Misreading Matthew: When Moralism Masks Theology

          It has been deemed proper to take some time to respond to a certain individual, who confuses verbosity with insight and volume with virtue:

          https://signmovesreality.blogspot.com/2025/03/jesse-balks-sad.html

          “Sad. The fragility, the fear and anxiety - and the existential rage that is the repressed defense against being conscious of one’s fear and anxiety - is so deep with these guys, that they don’t want to reach across.”

          This is the classic armchair diagnosis, Freud meets Twitter. If "Feodor" is going to psychoanalyze someone, at least he should try not to sound like he is plagiarizing a freshman philosophy paper. Maybe the reason “these guys” do not want to "reach across" is that they have already seen what is waiting for them on the other side: condescension disguised as compassion. That is not fragility, but prudence at work. Feodor does not get to stamp his foot and demand that others rearrange their time around his musings. The world does not revolve around his schedule, nor is anyone obliged to indulge his theatrics. If he wants an audience on demand, then he should hire a mirror.

          “It would weaken their identity as militarized crusaders. Even if they only arm themselves with dusty, dead world concerns.”

          Calling someone a “militarized crusader” while launching rhetorical grenades from one's own ideological trench is rich. And those “dusty, dead world concerns?” Is that in reference to things like like tradition, history, and moral conviction? It is funny how those things only become “dead” when they do not align with one's worldview. If anything is dusty at all, then it is this recycled caricature of religious believers as mindless zealots.

          “If he had responded the tenor of the following would undoubtedly be quite different. We could have had a gracious back and forth. But it seems to me that Jesse prefers a bunker war.”

          The essence of our critic's reasoning here is this: "He did not respond the way I wanted him to, so now I will paint him as hostile and barbaric." That is not a fair and honest assessment, but a projection of personal frustration onto another’s character. The mode in which one prefers to exchange ideas, the perceived tone in which they are expressed, or even whether he chooses to engage in debate at all, is simply not by itself evidence of bad character. Moreover, Feodor’s manner, whether gracious or graceless, is of no consequence. It has no bearing on the worth of his views, which are already bankrupt. To dwell on his tone is to mistake trivialities for substance.

          “Again I find that, in this instance with Jesse, a committed and micro-focused obsessive worshipper of ‘the Bible’ doesn’t read it well.”

          Ah, the old “he reads the Bible too much but not the way I like” critique. Thoroughness in textual analysis has falsely been made out to be obsessiveness. If one is going to critique someone else's interpretations, then he should try doing it with actual exegesis instead of vague hand-waving.

          “In fact, with Matthew 25 he reads into it stuff that simply isn’t there, and cannot be there until the Protestant Reformation starts to read scripture slant-wise with pre-determined concerns.”

          Irony alert: Feodor accusing somebody of reading biblical narratives with “pre-determined concerns” while doing exactly that himself. Further, the Protestant Reformation did not invent interpretive bias but exposed centuries of it.

          “Jesse intuits right things - being smart and being affected for years by christian scripture - but is not fully conscious of what he intuits.”

          Notice how Feodor tries to sound profound in what he says. It is incoherence put on display for everyone to see. It is the kind of line people use when they want to look like sages, but do not actually have anything concrete to say. Feodor’s basically saying, ‘You’re right, but you’re too dumb to know you’re right,’ which collapses under its own contradiction. If I intuit correctly, then I am aware enough to grasp truth, and credit should be given where it is due. Pretending otherwise just makes him look insecure, like he needs to invent a hierarchy of consciousness to keep himself on top. Strip away the mystical phrasing, and what is left is someone trying way too hard to sound deep while actually saying something shallow. 

          "My contention is that this text absolutely ignores the protestant clamor about sola fide."

          Feodor ignores contextual and theological nuances so that he can continue to spew forth his beliefs. He can then declare himself a "winner" when no one else responds to him.

          "It offers no support, or rather, presents judgment as considering only the position of anti-sola fide when the last judgment comes."

          Feodor has framed issues in a way that conveniently align with his predetermined conclusions about Matthew 25:31-46 and its implications on Sola Fide, which is a circular appeal.

          "Also absolutely absent are Jews. Really odd since the near entirety of Jesus’ message is to the Jews in the Roman province of Judea."

          The Jews would not need to be mentioned specifically, since the text already addresses all different people groups.

          "The term, “nations,” in the original Greek of the NT is ta ethnē. This term is used exclusively for all the rest of the known world, the Gentile world..."

          One would be correct if he suspects that a word-concept fallacy is in play here. Words do not carry fixed theological payloads.

          "For Jesus to speak only of ta ethnē, the Gentile nations as being possible figures of salvation is blasphemy to all Jews of his time."

          The distinction being made is not Jew versus Gentile, but believer versus unbeliever. The destinies are binary because the categories are binary. The real distinction is not ethnic, but eschatological.

          "Therefore what we have here is Jesus, ascended as the King of heaven, and passing judgment on all the non-Jewish peoples of the world."

          Jesus will pass judgment on all the unfaithful and unbelieving, regardless of who they are. There is no need for Matthew to list every demographic category individually.

          "Where is their faith? No where mentioned, no where intimated, no where inferred. Simply, clearly, singly their loving care for all in need."

          A text that mentions works is not automatically a denial of faith, and a text that does not mention faith is not automatically a repudiation of it.

          "Both acknowledge the Lord because they are being actively confronted by the King of heaven in the judgment room. Duh."

          One category acknowledges the Lord because it has reverence for Him. The latter only states the facts of the case due to being powerfully confronted with that reality, which is no different than how the demons acknowledge Him.

          "As if faith itself is not an act by the human person; but that’s another post."

          Faith is certainly a response on our part, an act of trust and assent, but attributing merit to it misunderstands its nature. It is not like a currency that we offer to earn divine favor, but a posture of dependence that acknowledges grace.

          "He has to import christian faith into the sheep so that their salvation is justified."

          The "sheep" would have never been recipients of everlasting life, if they did not have the kind of faith that surrenders to God. In fact, the "goats" mentioned in Matthew 25:31-46 are akin to the rich man of Luke 16:19-31, wilfully blind to less fortunate people than themselves. They ended up facing eternal condemnation because of their subtle neglect, being heartless.

          "He has to move aside their acts of love for the suffering in order to centralize the sheep’s faith."

          That is a misstep. The acts of love toward the suffering are not sidelined. They are the visible fruit of genuine faith. Scripture consistently affirms that true faith expresses itself through love, and this outworking is inseparable from the reality of salvation.

          "In centralizing the faith of the sheep, he has to position the good deeds as secondary and natural consequence to right faith. Thereby erasing he the plight of the suffering from the occasion of judgment altogether."

          The order of works to faith is not in itself a causation of anything, but an observation about the nature of trust in God. In fact, it is because of a heart changed by divine grace that a person acts in a way pleasing to Him. That suggests a consequential order of works to faith upholds the reality of earthly suffering rather than denies it.

          "In order to put faith as central to what’s happening, he has to consider all the Gentile world as having been able to hear the gospel message of Jesus Christ AND giving a thumbs up or down on believing in Jesus Christ AND, if time was available having been baptized."

          This is a false dilemma. Certain conditions do not need to be in play for the position being rejected to be true. The simple reality is that unbelievers are destined for eternal condemnation without repentance, and we have a gospel message to preach to the lost world.

          "He shares that anxiety with Mormons who were motivated to write an additional testament in which the risen Jesus visits the Americas."

          Ah yes, the unmistakable cadence of someone who skimmed a Wikipedia article and now thinks that he is qualified to deliver a keynote at a comparative religion symposium. What he calls critique is really a confession: he does not understand the faith he mocks, and the only thing exposed here is his own intellectual poverty. To frame anything as “anxiety” here is to project one’s own discomfort with grace onto those who embrace it.

          "What Jesse has done is, as a matter of theological history, taken the position of 20th century Catholic theology."

          This claim is absurd on its face, as no such thing has actually happened.

          "Specifically that of Karl Rahner, who, conscious that he is moving outside the referenced Jesus in Matthew 25, conscious that he is building on 2,000 years of biblical and systematic theology, and 400 years of Enlightenment philosophy..."

          I do not subscribe to the theory that a connection to God exists through people's love-driven lives, even if they are unaware of it. The actual point made was that true Christians serve God without thoughts of meriting for themselves a righteous standing before Him. In other words, service is to be done without reservations of personal gain or glory.

          "The war of “faith alone saves” vs being “saved by works” is an old, dead, misinformation rife, sectarian war that cost 40 million lives."

          This claim is as inaccurate as John Foxe's estimate that the crusades killed 70 million people. It ignores broader realities, such as that era being characterized by tribalism rather than a marketplace of ideas. It also reflects poorly on Roman Catholicism, since the Reformers were undoubtedly influenced by the culture in which they lived and failed to completely escape Rome's sway.

          "Fide is the cause of, the mover of behavior, and therefore primary to behavior. He cannot ascribe fide itself as a human person doing something. And so, doing things, loving things are secondary. Well, not even that. Jesse infers that doing loving things only count when there is at least an “unconscious” awareness of Christ. This makes the suffering ones tertiary or, in fact, erased."

          This criticism misunderstands both the theological intent and the anthropological implications of Sola Fide. To say that “it is not ‘fide’ where I go wrong, it is ‘sola’ where I fail” presumes that I isolate faith (fide) from love, action, and personhood. But this is a misreading. Sola fide—faith alone—is not a denial of love or works, but a clarification of their source and order. It does not assert that fide replaces the human person, nor that it acts independently of him. Rather, faith is the animating principle of the Christian’s loving actions. Faith is not a disembodied abstraction. It is the living trust in Christ that transforms the person and expresses itself through love.

          Feodor seems unaware of what a Semitic Totality is, which refers to a worldview, particularly within Hebrew thought, that views reality and human beings as a unified whole, where the spiritual, mental, and physical aspects are inseparable. This concept emphasizes the interconnectedness of thought and action, emphasizing that a person is a complete entity, not merely a composite of separate mind and body.

          "This is messed up. It contradicts what Jesus commands: “as I have loved you, love one another.” A (Jesus) loves B (me) who loves C (the other) who loves B back."

          This relational chain—A (Christ) moves B (the believer), who then does good to C (the other), who loves B back—falsely assumes that C becomes a passive object in a theological transaction. But faith is not mere awareness; it is union with Christ that transforms B into one who sees and loves C as a subject of divine affection. The love B shows to C is not a work to earn salvation but the natural outflow of grace already received. C is not erased but exalted—not instrumental, but essential. A better framework is: A (Christ’s love) transforms B (the believer) into one who honors C (the other) as beloved. This movement—A to B to C—is not works-based righteousness, but salvation that works through love.

          "Oh, man! Jettisoned sola scriptura for sola fide and now lost both!"

          An argument that cannibalizes itself proves nothing but its own demise.