Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’
Never known means never approved or loved as His friends. Christ will not say He once knew them and then rejected them, or that they fell away from grace. They had never been true Christians at all, whatever their pretended joys and self-confidence. This text settles it.
AI summary
Christ will confess openly what they have falsely confessed: that their profession is deceitful. He never reckoned them among His own, even when they boasted they were pillars of the church. They stole an unjust, temporary possession of His house under a false title, and now He casts them out.
AI summary
The narrow gate is hardly wide enough to admit one at all; it expresses the difficulty of that first right step in religion, which requires triumph over all our natural inclinations. The wide gate and broad way lure many because they are easily entered and easily trodden.
AI summary
Commenting on Matthew 7:13-29