Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 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 perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Introduction
Well, I guess Harold Camping was wrong…again. For the tenth time now he has predicted the arrival of Judgment Day and was wrong. This time the prediction was that yesterday we would all meet our Maker and be judged. But if you want to know about Judgment Day, instead of asking a false prophet like Harold Camping, why not look to the words of the Judge Himself? We have been studying verse-by-verse through the Sermon on the Mount, and we are looking at Jesus’ closing words at the end of that sermon. And if you take a look at verse 22 you will see that little phrase on that day. That day is a reference to Judgment Day. And unlike Harold Camping, you can rely on what Jesus says about Judgment Day because Jesus is the Judge who is in charge of that Day.
John 5:22 the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
I think most people laugh at Harold Camping. And I doubt very many people in our culture spend much time thinking about Judgment Day. But no matter what efforts they have made to push it out of their thoughts or ignore it or mock it or forget about it, deep down everyone knows that Judgment Day is coming someday.
The Bible speaks a great deal about that Day. In Genesis 18:25 God is called the Judge of all the earth.
Psalm 96:13 He will judge the world in righteousness
Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Romans 14:10 …we will all stand before God's judgment seat. … 12 each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Matthew 25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him … 34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. … 41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. … 46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Revelation 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence … 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. … The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. …15 If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Nothing is more certain than the fact that Judgment Day is coming.
Hebrews 9:27 man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment
And, as you can imagine, there will be some surprises.
Not everyone will be surprised. Millions of people – as soon as they see who the Judge is, will immediately know they are doomed. As soon as they see it is Jesus Christ there on the bench they will say, “Oh boy, I know where I’m going. I spent my life hating Him, mocking Him, rejecting Him. My friend at work told me to bow the knee to Him and confess Him as Lord, but I refused.” And when the condemnation comes for those people who refused to confess Jesus Christ as Lord - it will not be any surprise.
The surprise comes in verse 21.
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven
That is shocking because you cannot be saved without confessing Jesus as Lord.
Romans 10:9 if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Matthew 10:32 Whoever confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father in heaven.
So you have to confess Jesus as Lord in order to be saved. However it is possible to call Him Lord and fail to enter heaven. In fact, that will happen, Jesus says, to many. These people will be the most heartbreaking, tragic figures ever. They will arrive on that Day fully expecting to begin their eternal reign with Christ in heaven, fully expecting to enter eternal bliss and paradise, and to their horror and shock they will be sent instead into everlasting fiery punishment. Someone asked me if the wolves in sheep’s clothing know that they are wolves. Some do and some do not. These do not. They are self-deceived. Their condemnation comes as such a surprise to them that they even try to argue with the Judge in verse 22, but to no avail. Once you get to Judgment Day it is too late. No excuses will fly, no arguments will be considered, no justifications, rationalizations, explanations. The moment a person dies his eternal fate is absolutely sealed forever. So the Lord Jesus Christ, at the close of the greatest sermon ever preached, wells up with compassion and warns us about the sickening, heartbreaking verdict that will be pronounced upon the deceived.
Anyone who reads these words and does not stop and search his or her heart is a fool. So let’s take some time this morning to take a careful look at what goes wrong with these people who are fully convinced they are Christians but who are shocked on Judgment Day.
The confession of the deceived
They confess Christ. (I don’t mean “confess” in the sense of admitting to a sin. I mean it in the sense of declaring allegiance.) And these people confess Christ – not just as their Savior, but as their Lord. When they see Him they say, “Lord, Lord.” They repeat it to show how passionate they are about it. The word “Lord” can be used in a variety of ways, but on Judgment Day it will mean one thing – The Lord God – Master, Owner, Sovereign. They are calling themselves His slaves, and calling Him their Master and Owner. These people were told that if they acknowledge Jesus as their Lord they would be saved. But no sooner do they get done saying, “Lord, Lord” than Jesus consigns them to hell.
The credentials of the deceived
Think about that. We all know what it is like to be disappointed. You get your hopes up for something and then it falls through. Every other day you don’t mind not having some particular pleasure, but if you have been looking forward to it and expecting it for a long time, and at the last minute it falls through – that is hard to take. Imagine this. These people are looking forward to heaven. They fully expected Judgment Day to be a day of unbounded happiness and joy and celebration, and it ends up being the worst day of their existence.
And they just cannot believe it. So they argue with Jesus. They point to their credentials.
Matthew 7:22 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 perform many miracles?'
Their credentials are prophecy, exorcism, and many miracles.
Prophecy
Prophecy has been defined in various ways by different people. The definition of prophecy is very simple – it is when a man speaks the words of God verbatim with divine authority. I am not a prophet. My words carry no divine authority (unless they are accurate interpretations of the Bible). A prophet is someone whose words carry divine authority even if it is not something from the Bible. God is using him as a direct mouthpiece. So if you ask me who you should vote for in the next election I will give you my opinion and that is all it will be – a human opinion. But if a prophet told you to vote for someone that would be the exact same thing as God Himself telling you to vote for that person.
Exorcism
They cast out demons in Jesus’ name. There were people who were demonized, no one could help them – people prayed for them, tried to do something about the problem with no success, and these people were able to come along and command the demon to leave and it left.
Many Miracles
The third credential is their ability to perform many miracles in Jesus’ name. Miracles are acts of supernatural power. Things like walking on water, healing the blind, raising the dead...- these people were able to do things like that.
Christ-Centered
And all of it was in Jesus’ name. In the Greek, the phrase “in your name” is repeated each time and comes first each time.
22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not in your name prophesy, and did we not in your name drive out demons and did we not in your name perform many miracles?'
These people are totally Christ-centered. They called Him Lord, and everything in their impressive, spectacular ministries was Christ-centered. Did you know that many Christ-centered people will go to hell?
Why bring up miracle workers?
Now at this point some of you may actually be breathing a sigh of relief. When you heard the “Lord, Lord” part it made you a little nervous, but then you see the rest of this and you think, “Oh, Jesus is talking about those nut-case televangelists, not people like me.” If someone thinks that way I think they may be missing Jesus’ point. Think about it: When Jesus speaks of the problem of self-deception – people who think they are saved but who are not, why would He point to the people who are working miracles when He knows that the great majority of self-deceived, false Christians are not miracle-workers? I think what Jesus is doing here is the same thing He did at the beginning of the sermon back in chapter 5.
Matthew 5:20 unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the Scribes, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
He takes the most extreme examples of success in religion and shocks us by saying, “That’s not enough.” I think Jesus wants us to picture a scene like this: Imagine we all arrive at Judgment Day and the first step is we are all asked the basic gospel question: Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? And all the people who say, “No, I was an atheist” or “No, I belong to some other religion” will be immediately condemned. But all the ones who say, “Yes, I confessed Jesus as Lord” are placed on the other side of the room. And you are in that group. There you are, standing in line waiting to appear before the Judge, and there are four people in front of you. The first one steps up and when his verdict is pronounced an audible gasp goes up from everyone who knew him. He seemed so genuine, and yet he is condemned. It turns out he was a hypocrite. It was all an act, and everyone was fooled except God. And you are shocked, but it does not worry you too much because you know you are not a hypocrite. Your commitment to Christ is genuine.
Then the next guy goes up. This guy is not a hypocrite. What you see with him is what you get with him – he is genuine. But he is also condemned and shut out of heaven. In his case it is because he was what we call a nominal Christian (Christian in name only). There are millions of those - people who think that being a Christian is basically nothing more than identifying yourself as a Christian. They were baptized, they went forward in an invitation, they prayed a prayer – they have always considered themselves Christians. And they think that makes them Christian. That guy is rebuked by Jesus and sent into eternal fire.
The third guy steps up confidently and he is not one bit rattled by what happened in front of him, because he is no nominal Christian. He pours himself into it big time. His whole life is Christ. He is in church two or three times a week – maybe he is even a pastor or a missionary. He reads five chapters a day out of his Bible, and has thousands of verses memorized. He prays an hour a day, he gives fifteen percent of his income to the church, and he witnesses to everyone he meets. On Christmas morning he volunteers at a soup kitchen, and he is always working to help the poor. He speaks out against abortion and homosexuality, he has never been divorced, he does not drink or smoke, and he has a Bible college degree. And none of it is an act – it is all genuine. And you are thinking, Man – that guy is going to end up 1000 levels above me in heaven. But just as you are thinking that, the entire crowd trembles when the Great Judge speaks: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Now you are really sweating. If a guy like that does not even make it in – who will? Your knees feel like they may buckle as you struggle to maintain your composure. You are second in line now – just one more guy and then you. The man in front of you steps forward. This man is famous. He was one of the prophets. Not only that, he could literally perform miracles. He could cast out demons; he understood mysteries in God’s Word and had amazing knowledge. But before this prophet even finishes listing his credentials, the Judge of all the earth interrupts him and gives him the same horrible sentence as the other three.
And then you hear, “Next!” Now it’s your turn.
You see, Jesus is showing us that if you take the wrong approach, even if you reach the most spectacular extremes in that approach, you are still condemned. If the prophets and miracle workers are going to be turned away, how much more some schlub like me – unless something is different in my case?
The conversion of the deceived
So the confession of the deceived – they call Jesus Lord. The credentials of the deceived – a life of Christ-centered ministry (in some cases, spectacular ministry). Those are the first two points. The third point is one more C – the conversion of the deceived. “What? I don’t see that in this text.” That’s right. There is nothing in this text about these people ever being converted. In fact just the opposite – they are unconverted. But what we do see in the text very clearly is what the deceived needed in order to be truly converted. Jesus tells us exactly why they are turned away from heaven, and in telling us that He shows us what is required for a person to be truly saved and safe on that awesome Day. There are two things these people were missing. But if you have those two things you will be safe on Judgment Day. If you don’t have them, you will be condemned.
Known by God
One of them is in verse 23.
23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.
They are condemned because the Lord Jesus never knew them. If He had known them, they would have gone to heaven. So what does it mean to have Jesus know you? Jesus Christ is omniscient. He knows everything there is to know about every human being. So the issue here is not information. When Jesus tells these people I never knew you, obviously He is not saying He lacked information about them. He knew all about them – that is why he calls them evildoers. He knew how they had lived their lives. Jesus is using the word “know” here the same way we use it. If someone asked, “Do you know the Governor of Colorado?” most of us would say, “Know him personally? No – we aren’t friends or anything.” That is how Jesus is using this word. He never knew them personally. He never had the kind of relationship with them that could be described as knowing them. And that kind of a relationship is required in order to enter heaven. You have heard the phrase, “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” That is never more true than on Judgment Day. Only those who have this kind of relationship with the Judge will enter the kingdom of heaven. So let’s look at what God’s Word has to say about what that relationship looks like.
Mutual
For one thing it is a mutual knowledge. He knows you and you know Him. In fact, Scripture most often speaks of our end of it – us knowing Him.
John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
People who know God are saved and people who do not know Him are lost. But when a person has this kind of a relationship with God, God’s end of it –knowing us, is the more significant part.
Galatians 4:9 But now that you know God--or rather are known by God--how is it that you are turning back…
Both are true – they knew God and God knew them; but the most significant part was the fact that God knew them. God’s knowledge of us is greater and prior to our knowing Him. I loved what Jeff Roets said in his testimony a few weeks ago. Did you notice when he was referring to his conversion instead of saying, “I accepted Christ” he said, “Christ accepted me”? God’s end is what really matters, because no matter how much we accept Him or love Him, if He does not accept us or love us, we are doomed.
So being a Christian is, first and foremost, a matter of being known by the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 8:3 the man who loves God is known by God.
But what does it mean to be known by Him? Jesus has not spoken about this at all in the Sermon on the Mount, so how does He expect the listeners to know what He is talking about? He is leaving it up to the background knowledge of the listeners from the Old Testament. And I think the most obvious and well-known Old Testament passage about being known by God would be Exodus 33.
Exodus 33:15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? … 17 And the Lord said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
God said, “I know you” and, and the evidence of that is described in two ways: His presence went with him and His pleasure in him. Being known by God means He is pleased with you and therefore grants you favorable, delightful, soul-satisfying experiences of His presence. That is what it means to be known by God.
Our end
What about our end of that relationship? What does it mean for us to know Him?
Trust
First of all it is a relationship of trust.
Psalm 9:10 Those who know your name will trust in you
People who know God trust in Him. And you can tell where your trust is by what you base all your decisions on. If you base your decisions on what seems best to you, you are trusting in yourself. If you base your decisions on what someone else says to do, you are trust in that person. If you base your decisions on some superstition, your trust is there. Knowing God means having all your trust in Him. And the result of that will always be a life of obedience to Him.
Obedience & purification
John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
If you know Him and trust Him you will listen to His voice and follow Him.
1 John 2:3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar
So knowing and trusting Him results in following and obeying Him. That is how a Christian is purified from the contamination of this world.
2 Peter 2:20 …they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ …
So we are purified as we obey Him, and we receive not only guidance, but everything else we need in life.
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him
Sin prevents a person from knowing God. You cannot be guilty of sin and simultaneously know God. And we all sin. So it would be impossible for any of us to know Him unless something were done about our guilt. But thanks be to God – He provided a way for our guilt to be eliminated. If we believe – if we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him with our lives and look to Him for all our decision making, He will forgive all our guilt. And once that guilt is removed, only then can you know God.
Jeremiah 31:34 they will all know me … For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
So that is what it means to know the Lord and be known by Him. Now, I told you there are two things Jesus mentions that these people lacked. One of them is that they were not known by Jesus. The other one is in verse 21.
Doing the Father’s Will
Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
The other reason why they are shut out of the kingdom of heaven is because they did not do the will of God the Father. But now that we understand the background of what it means to be known by God we can see that these really are not two things. Being known by Christ and doing the will of the Father are two aspects of the same reality. Knowing Him always results in a life of doing His will. And that is really a beautiful way of describing the nature of our obedience to God. He does not use the word “obey” here because the obedience is not the emphasis. The issue is God’s will. Someone who knows God is someone who does what is right mainly because he loves the things God loves and desires the things God desires.
There is a huge difference between following rules and embracing a will. Suppose I have a rule in my house that says, “No immodest clothing.” And my girls say, “What does that mean?” So I explain, “You can’t have a skirt this length, you can’t wear this size shirt, etc.” Now they have a list of specific rules. Now imagine one of them goes to the mall and sees an outfit that is the most amazing thing she has ever seen. She thinks if she looks in the dictionary under “cute” there would be a picture of her with that outfit on. She wants it so bad, so she tries it on, looks in the mirror, and says, “Oh, dad wouldn’t like this.” And her friend says, “What are you talking about? It doesn’t violate any of the rules he set. It meets all the technical specifications of size and length and everything.” “Yeah, I know – but I just know my dad. I know he wouldn’t think this is modest, and so I just don’t want it anymore.” That is an example of making a decision because of the will of someone you love. Embracing a will is not the same as just bending to a rule. Embracing a will is when you say, “I truly want this thing because God desires it. And I do not want that other thing because God doesn’t like it.”
Can you see the connection between doing the will of God and knowing God? In that illustration at the mall, the friend is mystified. The friend would have no idea why the outfit is no good. Why? Because she does not know me. She does not know me well enough to know what I would approve of or not approve of. And beyond that – even if she did know, that knowledge would have no effect on her desires. If she found out that I did not like it she would just think, “That’s fine – he doesn’t have to look at me when I wear it.” Your will and desires do not conform to the will and desires of someone else unless you really trust that person and love that person. The Christian life is not a life of following rules or conforming to a code of ethics. It is a life of loving things just because you know God loves them, and hating things just because you know God hates them.
Lawbreakers
But these people did not live that way. They called Jesus Lord, and they had all kinds of Christian credentials, but they did not do the Father’s will. “But what about their big, spectacular ministries? What about their casting out demons and many miracles? Isn’t that the will of God?” No. It is not. Many people think it is. People write books telling you to expect a miracle every day. But that is not God’s will. God revealed His will in His Word – the Bible. And the Bible never commands us to cast out demons, prophesy, or perform miracles. The Apostles were told to do those things, but not the rest of the Church. But these people become enamored with miracles and spend their lives doing things that God never even commanded.
And that is really hard for some people to take, because many today have been taught that miracles are the evidence of the presence of God. So the more miracles the better. And where there is a lack of miracles, there is a problem. Some of our Charismatic friends have fallen into that error. They believe that miracles are a greater display of God’s power than providence. And they get more excited about miracles than about salvation! That is such a danger that Jesus even warned the Apostles about it. He gave them the ability to work miracles, but even they were warned not to become enamored with miracles. He gave them authority over the devil himself, but then said…
Luke 10:20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
When you get so you care about miracles or anything else more than you care about the desires of God, you end up being faithful to your own conception of Christianity while living in conflict with what God desires. And that is exactly what happened to these people. Look at what Jesus calls them.
Matthew 7:23 Away from me, you evildoers!
Literally the word is lawbreakers. God’s law is given to show us His will, so when we do not live lives that conform to the desires and will of God, we are lawbreakers. If your life is not governed by the will of God – His heart desires, then you are a lawbreaker and you will not go to heaven. “Does that mean we have to earn heaven through obeying God?” No. Nothing you could do could ever earn heaven. But only people who know and love God go to heaven, and if you know and love God, your life will be ruled by His desires. Miracles are not fruit. Having an impressive ministry is not fruit. Putting together a massive Christian organization that runs like a well-oiled machine is not fruit. External Christianity is not fruit. A natural man can have supernatural actions, but only a spiritual man can have supernatural character. And the measure of character is love for whatever God desires.
Conclusion: Tests for Deception
Why are there so many who will receive this horrible shock on Judgment Day? Part of the reason is a movement known as the “seeker-sensitive” movement. The goal of that movement has been to reach what they call the “unchurched” (people who do not want to go to church). So the effort has been to restructure church in such a way as to make it attractive to these people. And it has worked. Millions of people who really are not interested in submitting their lives to the will of God are now “churched.” They were drawn in by the music or the comedy or whatever, and so now they are attending church every Sunday, and so they think they are saved. But tragically millions of churched people will be condemned on Judgment Day. Our mission is not to “church” people. Going to church does not make you a Christian any more than going to MacDonald’s makes you a hamburger. And “churching” people does not make them saved; but it does make millions deceived. And even worse than the seeker movement is that demonic, satanic teaching that says as long as you prayed a prayer and invited Jesus into your heart, and you admitted you were a sinner and asked him to save you, and you really, truly meant it – then after that you are locked in and can live however you want and will still go to heaven no matter what. That is a lie. And it is very likely the lie that will result in more people hearing these dreadful words of Jesus than any other lie that preachers tell.
So how do you know if you are one of the deceived? Take an honest look at your heart and ask these questions:
• Do I love the world? You may have convinced yourself that your heart belongs to God, but in reality your schedule belongs to the world. Your checkbook belongs to the world. The world gets your leisure time. The world gets all your discretionary spending. The people you are most attracted to are in the world. That is a heart that loves the world rather than God’s will.
•
• Is my faith mere fire insurance? You are not really all that interested in God. You do not ever think about knowing God, having fellowship with God, drawing near to His presence. You just want to be absolved of your sins. You want to go to heaven, you do not want to end up in eternal fire, so you jump through whatever hoops you are told you have to jump through to have some eternal fire insurance.
•
• Is my life driven by God’s desires or my own? The deceived will follow God’s way when they agree with it, but when it gets too demanding or seem unreasonable or unwise, they revert to their own wisdom.
•
• Am I running on my record, or trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf? The deceived are banking on their impressive religious résumé to get them into heaven – whether it be spectacular miracles or just the fact that they raised their hand after a sermon one day and prayed a prayer or got baptized.
•
• Am I devoted to religious affiliation? Some people think they are Christians because they belong to a certain church or denomination, and their loyalty is really to that church tradition rather than to the Lord Himself. Their Christianity is not much more than their involvement in church.
•
• Is anything more important to me than the Lord Jesus Christ? The true Christian is not perfect and stumbles into sin every day but he or she loves the will of God. The true Christian hates his sin. The deceived love their sin. The true Christian repents, the deceived rationalize. True Christians have an appetite for God’s Word. They love to hear clear preaching and teaching of Scripture, and they crave insight into the meaning of the Scriptures. The deceived blow the dust off their Bibles every Sunday so they can bring it to church with them.
•
Bottom line: Do I know the Lord Jesus Christ? Honestly – look at your Christianity. Is it perfunctory? Is it all actions and prayers and programs and service and giving and ceremony and rules? Is it a giant song and dance in public, but in the quiet privacy of your own heart when you are alone you know – there is no actual personal interaction with God? You know all about Him, but you don’t know Him. You talk about Him and think about Him but never really pay attention directly to Him.
All those questions describe the various different kinds of deceived people. If even one of them applies to you, then you are among the deceived. But praise be to the Lord God - the billboards were wrong! You did not face Judgment Day yesterday. You could have. God could have allowed some reckless driver to lose control and send you into eternity in an instant. Just last week someone told me about a man whose sister died, and he took his wife and six children to the funeral and on the way home from the funeral they were hit head on and the man and three of his kids died. That could have been any one of us. Someday that will be you. Nothing is more certain than death. It will come. Are you ready?
Benediction: Hebrews 4:7,11 So "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." …Let us make every effort to enter God’s rest
Appendix
Some teach that in Old Testament times the prophets spoke the words of God verbatim, without any error but in New Testament times the gift of prophecy took a step down, and became fallible. Usually that kind of teaching comes from some of our Charismatic friends who are trying to explain why their prophets often get it wrong. One of them said God told him that if He required one hundred percent accuracy in prophecy people would have so much accountability that God would be killing people left and right and people would be so scared they would not be able to grow. So he figures that if he hits about sixty-five percent accuracy he is doing well.
That whole idea of fallible prophecy used to be confined to the more extreme fringes of the Charismatic movement, but in recent years the idea has become more mainstream thanks to a theologian by the name of Wayne Grudem. Now, I want to say – I am a huge Wayne Grudem fan. We sell his Systematic Theology in our bookstore, and I recommend his work to people all the time. However, one area where I think he is mistaken is in his understanding of prophecy. He teaches this idea of a diminished, lesser kind of prophecy in the New Testament era. He says prophecy is nothing more than the Holy Spirit bringing something to a person’s mind. He says that the thing God brings to mind is infallible, without any mistakes or errors, however when the “prophet” verbalizes the idea, he might make mistakes. And so New Testament-era prophecy has mistakes. It is fallible, mistake-ridden communication of ideas that God brought to someone’s mind. That is what Grudem teaches, and John Piper has agreed with that definition as well. So those two guys are now popularizing this idea outside of normal Charismatic circles.
And any time either one of those two heavyweights teach something, you do not want to dismiss it too quickly. So I spent some time this week re-studying this issue. But the more I studied it the more convinced I am that the idea of a true prophecy having errors is not biblical. And I say that for a few reasons.
Reasons I disagree
No Biblical statement about a change
The most basic reason is the fact that the Bible never announces a change in the nature of prophecy. If someone wants to say there is a fundamental change in the nature of prophecy, the burden of proof would be on that person to show that. And I do not believe they have. In fact, what I see is the exact opposite. For example, the Old Testament prophet Joel speaks of a time in the future when God would send prophets, and in Acts 2 Peter says that that prophecy was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. When Joel made the announcement, and he used the word “prophecy,” all his listeners would assume he meant “prophecy” in the Old Testament sense. And Joel gives no reason to assume otherwise.
The Prophets were a Special Group
Secondly, the New Testament prophets were a special group of people. Ephesians 2:20 says that God’s household, the Church, is…
Ephesians 2:20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
The Apostles and Prophets delivered the New Testament Scriptures to us, and on that foundation the Church was built. So prophecy is not a common, ordinary, every-day kind of thing. But by Grudem’s definition, it seems to me everyone would be a prophet. Doesn’t God bring things to mind for every Christian? And don’t we all give fallible reports of what God has brought to our minds? So by that definition it seems to me every Christian would be a prophet.
1 Corinthians 12:29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?
And the implied answer in the grammar is no – not all Christians are prophets.
The New Testament is not a downgrade
Another problem I have with the idea of a downgrade in prophecy in New Testament times is the fact that the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant (Heb. 8). Everything else in the New Covenant is an upgrade from the Old. Why would communication from God to His people be downgraded? Why would it go from infallible, authoritative, divine speech to fallible human speech?
Not commanded to do miracles
Jesus did command us to do things in His name. We are to welcome children in His name, welcome true prophets in His name, baptize in His name, etc. But these people do not mention any of those things. They do not mention anything Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount or anywhere else.
