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Christ concludes the parable with the Lord's order to take the talent from the lazy
servant and give it to the one who had ten talents (25: 28, 29). It had not been
productive in the hands of the third servant, but would be so when given to the one who
had already used the gift entrusted to him to accumulate for his master.
No.36.
25: 31 - 46.
pp. 206 - 212
The Lord Jesus continues His foreview of the time just prior to His Second Coming,
the Coming itself, and what will happen immediately afterwards:
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and the all the angels with Him, He will
sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He
will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats. He will put the sheep on His right (hand) and the goats on His left" (25: 31-33,
N.I.V.).
The throne which is His, is the throne of David which was promised at His birth:
"He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall
give unto Him the throne of His father David: And He shall reign over the house of
Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1: 32, 33, A.V.).
At His resurrection this was again stressed:
"Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David . . . . .
therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of
the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his
(David's) throne . . . . ." (Acts 2: 29-31, A.V.).
This throne was now transformed by the returning Lord Whose sole possession it is.
Around Him will be twelve thrones for the twelve Apostles who will sit on them, as He
promised, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19: 28; Luke 22: 30).
The question now is how we interpret ethne (nations) in verse 31. Does it here mean
nations in the nationalistic sense, or Gentile people in an individual sense? If it is the
former, does it mean that the whole human race is assembled before the Lord in the
district around Jerusalem? It would mean that individuals are not dealt with as such but
judged solely by the nation to which they belonged. This would mean that God would
judge an individual because he happened to be born in and a citizen of a "goat" nation.
Thus every individual in the goat nations would be condemned whatever their characters
and actions were, and this would run into millions. It would not seem possible for a
nation which consisted of millions of people to be wholly one or the other. It could be
predominantly one or the other. We should remember that this is not the assembling of
individuals in a group who are "sheep" or "goats", but nations.