More Righteousness

The most respected profession in the United States is physician. The public generally understands that physicians must go to school for a very long time and master complex fields of knowledge. We depend on physicians to keep us healthy and value the peace of mind that comes with having doctors we can trust.

What would you say if someone told you, “If you ever want to go anywhere in your life—find true success—you’re going to have to surpass the expertise of a physician.” My guess is that most of us would find such advice disheartening. Even if we’re intellectually capable of such a task, few of us possess the resources required to pursue it or the life circumstances conducive to the rigors of medical school.

My little thought experiment helps us grasp how Jesus’s hearers would have heard these words: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). You’ve probably heard enough sermons on the scribes and Pharisees to know that they were the bad guys in the Bible, the ones Jesus was constantly rebuking. However, their contemporaries would not have seen them in that light. To them, the scribes and the Pharisees were the physicians. They were the experts who studied God’s law and lived in obedience to it. The public relied on them to give direction toward advancing in God’s kingdom.

It seems that Jesus is laying down an impossible standard. How can anyone make it into the kingdom of heaven if they must exceed the righteousness of the most righteous people on earth?

I think a lot of Christians make a mistake here. We immediately jump to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness through justification by faith. We rightly understand that we are not capable of meeting God’s standard of righteousness, and we correctly celebrate that Jesus is our righteousness. We are righteous by faith in Jesus. Those who are “in Christ” by faith receive his righteousness as a credit in our account. These are glorious truths, but I don’t think Jesus is referring to justification here.

Jesus is referring to lived righteousness, and we know that because he had just taught that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). He had just said those who attempt to relax the commandments of the Old Covenant will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). Right after this teaching about exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus explains what it looks like in a series of “you have heard . . . but I say to you” constructions (Matthew 5:21-22; 27-28; 31-32; 33-34; 38-39; 43-44). In each case Jesus takes a teaching from the Law and shows how his followers must go further. Each time, Jesus explains that the righteousness God requires goes past the external—what everyone sees—and must derive from the heart—what only God sees.

So then, how exactly does our righteousness exceed that of the most righteous people on earth? First, we must point out that the disciple of Jesus approaches the Law, not to advance, but in communion with Jesus, the law giver.

The Pharisee saw the Law differently. The Law, for these Law experts, was a way to move up in society, to get the public to respect them, and to perhaps put God in their debt. They saw the Law as a tool to help them secure the outcome they wanted. It was a means of control. Their approach to it, therefore, was minimalistic. They were always calculating the bare minimum that would allow them to publicly claim they had done it.

For the Christian—the one in communion with Jesus—the Law is different. We recognize that God’s Law proceeds from God’s love. Because we are in communion with God through Christ, we do not latch onto God’s Law to get what we want, but as a way for us to reciprocate the love that God has already shown us in the gospel. When it comes to the Law, the Christian is not asking, “What is the bare minimum I can do to publicly claim I’m a doer of the Law?” but instead, “How can I love my Savior more?”

My kids have chores they must do in my house. Sometimes they aren’t happy about having to do them. When this occurs, the job is never done well. They do the minimum so that they can get back quickly to whatever it is they would rather be doing. However, the other day we came home to a spotless kitchen. One of our children had spontaneously decided to clean our kitchen just to show love to us. The quality of the work exceeded all past attempts. What was the difference? It was motivated by love and not by duty. It was a joy instead of a burden. It came from his heart.

And that’s also how, through Christ, our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.

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