Just a reminder that in Matthew 25, the "goats" believe about Jesus but not in him as the "sheep" did, and I would suggest that it is this latter model that Jesus himself set. We see this being reinforced elsewhere:
Jas. 2 [14] What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?
[15] If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food,
[16] and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?
[17] So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
[18] But some one will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.
And from Paul:
I Cor. 13 [1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
[2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
[3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
[4] Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
[5] it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
[6] it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
[7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[8] Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
[9] For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
[10] but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
[11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
[12] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
[13] So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Notice that "faith" doesn't take first place. Secondly, the word for "love" in Koine Greek was "agape", as many of you undoubtedly know, and there is no equivalent English word. If you talk to a scholar on this ancient form of Greek, what they'll tend to tell you is that it's an all-encompassing love that also denotes action. IOW, one doesn't just have this all-encompassing love, plus one also lives out this all-encompassing love as it's a noun that involves action and not just thought-- thus the "law of love".
This is why it's apparent to me that Jesus' "law of love" is based not just on a politically-correct belief like the "goats" had, but of actually living out the gospel as the "sheep" realized. This fits the paradigm of Judaism in that it's not possible to be an observant Jew just by occasionally going to services or having politically-correct beliefs, but that it's important to make it very much a part of our everyday lives. IOW, one doesn't just believe in Judaism-- we must live it.
And I believe the same is true about Christianity, namely one doesn't just believe about Jesus, one must live out their belief, and one's actions must reflect that belief. To do otherwise turns a person into a "goat".
