Jesus said to his disciples, «Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a big fishing net let down into the sea, in which every kind of fish has been caught. When the net is full, it is dragged ashore. Then they sit down and gather the good fish in buckets, but throw the worthless ones away. That is how it will be at the end of time; the angels will go out to separate the wicked from the just and throw them into the blazing furnace, where they will weep and gnash their teeth». Jesus asked, «Have you understood all these things?». «Yes», they answered. So He said to them, «You will see that every teacher of the Law who becomes a disciple of the Kingdom is like a householder who can produce from his store things both new and old». When Jesus had finished these parables, He left the place.
Source: http://evangeli.net/gospel/
Analysis
Today's passage seems oddly familiar with the weeds parable, and I did explain the problems with that parable. As such, I will do the same with this one, and probably only repeat what I said previously, so here we go. This time, Jesus compares the kingdom with a big fishing net that is thrown to the sea and gathered many fishes. Good fish is kept, and bad fish is thrown away. Jesus went far enough to explain it, that the good fish are good people, whole the bad fish are bad people. This of course, erases any possibility of it simply being the removal of the bad characteristics and the retaining of the good characteristics. Jesus also ends with an odd cultural centered comment on teachers of law, more on that later.
If there is one thing that Jesus seems neurotic about, it's the day of judgement and His ideal kingdom of God. His ideal kingdom is a kingdom of perfectly good people, and that the bad people are just pests to be thrown off to hell. The problem is, this contradicts with His mission, that is to die so we don't need to die, and really by Jesus' logic, the kingdom will be empty, because in my opinion, there is no one that is truly fit for the kingdom. So again, why does Jesus keep saying that the sinful will be banished to hell? Even when He keeps telling us to forgive others and to love others, to even forgive our enemies and pray for those who persecuted us!
It would be good if Jesus is only mixing things up, as what He says is partly true, as sin warrants death, naturally, even without the condemnation of Jesus. As such, judgement happens every single moment of our life. When we commit sin, we become less free and when we commit virtues, we become more free, that's how it goes. Of course, it is logical that Jesus simply didn't say that He will in the end go to hell Himself so no one else does, but why would He do that? Why would He withheld information and act like it will happen, after all He spoke of the end days very often.
Jesus' statement on the end days are a mixture of two things, natural judgement and the final revolution. It is true that people are always judged naturally for their actions, and it is true that someday, Christ will return to enact the final war, the final conflict, and the final revolution to end all wars, conflicts, and bring peace to the world. However, those two events are separate, one describes a constant process that is a natural consequence while the other one is an eschatological concept that will inevitable happen, and can only be delayed but not cancelled or prevented. So, what is going on here?
Jesus mixing it up is odd, as it implies that He does not want to save people and only wishes to have it the easy way. Yet we all know that Jesus dies in the end and now is the sole inhabitant of hell. So, do we have a psychological argument for this phenomena? Well, yes we do, you see, Jesus had suffered from the early days of His life, as having the burden of knowledge is not easy, let alone knowledge of your death. As such, it is only natural that as a human, Jesus will have doubts along the way, and this doubt was planted deep in His mind, and thus we have the odd mixture of judgement and end days. Eventually, all of His doubts are resolved in Gethsemane, with God comforting Him one last time before death. In the end, Jesus is only human, like us, but He is an astounding Human, that we shall strive to follow. That is all I have to say, have a nice day and see you tomorrow.
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