Kids!!! Gotta love ‘em!
Kids are rambunctious, unruly, always looking for, well, trouble. At least, goat kids are. It’s a good thing they’re so cute.
In my last post, I talked about the parable of the sheep and the goats and suggested an alternative title: The parable of the small, tame, four-footed herd animals and the baby goats. I dunno. Somehow I don’t think it’ll catch on, even for the sake of more precise speech. If you haven’t read it, please go back and do that now. Otherwise, you’ll miss reading it, and I would regret that because it’s really, really good. 
So the wee goats don’t make it, at least not at this time. Why? Is it because they’re reprobate? Created for the purpose of glorifying God by displaying His just wrath in their eternal torment in hell? Nah . . . That’s Calvinist talk. I grew up Arminian, and Arminians believe that people send themselves to hell while God stands by helpless because of our free will. But let’s not get off on THAT again!
But why don’t the baby goats make it? They believed themselves to be sheep. They followed the Shepherd (or some shepherd, anyway). They did miracles and stuff. How could this be happening to them? They prayed the Prayer, for, um, Pete’s sake! Jesus says the words they never thought they’d hear, at least not directed at them! “I never knew you!” Impossible!
“You never fed Me when I was hungry or clothed Me when I was naked or cared for me in sickness or in prison — when you didn’t do it for the least of these, you didn’t do it for Me.” Jesus takes this metaphor of the church as His body the distance. If we fail to care for one another, He takes it personally.
‘Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of these, the least, you did it not to me. And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.’ (Matthew 25:46 RYLT-NT)
So that’s it. No more baby goats, right? All gone. Aren’t you just a little bit sad? Yes, they were a pain, but they were just kids. We loved them. He loved, them, didn’t He? And now it’s all over. They’re going to burn and burn and burn and there’s never, ever going to be an end to it. And if they were our own children or parents or spouses or bosom friends, it just doesn’t matter. It’s too late for them. Turn and walk away. The Shepherd will wipe our tears and take away the pain. Maybe he’ll even wipe out the remembrance of them.
And to make matters worse, it’s ALL OUR FAULT because we failed to persuade them to become mature. Why didn’t we try harder?! Anguish — in eternal bliss? Yet how could it be otherwise? We have been commanded to love these goats, but our Father has stopped loving them and that’s that. But wait. I thought we were supposed to learn to love our enemies in order to be LIKE our Father? There’s something here that doesn’t make sense. Has the unchangeable God suddenly changed, and left us behind? Or are we to become as unfeeling, as unloving as He?
I’m sorry — I don’t mean to be blasphemous. I absolutely do NOT believe God is like that AT ALL. He is love. John the beloved said so, and John should know. He knew Jesus like no one else, and to see Jesus IS to see the Father. But this leaves us with a problem, and as the problem can’t be with scripture, it must be with our interpretation. We need to look at another word. We already know there’s controversy over the translation of “aion/aionios” as “everlasting” or “eternal.” But what about punishment?
God is Love, but you’ve got to understand . . . He is also Just. People say this all the time. I agree that He is just, but the phraseology kind of pits God against Himself — His justice against His nature, which is love and light according to John. How about this? God is love, and because He is love, He is also just. He will not leave inequity unpunished. But what is punishment?
What is punishment when you punish your children? Why do you do that? Does it last forever?Are you trying to get even with them? (God forbid!)
The word used here for “punishment” (and most other places in the NT) is “kolasis”. Its origin is in gardening terminology and it refers to pruning trees. Do you prune a tree in order to destroy it? To cause it pain or to hurt or punish it for being a bad tree? Likewise, “kolasis” is always used of corrective punishment in Greek secular literature, and we may draw from that, also so used in the NT. There is a word for the sort of punishment given for the sake of the punisher — “timoria.” It denotes retribution and revenge. “Timoria” is a return of evil for evil, and that’s something Father told us not to do. Not only that, but He says it’s something He doesn’t do. We’re supposed to be perfect, just like our Father, and we’re to love our enemies. If we’re supposed to be like Him, and the way we’re to do this is to love the unlovely, then that means He loves them too. That’s what He’s like, and He doesn’t change. (Mat 5)
In the end (of this present evil age), then, the mature four-footed grass eaters follow the Shepherd into aionian life and the pesky kids go for a term in reform school. But there’s something else here — something troubling. If the punishment isn’t everlasting, how can we be sure that the life is everlasting? I’ve discussed that in some earlier posts, but I think I could talk about it as it specifically relates to this passage . . . next time.
Hi Cindy … I’ve been reading these 3 posts … excellent and so enlightening. I felt I should come here to today, so glad I followed that prompting.
Thanks for putting this out there, how much it needs to be heard and more importantly understood. I pray for ears to be opened!!
Thanks, Rachel
I’m glad you stopped by, and have been enjoying all the great stuff you’ve been posting lately as well.
As someone who, to say the least, is a big fan of the “baby goat” interpretation (which turns the whole judgment into a typically unexpected Synoptic test: the baby goats are the least of Christ’s flock, so are we supposed to interpret the judgment the way the baby goats would, or the way the mature flock and the Shepherd would?)–I do have to point out that {timôria} is used once in the NT, and it’s in relation to God’s punishment of sinners, namely Heb 10:29 and surrounding contexts (especially afterward).
If it helps you feel any better, though, the surrounding contexts, especially the reference to Deut 32, are not about God vindicating Himself with this timôria, but are about God vindicating His rebel people with it. It’s for their own good, terrifying though it is to fall into the hands of the living God, and (if the prophecy from Deut 32 comes true!) they’ll repent after being timôreô’ed and be restored to even greater blessing by God, reconciling with both God and man.
It’s a sort of last-ditch expedient, resulting in them being destroyed until “they are neither slave nor free”–but then God will have mercy on them. Same is true for the Gentiles not only for rebel Israel, and (per that and other prophecies) God’s salvation and restoration of punished rebel Israel will be a major evangelization factor for Gentiles in the Day of the Lord to come.
(Fun trivia fact: tim-ôreô means value-shield, which of course is why authors outside the NT, but not the Hebraist, used it for reference to shielding the value of the person inflicting the punishment. Today we’re more familiar with it as the trade name “Oreo”! So now whenever I eat some Oreos, I recall that God will surely vindicate His rebel people, even if He has to punish them until they are neither slave nor free. {g})
Btw, Rachel: I’m pretty fond of “A Shepherd Looks At The 23rd Psalm”, too. {g} (I discovered it several years ago up on an attic bookshelf of my brother’s house.)
Thanks so much Jason. It’s embarrassing to be shown to be mistaken on my own blog, but I’d rather have been wrong than to continue to be wrong. And yes, it is a relief to know that the one use of timorea is also in a context of eventual restoration.
I love the Oreos story, too. Very cool. And thanks for dropping by — I appreciate having your input. God’s judgment, while it may be fearful when we’re the ones in the wrong, is always good news in the end.
Blessings, Cindy
Yeah, sorry about that, but I figured better from me than from some opponent who would use it as an excuse to deconstruct your whole point without sufficiently checking the contexts of its use.
I forgot to mention that {ôreô} as shield is actually a metaphor from the verb “to-lift”, so tim-ôreô is really value-lift. While you can probably still see how that fits the notion of self-centered punitive action (value-lifting one’s self by pushing down someone else), it fits a correctional chastisement at least as well.
Also, we lift those blackened devil’s food flavored shields to get to the nice white creme inside. So there’s that, too. {GGGGG!}
(Although then we eat everything. So the analogy is of limited illustration.
)
I always appreciate and value your info and input. So nothing to be sorry about in any way.