“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. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"
I want to focus on the "I never knew you" statement.
I think this statement begs the question, how could Jesus not "know" a person? Jesus is God, giving him, at least in the end times, the same knowledge and abilities as any other part or portion of the rest of the God-head.
The first distinction that must be made is about what sort of "knowledge" Jesus is speaking. We know that Jesus is aware of everyone, so thus the sort of cognitive awareness to which is often referred to as knowledge must be excused. Jesus, being omniscient just as the rest of the God-head, is aware of every being's desires, ambitions, and motives. So how is it that Jesus could not "know" someone?
The word for "know" in the greek used here in this passage is Ginosko and it means knowledge gained through experience. This knowledge Jesus refers to is a knowledge that is limited by the extent to which both parties experience each-other in a relationship. Perhaps the simplest illustration is the deep intimacy or Ginosko an old married couple experience over years and years of commitment to each-other.
Since it is that we are talking about relationship, it is at least helpful, if not critical to note that all relationship is guided, domineered, and made possible by boundaries either generally accepted or uniquely implemented. For example, at the beginning of my covenant with my wife, I vowed to her that I would never be unfaithful to her and my commitment would be to her alone until death swallows either of us up. If I were to go and find satisfaction in another woman, my wife would no longer be obligated by her portion of the covenant, just as any reasonable agreement. Both parties are obligated to hold up their end of the agreement until the other has failed to do so.
Let's apply these rules of relationship to us and God. We read in Genesis 17, when the Lord makes a covenant with Abraham...
“I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”
And a relationship was born. What was man's part of the covenant to hold up? To be blameless before God. But we have not held up our part of the covenant.
Romans says...
“None is righteous, no, not one."
What then are we to do? In every relationship, a covenant can be redone. If I were to be sexually unfaithful to my wife and she said to me, "Let's try to make things work nonetheless," the covenant would be a completely new covenant, not a renewed covenant. For the previous covenant is now an impossibility for me to continue in relationship under because it allows for no unfaithfulness, and yet that is what I have committed. In the new covenant, my wife (the victimized party) allows my sins to effect her and hurt her without allowing them to completely ruin our relationship.
This is what God has done with us. No man is righteous, but yet God has said, "Allow me to make a new covenant where you are able to have an affair, and I will simply bare the pain and suffering myself." In Jesus, a new covenant has been created, because under the old covenant we have all failed to hold up our end of the bargain.
For someone who does not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, relationship is still impossible because they have not entered into the new covenant but remain under their own failures of the old covenant.
When Jesus says, "I never knew you," it quite simply declares, "our relationship was never possible because you rejected the covenant that made it possible and remained under the covenant that made it impossible."
It is a declaration, not of a lack of awareness of you, but of a lack of relationship with you.
For more thoughts and encouragements, check out Refresh Ministries on Youtube. They put out some great content: https://www.youtube.com/user/RefreshHawaii
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1 comment:
So wish you had your own church, so I could hear you preach every week.
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