Moving from Justification to Sanctification

The Gospel of Matthew contains an image of God's judgment.  Those who are judged righteous, symbolized by sheep, are characterized as having engaged in acts of mercy; clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and visiting the prisoner.  Those who are deemed unrighteous, symbolized by goats, are deemed unrighteous because they have not done these things.

This text is typically interpreted in a moralistic manner and as a code of ethics (i.e. a list of things that disciples should do).  I think this type of reading misses the point of the story.  In the story, the righteous and the unrighteous are being judged without having had access to this story that tells them what to do and what not to do.  They have not been told this story and put on notice of what is expected of them because they are characters in the story.

This story is not giving us a code of ethics.  Rather, the acts that distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous are given as examples of the things that the righteous will naturally do, and the unrighteous will naturally not do.  In the ancient near east, sheep were considered to have a good nature, and goats were considered to have an evil nature.  Those with a good nature naturally do things consistent with their nature, and those with an evil nature naturally do things consistent with their nature.

In the Wesleyan tradition, the good news is that we believe in the principle of sanctifying grace: we see conversion as a gradual process that begins with the moment of justification; when we choose to acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and live a life imitating him.  Justification begins a lifelong process of trying to change our nature.  When our nature is changed, it will be our natural proclivity to engage in the type of acts that are described in this story: we don't have to be given an exhaustive list of things to do; we don't have to be told how often to do them.  We just do them naturally because it is our nature to do them.