Matthew 7:21-23

| Matt 7 |

I Never Knew You

21 o “Not everyone who p says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will q enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who r does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 s On that day t many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not u prophesy in your name, and cast out demons v in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 t And then will I declare to them, ‘I w never knew you; x depart from me, y you workers of lawlessness.’

My Notes

ESV Study Bible Notes

Sign in or register to access ESV Study Bible notes or save your personal notes and highlights.

Your email address:

Have you created a password for the ESV Study Bible?


Forgot Your Password?

Enjoy this free preview of the ESV Study Bible notes.

Matt. 5:1–7:29 The Authoritative Message of the Messiah: Kingdom Life for His Disciples. This is the first of five major discourses in Matthew (chs. 5–7; 10; 13; 18–20; 24–25). Speaking to his disciples (5:1), Jesus expounds the reality of discipleship lived in the presence and power of the kingdom of God but within the everyday world. Some interpreters have thought the purpose of this sermon was to describe a moral standard so impossibly high that it is relevant only for a future millennial kingdom. Others have thought its primary purpose was to portray the absoluteness of God's moral perfection and thereby to drive people to despair of their own righteousness, so they will trust in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Both views fail to recognize that these teachings, rightly understood, form a challenging but practical ethic that Jesus expects his followers to live by in this present age. The sermon, commonly called the “Sermon on the Mount,” is probably a summary of a longer message, but the structure is a unified whole. It has similarities to the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke 6:17–49, but there are also significant differences. The three main theories about their relationship are: (1) they record the same sermon but Matthew and Luke give summaries that report different sections and emphases; (2) they record two different sermons, given on different occasions but repeating much of the same content, as itinerant preachers often do; and (3) either Matthew or Luke, or both, have collected sayings that Jesus gave on different occasions and put them together in a sermon format. View (3) seems to make Matthew's presentation of this as a single historical event untruthful (cf. Matt. 5:1–2 with 7:28–29; 8:1; and Luke 6:17, 20 with Luke 7:1), and evangelical commentators have not generally adopted it. Views (1) and (2) are both possible, and it is difficult to decide between them.

Matt. 7:13–29 Warning! With Jesus or Against Him? Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount by giving the disciples, the crowd, and the religious leaders four basic warnings: they must choose between two gates and roads (vv. 13–14), two kinds of prophets (vv. 15–20), two kinds of disciples (vv. 21–23), and two foundations (vv. 24–27). They are either with Jesus or against him.

Matt. 7:21–23 The kingdom community must guard against not only false prophets (vv. 15–20) but also false disciples. Lord, Lord. An oral confession of Jesus as Lord does not always indicate a repentant heart.

Matt. 7:22 False disciples may exercise power in Jesus' name but their activities are meaningless because they deceive themselves and other believers, desiring attention for their own spectacular displays. Mighty works are not proof of the Father's will since they can come from sources other than God, including demons and human contrivance (cf. Acts 19:13–16; 2 Thess. 2:9–12; Rev. 13:13–14).

Matt. 7:23 then will I declare to them. Jesus says that he will one day exercise the prerogative of condemning people to hell, something that only God can do (cf. note on John 5:22). Though these condemned prophets appeared to belong to Jesus, they were never truly saved, for Jesus never knew them (cf. note on Matt. 7:21–23).