"Surpassing the Pharisees"

The law of God is important to Christians. Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, has disappeared. Every jot and tittle must be fulfilled. The law is as relevant today as it was on the day God engraved it into the tablets of stone. Therefore, says Jesus,
(Mt 5:1) Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

By grace we are forgiven when we break the law. But grace brings more than the forgiveness and redemption. It also saves from the tyranny of sin. It brings obedience and holiness.

What is grace? It is that amazing free gift of God which delivers a man from the curse of the law and enables him to keep the law. Grace is that which brings me to love God and keep his commandments. "If you love me," says Christ, "you will obey what I command" (John 14:15).

I The Righteousness of the Pharisees
In many ways the scribes and Pharisees were outstanding people. The scribes, for instance, were men who spent their time teaching and explaining the law; they were authorities on the law of God. They gave their whole life to the study and explanation of it. They were the men who made copies of it, exercising great care as they did so.

The Pharisees were the men who were famous for their law-obedience. They were people who set themselves apart by their careful observation of rules and regulations that they themselves had set up. By their rules and regulations they tried to "build a fence around the law." Their intent was to protect the law and to prevent them from breaking the law.
The Pharisees, for example, said that on the Sabbath there is to be no cooking of food, no tying of knots, no loosening of knots, no separating of threads, no baking, no washing, no writing; you are to neither light a fire nor put out a fire. Of course, the Bible doesn't teach any of this. But, to keep the Sabbath holy, the Pharisees built a wall around the fourth commandment to make sure they don't break it!.

In this contaxt, it is even shocking to hear the words of Jesus in our text:
(Mt 5:20) For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus says that the righteousness of the Christian must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

But, their righteousness was not righteous at all. They thought of themselves as being righteous. Others saw them as being righteous. They deluded themselves and fooled others. Jesus simply called them hypocrites.

II The False Righteousness of the Pharisees
The righteousness of the Pharisees was external and formal, rather than internal and of the heart. The Pharisees made a big show, a big drama, out of their righteousness. They prayed on the street corners and then they prayed out loud. They wanted everyone to see them and hear them when they prayed. When they gave money to the poor, they had someone blow a trumpet. Everyone would stop what they were doing and look to see who was giving and how much they were giving.

Some of the Pharisees were surprised that Jesus' disciples once sat down at the table and began to eat without first washing their hands. Jesus replied that the Pharisees are so concerned about the outside, but so negligent about the inside.
(Mat 15:19-20) For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. (20) These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'
In another place Jesus compares the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean (Mt 23:27).

The second charge which our Lord brought against the scribes and Pharisees was that they were more concerned with the ceremonial than with the moral. Their religion was all ceremony and no morality. As long as he had washed his hands, fasted, offered prayers, and went to the Temple, the Pharisee thought all was well with his soul. All that counts, he thought, was that he had been to temple worship. He did his religious duty. That was sufficient.

It is so easy to have the same kind of attitude today. There is a type of religion which does not hesitate to teach that as long as you go through certain ceremonies – like Sunday morning worship, or baptism, or confirmation – it does not matter very much what you do with the rest of the week. They think that all is well with their soul, because they have done their ceremonial religious duty.

The third charge that Jesus brings against the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is that it was full of excuses. For instance, the Pharisees said that if you devoted your money to God you were thereby excused from giving help to your aged parents. They covered up their greed and their disobedience under a camouflage of religion (Mt 15:4,5). We can all rationalize our own sins and explain them away. It is so easy to find excuses. "Everyone does it," we may say. Or, "The government is so wasteful it is dumb of me to declare all my income to SARS." This is what the Pharisees did. They twisted things around to make what is wrong, look right.

The fourth charge the Lord brings against the Pharisees is that their righteousness was self-centred rather than God-centred. Jesus said,
(Luke 20:46) "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets."

The fifth charge the Lord lays against the Pharisees is a complete absence of love and concern. They neglected mercy, justice, and faithfulness (Mt 23:23). They devoured widows' houses and dealt harshly with the poor (Lk 20:47).

The sixth and final charge is that the Pharisees thought their righteousness not only earned them a reward, but even gained them eternal life. They forgot that no one is righteous, not even one (Ps 14 & 53). They forgot that the good we do is not good enough. They forgot that no one deserves and earns anything; all rewards and salvation itself are only a gift of grace. In effect they were denying the power of sin and the grace of salvation.

We have to surpass the righteousness of the Teachers of the law. We have to be sincere. We have to change inwardly and not ceremomially, outwardly. We have to love and care. We have to seek God's purpose and desire to serve God wholehaetedly.
We have to be unselfish, God-fearing, Christ-loving followers who from the heart seek the Kingdom of God.
We cannot be hypocrites. We need to be righteous, because we love and because we love to serve - God and others! We need to surpass the scribes and the Pharisees, because we are from the depth of our souls excited about the grace and the mercy of God!