This reply means that if they had seen the Lord Himself, all of them would have performed these acts of kindness to Him. Yet it would not have been love towards Him that would have led them to do so, only fear because He was about to come and judge the whole world. Nor would they have acted for His sake but their own, and so not because of anything present more internally in them, in their hearts, but for quite external reasons, and in outward conduct alone. They may be likened to a person who, when he sees his king whose favour he wishes to secure so that he may become great or rich, therefore conducts himself in a submissive manner before the king. Or they may be likened to those who engage in external holy worship in which so to speak they see the Lord and are submissive before Him. They do this because they believe that by engaging in such worship they will receive eternal life, even though they have no charity and do not do good to anyone except for selfish reasons, thus solely for their own benefit. Those on the right are like people who outwardly show great respect to their king yet scoff at what he commands because in their hearts they despise him. These and other examples like them are what are meant by the reply given by those on the right. And because the outward actions of the evil as well are similar, the reply given by those on the left was practically the same.