Matthew 7, Read to Its End

The claims in this part are of a different kind. They do not usually point to a single verse that says “abolished.” Instead they draw a line between two kinds of people: servants on one side and sons on the other, people of the flesh and people of the Spirit, the old saints and the new creation. Once the line is drawn, the commandments are quietly placed on the far side of it, with the people we are told we no longer are.

This part examines eight of these lines, and the first runs straight through Matthew 7.

The Claim

Matthew 7:21-23 ends with Yeshua saying to a crowd of busy, gifted people, “depart from Me, you who work the anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness).” This is how that verse is often explained:

“Matthew 7:23 continues the story of false prophets that begins at verse 15. Lawlessness here means misusing spiritual gifts without love.”

It is a careful reading, and it has real support. Verse 15 does begin with false prophets, verse 22 does mention prophesying in His name, and Paul really does say that gifts without love are worth nothing. The claim is not careless; it takes two true things and joins them. The question is whether the text joins them in the same way.

Where the Paragraph Starts

The paragraph begins at verse 15:

Matthew 7:15-20 Be on guard against false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will epiginosko ἐπιγινώσκω ep-ig-in-oce'-ko(knowing-without-misjudgment) them by their fruits — grapes are not gathered from thornbushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A good tree cannot produce evil fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire. So then, you will epiginosko(knowing-without-misjudgment) them by their fruits.

On this point the claim is right: the paragraph opens with a warning against false prophets. But Yeshua tells us to recognize them neither by their gifts nor by the power of their ministry. “You will epiginosko(knowing-without-misjudgment) them by their fruits,” He says, at the start of the paragraph and again at the end. A wolf can wear a sheep’s fleece, but it cannot grow grapes.

Picture a photographer at a wedding who begins with a close-up of the groom’s face and then steps back, and back again, until the whole hall is in the frame. Anyone who saw only the first picture would think the day was about one man. Matthew 7 moves the same way. It opens with a close view of the false prophets, and then, at verse 21, the frame widens.

Then the Frame Widens

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of the heavens.” The word is everyone, pas πᾶς pas in Greek. Yeshua is no longer speaking only of men who stand up and prophesy but of anyone who calls Him Lord. And the one who enters is “the one who does the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of My Father who is in the heavens”: not the one who has the gift, but the one who does.

Then the paragraph closes, and the way it closes matters:

Matthew 7:24-27 Therefore everyone who hears these logos λόγος log'-os(words) of Mine and acts on them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these logos(words) of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall."

Both builders are introduced with the same words, “everyone who hears these logos(words) of Mine.” The section that began with false prophets closes on every listener in the crowd: two builders and two houses, and the only difference between them is whether they acted on what they heard.

The scope of verse 23, then, reaches beyond the false prophet. It is everyone who says “Lord, Lord,” and everyone who hears, and the verdict at the door belongs inside that wide frame.

Gifts Without Love

The second half of the claim borrows from 1 Corinthians 13:1-3: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love), I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Every word of that is true, and we hold to it. Tongues without love are noise, and prophecy and faith without love are nothing. Even of giving away everything, Paul writes, “but do not have agape(love), it profits me nothing.”

But Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13, and Yeshua spoke Matthew 7. The word Yeshua chose at the door is not “you who had no love.” It is anomia (ἀνομία), built from a-, without, and nomos νόμος nom'-os, law, and nomos is the word the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures uses for Torah. Anomia is Torah-lessness, living as though there were no Torah.

There is no need even to argue the point, for John fixed the meaning of the word, as Chapter 8 showed: “Everyone who practices sin also practices anomia(Torah-lessness); sin is anomia(Torah-lessness)” (1 John 3:4). Anomia is not misused gifts but sin itself.

The Other Places Yeshua Said It

The meaning grows clearer still in the other places where Yeshua used the same word. Here He is speaking to scribes and Pharisees:

Matthew 23:28 So you too outwardly appear righteous to people, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and anomia(Torah-lessness).

These men were not misusing spiritual gifts; they had a reputation for righteousness. The word “inwardly” links this verse to Matthew 7:15, where the false prophets “inwardly are ravenous wolves.” In Matthew 23:28 the hypocrites are inwardly full of anomia. In both places the outside looks fine, and anomia is what lies underneath.

Yeshua also said, “Because anomia(Torah-lessness) is multiplied, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).

The order is plain: anomia is multiplied, and because of it, love grows cold. Anomia and love are not two names for the same failure. They stand on opposite sides, and when one rises, the other falls.

In the parable of the weeds, too, the angels gather out of the kingdom “those who work anomia(Torah-lessness)” (Matthew 13:41), the same anomia as in Matthew 7:23. That is where the word stands written at the end of the age.

Where Love Fits

This does not mean that love has nothing to do with Matthew 7:23. John tells us what the love of God is: “For this is the love of God — that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:3).

Love is itself a commandment, so a life without love is also a life outside the commandments, and it too falls under anomia. Unrighteousness, transgression, and sin are all rebellion against the Torah, and the root of every such rebellion is anomia. Lovelessness is one branch of that tree.

What the text will not allow is the reverse move: shrinking anomia down to “gifts used without love,” so that a person who loves sincerely could live without the commandments and never hear himself in Matthew 7:23. The word Yeshua chose is wider than that. It is the word for the whole tree.

The passage, then, gives two tests, and they agree: fruit rather than gifts, and doing rather than saying. The ones sent away had prophesied, cast out demons, and done mighty works. What they did not have was the Torah in their lives.

This first line of Part Two does not hold, because the text keeps widening the circle. Another line is drawn through the believer himself: people of the Spirit, it is said, must not be sent back to a Torah given to people of the flesh.