ANNOUNCER: Hello, friends. This is Grace in Focus. Today, we are going to be talking about Matthew 7:21, the phrase, “but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” What does “does” mean? Must we continuously do the Father’s will in order to be eligible to eventually enter His kingdom? Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org. Our annual conference is right around the corner. You can do pre-registration up until Thursday, May 7th. So get that in soon. We’d love to have you with us. And if you have kids, bring them along and register them for VBS. We are going to be celebrating GES’s 40th anniversary during that time. So it’s going to be great to have you with us. Get all the information you need at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we’ve got a question from Marie on Matthew 7:21. So let me read the verse first and then I’ll get into a question. So the verse is, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” So her question centers around that word “does,” “but he who does the will.” And so she’s got a little bit of the Greek here, but basically what she’s asking is that word in the Greek is poion, and it’s a parseable form of poieo, which means to do. So oftentimes this refers to a continuous action. So there’s a lot of debate around this verse about, do we have to continue to do the will of the Father in order to be able to enter the kingdom? So her suggestion here is, is this referring to someone continuing to reject a works-based mindset and accept a faith alone-based mindset?

BOB: Okay, so Marie, I appreciate your question. Notice her stance is different than the way most commentators and most pastors take this passage. Most would say that what this is saying is that the person who does the will of the Father, meaning who does the will, that is the commandments, that person is the one who’s going to get into the kingdom, that the person who does not continuously do God’s commandments, His will is going to be condemned to the lake of fire. Sam, where do most commentators, and I would actually agree on this point. Where do they think this time period is referring to? Do they think this refers to something in this life or after this life?

SAM: I think just about everybody agrees this is about judgment at the end of days, I guess, but the debate is whether, well, first you have to understand that there’s two judgments because some people don’t think there’s two. So I guess most commentators would say this is the Great White Throne Judgment. 

BOB: Most people would say this is final judgment and they would say the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment are two names of the same judgment, two different ways of referring to the same judgment. They would say at the end of time, everybody, believer and unbeliever is going to appear before Christ. Those who have done enough obedience, enough good works, are going to get into the kingdom and those who haven’t are going to miss out, right? 

But that’s not what Marie is saying. Marie thinks that what this is talking about is continuously, basically, we’re announcing self-reliance, 

SAM: Changing their mindset from works to faith is what she said. 

BOB: So basically, she’s saying it’s continuously believing. But she does say it’s continuous, right? 

SAM: Yeah. And those are the two big issues. I think we need to address with this verse. One is what is the will of the Father? People will say it’s to turn from sin. It’s to obey the commandments or some people say the will of the Father is to believe. But then the second thing we need to address is “he who does,” does that mean he who does in perpetuity with no breaks, no variation, no anything or is there something else going on there? 

BOB: In terms of the first one, what is the will of the Father? Although most commentators think this means the commandments, if you study this expression throughout Matthew, I believe every time it occurs in Matthew, it always refers to believing in God’s Son, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you study it in the rest of the New Testament, I think the case can be made that it always refers to believing in his Son. Well, maybe not always, but at least mostly refers to believing in his Son. For example, in John 6:39 and 40, maybe you could turn there, Sam, but it seems pretty clear that doing the will of God in John 6:39 and 40 is believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. What does the Lord Jesus say there? 

SAM: “This is the will of the Father who sent Me that of all He has given Me, I should lose nothing but should raise it up on the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

BOB: So the will of the Father has two aspects. To Jesus, it means anyone who has believed in Him is never going to lose eternal life. I’ll lose nothing. But then concerning the human, whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be secure forever. They have everlasting life, they’ll be raised up. I would argue that in the first question, what does it mean to do the will of the Father, that means to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s more or less what Marie is saying.

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SAM: The people in Matthew 7:21 that are calling out “Lord, Lord,” if they’re calling Him Lord, they know somewhat of who He is because they were casting out demons in his name. They were doing good works in His name. So they knew something about Jesus. They probably believed in God, but they are not being accepted because they didn’t do the will. So casting out demons in His name, doing good works in His name. It’s clear. That’s not. 

BOB: Yeah. In fact, I remember Zane Hodges was on an airplane once and he was sitting next to a young man and Zane was reading his Bible and the young man engaged him in conversation. It turned out that this young man believed in lordship salvation and was trying to evangelize Hodges and telling him he needed to turn from his sins and commit his life to Christ. And he cited this passage. Hodges pointed out to him, He said, well, you know, this passage contradicts what you’re saying. And he said, no, how’s that? And he said, well, notice why they think they should get into the kingdom. What did they point to? And the young man sitting next to him said, well, they point to the fact that they’d done many wonders in His name. They’d prophesied His name. They cast that demons in His name. And Hodges says, but isn’t that what you’re saying that the person who does good works is the one is going to get into the kingdom? 

So what’s wrong with their statement? If they continuously did these things, shouldn’t they get into the kingdom on your understanding? The problem is they’ve got the wrong basis for why they think they should get into the kingdom. The basis is to “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,” Acts 16:31 or John 3:16, “whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” They’re looking to the wrong thing. And if this does refer to the Great White Throne Judgment, which Hodges would have agreed it did, then they’re saying we think we should get in because we did so many good works, but that’s not the will of the Father. The will of God is to believe in His Son. So in terms of what the will of God is, it’s to believe in His Son. 

But the second half of what you were asking about is, what does it mean to do the will of the Father? And it’s ho poion, and it’s not just poion. It’s not just doing the will of the Father. It’s the one who does. That’s why the New King James says, “he who does the will of the Father.” An articular participle is basically a verbal noun. For example, John the Baptist is called ho baptizon, the baptizing one. He hasn’t baptized anybody in 2000 years, and yet he’s still ho baptizon, the baptizing one. In the same way, John 3:16 says, ho pisteuon, the believing one. Well, once a person believes in Christ, that person is forever, ho pisteuon They’re the believer. They’re the believing one. Even if they stop believing, they still fall in the category of the believing one. Do you have John 4:14 there? 

SAM: Yes, I think Jesus gave us a great illustration here of exactly what you’re talking about with the woman at the well. He says, talking about her, she was drawing water from the well, “Jesus answered her and said to her, ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,’ talking about physical water from the well, ‘but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ ” So the problem is with actual physical water, if I keep drinking it, yeah, I’m not going to get thirsty. But with the water that He gives, if the condition there is, I have to keep drinking the water that he gives and I’ll never be thirsty, then it’s not really that much different from the water I get out of my sink. 

BOB: But notice, he says, the one who drinks instead of the water from Jacob’s well will thirst again. What he means by he who drinks, which by the way is ho pinon, the one who drinks, it doesn’t mean continuously drinks. And we know that because what He’s saying is the one who drinks is going to thirst again. And by the way, what does she say in verse 15? 

SAM: “Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” 

BOB: So what she’s saying is one drink of this water, she understands means “I’ll never thirst again.” She’s thinking in terms of physical water and He’s talking about spiritual water, living water. But the point is she understands one drink will forever quench your thirst. Remember John 6:35? “He who comes to me, shall never hunger. He who believes in Me, shall never thirst.” Here He’s taken away the figure of speech and says the one who believes will never thirst. 

So it’s a mistake to think this is continuous believing. John 3:16 isn’t continuous believing. John 7:21 is not continuous believing. At the moment we believe we’re secure forever. But the Calvinist will talk about, or the Arminian, saying you must persevere to the end of your life in faith and good works in order to get into the kingdom. The problem with that is that is a type of works salvation. It’s totally contrary to John 3:16 because John 3:16 is saying the moment we believe we are secure forever. Or John 11:26, “He who lives and believes in Me, he’ll never die.” Even if later on you stop living. Even if later on you stop believing. And by the way, the one who lives, it’s another present participle with the article, ho zon, the one who lives. It doesn’t mean if I ever die, I somehow lose everlasting life. So no, it’s not the one who continuously does the will of the Father who is going to be granted access into the kingdom. The person who gets access into the kingdom is the one who has done the will of God which is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Well, I hope that’s helpful for you, Marie. And I would encourage you all to study. We’ve got some articles on Matthew 7:21, faithalone.org. I think we have a video on this YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society. So you might check those out. In the meantime, Sam, let’s keep grace in focus. 

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