The love-capable creation; separation by demonstrated love

The creation account names something not said of any other created class:

"God said, Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness… God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them." — Genesis 1:26–27

The imago Dei is not given to angels, beasts, or the heavens. It is given to humans. And because "God is love" (1 John 4:8), the image of God carries with it the capacity to love as God loves — to choose love, to refuse it, to grow in it. Love that is not chosen is not love; the image-bearing class is the class capable of the choice.

"We love him, because he first loved us." — 1 John 4:19

The love-response is itself the proof that love-capacity was present. Without response there is no demonstration. This is why the final separation is by demonstrated love, not by recitation:

"“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." — Matthew 25:31–33

The criterion in Matthew 25 is striking: not creedal recitation, but treatment of the vulnerable — "for I was hungry and you gave me food to eat… you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:35, 40). James names the same mechanism: "faith apart from works is dead." (James 2:26). The works are not the price of love; they are its evidence.

The final scene is invitational throughout — "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20). Many are called; few are chosen (Matthew 22:14), because the choosing requires a love-response and not all give one. The separation is not arbitrary exclusion. It is the long-running invitation reaching its terminus, with each invited party having already answered.

See: Genesis 1:26–27; 1 John 4:7–21; Matthew 22:1–14; Matthew 25:31–46; James 2:14–26; Revelation 3:20; Revelation 21:3–7; Deuteronomy 7:7–8.