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21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7:21-23
This is disturbing on so many levels. I tend to believe that Jesus never uttered these hateful words and they certainly don't demonstrate this incredible love that universal redemptionists believe God possess for His children regardless of how sinful a life they led.
To begin with, we are not even talking about sin here. The people crying, "Lord, Lord" from all appearances are not even cognizant they did anything wrong. They did this and they did that in Jesus' name and we are told nothing of what their intentions were in doing it, though we can surmise from Jesus' reply that their actions were without holy intentions. Still, the things they did were not "sinful" per se. So how could Jesus so callously write them off with "Depart from me!" if He is this totally loving understanding Savior who came to save the world?
This is not the Jesus of the Prodigal Son who told of the Father welcoming His errant child back, no questions asked, after the child lived the most horrendous kind of sinful life as a reprobate. The actions of those crying plaintively, "Lord, Lord" pale in comparison to this child's filth and yet the father (God) welcomes him back with open arms while pushing away without so much as a tear those who cry for mercy and don't even know what it was they did wrong?
Every Christian should be in dreadful fear of these words. Any of us in eternity at judgement could be crying, "Lord, Lord, didn't I give to the poor and help out those in distress and preach your word" only to have Jesus say, "I never knew you. Depart from me you worker of iniquity."
As I said, I find the contrast between the Jesus of the lost sheep and this cold and unloving Jesus so startling as to think we are talking about two totally different people. Oddly enough, it is only in Matthew that all of these hateful things appear. Witness the infamous "Depart from Me into the eternal flames prepared for the devil et.al" Luke 13:23-27 is excepted because it deals only with the Jews who denounced Him.
Can some UR'ers address how they can believe this Jesus of Matthew will be the same Jesus who will welcome the most vile sinner into His loving embrace? Again, I think a case can be made that Jesus never said these hateful words; that like countless other verses His words were either "doctored" or outright fabricated.
I guess Jesus never like people sucking up to him- Jesus expected people to stand up and not take and idol. If you were a person who idolized him- he held you in contempt and loathing....They say we did everything "in your name" - they should have been doing things in their own name- this idolizing of Jesus was a sign of a breach of divine law- Christ expected you to be the most you could be no the least you could be...it was not callous- Moderator cut: deleted
I guess Jesus never like people sucking up to him- Jesus expected people to stand up and not take and idol. If you were a person who idolized him- he held you in contempt and loathing....They say we did everything "in your name" - they should have been doing things in their own name- this idolizing of Jesus was a sign of a breach of divine law- Christ expected you to be the most you could be no the least you could be...it was not callous- Moderator cut: Orphaned
Moderator cut: Orphaned Jesus the Christ expected every man and woman to be a Christ also- not a servant to him...He was a tough man and may have appeared callous - but he was just firm in this expression of divine power. Those that kneel before Christ or his image or ramble his name in vanity - insult him...Christ made God through him reachable.
But isn't there a loving, non-judgmental way to approach this problem with people? By the way, for Jesus to hold people in contempt and loathing would have automatically disqualified Him from being the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. You cannot die for someone you despise.
I don't see an issue here - I think you're creating a false dilemna. Just because you run around doing things "In Jesus's name" doesn't mean much - you need to actually have a relationship with him and be known by the Father.
Remember the audience and context of this speech as well.
Later, He would explain the parables to His disciples.
His disciples asked Him why He spoke to the people in parables
and Jesus said because He didn't want them to understand,
if they did they might repent and be forgiven.
See Matthew 13 and Mark 4
" And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance:
but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not;
and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. "
Matthew 13
" He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.
But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
' they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven! '"
Mark 4
Of course, if one understands what was happening in Palestine at that time,
who was in control of the palace and the temple [no, not the pagan Romans]
then one begins to understand not only why Jesus did this, but why the God
of Israel chose this specific time in Israel's history to incarnate.
.
Last edited by king's highway; 08-01-2012 at 12:02 AM..
I don't see an issue here - I think you're creating a false dilemna. Just because you run around doing things "In Jesus's name" doesn't mean much - you need to actually have a relationship with him and be known by the Father.
Remember the audience and context of this speech as well.
I don't have an issue with Jesus calling someone out on doing something wrong. But even to the prostitute who probably committed adultery with 100 men He said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more". I don't think a more beautiful admonishment exists in the Bible. So where is such beauty for people whose only crime is doing things with less than honorable intentions?
Which is why I have my doubts about the Sermon on the Mount in general. We have to believe that either Matthew (and the gospel likely was NOT written by THE Matthew, the publican, but by someone anonymous or named Matthew) sat and laboriously transcribed as quickly as Jesus spoke, or had the Holy Spirit literally dictating to him (highly improbable) decades later after he'd either forgotten every single word, or was never even present to begin with as is the case with Luke. From a critical point of view much of this just does not make any sense as to how it all came about. People, however, are happy to close their eyes to any discriminate thinking about the matter and just accept on blind faith that all this came about "magically" without a hitch.
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