"But I warn you - unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." - St. Matt. 5:20
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus
As we enter the 5th Day of the Great Lent, I would like to bring your attention to the words of our Savior, Jesus Christ from today's Gospel reading of St. Matthew 5:17 - 26. Here after giving the Beatitudes, Jesus says that He did not come to abolish the laws, but to fulfill them. And He also says that even the smallest detail of the law will not disappear until its purpose is achieved.
Not going into the details of the Mosaic laws, Jesus expects us to still follow the principles behind them - to worship and love a holy God. The principles behind the commands are timeless and should always guide our conduct. Also the law reveals the nature and will of God, which still applies today. So coming to the verse that I have decided to focus on-
YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST EXCEED THAT OF THE PHARISEES
Jesus said that we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven if our righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). What did Jesus mean by those words? Are we to out-Pharisee the Pharisees? Pharisees were the most meticulous Jewish students of the Mosaic law and the most rigorous enforcers of its details. Tradition has it that there were 246 positive commandments in the Law (the first five books of the Bible) and 365 prohibitions. Getting these right and keeping them meticulously was the vocation of the Pharisees. So are we to be more meticulous than them and shaping our behavior around them?
John Stott answers thus:
It is not so much, shall we say, that Christians succeed in keeping some 240 commandments when the best Pharisees may only have scored 230. No. Christian righteousness is greater than pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper, being a righteousness of the heart... The righteousness which is pleasing to (God) is an inward righteousness of mind and motive. For "the Lord looks on the heart".
The reason why Jesus said such words are because, the teachers and the Pharisees were experts at telling others what to do, but they missed the central point of God's law themselves. The Pharisees were scrupulous in their attempts to follow the law but their weakness was that they were content to obey the laws outwardly without allowing God to change their heart (or attitudes). They looked pious, but they were far from the Kingdom of Heaven. God judges our hearts as well as our deeds, for it is in the heart that our true allegiance lies.
Jesus was saying that we needed a different kind of righteousness altogether (out of love for God), not just a more intense version of the Pharisees' obedience. Our righteousness must
- come from what God does in us, not what we can do ourselves,
- be God-centered, not self-centered,
- be based on reverence for God, not approval from people, and
- go beyond keeping the law to living by the principles behind the law.
We should be just as concerned about our attitudes that people don't see, as about our actions that are seen by all.
Dear Brethren in Christ Jesus, let us always ask our God and Father in prayer, to change our hearts and to make us centered in Him and to be sufficient in Him rather than on ourselves. May this Lenten season be a blessing unto us all.
Your Brother in Christ
Jobin George
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