When we read Scripture, we can see how quickly some of the first disciples recognized Jesus (Yeshua), while others, though they had the Scriptures in their hands and the language of religion on their lips, completely failed to see the Messiah standing before them.
We can see the difference between those who were ready in heart and those who were blinded by tradition, pride, and false expectation.
We also see that the warning of the foolish virgins is not aimed at pagans who never claimed to be waiting, but at those who carried lamps, who appeared to be watching, and yet had no oil when the midnight cry came. That alone should be enough to sober every one of us.
But there is an even deeper and more terrifying question underneath all of that.
If men can speak in His name, minister in His name, and appear outwardly faithful, what is it that finally separates the true from the false?
What is the dividing line between those who are truly known by Yehovah and those who only wear the appearance of belonging to Him?
That question brings us to one of the most frightening statements Jesus (Yeshua) ever spoke, and it is the question we must face now.
How can men who call Him Lord, who prophesy, who cast out demons, and who do many mighty works in His name still hear Him say in the end, “I never knew you”?
How Can He Say, “I Never Knew You”?
The Verse That Should Terrify Every Lawless Church
There is a verse in the Sermon on the Mount that should shake every religious person to the core, and yet most people read it far too lightly.
Jesus (Yeshua) says that in the final judgment many will come to Him and say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? And in Your name have cast out demons? And in Your name done many wonderful works?”
These are not atheists
These are not pagans.
These are not open mockers of God.
These are people using His name.
These are people ministering publicly.
These are people with spiritual language, supernatural claims, and active religious lives.
And to these people Jesus (Yeshua) says in Matthew 7:23, “And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!”
Those words should stop every reader cold.
For two thousand years this verse has unsettled those who take the words of Messiah seriously, because it overturns all the outward measurements men use to judge spirituality. It tells us that a man can be impressive and still be rejected.
He can sound spiritual and still be false. He can use the right names, say the right things, and appear to carry power, and still hear from the mouth of Jesus (Yeshua), “I never knew you.”
Most people read that verse as a warning about fake religion in general, and that is true as far as it goes. But the verse is much more precise and much more severe than that. The English translation softens what the Greek makes unmistakable, and when that Greek is read in the light of the whole Bible, the meaning becomes even more terrifying.
The word translated “knew” in Matthew 7:23 is not the Greek word “oida“, which is the word for factual or intellectual knowledge, knowledge about something, awareness of information. If someone knows facts, knows doctrines, knows names, knows teachings, or knows about a person, that falls in the range of oida.
But Jesus (Yeshua) does not say, “I never oida you.” He says, “I never ginosko you.” The word is “ginosko“. And it means to know personally, relationally, experientially, intimately. It is not the knowledge of data. It is the knowledge of relationship.
And the word translated “never” makes it even sharper. It means not at any time, not ever, not once.
Jesus (Yeshua) is not saying, “I used to know you, but then I rejected you.”
He is not saying, “You once walked with Me, but later fell away.”
He is saying there was never a single moment in which this covenant knowing existed.
This matters because these are not ignorant people.
Jesus (Yeshua) is not addressing men who never heard of Him.
He knows exactly what they did.
He lists their ministry résumé.
They prophesied in His name.
They cast out demons in His name.
They did mighty works in His name.
He knew about all of it.
So, when He says, “I never knew you,” He is not claiming a lack of information. He is declaring the absence of relationship.
And the matter gets deeper still when we trace this Greek word back into the Hebrew mind of the Bible.
The Greek “ginosko“ is the same kind of word used in the Septuagint again and again to translate the Hebrew word “yada“. And yada is one of the deepest covenant words in all of Scripture.
In Genesis 4:1, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived.” That is not factual knowledge. That is intimate union.
In Amos 3:2, Yehovah says to Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” That does not mean He had information about Israel and ignorance about the nations. He made all the nations. It means Israel alone was the nation He had entered into covenant intimacy with.
In Jeremiah 1:5, He says, “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you.” That is covenant choosing, covenant relationship, covenant knowledge.
So when Jesus (Yeshua) says, “I never knew you,” the weight of ginosko / yada is standing behind those words. He is saying there was never covenant intimacy, never covenant relationship, never real belonging.
Now here is where I find the Church immediately becomes vague.
The Church hears the word relationship and imagines emotional experience.
The Church imagines worship songs, tears, spiritual language, conference language, and vague talk about intimacy with Jesus.
But the Bible does not define covenant relationship that way. The Bible defines it by obedience.
Jesus (Yeshua) said plainly in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
He did not say, “If you love Me, sing to Me.”
He did not say, “If you love Me, build a ministry in My name.”
He did not say, “If you love Me, call Me Lord.”
He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
The apostle John says exactly the same thing in words so direct that the modern Church has had to explain them away. In 1 John 2:3-4, “And by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
That is not ambiguous.
That is not mystical.
That is not symbolic.
That is covenant language sharpened into a test.
How do we know that we know Him? If we keep His commandments.
What if a man says he knows Him and does not keep His commandments? John says he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Then John says it again in 1 John 5:2-3, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
The church says commandment keeping is legalism.
John says commandment keeping is love.
The church says obedience is bondage.
John says obedience is the evidence that you know Him.
The church says the commandments are done away.
John says the man who claims to know Him while refusing the commandments is a liar.
Matthew 7:23 and 1 John 2:3-4 are saying the same thing from opposite directions.
John says, “By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
Jesus (Yeshua) says, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, those working lawlessness.”
The apostle explains the evidence from the side of the believer;
Messiah pronounces the verdict from the side of the Judge.
And that word lawlessness in Matthew 7:23 is no accident. The Greek word is “anomia“. It literally means without law.
These men were not passive.
They were not spiritually dead in the outward sense.
They were workers.
They were active.
They prophesied.
They cast out demons.
They did mighty works.
Yet Jesus (Yeshua) calls them workers of anomia, workers without law, workers of lawlessness. Their ministries may have looked spiritual, but Heaven called them lawless.
This is where the modern Church should tremble, because the modern Church boasts in the very thing Jesus (Yeshua) condemns.
The modern Church says the law no longer matters.
The modern Church says the commandments no longer bind believers.
The modern Church says grace has freed us from:
the Sabbath,
the appointed times,
the feast days,
the Sabbatical year,
the Jubilee,
the calendar of Yehovah,
and from the covenant order that shaped the life of His people.
The modern Church wants the name of Messiah without the law of Messiah.
The modern Church wants the blessings of covenant without the obligations of covenant.
The modern Church wants relationship without obedience. But Jesus (Yeshua) calls that anomia.
The commandments do not stop at generic morality.
Men want to reduce everything to murder, theft, adultery, and lying, because then they can still pretend obedience while ignoring everything that sets them apart from the nations.
But the commandments of Yehovah include the Sabbath, the appointed times, the feasts, the Sabbatical years, and the Jubilee cycles.
In Exodus 20:8-11, we are told, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God.”
That commandment was not given as a suggestion. It was sanctified at creation.
In Leviticus 23:1-4, Yehovah says, “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim holy convocations, these are My feasts. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation… These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim in their seasons.”
He did not call them Jewish feasts. He called them My feasts.
In Leviticus 25:2-4, Yehovah commands the Sabbatical year: “When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath to the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field… But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest to the land, a Sabbath for the LORD.”
And in Leviticus 25:8-10, He commands the Jubilee: “And you shall number seven sabbaths of years to you, seven times seven years… Then you shall cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound… and you shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its people. It shall be a jubilee to you.”
These things are not side issues.
They are part of the covenant order of Yehovah.
They are part of His timekeeping.
They are part of how He teaches His people to walk with Him, to count with Him, to remember with Him, and to watch with Him.
That is why the calendar matters.
If the Sabbath, the feasts, the seventh year, and the Jubilee are commanded, then the right calendar is not optional.
You cannot keep the appointed times of Yehovah while despising the appointed structure by which He fixed them.
Men who replace His calendar with the traditions of men are doing exactly what Jesus (Yeshua) condemned in Matthew 15:8-9: “This people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
That is what the Church has done.
The Church has thrown away the Sabbath and replaced it.
The Church has cast aside the appointed times and replaced them.
The Church has ignored the Sabbatical and Jubilee structure.
The Church has rejected the sighted moon and the Aviv as irrelevant.
The Church has taken a calendar built by Yehovah and substituted human tradition.
Then it says, “We know Him.”
But the apostle says, “By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
This is why the parable of the ten virgins is so terrifying.
All ten had lamps.
All ten appeared to be waiting.
All ten had some outward form of profession.
But only five had oil.
The lamp is not enough by itself. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” Proverbs 6:23 says, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the Law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.”
The Word is a lamp.
The commandment is a lamp.
The law is light.
But a lamp without oil will go out.
The oil is that inward covenant reality by which the light keeps burning, the Spirit of Yehovah working in a life that actually obeys Him.
The foolish virgins had the outer form, but not the inward supply.
That is the Church today.
The Church has lamps.
The Church has religious talk.
The Church has worship services.
The Church has conferences.
The Church has programs.
The Church has platforms.
The Church has ministries.
But it does not have oil, because it does not keep the commandments that prove love and covenant knowing.
The Church has activity without obedience.
The Church has profession without preparation.
The Church has religion without reality.
So when Jesus (Yeshua) says, “I never knew you,” He is not giving us a vague warning about feelings.
He is pronouncing a covenant verdict on those who claimed His name while refusing His commandments.
They said, “Lord, Lord.”
They worked in His name.
They were active in religion.
But they were lawless. And the lawless, no matter how successful their ministries appear, will not enter.
This means the great question at the end is not, What did you do in His name?
The great question is, Did you know Him in covenant obedience, and were you known by Him?
Did your life submit to His commandments?
Did you keep His Sabbath?
Did you honour His appointed times?
Did you walk in His calendar?
Did you take seriously His Sabbatical and Jubilee order?
Did you love Him enough to obey Him?
Or, did you build a religious house on sand, hanging fruit on the branches by outward performance while the root of covenant obedience was absent?
That is why this verse has unsettled readers for two thousand years, and it should unsettle us still more now.
Because the people warned here are not pagans but the most religiously active people in the room. And if the Church insists on calling law, ‘grace’, disobedience, ‘liberty’, and tradition, ‘truth’, then it should tremble when it reads the words, “I never knew you.”
Because that sentence is not aimed first at the world.
It is aimed at the lawless Church.
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