Matthew 7:21-23 – Not Everyone Who Says to Me, Lord, Lord

Let’s take a look next at Matthew 7:21-23, the next passage which does immediately follow what we were just looking at. I’ll read it.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

I’m here again with Zane Hodges. And there are a number of questions, things that people have and that I have here. The first one is in verse 22, “Many will say to Me in that day.” In what day? What day is Jesus talking about?

It seems evident that he’s talking about the day of judgment, the day in which men will stand before Him either to be approved or condemned. We’re not talking obviously here about saved people because He rejects them. And we also know from the Gospel of John, for example, and also from the book of Revelation, that saved people do not stand in the final judgment.

But here are people who do stand in the final judgment and who are making a claim they think is valid. And the day of judgment people are not going to be fakers. They may on earth pretend to do miracles and cast out demons, but that won’t work in the day of judgment. So these people actually think they’ve done the things that they are claiming that they have done.

That we’ve done miracles in Your name, we cast out demons in Your name. And it’s interesting here that the people who are speaking are evidently relying upon their works for acceptance from the Lord Jesus Christ. And they feel that these works are genuine. And yet He rejects them. He says, “I never knew you.”

And He introduces this presentation here by the simple statement that not just saying “Lord, Lord” is sufficient to get into the kingdom of heaven, but one must do the will of My Father which is in heaven.

Now if we ask the question, what is the will of the Father in heaven for us to do in order to get into the kingdom of heaven? The answer is, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And every other answer is incorrect.

So if a person says, “I expect to get into the kingdom of heaven because I’ve done this or that or the other thing,” they have not done the will of the Father in heaven. They’ve not done what God says must be done in order to enter.

I think it’s worth pointing out here that in the Gospel of Matthew it wasn’t necessary for Matthew to spell this point out to his readers. The Gospel of Matthew is a gospel obviously written to Christian readers. It’s different in its tone and direction from the Gospel of John. It’s basically a gospel about discipleship.

So when a Christian audience hears, “You have to do the will of the Father to get into heaven,” a Christian audience knows that the will of the Father is that we should believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these people are people who are standing before Him. They’ve not trusted in Him for eternal salvation or eternal life.

But they are convinced that they have done works in His name. And His response to them is, “I never knew you.” And this is equivalent to saying, “You don’t have eternal life.” Because in John chapter 17 Jesus says,

“This is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

So for Him to say, “I never knew you,” is to say, “You don’t have My life. I don’t know you through the medium of eternal life.” Okay, very good. It’s not that I knew you and you lost it, but “I never knew you.”

One question I had related to this, and people asked, is aren’t there two separate days and there was a separate judgment for the believer as compared to the unbeliever? Maybe you too talked about the two judgments. Where do we see them in Scripture and what are they called?

It is true that there is a judgment of believers’ works. But these are not basically in the Scriptures put into the same category. For instance in John 5:24,

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he that hears My word and believes on Him that sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment.”

Period. Not into this kind of judgment.

So there is a sense in which there is only one final judgment to determine the destiny of men. And that is the last judgment at the end of the thousand year period. And the only people who will appear in that judgment are lost people.

So the Lord Jesus Christ guarantees that the believer does not come into judgment like that. Whatever judgment we come into, that’s not judgment in the final and ultimate sense of the word.

So here we are clearly talking about the final judgment. And the only people who will stand there are lost people. And that is Revelation 20:11-15.

And maybe you could comment on from Revelation 20:11-15, what is, although their works are judged they are not condemned specifically because of their works, are they?

In Revelation 20, the Great White Throne Judgment, that’s a very important observation. Because first of all the books are open and they are judged according to things written in there, those books, according to their works. And if the general popular view of things were true then we would expect them to be explicitly condemned on the basis of their works. But that isn’t stated at all.

And what is stated is that the Book of Life is examined. And whoever’s name was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Okay. What this indicates is that unsaved people will have their day in court. Lots and lots of people have died thinking that they are good enough to get into the kingdom of heaven. And they are entitled. But God is going to give them their day in court. He’s going to examine their entire life of works. And on the basis of this there can only be one pronouncement, that they’re guilty, that they’re sinners, that they haven’t measured up to the standards that God has set.

Fortunately Christ died for all those. So now the only hope that the individual has, he can’t measure up according to his works, is that he has received life from the Lord Jesus Christ.

But those who stand there will be individuals who are not written in the Book of Life. And because they’re not written there, that is the basis on which they’re condemned to hell.

So the judgment seat of Christ, Greek bema, the judgment seat of Christ where Christians will have their works evaluated, is in no way a determination of our eternal destiny. That was set the moment we believed. Is that correct?

That’s exactly right. The final judgment is the serious eternal destiny judgment which has been totally and completely escaped through the grace of God by every believer in Jesus Christ. He’s going to stand in review before the Lord for the things that he’s done on earth. And that’s serious enough. But it doesn’t even begin to compare with a judgment that might end in eternal damnation.

So even if we lose significant rewards, and Christians will lose significant rewards, these are relatively minor when they are compared to the loss of one’s eternal destiny and separation eternally from God.

In the passage that we’re looking at obviously he’s separated from them. “Depart from Me,” He says, “you that work iniquity. We’re not going to be together. You’re going to be separated from Me.”

Yeah. That’s a good point. Whereas 1 Thessalonians 5:10 says,

“Whether we’re watchful or whether we’re asleep when He comes, we will forever be with Him.”

Exactly. Yeah, that’s good.

Okay. I had another question related to this verse. You said the will of the Father is to believe in His Son. And you mentioned Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved.” But that doesn’t explicitly use the phrase “the will of the Father.” How about some verses that maybe from John, for example, that use the phrase “the will of the Father” and say the will of the Father is to believe in His Son?

Well one that we think of immediately is the exchange found in John 6. Where the people say, “What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” They’re talking against the background of Jesus’ miracle. And they would like to perform miracles like this. And Jesus replies,

“This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.”

This, in other words, this is what God wants you to do. Don’t worry about miracles. It’s interesting how that ties to this passage because these are people that claim to have done miracles. So they would have said, “We’ve done the works of God.” But Jesus is saying to them, “You haven’t done the work of God.” Because the work of God is that you believe on the One whom He has sent.

Okay, great. Also, as we get later on in John 6 when you get to verses 39 and 40.

“This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”

And then the repetition, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me,” obviously still referring to the Father,

“that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up on the last day.”

That’s a good addition to the answer. Yeah, those are pertinent verses.

Okay. Another question I have related to Matthew 7:21-23, which I sometimes think doesn’t get enough attention. Notice these people, three times they say that we’ve done these things “in Your name, in Your name, in Your name.” Does this not suggest that we’re thinking of people from within Christianity? We’re not thinking of Buddhists or Hindus or atheists or agnostics or Muslims here. We’re thinking of people within Christianity.

Because it seems inconceivable if this is going to be some sort of comprehensive judgment where we can have a replay of the life, that they’re going to make up things.

That’s exactly right. I think that’s the conclusion we have to draw here. These people are not Buddhists who are suddenly caught unaware by the fact that they’re standing before the Christian God. These are people who think they were related to the Christian God and to the Christian Savior. And the works that they claim are claims to have been engaged in activity for Him.

So these are obviously professing Christian prophets. And in fact they are self-deceived because they have convinced themselves that they have in fact done these things. And one of the things that we need to be aware of is that sometimes Satan himself can replicate the miracles of God.

So there is no necessity for Jesus to say, “Well you didn’t really do any of these things.” And anyway that wouldn’t have been relevant. Because even if they had done the things, assuming the truth of their claims, it wouldn’t get them into the kingdom of heaven. Only doing the will of the Father, only believing in the Son would do that.

To me this relates to one of the Evangelism Explosion questions where you say, “Have you come to the point in your spiritual life where you’re sure you have eternal life?” And people will say yes or no. And then you follow up the second question, “If you were to appear before God and He said, ‘Why should I let you into My kingdom?’ what would you say?”

Does it not seem that verse 22 is these people’s answer to that very question?

It certainly sounds like it. It sounds like this is where they base their claims for acceptance from their judge. And He rejects those claims. So I think that’s very pertinent.

Here I don’t like the question, “Have you come to the point in your spiritual life...” You should be sure the moment you have believed the gospel. Because the gospel guarantees that to you. And if this is a matter of just growing into it then you haven’t understood the gospel upfront.

So the gospel brings with it assurance of salvation. And it brings with it assurance on the basis of the one condition that the Father has laid down.

So if a person is standing in the final judgment and he’s not predicating his acceptance on the one condition that the Father has laid down, he’s resting on the wrong foundation.

So to kind of wrap this up, the way that we’ve been discussing this is exactly the opposite of the way this passage is normally taught. The way this passage is normally taught is, if you profess to believe in Jesus but you don’t have enough works you’re not truly born again.

So if there’s a linkage between the preceding passage about the false prophets and this message, would this not actually be an indictment against lordship salvation type teaching?

Well it seems to me that this comes as close as any passage to a direct condemnation of lordship salvation. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord.’” And we’re not talking here about people who don’t think they’re really subject to the lordship of Christ. Because what they come back with is, “Lord, Lord, have we not... we’ve done this, we did this for You, we did this in subjection to You.”

And Jesus says, “No, that doesn’t count. You haven’t done what the Father has asked you to do.”

So I think this is as good a refutation of lordship theology as you’ll find anywhere. But of course the Scriptures contradict lordship theology over and over again.

So a person could be extremely well intentioned and end up spending eternity in the lake of fire. Tragically that’s the case. Sincerity is no substitute for reality.

And in our day and age where we have a very loose and open-ended attitude toward differences of religion, and we say it’s alright for this person to believe this way and that person to believe in that way, we are misleading ourselves and others. Because it’s not alright to believe just any way that you feel like believing. You need to believe the truth.

And that’s the problem that is faced by these false professors in the passage we’re discussing.

Well thank you so much, Zane. I appreciate it.