Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name? Then I will declare to them solemnly, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.” Matthew 7:21-23
“I never knew you; depart from me” is a classical formula of the Bible for a complete and unconditional rejection. “On that day” those rejected will be termed “evil-doers,” because they did not feed the hungry or give drink to the thirsty (see Matt. 25:31-45). The actions that such people claim as religious (prophesying, expelling demons, working miracles) were simply ritual gestures empty of concrete love for brothers and sisters, for the poor; therefore God was not in these actions. Moreover the exercise of these charisms becomes the practice of evil (Greek: anomia, lawlessness); that is, the very opposite of love (Greek: agape), which is God’s law as explained in the Sermon on the Mount, of which this passage is a part. “Evildoers” is a bold and harsh term that allows no loopholes. When one tries to justify the failure to love the poor and the oppressed by claiming that one is occupied in worshiping, one is in fact doing evil. God is not bound to accept our religious works; if they are not inspired by the desire for life and justice, God is not present in them.”
Gustavo Gutiérrez in Essential Writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez, ed. by James B. Nickoloff (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996) 131.