I Never Knew You – Depart from Me

by George Sidney Hurd

“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. 22 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?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matt 7:21–23)
 
“I never knew you; depart from Me.” These are some of the most sobering words ever spoken by Jesus, and it would be folly not to take them seriously. However, I have found that, all too often, those to whom Jesus was actually addressing this warning shrug it off as not being applicable to them, while many sensitive and sincere believers, being acutely aware of their own imperfections, live in constant fear, dreading that when they stand before Jesus He will say to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me.” However, I believe that a careful consideration of the context, taking into account those whom Jesus was addressing, will bring a renewed confidence and assurance to many of God’s children.
 
Context of Matthew 5 – 7 The Sermon on the Mount
 
    1) Grace to the Humble (Matt 5:1-11)
 
The passage we are considering in Matthew 7:21-23 are Christ’s closing statements in His Sermon on the Mount. In His sermon He was addressing a great multitude of people, ranging from the harlots and tax collectors to the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. In keeping with our Lord’s stated mission, He began His sermon with the beatitudes, reaching out to those who knew they were sinners in need of a Savior, not those who were under the false illusion of having a righteousness of their own without any need of the Physician (Luke 6:31-32).
 
If you are a believer who has a broken and contrite spirit, acutely aware of your need for Christ, the part of the Sermon on the Mount that is specifically directed towards you is the beatitudes at the beginning, not the rest of the sermon, which was primarily intended to rebuke and convict the complacent and the self-righteous who merely profess to be Christians.
 
In the beatitudes Jesus says that you are blessed if you are among those who are meek, recognizing your own spiritual poverty, mourning over remaining sin in your life and hungering and thirsting for righteousness instead of being complacent and self-satisfied. To you, Jesus speaks words of comfort and blessing, saying that your desire for righteousness will be satisfied with His own righteousness, and that it is you, not those who feel sufficient in themselves, who will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
 
To the broken He is tender, speaking words of consolation and hope, extending forgiveness and offering freely the water of life, just as He did to the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus the tax collector and the thief on the cross. As the Scripture says concerning Jesus:
 
“A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory.” (Matt 12:20)
 
He sent forth justice to victory by going to the cross on our behalf, in love bearing in His own body the just penalty due to us for our sins in order that God could justly justify the ungodly who simply put their trust in Him (1Peter 2:24-25; Rom 3:25-26; 4:5). If you are weary and heavy laden, His words to you are not “depart from Me,” but “come unto Me, and I will give you rest for your soul” (Matt 11:28-30). While God resists the proud, the indifferent and the self-righteous, He gives grace to the humble who hunger and thirst for righteousness (James 4:6).
 
     2) Law applied to the Self-Righteous (Matt 5:17-48).
 
In the second part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus directs His words towards those who are under the false illusion that they are righteous under the Law of Moses. The Scriptures say, “by the deeds of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). The Law wasn’t given for man to live by, but to die by (2Cor 3:6-7). In this part of the sermon, Jesus lifts the bar impossibly high for the religiously self-righteous diehards.
 
To those who would claim they never broke the fifth commandment, “you shall not kill,” Jesus said that just being angry with someone without a just cause would make one guilty of murder (Matt 5:21-22). To those who say that they have never committed adultery, Jesus said that just looking at a woman to lust for her makes one guilty of adultery (27-28).
 
He then confronts some of the rabbinical loopholes used by the Jews to justify not fulfilling the Law on issues such as divorce, breaking of oaths, taking vengeance and hating one’s enemy, showing all such exception clauses to be unjustifiable (31-48). Reading this passage, we all, without exception, must acknowledge our hopeless condition. None of us have even come close to attaining to the righteousness which is by the Law.
 
 What was Jesus’ motive in this discourse? It was to bring them to see their own guilt and need for the remission of sins which He would obtain for us on the cross (Matt 26:28; Rom 3:23-26). As Paul explains concerning the purpose of the Law:
 
“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Rom 3:19)
 
We must come to realize our own depravity before we will look to Christ for salvation. The Law was given to condemn us, not to justify us (2Cor 3:7-11). The rich young ruler, seeking to justify himself, asked Jesus what he must DO to inherit eternal life, claiming that he had kept the Law from his youth (something no one, except for Christ Himself, has ever done).
 
Instead of commending him, Jesus placed a unique demand on him that He knew he would not be willing to obey – “sell what you have and give to the poor” (Matt 19:16-22). In contrast, the tax collector who simply cried out saying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” went down to his home justified (Luke 18:13-14). Ultimately, God will have mercy on all, but one must first come to see their own disobedience and hopeless state of depravity before they will look to God for mercy (Rom 11:32). No one will experience salvation without first coming to see their need for salvation and looking to Christ to save them. The Law served as our tutor to reveal our true condition and bring us to Christ, and that is the way in which Jesus uses it in the Sermon on the Mount (Gal 3:24).
 
    3) Rebuke to the Religious Hypocrites (Matt 6:1-7:6).
 
Just as the second part of the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t directed towards the poor in spirit who already knew they were sinners in need of the Savior, neither was the third part directed towards them, but primarily exposes the religious hypocrites like the scribes and Pharisees who did their good deeds in order to be seen of men (6:1-18) and censured others for minor defects while they themselves had the greater sin (7:1-6).
 
      4) Warning against False Prophets (Matt 7:15-27).
 
This brings us to the close of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus uttered the words we are considering: “I never knew you; depart from Me.” It is important to note that these words are not spoken to the meek and poor in spirit who hunger and thirst after righteousness, but they are primarily a warning against false prophets who profess to speak for God, while their life and message demonstrate otherwise.
 
A false prophet (ψευδοπροφήτης, pseudoprophētēs), is not simply someone who makes false predictions of future events, but anyone who falsely claims to be speaking for God.  The title is associated with false teachers who secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them (2Peter 2:1). Jesus said that we will know them by their fruits – not merely referring to their lifestyle, but also to their teachings which cause many to depart from the Holy Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation (2Tim 3:13-17).
 
It is in this context of Jesus warning against false teachers who would come among us in sheep’s clothing, that Jesus uttered the sobering words we are considering in this article. He said:
 
“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. 22 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?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matt 7:21–23)
 
Many sincere and sensitive believers, aware of their own shortcomings, are terrified by these words, thinking that they are applicable to them. In fact, more often than not, it is the poor in spirit who hunger and thirst after righteousness that care about their relationship with the Lord, not the unrepentant or self-righteous. However, it is important that we understand that Jesus here is not addressing born-again believers, but empty professors and false prophets who worship the Lord with their lips while their hearts are far from Him. Since, as James said, even as believers “we all stumble in many things” (James 3:2), if we are not careful, we can fall prey to the accuser who is an expert at quoting scripture out of context in order to destroy our confidence we have in the Lord.
 
Jesus could never say of a born-again believer who has put their trust in Him that He never knew them. Instead, to us as born-again believers He would say, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30). Jesus knows His sheep and He says that they will never perish (John 10:14; 10:27-29).
 
Many misunderstand His words “he who does the will of My Father in heaven” as teaching that we are saved by works. But what is the will of the Father according to Jesus? In John 6:40 Jesus said:
 
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:40).
 
So, we see that it is the will of the Father that everyone who simply looks to His Son and believes in (εἰς, believe into or receive) Him should have everlasting life. Likewise, in His reply to those who asked Him what they had to do to work the works of God, Jesus made it clear that we do the will of the Father by trusting in Him. He said to them: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (John 6:28-29). It is faith alone, in Christ alone, that saves us. Good works are the fruit of salvation, not that which procures it (Eph 2:8-10).
 
Note that those whom Jesus addressed saying, “I never knew you; depart from me,” did not respond by saying:  “Lord, Lord, did we not believe on you?” Instead of appealing to their trust in Christ for their acceptance before God, they made their appeal based upon their own works: “have WE not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” Instead of saying: “Lord, Lord, did YOU not die for our sins?”, they made their plea based upon what they themselves had done, albeit in His name.
 
Here we see that supernatural manifestations are not the litmus test for a genuine born-again believer. Judas Iscariot was among the 12 Apostles who were given power to heal the sick and cast out demons even though Jesus called him “the son of perdition” and “a devil” (Jn 6:70-71; 17:12). Especially in these last days we must be careful to not assume that every evangelist, prophet or teacher who works signs and wonders is of God. Jesus forewarned us saying:
 
“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. But take heed; see, I have told you all things beforehand.” (Mark 13:22-23)
 
Likewise, we must guard against basing our assurance of salvation upon whether or not we are having supernatural encounters or healing the sick and casting out demons. Our salvation is based solely upon what Christ did for us on the cross when He cried out “it is finished,” not upon what the Lord may or may not be doing through you at any given moment. The moment you first believed and received Christ you were regenerated,  justified and sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of your redemption (Rom 5:1-2; Eph 1:13-14).
 
God’s processes to bring about your conformity to the image of Christ will vary throughout the course of your lifetime. Revivals are glorious, but where our faith really grows strong is not during times of revival, but in the wilderness where our faith is tested (James 1:2-4). It is wonderful to be used to heal the sick and cast out demons, but not even the Apostles or Jesus Himself were always experiencing supernatural manifestations (Luke 5:17; Jn 5:19; Phil 2:27).
 
What will be important on that day is not our list of life achievements, but whether or not we have put our trust in Him alone, whether we have known Him and He has known us. As Paul said:
 
“If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so:  circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.  Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ   and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” (Phil 3:4-9)
 

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