What Jehovah’s Witnesses Teach
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the sheep described at Matthew 25:32,33 are made up of two groups. They base such an understanding on John 10:16 where Jesus says that “I also have other sheep”. The first sheep are Jehovah’s Witnesses who will rule with Jesus in heaven. The other sheep are subordinates of Jehovah’s Witnesses who will continue to live forever on earth in a paradise. The goats are people who are rejected by Jehovah and who do not receive everlasting life but receive eternal punishment in the form of death. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus will pronounce judgment on the sheep and goats at Armageddon before the start of the 1000-year kingdom.
Jehovah’s Witnesses misunderstand who the sheep are and when the goats are judged.
What the Bible Teaches
Both the sheep and the goats are people from “all the nations” (Matthew 25:32). This includes both Jews and Gentiles1.
At John 10:16, Jesus states that he has sheep that “do not belong to this enclosure.” Jesus speaks to the Jews, where the purpose was to help “the lost sheep of the house of Israel ” (Matthew 15:24). As is well known, Jesus annulled the Mosaic Law and instituted “the new covenant,” that which became the Christian congregation, so that Gentiles and Jews could also be gathered into God’s household as one united people of God. Thus, the two groups of sheep were united in Jesus’ day when the Mosaic Law was repealed and Gentiles and Jews now had equal opportunities to become part of God’s people.
Matthew 25:33-45 refers to the goats as strangers to Jesus. They have not treated those who are considered “small” in society in a good way. Jesus explains that this is as if they have rejected Jesus himself. This demonstrates the importance of following Christ’s law to love others and Jehovah in all that we do (Matthew 22:36-40). The way we treat others thus has an impact on whether we are considered sheep or goats in the future.
At Matthew 25:31-33, we may get the impression that the Messiah will judge the goats when he comes in the transition between Armageddon and the beginning of the 1000-year kingdom.
When the eye of man cometh in his glory with all the angels, then he shall sit down on his glorious throne. All the nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate men from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep at his right hand. but the goats at their left.
Even if Jesus sits on the throne in the 1000-year kingdom when he returns to earth, this does not mean that he will pronounce judgment on the goats immediately. Such an understanding would be contrary to the Bible’s clear statement that judgment occurs after the end of the 1000-year kingdom (Revelation 20:11-15). The 1000-year kingdom and the events after Satan’s release in the time after the 1000-year kingdom are a process that takes place over time. Thus, the sheep and the goats are identified and separated from each other after the 1000-year kingdom.
Any organization that pretends to shepherd the sheep is identified as a thief who only intends to steal the sheep in order to slaughter and destroy them (John 10:10).
- Gentile means non-Jew. ↩︎
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