Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
Did we not prophesy by your name,
And by your name cast out demons,
And by your name do many mighty works?
And then will I profess to them, I never knew you,
Depart from me, you who work iniquity.
And then with remarkable suddenness Jesus brings them up short with a new revelation concerning Himself, a revelation made clearer in Matthew 28:20 (compare Matthew 26:64; Matthew 24:27; Matthew 24:30-31). ‘In that Day' is a prophetic phrase which indicates any day when ‘the Lord' will call men to account in varying circumstances. It is used of historical periods of judgment (e.g. Isaiah 7:20), it is used of the coming and effectiveness of the Coming One (e.g. Isaiah 11:10-11; Hosea 2:21-23; Amos 9:11), and it is used of God's final Day (Isaiah 2:11; Isaiah 2:17; Isaiah 2:20; Isaiah 4:1-2; Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 28:5). It is this last which Jesus has in mind here. Here then ‘Lord, Lord' must be given its full and deepest meaning (although possibly only recognised by them later). They are to recognise His authority and uniqueness and bow to it. And here they look to Him for hope in that dread Day. But they look without hope.
And yet they have such confidence. They had such a high opinion of themselves. They had ‘spoken prophetically' in His Name (but it was their own words and ideas and wisdom that they had spoken), they had ‘cast out demons' in His Name (but without themselves submitting to Him and His Name), they had done ‘mighty works' in His Name, by utilising the methods of such wonder-workers, but these had not resulted from the power of God (remarkable effects can result by arousing people's ‘faith' without it signifying anything spiritually, for so many of people's problems and illnesses have a psychological root, and the body is attuned to respond to a positive attitude. It was even more so in a day when men looked to a multiplicity of gods and could imagine themselves smitten because they had displeased the gods). So here were prophets and wonder-workers who had made use of the Name of Jesus, fully confident in their right to do so, believing themselves to be disciples, and had convinced at least themselves that they were successfully carrying on His ministry. And they therefore expected to have Jesus' support. Where then had they failed? They had failed in two ways. Firstly in that they had failed to be ‘known' to Jesus (compare Matthew 25:12). He had not appointed or approved them (as He did the man in Luke 9:49-50. Thus it was not just a matter of being unofficial). They had not submitted to Him in His Kingly Rule. There had been no establishment of a personal relationship with Him. This was an indictment indeed for God's promise concerning the last days had been that all would know Him, from the least to the greatest, and would therefore be known of Him as He forgave their sin and no more remembered their iniquity (Jeremiah 31:34). We can compare how God had said of Abraham, ‘for I have known him' (Genesis 18:19) with the result that Abraham had taught his children to keep the way of the Lord. That is what happens when God knows men. Thus not to be known by Jesus was a sign that they were none of His.
And secondly they had failed in that His failure to know them had been revealed by their ‘working of iniquity (lawlessness)', which may simply mean that they had neglected Jesus' teachings concerning the Law, e.g. Matthew 7:12. Thus they had not sought to do the will of His Father. Their minds had been fixed on their own agenda and their own ideas. God had not really been in their thoughts.
Note how closely they appeared to have paralleled the Apostles. They too had preached in His Name, they too had cast out demons and done wonderful works (Matthew 10:7-8). But how different had been the attitude of their hearts. All the Apostles, save one who would later be exposed, had done it out of love for Christ. Notice how this confirms that there was a very real sense in which the Apostles could, in Galilee, have been seen in those days as performing a prophetic function, although of course as representatives of the prophet Jesus.
There are many like these ‘false prophets' today. It may even be true of some successful ‘spiritual healers' who operate in the name of Jesus, but are self-appointed and not known to Him. They reveal what they really are by the lives that they live, the large houses that they possess and the model of their cars. Jesus leaves us in no doubt as to the two questions that we must ask ourselves. Are we known to Him? Have we repented and come humbly to Him and to the foot of His cross? Have we received His cleansing in ‘the blood of Jesus' (1 John 1:7)? And secondly are we seeking, however unsatisfactorily in the short term, to do the will of His Father? Is that where our heart is? For it is where the heart is that counts. Is it our desire to do His will? Do we grieve when we fail to do His will? For no man or woman who is truly known to Jesus can fail to desire to do His Father's will, even though it be a struggle in which they often fail (compare Romans 6:21; Romans 7:14-25). And if we glibly proceed on our way without being concerned about His will then we need to heed Paul's words, ‘examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Do you not know that Christ is in you, unless you be in a condition of being rejected?' (2 Corinthians 13:5; compare Romans 8:9-10). And if Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Romans 8:10). It is no good saying ‘Lord, Lord' if we do not desire to do the will of His Father.
‘Depart from Me.' Had He just said ‘Depart' we may have seen this as simply indicating that Jesus had some position of authority in Heaven and was acting on behalf of Another. But ‘Depart from Me ' is more significant. It is taken from Psalms 6:8 but given a new and deeper significance (although even in the Psalm it is a king who has come through suffering and is now triumphant and is dismissing his adversaries). It indicates that central to the eternal kingdom will be Jesus Christ. To enter there is to be with Him (1 John 3:2; Revelation 21:22-23; Revelation 22:3). And to be commanded to depart from Him is to lose all hope, because all centres on Him (Revelation 20:11). Here Jesus already has the awareness that all judgment has been committed to Him (Matthew 16:27; Matthew 24:30-31; Matthew 25:31; John 5:22; John 5:27; Acts 17:31), and that the Kingly Rule of Heaven is His Rule..
‘You who work lawlessness (anomian).' The word ‘lawlessness' is also found in Matthew 13:41, where the angels gather ‘those who do lawlessness' out of the sphere of His Kingly Rule; Matthew 23:28 where the Pharisees are outwardly righteous but inwardly hypocritical and ‘lawless'; and Matthew 24:12 where the multiplying of ‘lawlessness' leads to the love of many growing cold. Matthew 13:41 fits the context here well. They have failed to enter under His Kingly Rule and therefore they must now be removed from it. 23 28 confirms that the Pharisees can be seen under this heading as those rejected for lawlessness. Their righteousness has therefore not been sufficient for them to enter the Kingly Rule of Heaven, so that now they are told to depart, along with all other false teachers, and Matthew 24:12 sadly reveals the terrible impact of their behaviour. They must be seen as partly responsible for that situation. They have contributed to man's state of lawlessness. In each case then the teaching of the Sermon of the Mount has been thrust aside, with the result that they too are thrust aside.