More Righteous Than a Pharisee

Matthew 5:20

"For I tell you that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

That's a pretty scary text. Those Pharisees and teachers of the law were pretty punctilious. They fasted often (Matthew 9:14), they were faithful tithe givers--even down to tithing their mint, cumin, and dill (Matthew 23:23). It would be pretty hard to beat a Pharisee at righteousness.

But then Jesus wasn't particularly impressed with the Pharisee's righteousness. He said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean" (Matthew 23:27).

So why is He telling them that their righteousness must surpass the Pharisee? What if we played with the word surpassed a little? What if instead of thinking of righteousness as a race and who is ahead or behind in this race, we looked at it as a matter of depth. Unless your righteousness is deeper than the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

What will God find when he looks at me? Will he find a shinny veneer but a tomb full of bones? One of the most powerful texts in the Bible is this: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). That is God's promise.

I cannot enter the kingdom unless I'm more righteous than a Pharisee, but the way I'm "more righteous" is simply by getting rid of the tomb that is my unregenerate heart taking on a heart of flesh.