Quality over Quantity

 

Thus far our Lord has stated how he is in harmony or continuity with the Old Testament. But in verses 19-20, he describes the Christian’s righteousness as being utterly contradictory or in discontinuity with the Pharisees’ tradition. In these verses Christ teaches that true righteousness—the kind that is acceptable in God’s kingdom—is not based on the external religiosity that the Pharisees maintained. Rather the acceptable type of righteousness is the one that is truly obedient to God’s Law—not one trying to dilute God’s Law. Christ was not in opposition to the Old Testament; but his opposition to the Pharisees could not have been more complete. In the Gospels, Jesus charged the Pharisees’ distorted righteousness as being full of self-serving traditions, externalistic, or more concerned with formal ritual than inner spirituality. 

 

It is important to inventory our own piety occasionally and ask: Are these ever true of us? Do we:

 

• Come to church or seek to do the right things, thinking we earn God’s favor?

• Attend religious events more to satisfy man’s rules and customs than with an eye on Him?

• Become sticklers for an organization’s rules while not loving God?

• Show self-satisfaction, or are we “poor in spirit.”?

 

Jesus wanted to attack this particular religious error so much that he devoted extensive time to it at the very outset of his ministry. “The Sermon on the Mount is an exhaustive discussion of Phariseeism. Christ expounds the Law [of God] against the tradition of the elders and against Pharisaic glosses and interpretations. It is the refutation of [one of] the greatest heresies of the ages, and the overthrow of [one of] the great bulwarks erected by Satan against the truth. [Pharisaism is] “that master stroke of cunning by which [Satan] substituted the deceitfulness of sin in place of holy living, and a refuge of lies in place of the Divine Law.” ¹

 

The theme of this sermon, in sum, is the contrast of the man-centered righteousness of the Pharisees with the God-centered overflow of behavior among Jesus’ disciples.

 

Their kind of righteousness will not make the passing grade. Jesus says in verse 20 “unless your righteousness exceeds the type of righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes you will certainly not be able to enter kingdom of heaven. 

 

The Pharisees maintained that there were 613 separate commandments (248 are positive and 365 were negative). This verse will sound absolutely impossible, if we don’t understand what Jesus meant. To the average listener at the time of Jesus, the Pharisee was an example of the best, the most religious of men. Is Jesus here demanding that we must rate higher than them to go to kingdom of heaven? No, it is not as if Jesus is saying that on a test out of 100, the average Pharisee would make a 96 and you must exceed that score. Such a quantitative analysis misses the mark entirely; Jesus is speaking, rather, of the quality of righteousness. That, he says, must exceed, go above or beyond the Pharisees. Jesus teaches here that we may not follow human, external rules as well as the Pharisees and that is fine, but what is finally and eternally important is that with our whole heart we love God and seek to please him.

 

So Jesus was freeing his people from external, ceremonial, man-made bondage so that they could, unencumbered love God and follow him.

 

Is that true of your life? Does your righteousness exceed a Pharisaical type of righteousness? Or are you as good as a Pharisee? Or would you only score 68 out of 100? Jesus says you may score 68, but what is all determinative is, “Do you love God with all heart, soul, mind and strength”? 

 

Now again, don’t think that because Jesus contradicts the Pharisees’ legalism that the Law is unimportant, irrelevant, or contrary. Look back at verse 19. “Anyone who breaks one of the least (a jot or tittle) and teaches others to do so (here he particularly rebukes the Pharisees) will be so small or inferior as to not really be in the kingdom of heaven. So he does not overthrow the practice of the Law. Rather, he teaches that once we really begin to love God from our hearts—internally, not externally and formally—then we’ll want to please God by living his law. His law reveals his will . . . and we’ll want to live in his will. 

 

Thus once we truly love God, we don’t say, “Ah Ha, now I can not honor father and mother, I can kill, commit all the adultery I want, I will steal, bear false witness.” No! We don’t say that because our desires, wills have been changed. We want to do what is pleasing to God.

 

So rather than despising the Law (verse 19 continues) “whoever (anyone, not just Pharisees) practices and teaches these commands will be of great standing in kingdom of heaven. Note Jesus puts ‘practices’ and ‘teaches’ together, not just verbally to recommend but actually live it out. Our lives and our lips then will have a united front and testimony that once we’re born again we want to live out God’s Law.

 

¹ J. B. Shearer, The Sermon on the Mount: A Study (1906; rpr Greenville, SC: GPTS Press, 1994), 16.