Depart From Me Ye Workers of Iniquity I Know You Not

Question

What did Jesus mean when He said, "I never knew yous. Depart from me"?

Answer

Jesus said, "So I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matthew 7:23). It seems foreign to hear our all-knowing Lord say there'southward something—or someone—He doesn't know. Jesus refers non to an intellectual cognition hither but to a relational noesis.

To understand a poetry, e'er start with the context. Jesus is wrapping upward His Sermon on the Mount with a final alarm about true faith. Jesus predicts that fake Christian prophets will exist coming equally wolves in sheep'due south clothing (Matthew 7:15). They may use all the right "God talk" and even make impressive displays of power, simply they will not belong to the Lord:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ane who does the will of my Father who is in sky. Many will say to me on that 24-hour interval, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name bulldoze out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you lot evildoers!'" (Matthew 7:21–23).

In Jesus' words on Judgment 24-hour interval, nosotros encounter several of import truths: it'south not a verbal claim that one follows Jesus that saves (Matthew 7:21). Nominal Christianity cannot relieve. Also, it's not a demonstration of spiritual insight or power that saves (verse 22). A person tin can seem like a Christian in the optics of other people, yet still be an "evildoer" in God's sight and sent abroad from His presence (poesy 23). Only those who practise the Father's will and who are known of God volition enter heaven.

And so, what is the Father's volition? Some men came to Jesus once with a question about what God required of them: "They asked him, 'What must we do to practise the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the i he has sent'" (John 6:28–29). God wants us to have faith in His Son: "This is his command: to believe in the proper noun of his Son, Jesus Christ" (ane John iii:23). Those who are born again by faith in Christ volition produce practiced works to the glory of God (Ephesians 2:10).

When Jesus said, "I never knew you," to the feigned disciples, He meant that He never recognized them as His true disciples or His friends. He never had annihilation in mutual with them nor approved of them. They were no relations of His (Mark iii:34–35). Christ did not dwell in their hearts (Ephesians three:17), nor did they take His mind (1 Corinthians ii:16). In all these ways and more, Jesus never knew them. Note that Jesus is not breaking off the relationship here—in that location was never a human relationship to break off. Despite their arty words and showy displays of religious fervor, they had no intimacy with Christ.

So it turns out that what matters isn't so much that we know God on some level, merely that God knows usa. Every bit Paul explained, "Whoever loves God is known by God" (i Corinthians 8:3; also run across Galatians 4:9). The Lord "tends His flock similar a shepherd" (Isaiah xl:xi), and He knows who are His sheep (John 10:fourteen).

Those somber words "I never knew you lot: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" in Matthew 7:23 (KJV) show that Jesus is indeed all-seeing. He did not "know" them in the sense He would if they were His followers, but He knew their hearts—they were total of iniquity! Isaiah's condemnation of hypocrisy fits this grouping well: "These people come up near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Isaiah 29:13). The evildoers whom Jesus does not know are fake Christians, false teachers, and nominal adherents of religion.

Those who are bid depart from the presence of the Lord will not partake of the blessings of the kingdom: "Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood" (Revelation 22:15). They volition be cast "into the darkness, where at that place volition be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12). Those fake Christians whom Jesus says He never knew will not produce the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians v:22–23); rather, they volition produce the opposite, the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19–21).

Jesus warns that one day He volition tell a grouping of religious practitioners, "I never knew you." God takes no delight in sending people to hell (2 Peter 3:9). But those who are told to depart have rejected God's eternal purpose and program for their lives (Luke seven:30). They have spurned the light of the gospel (2 Corinthians iv:4), choosing the darkness instead, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19). At the judgment, they effort to justify themselves as worthy of heaven on the basis of their works (prophecies, exorcisms, miracles, etc.), but no one volition be justified by his own works (Galatians 2:16). While claiming to do all these practiced works in Christ'southward name, they failed to do the just work of God that counts: "to have faith in the i he sent" (John 6:29, CEV). So Jesus, the Righteous Estimate, condemns them to eternal separation from Him.

Return to:

Questions about Matthew

What did Jesus mean when He said, "I never knew you. Depart from me"?

Subscribe to the

Question of the Week

Get our Question of the Week delivered right to your inbox!

© Copyright 2002-2022 Got Questions Ministries. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy

This folio last updated: Jan 4, 2022

knoxgence1949.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/I-never-knew-you-depart-from-me.html

Share this post