Explain Like I'm 5: I Never Knew You

Matthew 7:21-23

“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.” Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)

About a year ago, I wrote a Facebook post for a friend of mine who was terrified by the “I Never Knew You” verse.

I stand by my exegesis in the Facebook post (which you can read here and which I posted a screenshot of below). Particularly the part where I explain to my friend that Jesus isn’t addressing you; He is addressing the “know it all’s” (pun intended) who seem to have it all figured out. I wrote:

And who he is warning are those elitists who think they have it all figured out? The “important people”. And so when we get to the passage that has you freaked out, He is again warning those people who are technically fulfilling the Law but out of duty, out of selfishness, but not out of pure love of God; He is telling them “hey, you don’t know Me; you know you as your own God”.

What made me revisit this saying was an experience I had on Sunday that really drove home to me the meaning of Jesus knowing, or not knowing, someone.

But before I get to that experience, I think there’s an elephant in the room that I need to address and that I should have addressed in my Facebook post.

If Jesus is part of the Godhead (which I 100% affirm) then how in the heck can He not know someone?

And it’s not just Jesus, by the way. It appears that God the Father might not know you as well!

Look at 1 Corinthians 8:3, “But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” Does that mean if you don’t love God then God doesn’t know you? Or how bout Galatians 4:9, “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God”. When Paul says “but now”, is he implying that before “now” you weren’t known by God?

This is giving me a headache.

How can either Jesus or the Father not know someone? They created us after all!

John, talking about Jesus, says “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3) and in the verse before “He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2).

The two of Them HAVE to know us, right?

This surely wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.

Prosecutor: You claim that you created everything?
Jesus: Yes, sir.
Prosecutor: All things, which includes humans, were made thru you?
Jesus: Yes, sir.
Prosecutor: So, you admit to creating the plaintiff, John Doe?
Jesus: Yes, sir.
Prosecutor: Then you admit that you know the plaintiff, John Doe?
Jesus: No, sir.
Prosecutor: Your Honor, this witness has clearly perjured himself!

So how do we resolve this?

I suspect the issue is with the translation of the original Greek to English. What we translate as “knew” comes from the Greek word “ginóskó” and as often is the case, the Greek word has a much richer definition than its English counterpart.

The definition of ginóskó, according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, is as follows: “The ordinary use is for intelligent comprehension (to perceive, to understand, to know), at first with a stress on the act…This act embraces every organ and mode of knowledge, e.g., by seeing, hearing, investigation, or experience, and of people as well as things.”

“With a stress on the act” and “embraces every organ and mode of knowledge”. Hmmm…this sounds very intimate and in-depth.

As a matter of fact, Dr. John Bechtle at the Ezra Project notes that intimacy when he comments:

The word ginóskó, on the other hand, often describes the kind of knowledge involved in building an intimate relationship with a person. In fact, ginóskó is tied so tightly to relationships that it is used to describe the sexual relations between a husband and wife (Matthew 1:25; Luke 1:34).

Dr. Bechtle also notes in reference to John 10:14-15:

The apostle John loves to use ginóskó to describe this deeper, person-to-person knowledge that characterizes God. Jesus chose ginóskó to describe the intimacy between the Father and the Son, as well as the connection between Himself and His sheep.

I think the key here is that we are talking about the back-and-forth participation of BOTH parties in a person-to-person relationship.

Imagine a woman who births a child. She has created that child and, in a loving relationship, the child comes to know its mom, and mom certainly, as every mischievous kid can attest to, comes to know her child.

Now imagine a child that does not share themselves with the mother who created them. I know it’s difficult to imagine but picture a child that does not respond to the mother’s love. A child in full and complete rebellion against their mother!

That mom would have knowledge about the exterior of the child; their appearance, their height, their weight, but she wouldn’t know anything intimate about her child.

Jesus is talking about an intimate relationship that He does not have when He says “I never knew you”. And how do we know this? Let’s look at the verses that precede this statement.

Matthew 7:15-20 (ESV):

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 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. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Look at “who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves”. Doesn’t that sound like a mother who would recognize the exterior of her child but not know anything intimate about them?

So how are they to be recognized?

By their fruit.

Jesus does a fine job of explaining how fruit tell the tale, so I won’t rehash that. Fruit, though, can’t be counterfeited. You can’t pass off a rock as a juicy apple.

But it can be tricky in determining man’s fruit. You can do a lot of talking the talk, but fruit is walking the walk. Yet it can be difficult for us to see the difference.

But not for Jesus.

In Matthew 7:22, they tell Jesus we did prophesy, we cast out demons, we did mighty works “in your name”.

In your name, but not in Christ.

He’s saying “you can name drop Me, but if you aren’t drawing on Me it isn’t legit”.

Its like being in a car with no fuel. You can press the gas, roll the windows down, and toot the horn, but you ain’t going anywhere without gas in the tank.

So He tells them “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness”. You ain’t got no gas in your tank!

So let me tie this into my experience that I had this past Sunday. I detailed it in this Facebook post which is in the screenshot below, but I’ll give you a quick synopsis here.

I was on my way to work when I saw a hitchhiker. I stopped, told him “sorry, I’m not going your way”, then drove off to work. But it ate at me, so I got off at the next exit, went back and got him, then drove him as far as I was going.

This might sound like an “in your name” story and your welcome to think this is a 1500-word ego stroke. I promise you though, it isn’t.

I’m telling you this story because I didn’t want to help this guy, but something inside me compelled me to. Jesus compelled me to.

My good fruit is from my branch, but that branch is connected to Jesus. “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5).

(Sidebar: I love reading the Apostle John. He has such a beautiful way with his words, and everything he writes is just overflowing with this type of message. Ginóskó is used 220 times in the New Testament, and John uses it 57 times in his Gospel and 25 times in 1 John. 1 John is a short masterpiece that really drives home relationship. Go read it! But I digress)

And I know I’m connected to Jesus because I can feel Him flowing thru me like electrical current when I picked that guy up.

This thing I call faith is a symbiosis that feeds itself if I just allow Jesus to “know me”. He fills my tank and I take my life for a drive; yelling out the window and tooting my horn.

This is faith.

Not belonging to a church. Not knowing Bible verses. Not tithing on Sunday.

Its all good and well to do those things. It’s the best, as a matter of fact, if I’m a sheep. I just can’t be wearing sheep’s clothing, though; I got to be a sheep. Otherwise, then I’m just doing “in your name” stuff and He doesn’t know me!

I’m gonna close by saying I feel like I never have the words to describe what it means to me to be “in Christ”. So I end up writing these rambling dissertations or I verbally vomit on people my testimony.

But if you saw me on Sunday then you saw what it means for me to know Jesus and for Jesus to know me. If you haven’t felt that yet, I promise you He is waiting to know you. I’d start with talking to Him from your heart; it can change your life.

Amen.

(PS: I’m not endorsing picking up hitchhikers. That’s not for everyone. But tapping into Jesus is so go find your own version of giving someone a lift!)

References:

Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., Bromley, G. (1985). Theological dictionary of the New Testament, abridged in one volume. Eerdmans.