Towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issues a warning against the false prophets who will eventually infiltrate his newly-established community. They will be devious, he says, but with proper diligence they can be detected: “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit” (Mt 7:16-17). Whatever their impressive abilities and accomplishments, these would-be prophets will ultimately reveal themselves (one way or another) to be dangerous frauds.
But — disturbingly — they themselves are unaware that they are frauds until the last judgment. Jesus continues: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (7:21). Jesus then portrays the false prophets as expressing genuine astonishment at their banishment from the kingdom. Whatever bad fruit they were producing was certainly not obvious to them. And what about all the apparent good that had come from their careers? Did they not prophesy in Jesus’ name? Did they not cast out evil spirits? Did they not perform all manner of glorious miracles for the sake of Christ? But Jesus does not bother to argue with them or even to point out how they had missed the Father’s will. He curtly dismisses them: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (7:23).
This passage is as ambiguous as it is distressing. We as readers are left to wonder what had gone wrong for these people. Had they promulgated some terrible heresy? Had they been harboring some secret immorality? Had their faith been less than complete, their commitment less than total, their love less than pure? We simply do not know, and Jesus offers no elaboration.
What we do know is that publicly confessing Jesus as Lord, and even performing no-kidding miracles in his name, are both things consistent with being a bad tree that produces rotten fruit. But if that’s the case, then what isn’t? It’s just too easy to say that the false prophets lacked genuine, saving faith. That’s true enough — but how on earth can we know that our own faith is valid? The apostle James counsels us to prove our faith by our works, but that is exactly what these false prophets thought they were doing. Well, then, perhaps they were doing the wrong kinds of good works. Maybe they were too focused on flashy miracles when they should have been praying for their enemies and giving their cloaks away to beggars. [1]
But if the test of genuine discipleship is living one’s life according to Jesus’ sermon, then hardly any one of us can face that Day with much confidence. Surely, then, they lacked sincerity. In the secrecy of their own hearts they were seeking their own glory instead of God’s. But who could stand before God and say the same isn’t true for himself? If there is a criterion that excludes these false prophets from heaven while allowing entrance to ourselves, it seems very hard to find.
And if it feels that the ground is giving way under our feet, that is very likely the point. “The works of the righteous,” wrote Luther, “would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.” Similarly, the apostle Paul instructs the Corinthians to test themselves to see whether they are truly in the faith (2 Cor 13:5). We are in deep spiritual danger insofar as we assume that we are safe.
But the answer is not to build a better case for ourselves and the genuineness of our faith (what a hopeless endeavor!). Instead, it’s to recognize that we are never in any better spiritual condition than the thief on the cross next to Jesus. Here was a worker of lawlessness if there ever was one — a professional, one might say. Here was a man who had spent his whole life defying the will of the Father in heaven. But when he asked the crucified Lord to remember him, this same Jesus who banishes pious, wonder-working frauds from his kingdom swung the gates of paradise wide open for this dying criminal.
We still do not know what the false prophets did wrong, and we never will. Accordingly, we can never just assume that we are not among their number. “The church is hidden, the saints unknown” (Luther) even to themselves. But we do know one thing: that no one who comes to Jesus will ever be cast out; no one who asks to be remembered will ever be forgotten.
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That last paragraph sings. Great perspective, David!