“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”Those on the right, the sheep, are told to come and inherit the Kingdom. Those on the left do not fare as well. Or, at least this is the common understanding of these verses.  The sheep are bound for heaven, while the goats to eternal perdition.  One is either a sheep or a goat, there is no in-between. Two groups. Very simple. Very black and white.  You know, the way most of us like our theology.And yet, I wonder. So too did Sergius Bulgakov. There are alternative readings to what we call the “final judgment,” or the end times.  Bulgakov offered such a reading, which I find compelling and closer to the over-all sweep of Scripture, the Christian narrative, and of the God portrayed therein.What partly formed his reading of Matthew 25 and the sheep and the goats, was his view of what “judgment” entailed and meant.  We normally view judgment as something happening outside ourselves. We stand before an external judge who makes a decision regarding our lives, our souls.  It is something handed down to us, rendered or decreed.  It is separate from our own judgment, reflection, or internal calculus.

Source: We Are Sheep-We Are Goats | Darrell Lackey