When Rules Replace Righteousness
“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
When Jesus said what He said in Matthew 5:20 out loud, jaws would’ve hit the ground. The crowd had been raised to believe the scribes and Pharisees were the pinnacle of righteousness. If anyone was getting into Heaven, it was those guys. So for Jesus to say your righteousness has to surpass theirs... it would've sounded impossible.
The Pharisees didn’t just keep the law; they added to it. They had rules for the rules. They wore their obedience like a badge, stacking up regulations to prove just how holy they were. Following God, for them, became a competition. They didn’t just obey the Ten Commandments; they created hundreds more. And if someone disobeyed even the tiniest rule, they were looked down on. You can imagine how exhausting it would be to live in that world. It was all law and no grace.
But Jesus wasn’t impressed by the show. He saw past the outward obedience and into the condition of their hearts. The Pharisees had distorted God’s truth by turning relationship into religion and humility into hierarchy. They were obsessed with appearing righteous but had no interest in actually being righteous. And Jesus called it out.
This is a warning for us. It's easy to fall into the trap of behavior-based Christianity. We measure our standing with God by how good we’ve been or how clean our record looks. We might not have 1,500 extra laws like the Pharisees, but we can still make our walk with God more about performance than surrender.
Jesus said the kind of righteousness God is after goes beyond surface-level rule following. It’s about a heart that’s been changed. A life that’s been transformed from the inside out. Are you pursuing real righteousness, or just trying to look the part? Because Jesus made it clear: one leads to the Kingdom, the other doesn’t.
When Jesus said what He said in Matthew 5:20 out loud, jaws would’ve hit the ground. The crowd had been raised to believe the scribes and Pharisees were the pinnacle of righteousness. If anyone was getting into Heaven, it was those guys. So for Jesus to say your righteousness has to surpass theirs... it would've sounded impossible.
The Pharisees didn’t just keep the law; they added to it. They had rules for the rules. They wore their obedience like a badge, stacking up regulations to prove just how holy they were. Following God, for them, became a competition. They didn’t just obey the Ten Commandments; they created hundreds more. And if someone disobeyed even the tiniest rule, they were looked down on. You can imagine how exhausting it would be to live in that world. It was all law and no grace.
But Jesus wasn’t impressed by the show. He saw past the outward obedience and into the condition of their hearts. The Pharisees had distorted God’s truth by turning relationship into religion and humility into hierarchy. They were obsessed with appearing righteous but had no interest in actually being righteous. And Jesus called it out.
This is a warning for us. It's easy to fall into the trap of behavior-based Christianity. We measure our standing with God by how good we’ve been or how clean our record looks. We might not have 1,500 extra laws like the Pharisees, but we can still make our walk with God more about performance than surrender.
Jesus said the kind of righteousness God is after goes beyond surface-level rule following. It’s about a heart that’s been changed. A life that’s been transformed from the inside out. Are you pursuing real righteousness, or just trying to look the part? Because Jesus made it clear: one leads to the Kingdom, the other doesn’t.
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