In Matthew 25:31-46, was our Lord Jesus teaching a form of works righteousness? At first look, you might think so. Those who treated God’s children well entered the kingdom and those who did not received eternal punishment. We know from other passages of Scripture that our salvation is based on the work of Christ and not our own. So, what is being taught here?

Pastor Peter J. Foxx of Calvary Bible Church in Columbus preached a message from this passage yesterday morning. Our family happened to be in the area and were privileged to hear this exposition of the passage. I found what Pastor Foxx referred to as his “introduction to next week’s message” to be quite interesting, including the following statement:

A man’s word is not enough for entrance into God’s kingdom; there has to be evidence.

Here are a few thoughts I scribbled down during the message:

1. This message is referring to how people treat the Jews during the Tribulation.
2. The purpose of this judgment is to determine which survivors will enter the Millennial kingdom.
3. This message correlates with James 2:14-26.

For those interested, you can listen to the entire sermon here. Note that it is about 52 minutes long and is an 18 MB donwload.