Sheep, Goats, and Christ the King

On the church calendar, this Sunday is “Christ the King Sunday”. Naturally, I’ve been wondering what it means to say that Christ is King. More importantly, what does it mean to believe that Christ is King? Perhaps the best way to answer those questions is to define the opposite of having Christ as king. More specifically, I think we can say that the opposite of having Christ as king is having Cain as king. There’s a clear difference between these two states of being, and the delineation of that difference is what follows.

Matthew 25:31-46 (which just so happens to be the Gospel reading in a lot of churches this Sunday) makes the distinction between sheep and goats. On the one hand, the sheep have lived in goodwill toward “the least of these”. On the other, the goats have lived under the law of self-concern. Put differently, while the sheep have lived in the freedom of the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2, 1 Cor. 9:21), the goats have lived as slaves to their appetites and ambitions.

Ultimately, the sheep are those who have Christ as king, while the goats are those who have Cain as king. That is, the sheep have the living Spirit of Christ reigning with grace and truth within them, while the goats have none other than Cain as lord of their will. Why is this so? Because the goats have not trusted God’s promise that the repentant in Christ will receive his grace, that the humble in Christ will be exalted, and that the dead in Christ will be raised to life eternal with their Lord.

In the end (and in the End), the goats have let Cain’s question absolve them from the task of love: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9) In contrast, the sheep have let the Spirit of Christ answer: “Yes, I am.” The sheep have believed that Christ is the one true King - the King who protects, provides for, and blesses his people - and through such faith the Spirit of Christ has led them in the life of goodwill.

On the Last Day, both the sheep and the goats will face judgment. The goats will “go away into eternal punishment.” (Mat. 25:46) But the sheep will be greeted thusly: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Mat. 25:34, 40)

The difference between having Cain as king and having Christ as king has eternal significance. It determines who's a goat and who's a sheep, who's turned away from Christ's Kingdom and who enters into the eternal joy thereof. So with all of that said, it seems fitting to conclude with the following words of Christ himself: "Believe in God, believe also in me...and this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (John 14:1, 15:12)