The Sheep and Goats Judgment is a Judgment of Nations not Individuals

While I don't always agree with The Total Victory of Christ YouTube channel (like their overreliance on the Creeds) their discussions of the Sheep and Goats Judgment of Matthew 25 are pretty good.  What I have to say here is in addition to all of that not in opposition to it.

Because another key point believers in Universal Salvation should stress is that this is a judgment of Nations not Individuals, that is explicitly the word used in verse 32.  I know Dispensationalists want to say "nations" here means "Gentiles" and that "the least of these my brethren" are The Jews.  But the Hebrew "Goyim" Biblically meant Nations, the modern "Gentiles" meaning came later, even if it is relevant to some NT uses of "Ethnos" it's not universal and in a context like this certainly doesn't work.  It's obvious from the context that "the least of these my brethren" means the poor and suffering and marginalized and least privileged of society not people literally genealogically "brethren" to Him in a way others are not.  Jesus is The Son of Man, all children of Adam are his brethren no matter if they recognize Him as their Savior yet or not.

As a Parable I don't think this is the most literal depiction of what the coming Judgment will look like. But the Moral of the Story is that Nations will be Judged based on whether or not they fed and cared for the poor and needy, an idea The Hebrew Bible already communicated in Ezekiel 16:49.

And so this understanding of Matthew 25 isn't just relevant to Universal Salvation but also to Christian Communism.  The argument of Conservative and Libertarian Christians that the Communalism of the Early Church in Acts or all the stress Jesus put on caring for The Poor all over this Gospels are only calling for Voluntary Charity and do not support Government Action are destroyed by this clear and simple reading of Matthew 25:31-46.  Yet everyone forgets to consider it relevant to that topic because we're so caught up in arguing over what it says the Punishment will be rather then who's being Punished and what The Sin is.