Who then are included in this judgment? The passage itself supplies the answer to any simple mind. It says, "Before him shall be gathered all _nations_." This is distinct and definite. It is not a judgment of individuals, but of nations, as such. And further, we may add that not one of those here indicated shall have passed through the article of death. In this it stands in vivid contrast with the scene in Revelation xx. 11-15, in the which there will not be one who has not died. In short, in Matthew xxv., we have the judgment of "the quick;" and in Revelation xx. the judgment of "the dead." Both these are referred to in 2 Timothy iv., "I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom." Our Lord Christ shall judge the living nations at His appearing; and He shall "judge the dead, small and great," at the close of His millennial reign.
But let us glance, for a moment, at the mode in which the parties are arranged in the judgment, in Matthew xxv.: "He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." Now, the almost universal belief of the professing church is that "the sheep" represent all the people of God, from the beginning to the end of time; and that "the goats," on the other hand, set forth all the wicked, from first to last. But, if this be so, what are we to make of the third party referred to here, under the title of "these my brethren?" The King addresses both the sheep and the goats in respect to this third class. Indeed the very ground of judgment is the treatment of the King's brethren. It would involve a manifest absurdity to say that the sheep were themselves the parties referred to. If that were so the language would be wholly different, and in place of saying, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren" we should hear the King saying, "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one another," or, "amongst yourselves."
We would beg the reader's special attention to this point. We consider that were there no other argument and no other Scripture on the subject, this one point would prove fatal to the theory of a general judgment. It is impossible not to see three parties in the scene, namely, "the sheep," and "the goats," and "these my brethren;" and if there are three parties it cannot possibly be a general judgment, inasmuch as "these my brethren" are not included either in the sheep or the goats.