UNCONSCIOUS’ is the adjective from the noun form – ‘unconsciousness’ which implies not being aware or not being awake to what is happening around one; or, inability to understand what one is doing or feel its implications. Hypocrisy is defined by the English dictionary as the act or practice of pretending to believe, feel or be something very different and usually better, than one actually believes, feels, or is.
Hypocrisy as used in the Scriptures is from Hebrew “hanef’ meaning do defile, and so rendered in Jeremiah 3:9. It is Greek “hupokrisis” meaning an “answer, to play a part, dissimulation of one’s reel character or belief in Isa. 32:6, we have the expression, “to practice hypocrisy this has the meaning of dealing craftily. The Greek meaning signifies the part taken by an actor, hence the outward show. It connotes professing to be what one is not; and is generally applied to religion.
The hypocrite is a double person – natural and artificial. The first he keeps to himself, the other he puts on, as he does to his clothes to make his choice appearance before men.
There are four classes of hypocrites: (i) The worldly hypocrite who makes a profession of religion and pretends to be religious merely for worldly considerations. (Matt. 23:5) (ii) The legal hypocrite, who relinquishes his various practices, in order to merit heaven thereby, while at the same time, he has no love for God (Rom. 10:3) (iii) The evangelical hypocrite whose Christianity is nothing more than a bare conviction of sin; who rejoices under the idea that Christ died for him, and yet has no desire to live a holy life (Matt. 13:20) (iv) The enthusiastic hypocrite who has an imaginary sight of his sins and of Christ; who talks of remarkable impulses and high feelings, etc. while he lives in the most scandalous practices (II Cor. 11:14).
In Matt. 7;2 1-23, our Lord Jesus Christ raises the issue of the most amazing and solemnizing principles of Christian doctrines relating to true godliness compared with unorthodoxy: “Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name we have cast out devils?… and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity”.
The Lord’s teaching in these verses is not about those who are heterodox — those who hold false teachings or doctrines of Christianity. The Lord is in these verse dealing with those who are orthodox – who prophesy in His name, cast out devils in His name and do many wonderful works in His name, and yet He says they are finally reprobate and finally lost. This makes these verses in many ways more solemnizing, and indeed alarming, than any other in the whole NT.
The one great lesson to be learnt from this passage is the danger of self-deception. The Lord distinguished between a mere talker and the actual door of God’s will, with the contrasting words “not” and “but” and highlights the fact that a mere profession is worthless. He who pretends to know God and yet disobeys His commandments “is a liar and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4) irrespective of any appearance to the contrary. To address Christ as “Lord”, is” to profess the belief that He is indeed the Messiah, and implies that the speaker has assumed the role of a disciple. The reveres action to these professions amounts to self- deception – a pronounced character of a reprobate. And he that determines to do the will of God must allow his profession being translated into action to be accompanied by faith activated by love for God. Thus the virtue is made complete, otherwise “faith without work is dead” (James 2:17) And equally work unaccompanied by a sincere living (abiding) faith is also dead. (Heb. 6:1; 9:14; 11:6). Those who do not know the will of God are not held accountable for it (Luke 12:17,48), but those who hear God’s voice speaking to their hearts and yet persist in ways of their own choice “have no cloke for their sin” (John 15:22).
Jesus, in this passage, for the first time, indirectly alludes to the fact that He will appear on “that day” as judge of all men (Matt. 26:64). The hypocrites who address Christ as “Lord” on the final day of judgment do so as professed Christians. They have pretended in this life to be His followers, but have been, weighed and found wanting. Those of them who claim to have prophesied in the name of Christ, and have been preaching the gospel of Jesus must remember that ostensible worship of God based on human tradition is vain: casting out of devils and performing miracles is often mistaken as evidence purporting the presence of God with pastors and preachers and God’s approval of their teachings etc. (see Rev. 13:13, 14; II Thess. 2:9,10). It is evident from the Scriptures that the performance of miracles is not of itself conclusive evidence that divine power has been in operation. The greatest miracle of time and eternity is a life transformed according to the divine likeness. Those who profess to be prophets are to be tested by their lives and not by their professed miracles.
Christ has unequivocally declared that all reprobate preachers, evangelists, pastors, bishops, archbishops etc. etc. whose lives do not conform to the commandments of God shall on the judgment day be treated as workers of iniquity who are neither known to Christ nor recognized by Him, their performance of astounding deliverances, healing, intercession and miracles notwithstanding. This teaching of the Lord, no doubt has in mind the coming day of judgment, it is concerned with the enforcement of the fact that the Christian must live his whole life in the light of that coming day of judgment.
It is clear from the import of this passage that these people according to our Lord, are going to be astonished on the day of judgment. They have assumed that they are approved of God and therefore safe, because they were saying “Lord! Lord!”. They were orthodox; they said the right things; they were fervent; they were zealous. They prophesied in His name; they cast out devils; they did many wonderful works. They were praised of men; they were in fact regarded as outstanding servants of God. So they were perfectly happy about themselves, quite assured of their position and they never suspected that there was any fault to be found in them. It never crossed their mind, even to contemplate the possibility that they could be anything but Christians and saved people, heirs of glory and external bliss. And yet the Lord says to them: “ye are lost” and “I know ye not” (the form of the Greek word rendered) “I never knew you” connotes “I never recognized you, not acquainted with you” and declared “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity There is no doubt that, the judgment day is going to be a day of surprises, and the Lord has often told Christians that He does not judge as they judge. In Luke 16:15. He clearly says “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your heart: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God”. This kind of false judgment is often found in the church, as well as, in the world. The judgment of man is canal and susceptible to error. And, our Lord teaches us to be ware of this terrible, alarming possibility of deceiving ourselves.
We are all quite clear about conscious hypocrisy, which is not the problem. It is quite obvious and self-evident. What is so much more difficult to discern is unconscious hypocrisy, when man not only persuades others wrongly about himself, but persuades himself wrongly about himself. This is the very point our Lord Jesus Christ is dealing with in this teaching. And if we believe the NT is true, then there is nothing more important than that we should examine ourselves in the light of this teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If what is being discussed here is all about unconscious hypocrisy which seems to be something, a man can do nothing about. This is just an assumption! Certainly, the positive approach to altering this propensity of deluding oneself is to discern the cause of our self deception. If we can make a list of the causers of self-deception, and then examine ourselves honestly in the light of these causes, then and only then, shall we be able to deal with them. The NT is always exhorting Christians to test, and to, examine themselves, to prove and try every spirit, and indeed to prove all things. The canal man, although hypocrically professing Christ may say this is being canal and negative, but the NT is always emphasizing the negative aspect of truth, as well as, the positive.
The common causes of self-deception include – first, a false doctrine of assurance. This is the tendency to base our assurance only upon certain statements which we make ourselves. There are people who hold that Scripture says: “He that believeth on Him is not condemned” but shall receive “everlasting life”, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved”, “whosoever believeth in his heart and confesseth with his mouth shall be saved” They interpret such statements as meaning that as long as they acknowledge and say certain things about the Lord Jesus Christ, they are automatically saved. The error is surely that the man who is truly saved and who has a genuine assurance of salvation does make, and must make, such statements, but the mere making of these statements does not necessarily guarantee, or assure a man of his salvation.
The very people, the Lord is dealing with in this teaching, do say: “Lord, Lord” and they seems to put the right content into their statement; but James 2:19 reminds us that “… the devils also believe, and tremble” In the NT, there is preponderance reference to the fact that evil spirits and devils, recognize the Lord. They refer to Him as uthe Holy One of God”. They know who He is, they say the right things about Him. But they are devils, and, they are lost! So the Christian must be wary of that very subtle temptation, and remember the way in which people wrongly persuade themselves.
Christians or believers confess: “I believe and I have said with my mouth that I believer Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, and that He died for my sins…” This argument is not complete. The believer or the Christian may say these things, but he should not stop at merely saying them. This is sometimes described as “fedeism” or “believeism” which means that a man is really putting his final trust in his own faith in himself and not faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is relying on his own belief, and on his mere assertion of it. The Christian is therefore warned against the terrible danger of basing his assurance of salvation upon a repetition of certain statements and formulae. This same danger is applicable to basing assurance of salvation upon the fact of membership of a certain church, or belonging to a certain group, country, or the length of time we claim being born-again or the title and position we hold in the church. It is possible for a man to say all the right things about Christ and His gospel and yet live such an evil life, that makes quite plain that he is not a Christian. ‘Be not deceived says Apostle Paul in I Cor. 6:9 “Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers … shall inherit the kingdom of God” It is therefore quite possible for a man to say the right things and yet be living an evil life. The moment a believer attempts to rest his faith solely upon repeating a formula, without being sure that he is regenerate and that there is evidence of the life of God within, he is exposing himself to the terrible danger of unconscious hypocrisy – self delusion. And many fall into this danger and attempt to defend their wrong action with a false doctrine of assurance whereby they ignore their conscience, such must remember that a superficial doctrine of assurance or a false doctrine of assurance is one of the most common causes of self – delusion – unconscious hypocrisy.
(To be continued next week)
