The words following Jesus’ emphatic expression, “For I say to you,” had to have sent shock waves through the cerebral cortex of those listening to the Sermon on the Mount. They probably reasoned among themselves,
“Our righteousness must excel or surpass that
of the scribes and Pharisees? They are the spiritual leaders of our nation;
they set the standard or pattern by which we all should live! We only know how
to plow; we are not schooled, skilled, and conditioned as the scribes and
Pharisees. Given their fanatical devotion, how could we possibly think we could
ever out-righteous them? And we can’t even step one foot in the kingdom of
heaven if we don’t!?”
The people only saw the scribes and
Pharisees as righteous based only on an outward appearance; Jesus saw them
inwardly and void of any true inner righteousness at all. So what
the people thought to be an impossibility was in reality the expectations of being
better than zero (the scribes and the Pharisees) by faith in Christ, not in
keeping with the traditions of the Elders. It is a matter of kind, not degree.
For without purity of heart, none shall see God.
A be-Him expression in life is
reflective of a true inner righteousness based on faith in God’s Word,
revealing a humble spirit in obedience to God. A be-me expression in life
mirrors a false appearance of righteousness based on works, mirroring a haughty
spirit in disobedience to God.
The scribes and Pharisees believed if you
worked hard at looking righteous you became righteous. It is fallacious
reasoning that if I work hard at something I can succeed at what I work hard
at. The problem is that you can’t work with something that isn’t there. No
amount of positive mental attitude and strenuous effort is going to make it a
reality. It’s like being confined to a wheelchair and wanting to be a
professional tennis player.
To be righteous and accepted before God,
the Holy Spirit of God must live within our hearts by faith. Then and only then
do we possess the ability to be honed into being Christlike or Godlike by the
enabling of the Holy Spirit of God. Without Christ in our hearts, we will never
rise above self-righteousness as the scribes and Pharisees, no matter how sincere
the output is.
These religious leaders could never get
beyond the firewall of “guilty of one violation, guilty of all” (cf.
James 2:10), but only in their minds, and neither can we. Jesus was the only
person who ever satisfied every demand of the Law in the sight of God.
The first step into the kingdom of
heaven is an act of faith in Christ according to the Word of God, not of works
(Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Can you believe that one step of faith in Christ will exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees and gain an entrance into the
kingdom of heaven! An eternal journey begins with the first step of faith, one that only
three of their kind took, that we know: Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and
Paul.
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
Just
that one step makes all the difference in the world. Are you trying to be
something you could never be, accepted by God apart from Christ? Now is the
time to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees by a step of faith! If that one step
is a life changer, what will the second, third, and fourth be like? Only those
who take those steps of faith will ever find out. The vast majority of the Pharisees never did! <><
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