Christ Is Not A Goat-Herder

From ISBE

It could be used because it was one of the clean animals.

 

Goats were symbolic of sinners. Goats were a symbol of Christ as He bore our sins on the cross.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.[2 Cor. 5:21]

He(Aaron) is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.[Lev. 16:21,22]

Christ became a 'goat' when He took our sins upon Himself.

 

NO. Christ bore our sin. He did not become a goat. He was the sacrificial lamb.
He was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.
He is the Lamb, was the Lamb, and always will be the Lamb of God.

Look into the future:
Rev 6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
Rev 6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

 

The Scapegoat was symbolic of Christ as He took our sins and died for us, monsieur.


Sheep and goats are symbolic of saints and sinners.

Christ is the Rock, but not a literal rock.
Christ is the Tree of Life, yet not a literal tree.
Christ is the Lamb of God, but not a literal lamb.
Christ was the Scapegoat, but not a literal goat.

The bible uses a lot of symbolic language to explain scriptural truth.

 

Well said.....you know your scriptures and see right through this charade.
Some try and pretend to a strict literalism and cannot grasp what is spiritually discerned

 

For the purpose of this discussion Christ has nothing to do with a goat.

What is the title of this thread:

Christ Is Not A Goat-Herder

If that is the premise of the thread, then Christ cannot be a goat, can he?

He cannot be a goat and a sheep at the same time. He is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. His primary identity to the world is a lamb--the sacrificial lamb of God.

 

You nailed it DHK. Christ has nothing to do with goats who He does not know --but the sheep who He has laid down His life for.

 

Check the title of the thread which I even repeated for you, and then the last statement of my post:
He cannot be a goat and a sheep at the same time. He is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. His primary identity to the world is a lamb--the sacrificial lamb of God.

It is not who he laid down his life for, but who Christ is, that the discussion was about. Christ is the eternal Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.
As the title of the thread implies he is not a goat nor a goat-herder.

Before we got off on the topic about who Christ was/is, the contention was: who are the lost. The metaphor: sheep vs. goats is taken to an extreme as it is used only once in the Bible and that event will take place after the Tribulation at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom--irrelevant to our time.

In fact the Scriptures are clear who the lost are:
Christ said: "I am come to seek and to save the lost."
To one woman he said: "I have come for the lost sheep of Israel."
In a parable he went seeking after a "lost sheep."
In the OT, we are described: "All we like sheep have gone astray."

Goats are used for sin offerings. They are clean animals.
Search the scriptures. Except for one parable referring to a future judgment there is no reason to designate the lost as goats. It is a wrong comparison.

 

:thumbsup::thumbs: Ding!!!!!

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

You're getting there. LOL

 

We were considered dogs, too, DHK. And Christ does not run a kennel. Literalism destroys hermeneutics quite a bit.

 

You "snake" :D . So does taking a metaphor out of its context.
They are not all just mixed together. Where does the Bible refer to all mankind as dogs? It doesn't. It might refer to one Samaritan woman at one time in history as a dog--only because that is the way the Jews treated the Gentiles that way and she accepted it. But the Bible does not, in any general way refer to all of us as dogs.

There are only two other places that "dogs are used: Phil.3:2, and Rev.22:15, neither of which refer to the unsaved in general. Your example falls short of that which you are trying prove; in fact it disproves it.

Jesus called the Pharisees vipers, as I just called you one (in jest). His was condemnatory and descriptive as to their work and character. Someone calling one a snake today would mean he is sly, not unsaved.

What I am demonstrating is that every metaphor has a context. If the metaphor is taken out of context it is meaningless.
"The serpent/snake deceived Eve."
"Be wise as serpents harmless as doves."
--Does the word "serpent" have the same meaning in both verses?
Of course not.

 

Literalism when understood and presented properly never destroys hermeneutics. Neither does allegory, parables or any other genre in scripture.

 

Goats, sheep, vipers(snakes), an ass(mule), &c all have symbolic meanings, mon ami.

Sheep will not follow others, only their shepherd. That is why you can read of them in Ezekiel 34 & John 10 in reference to the elect. Goats are unruly(bend over in front of one ;) )and that is why they are symbolic of the non-elect. The ass is symbolic of meekness, ergo, Christ riding into Jerusalem riding an ass(mule).

Snakes are symbolic of evil, ergo, Satan, Pharisees, &c.

 

wrong again;

The older dispensational scheme viewed this passage as the judgment of the nations based on their treatment of Israel. This suggestion could fit Jewish perceptions of the judgment, as noted above (compare Manson 1979:249-50). But this suggestion does not fit well Jesus' own designation of his brothers in the Gospels elsewhere (Mt 12:50; 28:10; see below). Because the passage explicitly declares that this judgment determines people's eternal destinies (25:46), it cannot refer to a judgment concerning who will enter the millennium, as in some older dispensational schemes (Ladd 1977:38; compare Ladd 1978b:98-102


again;

The King thus judges the nations based on how they have responded to the gospel of the kingdom already preached to them before the time of his kingdom (Mt 24:14; 28:19-20). The passage thus also implies that true messengers of the gospel will successfully evangelize the world only if they can also embrace poverty and suffering for Christ's name (compare Matthey 1980).

The stakes involved in our witness are eternal. The horrifying conclusion (25:46) is the damnation of people who did not actively embrace messengers of the gospel but nevertheless were oblivious to how they had offended God. The goats thus depart (7:23) into eternal fire (the worst possible conception of hell; see comment on 3:8, 10, 12), but tragically, God had not originally created them for the fire or the fire for them (compare 4 Ezra 8:59-60). Rather, it had been prepared (compare Mt 25:34) by God for the devil and his angels (compare 2 Pet 2:4; 1QM 13.11-12).


again;
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:31-46 This is a description of the last judgment. It is as an explanation of the former parables. There is a judgment to come, in which every man shall be sentenced to a state of everlasting happiness, or misery

 

DHK

of course it does;

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

 

before him shall be gathered all nations

I don't read "saved" Icon, but "nations."

 

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.[Matt. 25:31-33]


All nations will be before Him and will execute judgment on both saint and sinner. You preach a literal 1,007 years between resurrections, and this, in my opinion, hinders your theology. In John 5, Jesus stated “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.[John 5:28,29]

You keep saying that the elect are the Jews and I completely agree with you, monsieur. We can find [God’s Sovereign Choice ] It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.[Rom. 9:6] And also A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.[Rom. 2:28,29]


So there are sheep and goats monsieur. The sheep are the saved Jews(inwardly Jewish by the circumcision of the heart), but these Jews include natural Jews and Gentiles.

 

You are still referencing the same event--the judgment of the nations.
This is what I have maintained all along--the only event in the Bible which differentiates between sheep and goats: hardly a pretext to build an entire doctrine around since both goats and sheep are used in a variety of different ways throughout the Bible.

The two passages do not contradict each other at all. What makes you think they would?

I believe you are putting together a string of scriptures many of which are taken out of their contexts. For example, the passage in Rom.2:28,29 does not refer to Christians. Paul is describing Jews, not the church, not believer, not Christians, but Jews.
He is describing, for example, the difference between a David and a Ahab; one who believes (a true Jew inwardly vs. unsaved or outwardly).
MacDonald (Believer's Bible Knowledge Commentary) says:

But it is not a consistent comparison.

 

What Jesus stated is that the nations will be before Him on the day of Judgment. Both saved(sheep) and unsaved(goats) will stand before Him. He will give each their just desserts. He stated “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.[Rev. 22:12,13] When Christ returns to execute this Judgment, His reward is with Him. This will happen in accordance to John 5:28,29, Rev. 20:11-15, Matthew 25:31-46, & 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

Ezekiel and John 10 readily come to mind, mon ami. Then there is Isaiah 53, then there is “‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats."[Ez. 34:17] Then Jesus spoke of 'wheat and weeds' and what they symbolized. Then there was 'wheat and chaff' and what they symbolized.

It is of my opinion they thwart the 1,007 years between the resurrection of the just and unjust.

Non, monsieur, non. Read throughout Romans. Paul is talking about how those who were born as natural Jews thought they were automatically God's peoples, because Abraham was their father. They thought that God's promise to Abraham was through the flesh, when in fact, it came through Christ, Abraham's seed that followed through Isaac and not Ishmael. Not all of Abraham's seed(lineage) were Spiritual Jews. Those Spiritual Jews were those(both Jews and Gentiles) who had the circumcision of the heart made without hands. We can see In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.[Col. 2:11] Those who have been saved make up true Israel.

Non, mon ami, non. See my last comment above, please.