Sheep and Goats: Eternal Punishment or Restoration?

Earlier in the year I wrote an article that was a brief overview of my belief in universal salvation. In it, I promised to return to the parable of the sheep and goats when I mentioned that I believed Jesus taught love and restoration not retribution. Retribution can be fun to think about when you’re angry at other people, but it doesn’t seem to be part of God’s toolkit.

If you’re unfamiliar with the sheep and goats, here you go. Note that in my NRSVUE version, the section starts with the subtitle, “The Judgement of the Nations.” More on that at the end.

Matthew 25:31-46

The Judgment of the Nations

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”

This is a pretty well-known parable. Conservatives like to quote it to prove you’re going to Hell forever and ever if you don’t “get saved.” Progressives like to point out that Jesus is more concerned with actions than beliefs in this parable. This story gets thrown around a lot. It paints a scene of final judgement which is kind of rare for Jesus who seems more concerned with how we love each other right now than how to get into Heaven. In the parable, the Son of Man separates people as a shepherd would separate sheep from young goats. It’s not too hard to follow, the righteous are good sheep and they go onto eternal life. The goats on the other hand, watch out. They get eternal punishment.

That seems clear from that passage above, right? This seems like proof that God is going to punish some people in an eternal Hellfire. Yet, it shouldn’t take a ton of critical contemplation to wonder how a God of eternal love, the God that’s been revealed to us in Jesus, could ever want to punish people forever. The common interpretation of this parable, one of eternal damnation and eternal conscious torment, is clearly inconsistent with the God we know in Jesus. Besides, there are plenty of verses in the Bible that promise universal salvation for all of God’s creation (again, please reference my previous article, “Support for Universalism in Scripture, Logic and Love,” if you’re interested in an overview of those verses).

What gives?

I’d like to help solve this tension for you. First, I’m going to set aside the fact that this is a parable. A lot of things happen in Jesus’ parables that I don’t think we should interpret as a kind of prediction or history and instead we should remember that Jesus was a very talented metaphorist. When there is a contradiction between a vivid metaphor and some of the plainly written verses about universal salvation, as well as God’s enduring love, I’m going to fall on the side of universal salvation and not eternal damnation.

I’m also going to set aside the fact that there are many historical critical scholars of the Bible, who think that this portion of Matthew 25 is an overlay by later communities and not an actual parable of Jesus. I may take this up in a later article, but for now I will leave it to you to consider if you think that it was important to Jesus to point out who was a worthy or unworthy member of the community. Either way, I fall on the side of believing these are close to and consistent with many words that Jesus said about siding with and protecting the marginalized in our society.

What I’m going to mainly discuss here has to do with difficulties in translating Greek to English, both in terms of each word as well as understood meanings. Consider the phrase, “it’s a dog-eat-dog world.” Non-native English speakers might think we have dog cannibals on our hands. How could this actually be understood as describing a world where people take advantage of others? And likewise, don’t even get me started on the fact that Jesus quite certainly didn’t write his parables down in Greek, so we’re already one translation in and subject to the very human hearing and memories of the writers and editors of Matthew. I had a friend who thought the phrase was, “it’s a doggie-dog world,” which sounds a lot more fun than the original meaning. So any of Jesus’ sayings could be subject to similar ancient games of telephone.

As always, caveat lector: I’m not a Greek scholar. What I’m writing here has been heavily influenced by other thinkers. But it makes sense to me and seems consistent. I must point out that these other thinkers, especially David Artman, Brad Jersak and David Bentley Hart, have greatly influenced my perspective on universal salvation and recommend that you read them to deepen your own appreciation for the sometimes hidden fact that God really only wants to restore us to full participation in God’s life.

Three Greek Words

Even though the NSRVUE is my favorite translation, in this parable it uses a limiting translation around some Greek words. To me, that seems to indicate a little bit of preexisting theological bias. In other words, the specific English translations of these words seem like odd choices given their typical translations in other places in the Bible but also in the wider context of Ancient Greek literature. These choices only make sense if the translators assumed a priori that Jesus was talking about eternal punishment and thus massaged the translations to fit that preexisting theological claim. They brought theology into the translation instead of allowing for nuance. We all do this when we read the Bible. We all try to fit some enormous things into the tiny boxes we’ve been given. Specifically, the words that have been translated as eternal, punishment, and goats need some extra unpacking.

The Greek Word, “Aonion”

Let’s start with the word, “aonion,” which is commonly translated as, “eternal,” in most English Bibles. What was probably intended in the Greek would be, “age,” or even, “age-related.” For another example, look at Ephesians 2:7 where Paul refers to the, “ages to come,” suggesting that God’s grace will be revealed over multiple ages. The word aonion, from the Greek aion, refers to a defined time period. It’s a little unclear to me how we translate it this way in Ephesians but not the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew. In Ephesians it’s not meant to be mean eternity, it’s meant to be more limited. Otherwise, how would it even make sense for Paul to use the term as a plural, meaning multiple ages? I’m open to the idea that the coming age of God is everlasting. But I’m equally open to the idea that the coming age of God is a dramatic shift in our existence and not even meant to be a time period. The Bible is often ambiguous and we have to navigate it through the lens of Christ. What is the most loving interpretation of this parable? In Greek literature, a flower might have a different aion than a tree. Each aion is dependent on the situation. Any of God’s ages might vary in significance and length. In this parable, it seems to me like we should be thinking of this not as an eternal punishment, but a time period where the length of time is determined in God’s wisdom and purposes.

The Greek Word, “Kolasin”

The word, “kolasin,” in Greek is often translated as punishment in the parable. Yet, the word is commonly used to describe tree pruning. A careful translation might be, “correction,” not, “punishment.” Before you think I’m putting too fine a point on this, Greek has a common word used for retributive punishment, “timória.” If the writer of Matthew meant some kind of punitive measures here, why did they use a word for tree pruning? In pruning, you’re removing the parts of the tree that you need to remove so that the tree becomes healthy and can thrive. Similarly, God’s correction is about restoration toward eternal life in God, not eternal retributive punishment. There are different ways retributive punishment could have been expressed.

I definitely do not intend to punch above my weight class and provide you with a scholarly analysis of Plato; however, I’ve read that in Protagoras, Plato contrasts the two words. He says that the purpose of kolasin is to bring a wrongdoer to virtue for their own sake while the purpose of timória is vengeance or for the sake of the wronged or the punisher. I believe in God’s eternal yearning for our good.

The Greek Word, “Eriphos”

Finally, let’s consider the word translated above as, “goats.” The Greek word used in this parable is, “eriphos,” and that specifically means, “little young goats.” Well, what’s the point if they’re young or old if they’re ending up in Hell anyway? The distinction is significant I think, because it means that in the parable Jesus is making a distinction between his mature followers and some immature young goats. They need a process of refinement and correction to see the errors of their ways. They need corrective discipline.

If you put all this together, it sounds like the Son of Man is going to separate some young kids from the mature sheep so that they can undergo some corrective discipline and refinement for a specific amount of time based on God’s wisdom. I would assume the goal of pruning or correction is more abundant life just like we intend with a tree that we prune. The goats will mature and eventually be ready for life in God.

The Judgment of the Nations

Finally, it’s important to understand that the Son of Man seems to be gathering and addressing nations in this parable and not individuals. The Greek term, “ethnos,” used here, suggests a kind of collective judgement. I’d love to dive into this more deeply because it should terrify all Americans in the age of MAGA — perhaps I’ll take it up later. But Jesus is cautioning that how the nations treat His followers determines how they will be judged. Now, it’s also very important that Jesus followers take these words seriously as individuals as well. This is what defines you as a follower according to Jesus:

• Feed the hungry
• Give drinks to the thirsty
• Welcome the stranger
• Clothe the naked
• Care for the sick
• Visit the imprisoned

This is how our nation should act if we are not to be judged. This is the exact opposite of the MAGA agenda. We don’t care for the sick here, we throw them off Medicaid to pay for tax cuts. We don’t welcome the stranger, we send ICE jackboots to rip them off the streets and deport them without due process. I’m not saying this lightly, you should fear the age of God’s correction. You should fear how you will be pruned. I’m not arguing you won’t experience great pains because of your actions – as individuals or as nations – I’m simply arguing that it won’t be eternal conscious torment. We should all fear where we have ignored our Lord when it comes to the societal implications of America’s response to the needs of our most vulnerable.