This mis-interpretation and mis-application of scripture, applied to the born-again Believer, is at the very center of the many, many debates
about our Savior, Jesus Christ. The multiple "belief systems" overflowing around the world, and devastatingly across China, pick and choose their interpretation, getting in the way of the Holy Spirit who is the ONLY interpreter and applier of scripture. It is impossible for those of us who profess our Spiritual birth in Jesus to Spiritually argue and debate what God has caused to be written. I cannot
Spiritually "believe" one thing while you
Spiritually "believe" another.
Impossible. One or both has to be wrong. Debating the Holy Spirit is heresy. Refusing to acknowledge Jesus as Savior prior to death is blasphemy.
The solution? Each of us has to get out of the way. That begins when we confess Jesus as Savior, Romans 10:8-13. Our confidence, our joy, is underlined in Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 8:1, John 5:24, John 3:16-17. We are thusly declared the "Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus," 2 Corinthians 5:21. We can drift away from our confession; we can slip into sinful words and deeds, but we cannot fall from His Amazing Grace, abandoning His imparted Righteousness. Glory to God, 1 John 1:9 is right there for all to behold. When we slip away or drift He stands right there, He, our Rock, having never left, encouraging us to repent, to resume our one-on-one Spiritual relationship with God through Jesus, in the unending Power of the Holy Spirit, with Jesus as the everlasting Mediator.
(Check out "unending" and "everlasting".)
Now......... Matthew 7. The entire Book of Matthew was written directly to the Jews in that day, seeking to point them not to Law but to Grace. Their calling was to receive Jesus as their Promised Messiah, in accordance with the Hebrew Bible, the Abrahamic Covenant. Jesus Himself encapsulated and fulfilled every aspect of the imperatives in the Hebrew Bible.
Many of the Jewish religion did not then and do not now acknowledge Jesus as the Promised Messiah of the Nation of Hebrews as a distinct people group. If the Hebrews in that day had said "YES!" to identifying Jesus as the Messiah Promise, the Hebrew people group would have been saved
in that day. IF.
Matthew 7:22-23 refers directly to those of the Jesus-denying Hebrew Nation, now appearing before the Great White Throne Judgment, offering up excuses and pleas.
Commentary included:
22 Many (out of the Hebrew people group,
those who were offered the opportunity to acknowledge me as the Promised Messiah of the Hebrew Nation, via the Promise in the Abrahamic Covenant) will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you
(you never acknowledged me; you wandered about, taking things into your own hands, absent my Promise). Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
*
*noun
- immoral or grossly unfair behavior.
"a den of iniquity"
synonyms: wickedness, sinfulness, immorality, impropriety;
vice, evil, sin;
villainy, criminality;
odiousness, atrocity, egregiousness;
outrage, monstrosity, obscenity, reprehensibility;
turpitude
"many runaways become the pawns of these merchants of iniquity"
sin, crime, transgression,
wrongdoing, violation,
offenses.
# How many of the Hebrew folk became the pawns of the merchants of iniquity (Hebrew priesthood leadership that urged denial of the Christ and threatened punishment for those who did not.) These are they which appear before the Great White Throne (along with a ton of non-Jews).
Where do those Jews who acknowledged Jesus as Messiah, and those non-Jews who confessed Him as Savior, appear? The Judgment Seat of Christ, not for eternal punishment, but for rewards.