Have you ever worried about someone stealing your password? Since you’re reading this article online, it’s more than likely you have various personal accounts on the internet that involve a password to protect your data. If so, then you are well aware of the stress involved with constantly creating an airtight password that cannot be easily guessed or decoded by your friendly neighborhood hacker who wants to steal your identity and more importantly, your wealth.
Sad to say, using a stolen password to assume someone’s identity is a sign of our digital times. These days, cybersecurity experts like Dan Pitman will readily admit to the difficulty in keeping your online identity protected. “Confirmation of identity is still a significant challenge,” he recently explained, and has become, according to him, “much more significant in risk and impact.”
The fact is, this type of crime goes all the way back to ancient times. In the Bible, Jesus told us about a similar kind of identity theft, except this one is spiritual in nature and therefore a much more serious offense. Like the hackers of today, there are duplicitous people who will try to hack their way into the kingdom of heaven using a stolen password to gain access to the treasure of eternal life.
According to Matthew 7:15-23, the “password” in question is, “Lord, Lord.” But Jesus, who guards the door, or more accurately, “is” the Door (John 10:9), will basically tell these people in so many words, “I’ve never seen you before. Scram, you crooks!”
Now why would these spiritual hackers even attempt such a crackpot scheme? Well, sadly, they probably thought it was a simple matter of snooping around the true disciples of Christ and rooting out the password to their heavenly account. More than likely, they thought they hit pay dirt when they heard the apostle Paul tell people that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). After that it was just a matter of figuring out that “Lord, Lord” was a more secure password than just “Lord.”
What they didn’t count on, however, is that there was a stringent verification process connected to the “password” that would complicate matters and instantly expose them as frauds. Sure, they could USE Jesus’ Title (twice!), but they didn’t have a prior relationship with Him that could be verified. They didn’t realize that they had to be “in Christ” to breach the firewall and gain access to the riches of the kingdom of heaven. As the Bible specifically tell us:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Of course, these evildoers, trying to pass off a password as their own, had probably attempted to verify their righteous standing by doing various good deeds in the name of the Lord. Sometimes, however, these false prophets were confronted by someone that didn’t accept their fake I.D. as a supposed disciple of Christ.
The Bible recounts an episode with seven men, under false identities, that tried to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus. The evil spirit that possessed the man called out these seven sons of Sceva, challenged their pretense of being in Christ, and proceeded to beat them up so badly that they were only wearing their birthday suits when it was all over.
“The evil spirit answered the seven men, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but WHO ARE YOU?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:13-16).
As embarrassing as that crazy scene was, the sons of Sceva were fortunate it was only an evil spirit and not Jesus Himself who caught them in the act of spiritual fraud. You don’t ever come back from the Lord confronting you and saying, “I never knew you.”
What these thieves need to understand is that there is no secret password to enter into heaven. And sadly, there are far too many professing Christians who need to understand that truth as well. In fact, it is a question that needs to be asked by every Christian, including this author and his readers: Am I simply relying on knowing the name of the Lord and doing good deeds for a public display of so-called “Christian” righteousness like going to “church,” or am I actually “in Christ” and therefore, known by Him?
The Scriptures teach us that those found in Christ Jesus have no need of a password because they are no longer condemned for their sins against God. And what does being “in Him” entail?
Being “in Christ” means someone who has an abiding, heartfelt faith in the work and person of Jesus Christ, and walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1). It means a complete spiritual rebirth because the true believer is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). And it means sacrificing any last vestige of self-righteousness and concerns of the flesh, and being “crucified with Him” in His death and resurrection.
We know as true disciples of Christ that “our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). Therefore, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Though Jesus is specifically calling out false prophets in His teaching found in Matthew 7, the scenario He puts forth surely applies to all believers who, like prophets and teachers, represent God in this world by both their words and deeds; and by their life, which is a ministry that teaches by example and is proven by its fruit. As Matthew Poole expounds on this truth:
“You shall know them by their faithful or unfaithful discharge of their duty: if they be true teachers, by their discharging the ministry in a faithful revelation of the mind and will of God, or by their holy life, living as ensamples to the flock; by their fruits of true doctrine and a holy life, by the discharge of their ministry in good conscience.”
The false prophet (or professor), therefore, will be confounded on that day when he or she approaches the Lord and tries to appeal to Him with plastic fruit and a stolen password of faith. Such an attempt at this spiritual thievery is always committed by a self-seeking criminal who cares only for “himself, his pocket, his position, his life” (Expositor’s Greek Testament). Such hypocrisy and subterfuge can never effectively preach Christ, nor prove a true association with Him.
True believers, on the other hand, will be instantly recognized by their Lord and lovingly ushered into the kingdom of heaven because God “chose them in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence” (Ephesians 1:4). Indeed these faithful and obedient followers are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that they would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
In other words, “Lord, Lord” isn’t a password. It is a humble, worshipful address to the Person in whom you have a sacred relationship. It is a relationship, in fact, which is initiated and maintained by His amazing grace, the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit; and is proven by (not secured by) the appearance of good fruit that brings glory to God forevermore through Jesus Christ.
These wanna-be hackers of eternal life may deceive some people and especially deceive themselves, but their attempts to work their way into the kingdom of God, even if sincere, will never succeed. How horrific it will be on that day to hear those words from Jesus who knows their hearts, “I never knew you.”
As John Angell James has warned us all, “These dreadful words should sound through the whole church with the solemnity and impressiveness of an alarm bell. What a salutary fear and trembling they should awaken. And to what a close and anxious examination they should lead!”
