I Never Knew You”: The Counterfeit Name and the Covenant of Lawlessness.

To Whom it may concern. 

There are passages that stand like mountains on the horizon of Scripture, immovable and unavoidable, and Matthew 7:21–23 is one of them. Many will say to Yehoshua on that Day, in Your name we prophesied, in Your name we cast out demons, in Your name we did many miracles, and yet the verdict will fall with unflinching clarity: I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. The weight here is not on the spectacular list of works, nor even on the crowd’s sincerity, but on the Name they invoke and the relationship they do not possess. The revelation is simple and devastating: lawlessness is not merely breaking rules; lawlessness is covenantlessness—the absence of knowing and being known by Him. They paraded deeds as credentials, but the covenant was missing; they multiplied claims, but the Name was wrong; they performed in public, but they were unknown in heaven. This deep dive takes the passage on its own terms and presses it into our time with uncompromising compassion: the entire center of gravity is the Name, and the distinguishing line between acceptance and rejection is covenant intimacy in Yehoshua, not the accumulation of religious achievements, not the rhetoric of spiritual performance, not borrowed vocabulary wrapped around a counterfeit identity.

The threefold refrain in the text—“in Your name… in Your name… in Your name”—is not a throwaway flourish; it is the Spirit’s highlighter. In the Scriptures, triadic repetition carries the charge of completeness and confirmation. Yahweh set the courtroom logic Himself: by the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter shall be confirmed (Deuteronomy 19:15), a principle Yehoshua and Paul both reiterate (Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1). If two establish, three seal; the third is the gavel strike of finality. This is why holy, holy, holy resounds around the throne (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8)—not poetic padding but the maximal superlative of who He is; why the priestly blessing bears His Name three times (Numbers 6:24–26)—the completeness of covenant favor; why Jeremiah’s O earth, earth, earth is a summons to universal witness (Jeremiah 22:29); why John speaks of three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement (1 John 5:7–8 NASB). The law of first mention does not function as an absolute rule, but the early rhythms around the third are telling: on the third day, life bursts from the earth (Genesis 1:11–13); Abraham lifts his eyes on the third day toward the mount where covenant is sealed (Genesis 22:4); Jonah is three days and nights in the fish as a sign (Jonah 1:17), and Yehoshua marks His own rising on the third day (Matthew 12:40; Luke 24:46). Testing tends to move in threes: the tempter is answered three times with it is written (Matthew 4:1–11); Paul pleads three times for the thorn to depart (2 Corinthians 12:8); Peter denies three times and is restored by a threefold do you love Me? (John 21:15–17). By contrast, the double-name address in Scripture signals intimate recognition and covenant turning points—Abraham, Abraham, the knife is stayed and the oath sworn (Genesis 22:11–18); Moses, Moses, and the deliverer is commissioned (Exodus 3:4); Samuel, Samuel, and a prophet is awakened (1 Samuel 3:10); Martha, Martha, tender correction (Luke 10:41); Simon, Simon, warning laced with intercession (Luke 22:31–32); Saul, Saul, the enemy remade into an apostle (Acts 9:4–6); Jerusalem, Jerusalem, covenant lament (Matthew 23:37). The double says, I know you; pay attention. The triple says, the matter is fully asserted and brought to verdict. Return to Matthew 7 and feel the collision: they assemble a threefold witness of their own, attempting to seal their case by the triad of works in His name, but Yehoshua refuses their seal because the one witness that matters—covenant knowing—is absent. They invoke the form of completeness without the reality of relationship; their triad becomes evidence against them; and that is the tragedy and the verdict.

At the core of the verdict stands a single word that must be understood on its own terms: anomia—lawlessness. In the Greek of the passage, Yehoshua’s charge is not petty moralism; it is a covenant indictment. According to the standard lexicon (BDAG), anomia is lawlessness, wickedness, the disregard of God’s order; it is life as if Yahweh’s instruction—His Torah, His covenant design—did not exist. It is not merely breaking a rule; it is living unyoked to the covenant, unattached to the King, unrecognized in His house. When Yehoshua says, depart from Me, you who practice anomia, He is not quibbling over infractions; He is exposing the root: you lived outside relationship, you functioned without Me, you operated apart from My Father’s will. And that root explains the chilling line that precedes it: I never knew you. The issue is not that they failed to do enough; it is that they never entered into covenant knowing at all.

This is why lawlessness is covenantlessness. Covenant in Scripture is not paper theology; it is relational union. To be in covenant is to know and be known, to carry His Name and bear His image, to walk in His ways because His Spirit has inscribed them on the heart. Without covenant, there is no recognition; without recognition, there is no authority; without authority, there are only works performed in the power of self or in the service of substitution. You cannot exercise covenant with someone you do not know. You cannot claim His authority while remaining unknown to Him. You cannot stand on the final day waving a portfolio of deeds while your heart has never yielded to His lordship, nor your tongue confessed His true Name in faithful allegiance. The tragedy of Matthew 7 is not that they lacked accomplishments; it is that they lacked relationship, and their vocabulary could not compensate.

Here we reach the razor’s edge of the revelation: the text’s emphasis is not works but the Name. The triple refrain puts the Name under the spotlight, and that is where the counterfeit is unmasked. Yehoshua is the revealed covenant Name—the Name in which Yahweh’s identity and salvation are fused. The system of substitution handed a different name to the nations and called it enough. But calling a man by a name he never revealed is to address a stranger. When someone speaks your true name, you turn; when someone addresses you by a false name, the call is not for you. The god of substitution manufactured the word Jesus and trained multitudes to invoke it, and men have built empires on its syllables. But invocation does not create recognition; repetition does not manufacture relationship. If the name is counterfeit, the headship is counterfeit; if the headship is counterfeit, the power is counterfeit; and if the power is counterfeit, the works become the theater of anomia. This is not a small semantic quarrel; it is the axis of the courtroom. On that Day, substitutes will not be recognized, no matter how many times they are repeated or how many deeds are attached to them. They spoke His title three times; He never once spoke their names.

The objection rises, but did not deeds truly occur? The passage’s own wording suggests reality—haven’t we prophesied, haven’t we cast out demons, haven’t we done many miracles. The answer must be framed by Scripture’s own categories: the counterfeit can produce effects, and deception can mimic deliverance. Paul warns that the coming lawless one will be accompanied by false signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9–10). Moses faced magicians in Egypt whose signs replicated the early plagues (Exodus 7–8). Deuteronomy 13 commands Israel to reject a prophet who produces a sign that comes to pass if his message draws the heart away from Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13:1–3). Simon the magician amazed Samaria with power (Acts 8:9–11). The sons of Sceva attempted to wield the language of the Name without covenant and were exposed and defeated (Acts 19:13–17). Yehoshua teaches that an unclean spirit can leave a person and wander, only to return with seven more wicked than itself if the house remains empty (Luke 11:24–26), and He explains that Satan does not cast out Satan to build the kingdom of God, yet the adversary can simulate relief by withdrawal, reshuffling, or distraction when it serves the larger deception (Mark 3:23–27). Job’s affliction shows that Satan can strike the body (Job 2:7), and Luke speaks of a spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:11); the temporary cessation of such oppression can mimic healing while remaining outside covenant authority. What appears as exorcism may be a retreat, what looks like healing may be a pause, what reads as power may be a counterfeit—especially when invoked under a counterfeit name. Thus the triad of haven’t we can be historically accurate and spiritually lawless: deeds performed under substitutionary headship, effects achieved through deception’s toolbox, theater that flatters the flesh while leaving the house unfilled by the Spirit. The works may be loud; the verdict remains I never knew you.

Into this tension we must also speak of grace, because grace is both the most mysterious gift and the most misunderstood. Grace is unmerited favor; it is Yahweh’s generosity overflowing to the unworthy; it is rain falling on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45). By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works (Ephesians 2:8–9). Grace can heal, deliver, provide, and empower. Ten lepers were cleansed as they went, and only one returned to covenant gratitude (Luke 17:11–19). The demoniac of the Gerasenes was freed by Yehoshua’s word before discipleship had formed his life (Mark 5:1–20). Manna fell for a grumbling people wandering in a wilderness not yet circumcised in heart (Exodus 16). Grace opens doorways of mercy where none were deserved, and its power is real. But grace is not salvation. Grace trains us to deny ungodliness and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age (Titus 2:11–12), yet salvation is covenant union with Yehoshua Himself. Favor can be given on a technicality; relationship must be entered purposefully. Grace can mimic covenant fruit in its effects, but grace alone does not equal covenant intimacy. Some experience grace and assume it proves a relationship; they confuse a gift with an adoption, a touch with a marriage, a door cracked open with a life that has moved in. In the language of Matthew 7, grace can be present in one’s history without that person ever becoming known by the King. Favor without intimacy is still anomia.

The gravity of this for our time cannot be overstated. Multitudes are trapped in a counterfeit system that taught them to invoke a substitute name, to equate results with relationship, to count public works as private knowing, and to treat grace as synonymous with salvation. Christianity’s substitution has bred a culture of performance without covenant, vocabulary without allegiance, charisma without intimacy. The triple in Your name has become the liturgy of a generation, while the double call of intimacy—Abraham, Abraham; Moses, Moses—has been drowned out by the noise of stages. On that Day, as Yehoshua made clear, repetition will not fabricate recognition. He knows His own by covenant, by Spirit, by the seal of His true Name written upon hearts. The test remains what it has always been: does this draw you deeper into loyalty to Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13)? Does this confess the true Yehoshua come in the flesh (1 John 4:2–3)? Does this keep His commandments out of love (1 John 2:3–4)? Does this proclaim the true gospel rather than another (Galatians 1:8–9)? The sons of Sceva teach us that language without life collapses; Egypt’s magicians teach us that signs without truth deceive; the lepers teach us that grace without gratitude fades back into the crowd; Matthew 7 teaches us that works without covenant are dismissed at the door.

So the call is not to collect new credentials, but to come into covenant. It is to abandon the god of substitution and confess the Name that heaven recognizes. It is to trade the theater of anomia for the intimacy of being known. It is to step through the doorway grace has opened and to dwell with the One who opened it. It is to bring your life under Yehoshua’s headship in truth, not in borrowed syllables, not in cultural inheritance, not in institutional habit. It is to align heart and tongue with the Name Yahweh has revealed, to receive His Spirit, to love His instruction written on your heart, to live a life that is recognizable in the courts of heaven because it carries the fragrance of union, not the residue of performance.

Let the passage stand in its unsparing clarity and in its surprising mercy. Lawlessness is covenantlessness. The triple in Your name places the focus where the Spirit has placed it: on the Name itself. They invoked a counterfeit; He did not turn because they never knew Him, nor He them. Their threefold claim—meant to confirm their case—became the complete witness of their anomia. Throughout Scripture, intimacy sounds like a double call: Abraham, Abraham; Moses, Moses; Samuel, Samuel; Simon, Simon; Saul, Saul; Jerusalem, Jerusalem. In Matthew 7, there is no such address, because there is no covenant. And hear this final distinction that steadies the heart: grace can heal, deliver, provide, and empower; grace is the open hand of Yahweh extended into the undeserving world; but grace is not salvation. Favor may be extended to stir you awake; salvation is only covenant union in Yehoshua. On the Day when eyes meet eyes, depart from Me will not be a rejection of insufficient deeds but the rejection of a counterfeit relationship propped up by a counterfeit name and mistaking grace for adoption. Let that warning become an invitation: lay down the substitute, confess Yehoshua, enter covenant, and be known. Then when you say, Lord, Lord, it will not be the echo of a crowd asserting itself, but the voice of a son or daughter answering the One who has already called your name.