This blog was first written and published in May of 2021, while I was ensconced in the Gospel of Matthew. It came to my mind the other day from out of nowhere. I always try to pay attention to these things, because it could be a signal from the Holy Spirit that someone out there may need a particular morsel of truth contained in it. So, I have revised it a bit and wanted to share it with you.
At the end of the age, with the assistance of some angels, God is going to sort us out, based on his own criteria.
Skeptics or deniers of the validity of the Bible often primarily object to its claims about the exclusivity of Christ. How can it be, they ask, that God will judge people according to their beliefs about this one man, Jesus Christ? How can we believe that Jesus is the only path to God the Father and trusting him the only way to attain eternal life—if there is such a thing as eternal life?
Others ask, what about Buddhists, Muslims, and other pious, religious people? What about those who live a moral life full of good works? What about those who’ve never had the opportunity to learn about Jesus? Or children who die before reaching an age when they can understand the gospel, or those with intellectual disabilities who lack the cognitive skills to comprehend?
These are all valid questions, and there are very grounded theological answers to them, in the Bible and in many apologetic books. It is not my aim in this little blog to present all of those biblical arguments. But I’ll point to a few: Jesus fulfilled thousands of years of prophecy, his resurrection is verifiable, and his teachings are unassailable. His claims about who he was and what he came to do are demonstrable in the Bible, in history, and in the lives of those who believe.
The arguments for the exclusivity of Christ lead us to another essential truth. Jesus taught us that God does make a distinction between those who will be fit for his kingdom and those who will not. And it all centers on belief in him.
God is allowing human history to unfold until the time he has foreordained that he will bring it to a conclusion. In the meantime, he is building a new kingdom populated with a certain category of people and will remove all who don’t fit into this category. Jesus provides three illustrations of this reality:
And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt. 25:32-34,41).
Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets but threw the bad away” (Matt.13:47-48).
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared…The servants asked him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?“ “No,” he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (Matthew 13:24-26,28- 30).
The sheep mill around in the same pens and graze in the same fields as the goats, but only the sheep will remain after the sorting. The kingdom net takes in all kinds of fish, but only some will be kept, and the rest thrown away. In his kingdom, weeds grow up alongside the wheat. The wheat will be harvested, and the weeds burned in the fire.
I didn’t say these things, Jesus did. And he said them with authority, because he knew God had designated him the chief sorter at the end of the age. I don’t know much about how Jesus and his Father and the Spirit and the angels will do this sorting, but I trust the mercy and justice of God. I am very grateful that God is the sorter and I am not, because I am not nearly smart enough for the job.
I am certain of a few things. The sorting will have nothing to do with ethnicity, age, intelligence, skin color, or nationality. It won’t be based only on judgment of good or bad works. It won’t be about religiosity or theological knowledge.
I argue (with good biblical support) that the criteria for the sorting process is whether people acknowledge and love the King. He tests this, according to Matthew 25, by how we love each other. Because these things are matters of the heart, God must be the one who sorts us out, because we don’t even truly know our own hearts.
When Noah had completed construction of the ark, and the rain was about to fall, he begged people to get onboard. Only Noah’s family (and a great many animals) were saved from the flood, while everyone else perished. It was God who closed the door. He wouldn’t force anyone to get on the boat. He won’t force us to meet his conditions.
I believe this is analogous to our situation today. We can choose him or reject him. When we choose him, we enter the category of kingdom dwellers who will enjoy eternal life in a perfect realm under the reign of a perfect King. If we reject him, Jesus says we will face a very different and painful reality.
I don’t have all the answers to all of the questions, but there is someone who does. And he will do the sorting in the end. In the meantime, I am called not to superficially judge, categorize, or condemn others, but to love them.
My job is to be a sheep and not a goat, a stalk of wheat and not a weed, a healthy fish and not a stinker to be thrown on the compost pile. And to encourage others to do the same.
