Matthew 7:21

He that doeth the will of my Father. — The continued stress laid on the ethical side of religion, on the nullity of the confession of a true faith (as embodied in the “Lord, Lord”) without doing the will of God, more than confirms the interpretation of Matthew 7:16 above given. A further development of the same thought is found in John 7:17, and we are taught that it is by doing the will of God ourselves, or rather by willing to do it, that we gain the power to distinguish, so far as we need distinguish, truth from error, man’s teaching from God’s.

The previous words imply that the disciples had already begun to use the title Lord (κύριος) in speaking to their Master (comp. Luke 5:8); but as that word was at the time in common use as one of courtesy (Matthew 8:2; Matthew 8:6; John 20:2), it would not necessarily follow that they had used it in all the later fulness of its meaning.