<p>25:32&nbsp;<em>And before Him</em>-&nbsp;<em>Emprosthen</em>&nbsp;could just as well mean 'against' Him, referring to the gathering of the nations against Christ which is spoken of in Joel 3, Zechariah 14 and Psalm 2. But the sense is likely the more obvious one, of being gathered in front of Him.</p><p><em>Shall be gathered-</em>&nbsp;See on :31&nbsp;<em>The Son of Man shall come in his glory</em>. This is a figure used about the gathering of individuals to judgment and both to condemnation and salvation (3:12; 13:30; 24:28; Jn. 15:6 &quot;men gather them and cast them into the fire&quot;; &quot;bring / gather here, and slay them before Me&quot;, Lk. 19:27). And yet right now the gathering is going on as the net of Gospel preaching gathers in people (13:47; 22:10; the fragments are gathered that no man be lost, Jn. 6:12, the other sheep are brought / gathered into the fold, Jn. 10:16). Our first steps in responding to the Gospel call are in fact our first steps towards meeting the Lord at judgment. The Lord has just been falsely accused of gathering where He did not sow, and therefore I suggest that those gathered are those from all nations who have received the seed of the Kingdom message. When we are called to judgment, the immediacy of our response will be a summary of how we have progressively responded to that call to go to Jesus. But the word for 'gather' is used extensively by the Lord in this section of His teaching. The one talent man has complained that the Lord is unreasonably gathering him to judgment (25:24), and the Lord now goes on to say that indeed people from all nations will be gathered to Him. And He goes further to say that the basis of acceptability with Him is whether we 'gathered' AV &quot;took me in&quot;&nbsp;<em>Him</em>&nbsp;in this life, when He was manifested to us in the least of His brethren (:35,38). Again we see the idea of mutuality. We gather Him, He gathers us. And this will be literally, visibly manifest in that when the call comes, those who voluntarily, immediately gather towards Him will be confirmed in that by being snatched away towards Him, and will thereby come with Him in glory to His throne (1 Thess. 4:16,17). The nations will gather themselves together against Christ at the last day (Rev. 16:14,16; Psalm 2, s.w. Acts 4:26).&nbsp;</p><p><em>All the nations</em>- Frequently, New Testament references to &ldquo;all men&rdquo; really means &ldquo;all true believers&rdquo; or those who have become responsible to God. Hebrews 2:14 states that Christ killed the devil (the power of sin) on the cross; but this is only true for those in Christ. Those who are ignorant of the saving power of God&rsquo;s Truth are under the active control of sin- the Biblical devil. Revelation 20:5 speaks of &ldquo;the dead&rdquo; as those responsible to judgment, whereas many other Bible passages show that not all the dead will be raised. Only those who have heard the Gospel will be resurrected to judgment. Thus &ldquo;the dead&rdquo; in God&rsquo;s usage does not refer to everyone who has ever died. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 speaks of &ldquo;the dead&rdquo; as those in Christ. Matthew 25:32 describes &ldquo;all nations&rdquo; coming before Christ for judgment. This indicates that to God, the world He sees is comprised of those who are responsible to Him; not literally &ldquo;all nations&rdquo; will come before Christ, only those people from them who are responsible to Him. We must surely read in an ellipsis here, 'People from all nations', because the Gospel will have gone to all nations before the Lord returns (24:14). The great commission to take the Gospel to all nations (28:19 s.w.) will finally have been fulfilled. Knowledge of the Gospel is the basis of accountability to judgment, and that fact alone means that if people from all nations come to judgment, then the Gospel must have gone to all nations; the believers spiritual Israel will be persecuted in all nations (24:9 s.w.) at the same time as Jews natural Israel are lead away captive into all nations (Lk. 21:24) and this likely will be the basis of our witness to all nations, just as the early church needed persecution to make them take the Gospel to the Gentiles. If we do that now in this day of opportunity, maybe that final persecution by &quot;all nations&quot; will be unnecessary. The whole scenario could have been allowed a first century fulfilment in that Jews from all nations were converted at Pentecost (Acts 2:5 s.w.), but clearly they did not return home and take the Gospel further to the Gentiles of literally all nations. it took Peter until the Cornelius incident to realize that people from literally all nations could be accepted (Acts 10:35 s.w. &quot;all nations&quot;), but the church generally struggled with that understanding. Rev. 14:6 explains that only in the last days will the Gospel go to all nations, during the tribulation period; only when God's judgments are revealed in maybe literally the very last days before the Lord's coming will people from &quot;all nations&quot; come to Him (Rev. 15:4).&nbsp;</p><p><em>And he shall separate them</em>- The separation between sheep and goats is not, therefore, ultimately visible now. Mt. 13:49 uses the same word to describe how &quot;the Angels&quot; shall do this work of separation. And yet the essence of separation does go on in this life, insofar as men &quot;shall separate s.w. you from their company&quot; (Lk. 6:22; Acts 19:9). The final judgment will be a confirmation of processes which have been ongoing in our lives today. Likewise, separating ourselves from our brethren as Peter did in weakness due to political pressures (Gal. 2:12 s.w.) is effectively separating ourselves from the sheep, and placing ourselves with the goats. Significantly, the only other occurrence of the phrase &ldquo;from one another&rdquo; is in Acts 15:39, where Paul and Barnabas &ldquo;departed asunder the one from the other&rdquo;. The Greek translated &quot;separate&quot; in these passages means to set a boundary, a limit. And in this lies the danger of the misuse of Statements of Faith and legalistic fellowship boundaries. Any drawing of a line in the wrong place can lead to our condemnation, so it's better to be open to all our brethren.</p><p><em>One from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats-</em>&nbsp;Sheep and goats were similar looking. The sheep of the first century would typically have been dirty and with dark patches, making it possible to separate them from goats only by an experienced shepherd who knew his flock. The point may have been that from a distance, sheep and goats looked quite similar. The Lord Jesus was the shepherd during His ministry, and commented that &ldquo;I know My sheep&rdquo; (Jn. 10:14). He knew who were the goats and who the sheep. But His judgment will only be made manifest in the last day. But the purpose of the last judgment is not, therefore, to gather information about us; for the judgment in essence is ongoing now as we live our lives before the shepherd of our souls.&nbsp;</p><p>The way the Lord speaks of dividing the sheep from the goats and not vice versa could suggest that there are far fewer sheep compared to goats (Mt. 25:32). This would imply that the majority of those who are responsible are in the goat category. The word used for &lsquo;goat&rsquo; here strictly means a kid, and the purpose of the division may well have been because the goats were to be killed for meat.</p>