23. And then will I profess unto them--or, openly proclaim--tearing off the mask.
      I never knew you--What they claimed--intimacy with Christ--is just what He repudiates, and with a certain scornful dignity. "Our acquaintance was not broken off--there never was any."
      depart from me--(Compare Mt 25:41). The connection here gives these words an awful significance. They claimed intimacy with Christ, and in the corresponding passage, Lu 13:26, are represented as having gone out and in with Him on familiar terms. "So much the worse for you," He replies: "I bore with that long enough; but now--begone!"
      ye that work iniquity--not "that wrought iniquity"; for they are represented as fresh from the scenes and acts of it as they stand before the Judge. (See on the almost identical, but even more vivid and awful, description of the scene in Lu 13:24-27). That the apostle alludes to these very words in 2Ti 2:19 there can hardly be any doubt--"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

JFB.