in the Septuagint and the Apostolic Writings, and the pattern is striking. the phrase occurs about seventy times in the Septuagint’s Hebrew-canon books (roughly ninety counting the Apocrypha), and about a hundred across the whole Greek Bible and almost without exception it is set over against Israel. "All the nations" means the Gentiles — as distinct from the Jewish people. Israel is simply not counted among them:
Behold, a people who dwells apart, and will not be reckoned among the nations.  (Numbers 23:9)
Are we to think this language did not shape the Messiah’s heart and mind? That Matthew, quoting the Scriptures on every page, had forgotten what his own Bible meant? Yeshua and Matthew were not biblically illiterate. When the prophecy says the nations are gathered, it means the Gentile nations.
And that reframes the whole judgment. If "all the nations" are the Gentiles, then His "brethren" are not among them — the text sets the two apart. His brethren, I have come to believe, are His own people, the Jewish people. And the test is this: how did the nations treat them?
Remember where this prophecy sits. Just before it, Yeshua wept over Jerusalem and foretold her ruin and the scattering that followed (Luke 19:41-44). The exile is the backdrop. For two thousand years His people have been scattered to nearly every nation on earth — often weak, stateless, at the mercy of their hosts. And the Word ties a nation’s destiny to how it treats them: "I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse" (Genesis 12:3). Obadiah says it to Edom. Joel gathers the nations to the valley of judgment. Zechariah has them come against Jerusalem, and ADONAI Himself fight for her. The way the peoples relate to the seed of Abraham is the way they relate to the Seed of Abraham — Yeshua, the King of the Jews.
Now hear my caution. I am not a Dispensationalist, and this is not their view; they read the "brethren" as Jewish evangelists in a future Tribulation. Nor would I deny the other, worthy applications — the Son of Man to all humanity, Yeshua as Head of His Body and Brother to every believer. "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" He still says. All of that is true. I am only pleading for a priority: read this oracle through the prophecy it follows — the scattering of His brethren.
And here, friends, is what breaks my heart open. When "all the nations" at last stand before Him, they will discover how closely the King had been identifying with His suffering people the whole time. He was never far off, never dispassionate:
In all their affliction He was afflicted.  (Isaiah 63:9)
He was "made like His brothers and sisters in every respect" (Hebrews 2:17). He wept real tears over their coming agony. And He is not unmoved by their suffering now.
And, beloved, that is your comfort too. Watch how He loves His own people — afflicted in their affliction, near in their need — and you are watching the very pattern of how He loves you. You are precious to Yeshua. He is not unaware of your sufferings, or of any people’s. He is coming to judge the earth in righteousness, and to bring His deliverance to all.
Pray for our nation.
A condensed version of David Harwood’s teaching “The Sheep and the Goats: The Judgment of the Nations” (Matthew 25:31–46). The theology, exegesis, and conclusions are David’s, developed and taught by him; the prose was drafted with AI assistance from his material and edited by him. Scripture is quoted from the NASB unless otherwise noted.

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