Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
Matthew 25:12 NKJV
Can you imagine more horrifying words than those five words in the twelfth verse, “I do not know you.” The words are horrifying because of the one who speaks them. The God of glory, the Lord and giver of life, He who holds the keys to life and death, says to those outside the shut door, “I do not know you!”
Similar words of Scripture were used by God to bring Martin Luther to a place of great distress in his life. He knew that He was a condemned sinner before God. He looked everywhere for what the wise virgins had, wrongly believing they had salvation, at least in part, by their own works. He pursued peace and salvation where the Roman Catholic Church told him he would find it, in penance and other works. But it was not there and he knew it. In captivity and bondage to sin, filled with misery and guilt of conscience, the fires of hell always on his mind, he cried out to God for help. In time the most merciful God answered his plea bringing Luther to that glorious text of the Old and New Testament, The just shall live by faith.
By the work of the Spirit, Luther came to understand what Scripture was teaching in contrast to the lies of Johann Tetzel, Pope Leo X, and the religion of Rome. Those that are made just by Jesus Christ live in this life by faith in Jesus Christ who justified them. Luther could not justify himself but justification was the very act of God’s free grace alone. Luther needed a righteousness from outside of him in order to be just for he had no righteousness in himself. Only the righteousness of Christ would justify Luther in God’s sight and that righteousness was freely given to him. In the act of justification, God pardoned all Luther’s sins and accepted him as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to him and received by faith alone. Luther’s chains were broken and that wretched sinner saw what all true saints of Christ come to know, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Luther knew God by faith. Even better, for the first time in his life, he realized that since God justified him, God knew Luther.
The Good Shepherd says in John 10, “I know My sheep, and am known by My own.” The sheep know the Shepherd’s voice and they follow Him. Those that hear not His voice, believe not His voice, neither do what He commands, do not know the Shepherd and the Shepherd does not know them.
The foolish virgins fooled themselves into thinking they could get into the feast without knowing or following the Bridegroom. They thought they could gain eternal life without having their sins pardoned and the righteousness of Christ imputed to them. They went looking for the oil, they could not find it for they had no faith, so they went to the feast without it. They had fooled themselves for years, maybe their whole lives but they did not fool the Lord Jesus Christ, the door had been shut. They did not know God and He did not know them.
God’s Word comes with a warning. If we seek eternal life apart from God who alone makes us worthy to enter into glory, we will never enter. But if we are driven by the Word to embrace Jesus Christ alone who is revealed in the Scripture alone and saves by His grace alone through faith alone all to the glory of God alone, then those horrifying words will never be spoken to us. All who walk by faith in Christ are the children and family of God who will hear at that great day the most joyful words that one can hear, “Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
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