Matthew 7:19 Commentary and Bible Study

The false prophets have no life in them and are not sent by God. Their false doctrine proves they lack any true understanding, and are therefore enemies of the Lord, preaching another gospel which is no gospel. They are destined for hell and therefore at some point are going to be cut down and thrown in their entirety into the fire of destruction. All that is not fit for heaven will be burned in hell; it will be cast into hell as a person would throw some worthless object onto the rubbish heap with no further regard to it.Though they are allowed to continue their evil work for a time, God will eventually clear them all from his garden. Weeds have come into that garden, which were not planted by the Lord and he will remove them. The same test which is applied to all others will be applied to these false prophets – do they bear good fruit, the fruit of righteousness? Though they succeed in deceiving some with their false message, God sees what they are, and his people should not be without discernment also. Christ repeats again the test which his disciples are to apply: by their fruits you will know them. This is the central lesson of the passage. The false prophets will be rejected by God, but before their final rejection there is the time when believers must learn to exercise discernment about them. Since the final judgment comes at the end of all things, it cannot assist in exercising that discernment. God’s people must learn before then to distinguish truth from error. The fact that God will also reject them is only added to underline the seriousness of their error. The fundamental lesson is about how to detect them before the final judgment, how to see past their plausible words, how to read the real character of the man, which invalidates all his words, and explains how he can preach a false gospel.