Verse
22: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven." Matthew 7:21
The separation which the call of Jesus
creates goes deeper still. After the division between Church and world,
between nominal Christians and real ones, the division now enters into
the very heart of the confessional body. St Paul says: “No man can say,
Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit” (I Cor.12.3). It is impossible to
surrender our lives to Jesus ‘or call him Lord of our own free will. St
Paul is deliberately reckoning with the possibility that men may call
Jesus Lord without the Holy Spirit, that is, without having received
the call. It was harder to understand this in days when it brought no
earthly gain to be a Christian and when Christianity was a dangerous
profession.
“Not every
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven."...[p.214]
“Lord, Lord” is the Church’s
confession of faith. But not everyone who makes this
confession will enter the kingdom of heaven. The dividing line will
run right through the confessing Church. Even if we make
the confession of faith, it gives us no title to any special claim upon
Jesus. We can never appeal to
our confession or be saved simply on the ground that we have made it....[214-215]
God will not ask us in that day whether
we were good Protestants, but whether we have done his will.....
The Church is marked off from the world not by a special privilege, but
by the gracious election and calling of God....
[Notice this clear
separation between [1] those who merely claim to be Christians and [2]
those who are "born again" and demonstrate His grace by their lives.
This is not a "works-oriented" faith, but the evidence of genuine,
humble life-changing faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord]
[Greek words]—the man who says
“Lord, Lord”—means the man who puts forward a claim on the ground that
he
has said “it.” [Greek words] —the doer—is the man of humble
obedience. The first is the one who justifies himself through his confession, and the
second, the doer, the obedient
man who builds his life on the grace of God...
The
[1]
man who says “Lord, Lord” has either
called himself to Jesus without the Holy Spirit, or else he has made out
of the call of Jesus a personal privilege. But our
[2]
doer of the will of God is called and endued with grace, he obeys
and follows. He understands his call not as his right, but as an act of
God’s judgement and grace, as the will of God, which alone he must
obey. The grace of Jesus is a demand upon the doer, and so his doing
becomes the true humility, the right faith, and the right confession of the
grace of the Cod who calls. [215-216]
Verse
22: "Many 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: depart from me, ye that work
iniquity." Matthew 7:22-23
....At this point Jesus reveals to his
disciples the possibility of a demonic faith which produces wonderful
works quite indistinguishable from the works of the true disciples,
works of charity, miracles, perhaps even of personal sanctification, but
which is nevertheless a denial of Jesus and of the life of discipleship.
This is just what St Paul means in I Cor. 13, when he says that it is
possible to preach, to prophesy, to have all knowledge, and even faith
so as to remove mountains, and all this without love, that is to say,
without Christ, without the Holy Spirit.
More than this, St Paul must even reckon
with the possibility that the very works of Christian charity, giving
away one’s goods, and even martyrdom, may be done without love, without
Christ, without the Holy Spirit. Without love: that is to say, in all
this activity the activity of discipleship is absent, namely that
activity the doer of which is in the last resort none other than Jesus
Christ himself.
Here is the most serious, most incredible
satanic possibility in the Church, the final division, which only occurs
at the last day. But Christ’s followers must ask by what ultimate
criterion Jesus will accept or reject them. Who will pass ‘the test, and
who will not? The answer lies in the words of Jesus to the last of the
rejected: “I have never’ known you.”
Here we are at last, here is the secret
we have been waiting for since the Sermon on the Mount began. Here is
the crucial question—has Jesus known us or not? First came the division
between Church and world, then the division within the Church, and then
the final division on the last day. There is nothing left for us to
cling to, not even our confession or our obedience. There is only his
word: “I have known thee,” which is his eternal word and call.
The end of the Sermon on the Mount echoes
the beginning. The word of the last judgement is foreshadowed in the
call to discipleship. But from begining to end it is always his word and
his call, his alone. If we follow Christ, cling to his word, and let
everything else, go, it. will see us through the day of judgement. His
word is his grace. [217]
The Conclusion
"Every
one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them,
shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the
rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded
upon the rock.
"And
every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the
sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall
thereof.
"And it
came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, the multitudes were
astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one having
authority, and not as their scribes." (Matt. 7.24-29)
We have listened to the Sermon on the Mount
and perhaps have understood it. But who has heard it aright? Jesus gives
the answer at the end. He does not allow his hearers to go away make
of his sayings what they will, picking and choosing from them
whatever they find helpful, and testing them to see if they work. He
does not give them free rein to misuse his word with their mercenary
bands, but gives it to them on condition that it retains exclusive power
over them.
Humanly speaking, we could understand and
interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand
different ways. Jesus knows only simple
surrender and obedience,
not applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear
his word....
The only proper response to this word which
Jesus brings with him from eternity is simply to do it. Jesus
has spoken: his is the word, ours the obedience. Only in the doing of it
does the word of Jesus retain its honour, might and power among us. Now
the storm can rage overthe house, but it cannot shatter that union with
him, which his word has created.
There is only one other possibility, that of
failing to do it.... If we start asking questions, posing problems, and
offering interpretations, we are not doing his word. Once again the
shades of the rich young man and the lawyer of Luke 10 are raising their
heads. However vehemently we assert our faith, and our fundamental
recognition of his word, Jesus still calls it “not-doing.”
But the word which we fail to do is no rock
to build a house on. There can then be no union with Jesus. He has never
known us. That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word,
and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not
Christ’s, but a word we bad wrested from him and made our own by
reflecting on it instead of doing it. So our house crashes in ruins,
because it is not founded on the word of Jesus Christ.
“The
multitudes were astonished....“
What had happened? The Son of God had spoken. He had taken the judgement
of the world into his own hands. And his disciples were standing at his
side. [219-220]
Books and quotes by Dietrich
Bonhoeffers:
The
Cost of Discipleship |
Life Together
Meditations on the
Cross
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