Matthew 7:23 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Matthew 7:23

Comments

They will hear these terrible words, the last words they wanted to hear. They hoped to hear something better at the last moment, but they had no reason to hope. The false Christian bases all his hope on his own deeds and convinces himself that God would be unfair to ignore such things. ‘How can a person do so much for the Lord and yet fall short?’ Yes, they can, for Christ finds fault with the motive and purity of all good deeds that do not come out of a renewed heart. ‘I never knew you’, is the dreadful sentence – ‘never’. This is fatal. If there was even a moment when the person had really related to Christ, been loved by him and had the hand of mercy grasp hold of him, Christ could not have let them go. But he has never known them. Through all their endeavours to please him and practice their religion, they remained strangers to him. They associated with God’s people maybe and attended the place of worship; they wore the dress of believers and spoke the language of believers, but though human eyes were convinced, Christ was not taken in for a moment. ‘At no point in your lives was there any real relationship between me and you’, says the Lord. ‘I never knew you as one of those given to me by the Father. I never knew you as a true disciple with faith in your heart. I never knew you as one whose heart had been made new by my Spirit. You were play acting all along.’These words of Christ are final. They close the door on hope for all eternity so that hope is forced to die. When Christ has spoken he cannot change his mind and there is no room in what is said here for any repentance on his part. To be commanded to depart from him is to be deprived of the source of all life so that men are left in the dead state in which they were born and cut off from the only one who can put spiritual life in the soul. He who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son does not have life. Who else can lost men and women turn to if Christ has rejected them? What other help is available in heaven and earth? Who is going to make a different judgment about their case? The way to heaven is barred by an immoveable object – the verdict of Christ – and nothing can persuade or force him to change his mind. He does not utter these words lightly. He knows what they mean to those who hear them, and he knows this is the end of their hope. But what they hear is utterly deserved and he is at peace with himself in passing sentence however devastating they are to the hearers. Christ is the Judge of all men and as our Judge, he must utter the most solemn pronouncements. He is not afraid to do so. At his first coming, he did not judge the world, though he warned the Pharisees that he had many things to say against them, but those things had to wait until this solemn final day arrived. Now he speaks to them as their Creator and they know there is no appeal beyond this court. They know also that the judgment of this court is fair and just and that there is no case to be made in their favour. The decisiveness of his sentence tells them that there is no hope in further appeal. He who might have been their eternal friend has made up his mind and nothing they say will change it.

Application

What is it to know Christ? How can we know him? Knowing in this sense is mutual: we know him and he knows us. Many will hear this who have joined the church but all along they serve themselves. They, all the time, worked iniquity – did as they pleased, cracked dirty jokes, treated his commandments lightly. True faith is knowing the Lord walking with him. It is about knowing God and being known by him. The true believer is full of feeling; he has had an encounter with the Lord, and relates to him as we relate to one another; it is not just ritual. It makes a difference to their lives. It brings about a change which that person could not do for himself. The Lord reaches down and we are altogether different. When we see no change, we wonder about the state of that person. If someone is a nominal Christian, then it is just an external thing. They may have a worship habit, a Sunday habit, but there is no serious concern about their lives, their sins; their heart has not taken hold of Christ. That will never save the soul and bring life. It is just a pretence. Maybe you are not consciously a pretender, but this is what you are doing: pretending to be godly, pretending to be kind, pretending to be generous, a proud person pretending to be humble. The nominal Christian is not moved by Calvary. He cannot say, I wanted my own things and God came into my life and now everything is different. True Christianity is a new life. Jeremiah ‘I will put my laws in their minds’ – so that way we think and feel as what God wants. They shall all know me – sins washed away in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. Millions around the world think they are Christians and never follow Christ. We need to ask, does Christ know us?

It is far more than knowing about him. Perhaps we have attended Sunday School; our parents know him. But it is possible to know a lot of facts from the Bible, and not to know him. So it is with geography – you may have learnt a lot about another country, but you have never been there. Or you know all know about certain historic figures, but you have never met them. Wesley and brothers were missionaries, but Wesley came back a distraught man. This was largely through observing lives of some Christians present on the ship who reacted so differently to the danger of the storm that struck during the voyage. He was deeply impressed, and started asking: Am I a true Christian? He knew what a true Christian was, and he tested himself to see if he was one. Lord Rees – general manager of the BBC grew up in a Free Presbyterian manse. He presided over a reign of terror at the BBC, enforcing his high moral standards on all. Yet it was not till his 70s that he was converted. You could be church member for many years but do you know him. Will he say, you never asked me for new life, never repented? You can even fear God and not know him. So with Luther. Luther was a genius of the man. He had a severe upbringing. Even as old as 14 he would turn pale at the name of Christ. He became a monk, and realised he didn’t know God, nor did others, nor did Rome. The devils believe, James tells us, and tremble. It is even possible to have some love for Christ and yet still not know him. You get it in this world – hero worshippers of sportsmen.

What a terrible thing that right up to the last moment, some go to stand before Christ imagining they are going to be accepted, and then hear this. They think that it is enough to give some acknowledgement to Christian religion. Others think in their pride that they are good enough. They forget all the lascivious acts they have down.

Questions

Does this mean that it is surpassingly difficult to be a believer? Can good candidates get far, but not far enough? The truth is that nothing at all can be achieved by the will of man. These strangers to Christ had never come the right way and had never cast themselves at the feet of Christ as helpless sinners and pleaded for mercy. They had not abandoned their trust in their good works and rested solely on the cross of Christ, and therefore they were none of his. It is not a hard thing that God requires when he commands us to put all our trust in the Saviour of the world: it is the simplest things and the most reasonable thing for him to ask us to do. This does not however mean that we can do it in our natural strength, for faith is the gift of God. He must draw us to Christ. But the reason that we cannot fulfil this simple condition is that our wills are in bondage and we are unable to will to do the very thing that we ought to do.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Matthew 7:23 Commentary and Bible Study