How scary! Jesus 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 in heaven.” But what does that mean? What does it mean to do the will of God the Father? Is that salvation by works by another name?
Jesus continues: “On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we drive out demons and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I’ve never known you. Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’”
They were workers of lawlessness? Listen again to what they said they were doing: They were prophesying in the name of Christ. They were driving out demons. They were doing many miracles in His name. But it’s lawlessness and Christ doesn’t know them. How can that be?
To understand what was happening, you have to understand these words of Jesus: “the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” What is that will? We don’t have to guess. Jesus tells us plainly in John 6. Consider Jesus’ words to His disciples after He fed the crowd of 5,000. They said to him, “What must we do to do the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28-29).
Jesus is playing with words here. To do the will of God is to do nothing. It is only to believe, that is, to receive the One whom God has sent to be a sacrifice for sin. It is not to cast out demons and do good works, to feed the poor, to pick up garbage on the lakeshore, or to be sad about the whales.
To do the will of God is, instead, to have demons cast out of you. It is to have good works done to and for you by the grace of God. It’s not to create good fruit but to get credit for fruit that Jesus works in you and through you by the Holy Spirit.
If we miss the conversation between these workers of lawlessness and Jesus on the Last Day, then we miss it all. They came crying, “Lord, Lord,” and it’s what follows the “Lord, Lord” that shows the problem. They cried out: “Didn’t WE …” They were full of all the good deeds they had done. And now they approach Jesus with their sinful, fallen way of thinking: “Jesus, look at all the good WE’VE done for you, surely that counts for something.” They’ve labored and have come to receive their pay.
But the Lord Jesus is the Savior of sinners, not the savior of those who only need Him a bit. He knows sinners. Those are the ones He recognizes. Those are the ones He welcomes and receives. The person who will not be a sinner in his own eyes is one whom Jesus won’t recognize or know. He’s the Savior. He only knows sinners.
Jesus doesn’t recognize those who come and cry to Him, “Lord, Lord, WE did this and WE did that.” Jesus only recognizes those who fall before Him, crying out, “Lord, Lord, have mercy on us!”
In the early 1960s, an evangelism program started in North America called “Evangelism Explosion.” It became the premiere evangelism program for the next 30 years. In that program, you were supposed to ask someone who didn’t believe in God this question: “If you were to die tonight and stand before God and He asked, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ What would you say?”
I was taught the proper answer went something like this: “I asked Jesus into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior. That’s why He’ll let me into heaven.” But even that answer was the wrong answer. Think about it. Who’s doing the verbs in that answer? It was “I” did this or that. Yes, even claiming credit for a prayer you prayed takes away from the work of Jesus.
If you’re going to talk to Jesus on the Last Day, drop all the “I”s. Saying I did this or that is no different from the Pharisees saying, “But didn’t WE …?” Whatever the “this” or “that” is doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you saved the whales. That won’t get you into heaven. It doesn’t matter if you helped an old lady cross the street. That won’t get you into heaven. It doesn’t matter if you asked Jesus into your heart. That won’t get you into heaven.
The problem is not so much what follows the “I” or the “we.” It’s that you are telling God that you deserve heaven because of something you did, even if it’s just praying a prayer. Prayer is a response of faith, not the cause of salvation.
Jesus is the cause of your salvation. That’s why He calls Himself the alpha and omega, the beginning and end (Revelation 21:6, 22:13). That’s why the book of Hebrews says that Jesus is the One who begins and completes your faith (Hebrews 12:2).
The Apostle Paul was someone who learned to throw away all the righteous stuff he thought that he had done for the Lord. He said, “I consider them garbage” (Philippians 3:8). The Holy Spirit teaches us to toss our highest, best, and noblest deeds away as putrid and sin-infected before God. With St. Paul, we learn to plead nothing but the blood of Jesus. That’s the Christian faith.
It takes a lot to impress Jesus. On the Last Day, many will come up to Him and call Him “Lord.” But that won’t impress Him. Many will come up to Him and tell how they prophesied in His name. But that won’t impress Him either. Others will tell how they did many miracles in His Name. And, yes, that won’t impress Him.
Miracles, casting out demons, and prophesying doesn’t impress Jesus. And if that doesn’t impress Him, then whatever you may have on your resume won’t impress Him either. You’ll have to admit that Jesus won’t be impressed with whatever you may have done.
The only way to impress Jesus is to give up trusting in your own works and only trust in Him. In other words, the only way to impress Jesus is to admit that He alone is impressive. It’s to admit that only He has done what it takes to get you into the kingdom of heaven. That’s the will of the Father: that you receive the salvation, which He has provided for you.
Anything else–including “I did this” or “we did that”–pulls you away from the grace-filled, blood-soaked work and words of Jesus. His finished work is–and always must be–your only plea before Him. If you have hope in Jesus, it’s that His blood covers your sin. His righteousness is yours as a gift. It’s all undeserved, unlooked for, and free.
So, beware of false prophets who would tear you away from that truth. False prophets, Jesus says, wear sheep’s clothing. That means they look like the real deal, like real prophets. They call themselves Christian preachers, teachers, priests, bishops, and pastors. They wear the same clothes and have the same titles.
Even more, Jesus says that such false prophets call him “Lord.” That means you can’t easily spot them–not if you go by what they can do, how they make you feel, or how much they impress you. For such false prophets may even be able to perform miracles in Jesus’ name and cast out demons!
So, if false prophets might even be able to do miracles, how will you know they are false? After all, they look as if they are walking the walk! Jesus says you will know them by their fruits. Prophets are given to speak the Word of God. That’s who a prophet is and what God has called him to do. So their fruits are what they teach and preach. That’s how you recognize a false prophet.
Don’t recognize a prophet by how he makes you feel. Don’t recognize a prophet by how he impresses you. Don’t recognize a prophet by how you “feel the spirit” in him. Such ways are false ways to see if a prophet is true. You recognize a prophet by what he preaches and teaches.
And anyone who points you to some place or person other than Jesus is a false prophet. “If you want to be a Christian, here’s what you have to do.” That’s a false prophet. “If you want to be a Christian, pray this.” That’s a false prophet. For such teaching and preaching points you someplace other than Jesus. And any place other than Jesus and where He chooses to come to you is not from God but Satan. Avoid such false prophets like the plague! For spiritually, they are worse than the plague.
Instead, cling to your Lord Jesus Christ. Cling to his gracious Word in the Apostolic Scriptures. Cling to His work on the cross. Cling to where Jesus comes to you in the preached Word and holy Supper. For Jesus is all in all. And where you find Him, you find the Church.
When the only confidence left in you is the blood of Jesus, then you are at the gates of heaven. For only His blood and His Word get you in the gate. His blood is the fire that burns the ropes that enslave you in sin. His Word is the hammer that smashes the iron fetters that keep you captive. That’s the only reason you’ll be set free to stand before the Redeemer on the Last Day as someone He knows. It’s because you’ll be a sinner who doesn’t delight in anything you’ve done but will, instead, plead only for God’s mercy!
“O Jesus Christ, true Lamb of God, You take the sin of the world away; have mercy on us, Jesus Christ, and grant us peace, O Lord, we pray” (LSB 210). And He has. And He does. And He will. Amen.
