In Episode #207 of the Way of the Bible podcast, we continue our twenty-sixth mini-series, Return to the Sermon on the Mount, by examining one of the most sobering passages in Jesus’ teaching: Matthew 7:21-23. Here, Jesus warns that not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven. Many, He says, will stand before Him on the day of judgment, pointing to prophecies spoken, demons driven out, and miracles performed in His name—and He will respond with devastating finality: “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.”

We begin the episode by recalling Jesus’ warning about false prophets from Matthew 7:15—those who come dressed in sheep’s clothing but are inwardly ferocious wolves—and see how this warning now extends to individual disciples. Even in Jesus’ own ministry, many who followed Him eventually turned away. John 6:60-71 records the moment when many of His disciples abandoned Him after hearing His teaching about being the bread from heaven. Only Peter and the Twelve remained, with Peter declaring, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Even among the Twelve, Jesus identified one who was a devil—Judas, who would later betray Him.

To illustrate how false disciples misuse the name of Jesus, we look at Acts 19, where seven sons of a Jewish chief priest named Sceva attempted to cast out evil spirits by invoking the name of “the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” The evil spirit responded, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”—and the possessed man overpowered them all. This episode in Ephesus not only exposed false practitioners but led to a powerful wave of repentance, as believers came forward to confess hidden practices and publicly burned their sorcery scrolls.

The heart of the episode focuses on the key distinction Jesus draws in Matthew 7:21: “Only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” will enter the kingdom. What is the Father’s will? Jesus answers this directly in John 6:29: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent.” This belief, as the Greek word pisteuō conveys, is not mere intellectual agreement but a deep-seated faith—an entrusting of one’s spiritual well-being to Christ.

We trace this thread of righteousness by faith back to Abraham in Genesis 15:6, where Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul expands on this in Romans 4, showing that this same righteousness is credited to all who believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Through Romans 10, Paul explains that the righteousness of God is not achieved through law-keeping but received through faith—a faith that is declared with the mouth and believed in the heart. This is the consistent message tying together the Old and the New: from Habakkuk 2:4 (“the righteous shall live by faith”) through the Sermon on the Mount to Paul’s epistles.

The episode closes with a candid reminder: not everyone who claims the name of Christ today is a true disciple. We live among both genuine believers and those who wear the outward appearance of faith without its inward reality. With over 25,000 denominations worldwide, the need to understand this distinction has never been greater. Fortunately, as we will see in our remaining passages in Matthew 7, Jesus gives us even more guidance on how to discern the difference. Simply believe God and follow Jesus.

Comments & Upvotes