Recently I have heard many people express concern over Matthew 7:21-23. People claim it causes grief, insecurity, and doubts. So, let’s look to see what it says:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’’

Matthew 7:21-23

People say that passage terrifies them and causes them to doubt their salvation. I’ll admit, this view and terror about this passage is completely foreign to me. Not once have I ever read that verse and come to that conclusion.

Others point to that passage to say that it is referring to people who think they are saved by faith but their actions prove they aren’t really saved and they will not enter heaven. This too is foreign to me, as the text says nothing about this.

What Does The Text Actually Say?

The passage says “only the one who does the will of my father” will enter the kingdom of heaven. That begs the question: what is “the will of the father”? One of the many beautiful things about scripture is that we can use it to interpret itself. If there is something that is unclear in one passage, we can use other more clear passages to understand what the unclear passage is saying. In this case, “the will of the father” is clearly outlined by Jesus himself. If you look in the gospel of John, the gospel written with the purpose of telling an unsaved person how to receive eternal life, Jesus says:

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:40

When we read the Matthew passage with the John passage in mind, we see that only those who believe in the Son will enter into the kingdom of heaven. That is consistent all across the New Testament.

If you keep reading in the Matthew passage, these people who call Him “Lord, Lord” (a sign of respect, not necessarily meaning his deity) list all the good deeds they have done for Him as leverage to let them into the kingdom of heaven. Christ says “I never knew you”. We plainly see in the text that these people were trusting in their good deeds and good works to give them eternal life instead of trusting in Christ alone for eternal life.

Many make the false assumption that these people were believers because they did miraculous things like cast out demons in Christ’s name. But we know from other passages that there were even unbelievers who did miraculous things. One example is Judas Iscariot, which most scholars agree he was not a believer.

“Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.”

Matthew‬ ‭10‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭

Other examples of unbelievers doing miraculous things are the sons of the pharisees casting out demons (Matthew 12:27 & Luke 11:19), false messiahs and false prophets doing signs and wonders in the end times (Matthew 24:24 & Mark 13:22), Jewish exorcists casting out demons (Acts 19:13), demonic spirits working miracles (Revelation 16:13-14), and the beast’s false prophet performing miracles (Revelation 19:20).

All we know from the passage is that these people were looking to their deeds in order to get to heaven, rather than looking to Christ alone. If they had done the “will of the father”, which is to trust in Christ, we are told they would be seen as children of God whom He knows.

If this is a passage that has caused you grief, insecurity, or doubt of your salvation, you can lay that burden down and have full assurance that if you simply do “the will of the father”, which is to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, then you can know with certainty that your eternity is secure (John 20:30-31 & 1 John 5:13). You will never hear the words “I never knew you”. You will spend eternity with Christ. And oh, what a glorious thing that is!