Matthew 7:21-23 Explained (Original Language, “Lord, Lord,” and Why Being Religious Isn’t Knowing Jesus)

Matthew 7:21-23 is one of Jesus’ most sobering warnings, because the people He speaks to aren’t atheists. They’re religious. They pray, preach, and talk like insiders. Some even point to miracles.

And Jesus says, “I never knew you.”

That line should stop us in our tracks. It forces a hard question: are we just doing God stuff, or are we actually living with God? In this article, we’re going to walk through Matthew 7:21-23 in its context, look at key Greek words like “Lord,” “knew,” and “lawlessness,” and connect it to the Father’s will, the new birth (John 3), Jesus as the image of God (Colossians 1:15), and the new covenant promise of God’s law written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

Matthew 7:21-23 in context, why religious words and works can miss Jesus

Matthew 7:21-23 sits near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, right where Jesus stacks warning after warning. Narrow gate versus wide gate. True prophets versus false prophets. Good trees versus bad trees. Rock foundation versus sand.

So the point isn’t random. Jesus is drawing a bright line between two kinds of people who may look similar on the outside: religious talkers and real disciples.

He says:

• “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven…”
• “…but the one who does the will of My Father who is in Heaven.”

That contrast matters. Jesus isn’t saying works don’t matter. He’s saying the wrong kind of works don’t matter, the kind that can exist without surrender, without obedience, without love.

In other words, we can be religious and still be totally foreign to Jesus.

If we want a quick peek at the Greek structure behind Matthew 7:21, an interlinear layout can help us see the wording order and terms like kyrios and poieō (you can view one example at Matthew 7:21 interlinear Greek-English).

And if we want a deeper practical reflection on this passage, this internal resource is worth reading: Entering the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21‑23).

Key phrases in the original language: “Lord, Lord,” “do,” “will,” “I never knew you,” and “lawlessness”

Let’s put a few key words in plain English. We don’t need to be scholars to get Jesus’ meaning, but the original language sharpens the warning.

“Lord” (Greek: kyrios)
Kyrios can mean “sir,” but in Jewish Scripture it also functions as the standard Greek way to refer to Israel’s God, because the divine name (YHWH) was treated with such reverence it wasn’t spoken aloud. Context decides how heavy the title is, and here it’s clearly heavy. They’re not casually saying, “Hey sir.” They’re appealing to Jesus as the Ultimate Authority, Yahweh.

“Do” (Greek: poieō)
This is action, not vibes. Not talk. Not claims. Jesus points to actual obedience, lived out.

“Will” (Greek: thelēma)
This means desire, purpose, what someone wants done. Jesus anchors it in “My Father who is in Heaven,” which means the will isn’t self-defined. We don’t get to invent it.

“Knew” (Greek: ginōskō)
When Jesus says, “I never knew you,” He’s not saying, “I never knew facts about you.” This word can carry relational weight. In Scripture, to “know” often points to covenant closeness, recognition, belonging. The chilling part is the word “never.” Not “I knew you once.” Not “you drifted.” He says there was no real relationship at all.

“Lawlessness” (Greek: anomia)
Jesus calls them “workers of lawlessness.” That sounds strange, since they were doing “ministry” things. But anomia is life without God’s ways, even if God’s name is in our mouth. It’s possible to look religious while living like we’re self-ruled.

(For a detailed discussion of how “lawlessness” connects to the next paragraph about building on sand, this thread is helpful: Matthew 7:21-27 and “working of lawlessness”.)

What Jesus is condemning: practicing religion without a real relationship

Notice what the people say in Matthew 7:22. They don’t say, “Lord, we trusted You.” They say:

• “Did we not prophesy…”
• “cast out demons…”
• “do many mighty works…”

That’s a resume. It’s religious performance language, even if the works were public and dramatic.

Jesus’ answer is personal: “I never knew you.” He’s naming the real issue, they used His name, but they didn’t belong to Him.

Jesus didn’t talk about hearing Him as a vague religious vibe, He framed it as the normal pattern of belonging: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27), so when we’re truly His, we recognize Him and we move toward Him.

In that same Shepherd picture, hearing isn’t just catching sound, it’s recognition and trust, like sheep who know their shepherd’s call and won’t chase a stranger’s religious noise (John 10:4-5). That’s why Jesus can say, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God” (John 8:47), because the issue isn’t religious intelligence, it’s spiritual family likeness, we hear because we’re His.

And notice the order Jesus gives, He knows His people, then they hear, then they follow, which keeps our religious pride out of it; we’re responding to His initiative, not proving our religious worth.

Jesus also ties this listening to love and obedience, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (John 14:23-24), so our response isn’t hype, it’s a life that starts lining up with what He said. When we hear His voice by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Scripture, through faithful preaching, or through a conviction that matches His words, we don’t treat it like religious background music, we know it is the Shepherd calling our name.

Even our repentance fits here, because following means we turn from the voice of sin and self and walk behind Him, step by step. That’s why Jesus can say He came so His sheep have life (John 10:10), because His voice doesn’t just inform our minds, it carries His life to our hearts.

If we want the Shepherd theme to sink in, we can sit with Understanding Jehovah Rohi: The Lord Is My Shepherd and let that Biblical picture steady our religious instincts.

And for a clear summary of Jesus’s point in John 10:27, Got Questions on “my sheep hear my voice” lays out how hearing and following stay together in real faith. So when we say we belong to Jesus, we’re saying something faithful and concrete, we hear Him, we’re known by Him, and we actually follow where He leads, even when our comfort gets challenged.

A simple heart-check we can use (not as a new law, but as a mirror):

• Knowing Jesus: do we talk with Him, not just about Him?
• Trusting Jesus: are we leaning our weight on Him, not on our record?
• Following Jesus: are we obeying when it costs us?
• Matching confession with life: does our private life agree with our public language?

This is where religious life can get scary. It can train us to sound close to God while staying far away from Him.

What is the will of the Father, and how Jesus came to show us the Father

Jesus says the one who enters the Kingdom of Heaven is the one who “does the will of My Father.” So what is that will?

It’s bigger than a checklist, but it’s not vague. The Sermon on the Mount itself describes it: not just external rule-keeping, but inner transformation, real fruit, real love, real obedience.

Years ago, God gave me a prophetic vision I won’t go into much detail about yet, and this prophetic vision set me on the path I am on today. Long story short, I have been a believer as long as I can remember but world circumstances and a lack of education about God set me on a much different path than God had planned for me.

I was religious most of my life, but I lacked a relationship with God. In this prophetic vision, I was literally with Jesus on the outskirts of the Third Heaven. I didn’t know anything about any of that, but research on this vision over the years has made me realize where I was at with Him.

Anyway, I never did the will of the Father, mainly due to a lack of education regarding my religious faith I had at that time, which is one reason why I desire to teach other believers the truth about God and His ways. The point I am making here is, in the prophetic vision Jesus gave me, I realized in Heaven everyone does the will of the Father automatically. The choice to do His will is made while we are alive as humans on earth, that is the point.

When Jesus said, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” (Matthew 6:10) Jesus was speaking quite literally. His will is done automatically in Heaven by those who chose to do His will during their trials before Heaven. There are many great interpretations of this verse about the Millennial Reign and many of those interpretation scratch the surface of what Jesus meant. This article of ours on the Millennial Reign really breaks it down.

And we can’t separate the Father’s will from the Son, because the Son is how the Father makes Himself known. If we claim we love God but dismiss Jesus, we’ve invented a religious idea of God that Jesus didn’t teach.

The Father’s will is more than religious activity, it is trust, obedience, and heart-level righteousness

God’s will isn’t “stay busy.” It’s not “be impressive.” It’s not “collect spiritual stories.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, God’s will looks like:

• reconciliation instead of hatred (Matthew 5)
• truth instead of performance (Matthew 5)
• purity in desires, not just appearance (Matthew 5)
• secret prayer, not applause (Matthew 6)
• forgiveness from the heart (Matthew 6)
• trust instead of anxious control (Matthew 6)
• humility in judgment (Matthew 7)

Obedience doesn’t buy salvation, but it does reveal who we trust. A religious life can mimic obedience for a season, but it can’t produce the fruit of surrender without the Holy Spirit changing us.

Jesus shows us what the Father is like: the visible picture of the invisible God

When we look at Jesus, we aren’t just getting good teaching. We’re seeing God’s heart in human form.

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That’s why the New Testament can say things like “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus isn’t a mask God wears. He’s the eternal Son revealing the Father truly.

So Matthew 7 hits even harder: if we don’t really know Jesus, we don’t really know the Father’s will either. We may be religious, but we’re guessing.

Colossians 1:15 explained, “firstborn over all creation” and why it does not mean Jesus was created

Colossians 1:15 says Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” That phrase “firstborn” has confused a lot of people, and it’s been used to argue Jesus is a created being.

But the context won’t allow that reading.

Right after “firstborn,” Paul says, “For by Him all things were created… all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things…” (Colossians 1:16-17). If all things were created through Him, then He’s not part of the “created things” category.

If we want a careful deep dive on why this verse doesn’t teach that Jesus was created, these are useful reads: Arius Revisited: The Firstborn Over All Creation (Col 1:15) and Tough Texts: Was Jesus Created? (Colossians 1:15).

What “firstborn” means in the Bible: rank, inheritance, and preeminence

The Greek word for firstborn is prototokos. It can mean first in time, but it often means first in status.

In the Bible, “firstborn” is tied to inheritance rights and family authority. It’s a leadership word. Sometimes Scripture even uses “firstborn” for someone who wasn’t literally born first, because the point is rank.

A clear example is Psalm 89:27, where God says of David, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” David wasn’t the first human born, and he wasn’t even the first son in his family, but he was given preeminence.

So in Colossians 1:15, “firstborn over all creation” means Jesus is the rightful heir and ruler over creation, the one with authority, the one all creation answers to.

That hits Matthew 7 again. A religious person may call Jesus “Lord,” but if Jesus is truly firstborn over all creation, then our whole life belongs under His rule.

Why Paul calls Jesus firstborn in Colossians: Jesus is before, over, and central to everything

Colossians was written to lift Jesus higher than the competing spiritual ideas of the day. Paul refuses to let Jesus be reduced to “one of God’s agents” or “a high-level spiritual being.”

Jesus is:

• the image (God made visible)
• the firstborn (the supreme heir and ruler)
• the Creator (all things made through Him)
• the goal (“for Him”)

Real faith begins with who Jesus is, not with how religious we can look. If we start with Jesus as a tool to build our platform, we’re already off.

“Lord, Lord,” Yahweh, and why we baptize in one Name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

“Lord, Lord” is intense language, but Matthew 7 proves intensity isn’t the same as intimacy. We can sound passionate and still be unsubmitted.

This is also where the Bible’s patterns of repetition, God’s covenant name (Yahweh), and the Trinity connect in a way that’s simple but weighty.

Why Scripture repeats words twice, and what “Lord, Lord” is meant to communicate

In Hebrew and Aramaic flavored speech, repeating a word can show urgency, emotion, closeness, or solemn warning. We see it in moments like “Abraham, Abraham” (Genesis 22:11), “Moses, Moses” (Exodus 3:4), and “Samuel, Samuel” (1 Samuel 3:10).

So “Lord, Lord” is a strong appeal. It’s like saying, “Master, please, listen.” But Jesus shows us a painful truth: a religious mouth can be loud while a life stays stubborn.

Jesus, Yahweh, and the Trinity in simple terms, plus why baptism is in one singular Name (Matthew 28:19)

Yahweh is the covenant name of the God of Israel, written as YHWH (often called the Tetragrammaton). English Bibles usually render it as “LORD” (all caps). In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint), YHWH is typically represented as kyrios.

That background matters because the double “Lord, Lord” language has been argued to echo the way Scripture represents the divine name, where Jesus is saying He is Yahweh, which He said multiple times He is God. For readers who want to study that claim, this academic discussion is a starting point: “Lord, Lord”: Jesus as YHWH in Matthew and Luke (Cambridge) (and a related summary post: Jason Staples on “Lord LORD”). Me personally, I know Jesus is God, Yahweh, and I also know many people do not know Him on that level, but everyone really should.

Matthew 7 is first a warning, then a realization to those who have ears to hear. It sits in a New Testament world where Jesus receives honors and titles that belong to Israel’s God, and where believers worship Jesus without believing in multiple gods.

That brings us to the Trinity in plain language: one God, three persons in how God relates to us, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, perfectly united, not three gods, not one person wearing three masks. The Trinity is a mystery of God’s Kingdom no one person fully understands, but those of us who know God understand God enough to understand in our spirits.

So why do we baptize in one singular name? Because Jesus commanded it: “in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). One name points to one divine identity and authority.

If we want a grounded, practical look at the Holy Spirit’s role in Jesus’ own life and ministry, our article pairs well here: Why Jesus Needed the Holy Spirit.

A religious person may say “Lord, Lord,” but baptism points to something deeper: belonging, union, a new identity.

Born again, seeing versus entering the Kingdom, and the law written on our hearts

Matthew 7:21 talks about who will enter the Kingdom. John 3:3 says we must be born again to see the Kingdom. Both matter, and they fit together.

A religious life can train us to look at the Kingdom like it’s a topic. Jesus says it’s a reality we can’t even perceive rightly until God remakes us.

Why Jesus says we must be born again to “see” the Kingdom (John 3:3) and to “enter” it (Matthew 7:21)

In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, that without being born again (born “from above”), no one can “see” the Kingdom of God. “See” is about perception. It’s spiritual eyesight.

We can be religious and still not recognize God’s reign when it shows up. Nicodemus had the Scriptures, the status, the system, and he still needed new birth.

“Enter” in Matthew 7:21 is about belonging and access. It’s not just noticing the Kingdom exists. It’s being received into it, living under the King.

New birth connects both: when God gives us a new heart, we start to see differently, and that new heart begins to obey from the inside.

From Stone to Flesh: How God Turns Cold Religion Into Living Relationship

Jeremiah 31:33 and Jesus: God’s law written on our hearts, not just rules on a page

Jeremiah 31:33 promises a new covenant: “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it… and they shall all know Me.” That’s the opposite of Matthew 7’s tragedy.

The problem in Matthew 7 isn’t lack of religious effort. It’s lack of covenant knowing, “I never knew you.” Jeremiah says God will create a people who truly know Him, from the inside.

Jesus fulfills that new covenant through His life, death, and resurrection, and He applies it by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t just hand us better rules. He writes God’s ways into our desires, so obedience becomes real and personal.

That’s also why Jesus can call the false kind of ministry “lawlessness.” It’s activity without God’s inner rule.

If we’re tired of being religious in the hollow way, a few simple next steps are still deep:

• talk to Jesus honestly, not formally
• confess what’s fake, not just what’s obvious
• ask the Holy Spirit for a new heart, not new hype
• practice obedience in secret, where nobody claps

Conclusion

Matthew 7:21-23 warns us that being religious, gifted, and active can still miss the point. Jesus isn’t hunting for impressive claims, He’s looking for people who belong to Him, who do the Father’s will from a changed heart.

When we see Jesus, we see the Father, because Jesus is the image of the invisible God. When we hear “firstborn over all creation,” we should think supremacy and inheritance, not that Jesus was created. When we say “Lord, Lord,” we’re using heavy language, but words don’t replace surrender.

If we want to move from religious performance to real life with God, the doorway is still the same: be born again, trust Jesus, and ask the Holy Spirit to write God’s law on our hearts so our obedience becomes honest.