MUST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS EXCEED THAT OF THE PHARISEES IN ORDER TO BE SAVED?

The Bible contains numerous disturbing verses which seem to indicate that we aren’t saved by grace through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 3:23-28). Instead, these verses indicate that we also have to earn our salvation through our works (good deeds). I’d like to examine just one of these verses:

·       “For I [Jesus] tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20 ESV)

Jesus seemed to deny that salvation is a free gift. However, elsewhere, He too taught that salvation is a free gift by grace through faith:

·       “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14-16, 36; 5:24, 37-39; 6:29; 8:24)

These verses seem to indicate that there is a contradiction in Jesus’ teachings. However, what seems to be a contradiction can be resolved as look at three distinct questions:

1.    Is salvation truly a matter of grace alone through faith?

2.    How are we to be more righteous than the Pharisees?

3.    What is righteousness

1. Is salvation truly a matter of grace alone through faith? Yes, but how can this be reconciled with the requirement that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees?

The simplest answer is probably the best. We are regarded as righteousness as Abraham had been reckoned as righteous when he merely believed God:

·       For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. (Romans 4:2-5)

However, there is far more to righteousness than what is reckoned to us by grace. Our righteous behavior is a outworking of both faith and repentance, an inevitable fruit. One indication of this inseparable connection between faith and works is that James could write: “I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18). This is because if we have faith we also have some degree of obedience, and if we have obedience, we also have faith. Because of this connection between the two, Jesus taught that the heart was to be judged by what it bore:

·       You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. (Matthew 7:16-17)

Grapes are produced by the grape vine and not from a thornbush. As a result, grapes are the necessary evidence that its vine is a grape vine. In the same way, obedience is evidence of faith, and a living faith will produce obedience. Consequently, if someone claims to trust his doctor, he will do what the doctor tells him to do. If instead he refuses, it probably means that he really didn’t trust his doctor. Likewise, if we truly trust in the Lord, we will try to do what he tells us to do. As a result, our righteousness will exceed that of the Pharisees.

However, it’s not that simple. For instance, you might be asking right now: “What if my righteousness seems to be less than that of the unbeliever or the Pharisee? This is the way it often appears to me. Does this mean that I am unsaved?” To answer the question, we have to proceed to question #2:

2. How are we to be more righteous than the Pharisees? Is righteousness and it fruit simply a matter of performing good works? Well, the fruit are definitely part of righteousness. However, we might only have a very partial understanding of the nature of fruit. Let me try to explain by taking a back-step.

First of all, let me reiterate the fact that righteousness in the context of Matthew 5:20 is more than a reckoned righteousness. Instead, it is a righteousness that is accompanied by fruit or obedience. The context demands this understanding. Directly following this verse, Jesus gives many examples of the fruit that we should expect. He even raises the stakes by requiring us to be righteous as the Father is perfect in righteousness:

·       “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

To make matters worse, Jesus then requires perfection in terms of our motivations:

·       “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

How, in the world, can we become unconcerned about what people think of us? Isn’t it true that our fleshly, sinful nature is always present (Galatians 5:17)? We are also social creatures who seem to be programmed to seek the approval of others. Is Jesus, then, setting us up for failure? After all, our fruit or obedience will always be tainted with the flesh. How then can we even consider being more righteous than the Pharisees?

3. What is righteousness?

Instead, He is setting us up for brokenness and humility. Job illuminates this principle. Although he was the most righteous man on all the earth, he wasn’t righteous enough for God. In the wake of his trials, he charged God with injustice. However, for four chapters, God confronted the errant Job with a series of question, which Job couldn’t answer. Job got the point. If he couldn’t answer God’s relatively basic questions, how could he have the wisdom to bring indictments against God! Therefore, Job sincerely repented twice. God then turned his attention to Job’s three friends and accusers:

·       After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7)

This sounds like a contradiction. God had already charged Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). How could God claim that Job had spoken of Him “what was right?” Simply this – Job had confessed his sin, and he was restored to righteousness, and everything he said wrongly had been forgiven and wiped clean. His righteousness now clearly “exceeded that of the Pharisees.”

Let me now try to summarize where we are going with this question of righteousness. As I see it, righteousness has at least four necessary components:

1.    Righteousness is reckoned to us by our Savior.

2.    It is something that we do.

3.    It is something we understand.

4.    It is also something to which we are restored after we humbly confess our sins and repent.

In Job’s case, he was restored and everything was forgiven when he humbly confessed his sin. His indictments against God were wiped clean as if he had never made them.

Do we find this same message in the context of the Sermon on the Mount? I think so. Jesus had made the point that none of us are righteous in ourselves:

·       But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:22)

Even if we wrongly call someone a fool, we are in danger of the judgment of hell, despite whatever our righteous record might have been. One sin could damn us. What was the remedy? Righteousness had to be restored, but how? Through confession and restoration! Jesus used the example of someone we had wronged and who was bringing charges against us. We couldn’t address the problem by making religious offerings. It had to be addressed directly:

·       leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. (Matthew 5:24-25)

Of course, this lesson pertains even more to our relationship with God, the One we offend most with our inevitable sins (Psalm 51:4). Refusal to repent is a denial of faith. It says to God, “My way is best for me.” As a young Christian, I had an older friend whom I admired. He worshipped joyously, waving his hands and dancing. “What a vibrant faith,” I thought. However, with equal joy and without the slightest hint of repentance, he later related to me how he would solicit young boys for sex.

This is not the righteousness of a child of God. Earlier in His Sermon, Jesus taught on the Beatitudes, the blessedness of those who mourn over their sin and are humbled by them (Matthew 5:3-5). He didn’t preach on the blessedness of moral perfection, since we are all miles away perfection (1 John 3:2). These blessed ones are also the ones who also hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6), not like my “friend” who hungered and thirsted for his next sinful encounter.

His Sermon also included the all-important concept of forgiveness, the mercy of God, found in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer:

·       Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:10-12)

Implicit in this Prayer is the understanding of the righteous:

·       We all need to be forgiven.

·       We are utterly dependent on our Savior.

·       We have been humbled to know that our only hope is in the mercy of our Lord and, therefore, must forgive others because we are no better than they.

For the most part, I don’t think that the Pharisees had this understanding; nor did they grieve over their sins. It doesn’t seem that the Beatitudes described most of them. As our eyes begin to open, confession and repentance become our daily companions along with the confidence that our Lord has to cleanse and forgive us. Without these, we have no hope at all.

I think that, above all else, this is the righteousness that the Lord esteems.