Charles Spurgeon 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)

We cannot even enter the kingdom and begin to be the Lord's, without going beyond the foremost of the world's religionists. Believers are not to be worse in conduct, but far better than the most precise legalists. In heart, and even in act, we are to be superior to the law-writers and the law-boasters. The kingdom is not for rebels, but for the exactly obedient.

It not only requires of us holiness, reverence, integrity, and purity, but it works all these in our hearts and lives. The Gospel does not give us outward liberty to sin because of the superior excellence of a supposed inner sanctity, but rather it produces outward sanctity through working in our inmost soul a glorious freedom in the law of the Lord.

What a King we have in Jesus! What kind of people ought we to be who avow ourselves to be in His holy kingdom! How committed ought we to be to preserving our Father's revealed will! How determined to allow no trifling with the law and the prophets!

For I say to you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Christ does not teach a lower kind of morality than the Pharisees taught. They were very particular about little things, jots and tittles; but we must go further than they went; we must have more righteousness of life than they had, although they seemed to their fellow men to be excessively precise. Christ aims at perfect purity in his people, and we must aim at it too, and we must really attain to more holiness than the best outward morals can produce.

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The scribes and Pharisees were supposed to be righteous beyond all others. "No," says Christ, "you must go beyond them." They were, after all, superficial, flimsy, pretentious, unreal in their righteousness; and we must have a far nobler character than they ever attained, or we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

These are solemn words of warning. God grant that we may have a righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, a righteousness inwrought by the Spirit of God, a righteousness of the heart and of the life!