Matthew Chapter 25 verse 32 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 32. - Shall be gathered (Matthew 24:31). The angels shall gather them, the dead being first raised to life. All (τὰ, the) nations. Not the heathen only, but all mankind (see preliminary note). The criteria upon which the judgment proceeds, in the following verses, seem to imply that all men have the opportunity of receiving or rejecting the gospel (Matthew 24:14; Mark 13:10; Romans 11:32). How this can apply to those who died before the incarnation of Christ and the consequent evangelization of the world, we know not, though we may believe that, ere the end comes, Christ will have been preached in every quarter of the globe. That some process of enlightenment goes on in the unseen world we learn from the mysterious passage, 1 Peter 3:18-20; but we have no reason to suppose that probation is extended to the other life, or that souls will there have the offer of accepting or repelling the claims of Jesus (but see Philippians 2:10; 1 Peter 4:6). By describing mankind as "all the nations," Christ shows the minute particularity of the judgment, which will enter into distinctions of country, race, etc., and while it is universal will be strictly impartial. He is the Shepherd of all mankind, whether considered as sheep or goats, and can therefore distinguish and class them perfectly. Those who have never heard of Christ (if such there shall be) can be tried only by the standard of natural religion (Romans 1:20). Shall separate them (αὐτοὺς). Individuals of all the nations. Hitherto good and bad had been mingled together, often indistinguishable by man's eye or judgment; now an eternal distinction is made by an unerring hand (Matthew 13:49). The ideals already found in Ezekiel 34:17, "Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats." As a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. The flocks of sheep and goats generally keep together during the day (Genesis 30:33), but are separated at night or when being driven. The Syrian goat is usually black. The Lord delights in employing simple pastoral illustrations in his teaching.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(32) Before him shall be gathered all nations.--Better, all the nations, or even better, perhaps, all the Gentiles. The word is that which, when used, as here, with the article, marks out, with scarcely an exception, the heathen nations of the world as distinguished from God's people Israel (as, e.g., in Romans 15:11-12; Ephesians 2:11). The word, thus taken, serves as the key to the distinctive teaching that follows. We have had in this chapter, (1) in the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the law of judgment for all members of the Church of Christ; (2) in the Talents, that for all who hold any office or ministry in the Church: now we have (3) the law by which those shall be judged who have lived and died as heathens, not knowing the name of Christ, and knowing God only as revealed in Nature or in the law written in their hearts. Every stage in what follows confirms this interpretation.As a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.--Elsewhere the shepherd's work is the symbol of protective, self-sacrificing love, and, as such, our Lord had emphatically claimed for Himself the title of the Good Shepherd (John 10:14). Here we are reminded that even the shepherd has at times to execute the sentence of judgment which involves separation. The "right" hand and the "left" are used, according to the laws of what we might almost call a natural symbolism, as indicating respectively good and evil, acceptance and rejection.