Key Verse: For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Mat. 5:20)
Jesus was a rebel. He did some things that were obviously intended to provoke the religious leaders of His day. He healed on the Sabbath, He walked through a grain field with his disciples eating kernels of the grain, He did not ceremonially wash his hands before he ate, He touched lepers, and He did not fast. In other words, He did not conform to the religious teachings of his day.
In fact, the Jewish leaders were in turmoil about Him. On more than one occasion, they sent a delegation to confront Him. For example, in Mat. 15 we read that some of them came from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
At another time, Jesus was in a synagogue on a Sabbath day and saw a crippled woman. She did not ask for anything, but Jesus initiated contact with her and healed her. She praised God for her healing, but the synagogue leader was indignant and said, “There are six days of the week for working. Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” (Luke 13:14 NLT) He misunderstood the incident completely because he saw it through the grid of his religious views. And he sprayed his religious views like a mosquito fog over the crowd.
This is a particularly stark incident because every feature of it stands out, making it seem like a caricature. Surely this did not happen in real life. But it did! Jesus’ words in Mat. 15 would be so appropriate here. He quotes Isaiah, saying, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” (Mat. 15:8-9) That is what Jesus “rebelled” against—human rules superimposed on the law of God.
Such incidents and such words looked dangerous to the leaders of Jesus’ day, so He says to them in Mat. 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Since “the Law or the Prophets” is a way of describing the Old Testament, Jesus is pointing to their suspicion that He was trying to overturn the Jewish Scriptures altogether. In fact, He was not. He was attempting to overturn the teachings of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. He says to the people, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Living the Christian life is not a matter of keeping man-made rules. Our righteousness needs to be something deeper than that. It needs to be an inner righteousness, a heart-motivated righteousness, a God-given standard such as that described in Heb. 10:16, “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” These laws written on our hearts do not, of course, form a standard independent of the Scriptures; otherwise, why would we be given the Scriptures?
Elsewhere, Paul tells his young protégé, Timothy, that “the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels . . .” (1 Tim. 1:9). As believers, we should not need the law, but it can be a healthy corrective when we do need it.
How is your standard of righteousness? Does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law? Do you ever attempt to live on the edge of godliness, or do you aim for the center? That’s where the Lord wants us—in the center of his moral will.
Prayer: Father, keep my heart open to your divine standards. Help me to aim seriously, but not severely, at the center of your moral will. May my righteousness surpass the hollow legalism of the Pharisees. May I love you with all my heart and my neighbor as myself.
Author: Lindsay Hislop was raised in southern Scotland and southern Ontario and now lives in the southern United States. He worked in the engineering field for 15 years (mostly in Canada) before pursuing an academic career. He has taught for over thirty years at Columbia International University. He also serves as an elder in his church, where he teaches and preaches regularly. He is married to a wonderful wife Pam and has two terrific children, Holly, who lives in Canada, and Doug, who lives in Columbia. His four grandchildren, Isaac, Madeline, Lindsay, and Dolan, are also pretty special. He likes doing carpentry and odd jobs around the house.
