Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 5:20

"For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 5:20 (ASV)

Shall exceed —Better, Shall abound more than.

Scribes and Pharisees —Here, for the first time, the scribes are mentioned in our Lord's teaching. The frequent combination of the two words (thirteen times in the first three Gospels) implies that for the most part they belonged to the school of the Pharisees, just as the “chief priests” were, for the most part, of the Sadducees. Where “scribes and chief priests” are united, it is with a different import, as the two chief divisions of the Sanhedrin, or Great Council.

The New Testament's use of the word differs from the Old. In the Old Testament, the scribe is simply the person who writes—the secretary or registrar of the king’s edicts and official documents (2 Samuel 8:17; 2 Samuel 20:25; 2 Kings 18:18). After the return from Babylon, as in the case of Ezra (Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:12), the term was first used for the transcribers and editors of the sacred books, and then, by a natural transition, for their interpreters. This is the dominant sense of the word in the New Testament.

As interpreters, they were much occupied with the traditional comments of previous teachers. These traditions, by descending into particulars and thus affording a better basis for a casuistic system, had come to usurp the rightful place of the Law. As far as the three Gospels are concerned, this is the first direct protest of our Lord against their teaching. John's record, however, shows that the conflict had already begun in Jerusalem (John 5:10), and that the Sabbath question was prominent in it.

You shall in no case enter... —The “kingdom of heaven” is here neither what we speak of as the visible Church—for there the evil and the good grow together until the harvest—nor the Church triumphant in the far future. It stands here, rather, for the ideal and invisible Church on earth: that which answers to its name, and to which the blessings and the promises belong. Into that Church, no one enters who is content with an outward, conventional standard of righteousness. All who strive for a high standard, sooner or later, in spite of wanderings and mistakes, find their way into it (Matthew 25:34; John 7:17).