“Then the righteous ones will answer him with the words, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty, and give you something to drink?

Matthew 25:37-40.

39. Is it on the basis of their considerate deeds done to the King that they are called “righteous,” or what?

³⁹ It is noteworthy that Jesus speaks of these sheeplike persons as “the righteous ones.” Their righteous appearance before him is not due solely to the fact that they did all the considerate things to him that he mentions. These sheeplike ones are not justified or declared righteous on the basis of their own works any more than the 144,000 joint heirs of Christ are. The prime thing that counted was the thing that was evidenced by their trying to do what they could in behalf of Christ just as the situation afforded, namely, their faith in him as the Messiah or Christ of God. They recognized that they had no righteousness wholly pleasing to God in themselves. In harmony with this they availed themselves of the propitiatory blood of the sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. (John 1:29, 36) To gain a righteous appearance before Jehovah God, they did a washing, as it were, of their symbolic robes. This is called to our attention in John’s vision of the “great crowd.”

40. How do those of the “great crowd” of “other sheep” clean up their bad appearance before God, and where and how do they render sacred service?

⁴⁰ To bring out the fact that those of this sheeplike “great crowd” are disciples of the Lamb Jesus Christ and are worshipers at the spiritual temple of Jehovah God, the apostle John reports this conversation that arose over the vision of the “great crowd”: “And in response one of the elders said to me: ‘These who are dressed in the white robes, who are they and where did they come from?’ So right away I said to him: ‘My lord, you are the one that knows.’ And he said to me: ‘These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple.’” (Revelation 7:13-15) So it is essential that they wash their bad appearance before God in the shed blood of Christ by their exercise of faith, besides which they render sacred service to God at his spiritual temple by doing what the opportunity offers them in behalf of the Lamb Jesus Christ. Properly, then, Jesus could speak of them as “righteous ones.”

41. (a) What do these righteous “sheep” indicate about the parousia by repeatedly asking, “When did we see you?” (b) In this regard, why did the parousia have to be an extended period of time?

⁴¹ By their repeatedly saying, “When did we see you?” when they inquired about the things the King Jesus Christ said they had done to him, the righteous sheeplike ones make it manifest that they did not see him in the flesh. Rightly so, forasmuch as his royal presence or parousia is invisible to human eyes, he being now one “whom not one of men has seen or can see.” His parousia had to be an extended invisible presence for them to do to him all the things that he enumerates, in an indirect manner.