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Faith # 68
68. 4. The failure of caring in the people described in Matthew shows that goats mean people who are devoted to a faith divorced from caring. We can see that the goats and sheep in Matthew 25:31-46 have the same meaning as the goat and the ram in Daniel because deeds of caring are listed for the sheep and it says that they did them, and the same deeds of caring are listed for the goats but it says that they did not do them, and that this is why these latter are condemned. A neglect of deeds is characteristic of people who are devoted to a faith divorced from caring because of their refusal to believe that deeds have anything to do with salvation or the church. When people so set aside caring—which consists of deeds—then faith fails as well, because faith comes out of caring; and when there is neither caring nor faith, there is damnation.
If the goats in this passage had meant all evil people it would have listed all the evil things they did rather than all the deeds of caring they did not do.
People like this are also meant by goats in Zechariah:
My wrath blazes against the shepherds, and I will execute judgment upon the goats. (Zechariah 10:3)
And in Ezekiel:
Behold, I am judging between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats. Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture? Will you also trample what remains of the food with your feet? You attack all the weak sheep with your horns until you have scattered them. Therefore I will save my flock, so that it will no longer be prey. (Ezekiel 34:17-18, 21-22, and following)
A Faith Divorced from Caring Destroys the Church and Everything It Stands For
Jonah 3
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The word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying,
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"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you."
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So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey across.
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Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried out, and said, "In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!"
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The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
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The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
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He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, "Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;
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but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.
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Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?"
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God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn't do it.
