Matthew 7:21

Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord,

Will enter into the Kingly Rule of Heaven,

But he who does the will of my Father,

Who is in heaven.

Note how this echoes the Lord's Prayer. ‘Hallowed be Your Name (Lord, Lord), Your Kingly Rule come (will enter into the Kingly Rule of Heaven), your will be done (he who does the will of My Father), on earth as it is in Heaven (Who is in Heaven).' It is those who in response to this prayer have entered under His Kingly Rule, and have commenced doing His will on earth, who are truly His. It is not enough to call Him ‘Lord, Lord'. There must be a personal response in the heart. They must have experienced the powerful activity of His righteousness in their lives (Matthew 6:33).

So Jesus now faces all His disciples with the question of their genuineness. It is not sufficient to call Him ‘Lord, Lord'. (He repeats the words, and then the idea, twice for emphasis). Words and outward gestures are not sufficient, even when they demonstrate a kind of submission to Him. For if they would enter into the Kingly Rule of Heaven it involves submission to His Father's will. That is actually only commonsense. For entering under the Kingly Rule of Heaven must involve precisely that, submission to His Father's Kingly Rule.

Here in this verse ‘Lord, Lord' does not necessarily indicate more than the respect due to a revered Teacher, although its repetition indicates urgency. But it is in Matthew 7:22 that it clearly signifies more. Thus He is simply pointing out here that acknowledgement of Him is no guarantee of their security. The only security lies in a genuineness of heart that results in a genuinely changed life.

Note the change to ‘My Father'. All the way through the Sermon it has been ‘your Father'. But here He is dealing with matters of distinction between true and false disciples, and He does not want there to be any doubt about the fact that God is only the Father of those who are truly disciples (they are sons of His Kingly Rule in contrast with the sons of the evil one - Matthew 13:38). We have here therefore here a distinct indication of His own uniqueness (compare ‘My Father and your Father' (John 20:17)). In such circumstances He never says ‘our Father'. The use is building up to what follows, which is the result of the very fact that His position before the Father is unique. Thus He wants them to recognise that the Father is not their Father in the same way as He is His Father (compare Matthew 3:17; Matthew 4:3; Matthew 4:6). It would not necessarily be something that they would grasp straight away. But remembering His words they would eventually recognise more and more of their meaning.

But one question that may be asked is, Does this mean entry into the present Kingly Rule, or the future? There is no question that elsewhere He does teach that men can ‘enter the Kingly Rule of Heaven' now. In John 3:3; John 3:6 seeing and entering under the Kingly Rule of God results from being born of the Spirit, a present experience. In Matthew 18:4 the one who humbles himself as a little child  is  the greatest in the Kingly Rule of Heaven. The assumption is that he is already in it. And his entry into it has resulted from ‘turning and becoming as a little child' (Matthew 18:3). Compare Mark 10:15 where ‘receiving the Kingly Rule of God as a little child' results in entry to it. Matthew 19:23 gives the impression that the rich young man had failed at that stage to enter into the Kingly Rule of Heaven because his riches held him back. That is then followed by the general proposition that entry under the Kingly Rule of God was hard for any rich person (Matthew 19:24), although thankfully even that was possible for God (Matthew 19:26). Furthermore the parallel we detect with the Lord's Prayer also connects it with the present rolling into the future. Thus it would seem that Jesus' point here is that those who would now enter under the Kingly Rule of Heaven must do so, not just by calling Jesus ‘Lord, Lord', but by submitting to His Father's will. For their righteousness for the purpose must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). It must be an inworked righteousness (Matthew 6:33).