In another thread, Kyredneck seemed to be advocating salvation by works. I was in the process of making a reply when the thread was closed, and rather than type the whole thing out again, I thought I would offer this, which I wrote on my blog some years ago.
Matthew 5:20. ‘For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of Heaven.’
I think this verse must be one of the scariest texts in the Bible. There are others, like Luke 13:5 or Rom. 1:18, but I fancy this one is scarier. The scribes and the Pharisees were considered the cream of the religious world when our Lord was on earth. The scribes were the teachers of the Old Testament law; experts on the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. We read of Ezra that he was ‘a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given’ (Ezra 7:6). Under God, we owe a debt of gratitude to these men, since they were the ones entrusted with making accurate copies of the O.T. Scriptures, a task that they undertook with painstaking accuracy.
The Pharisees were the strictest sect within Judaism. The word Pharisee means ‘separated one.’ They believed that all the woes that had come upon Israel in the Inter-Testamental Period had occurred because of her failure to keep the law. They not only commanded obedience to every precept in the Mosaic law with scrupulous attention, but they added other regulations to them, the ‘traditions of the elders’ as they were called. We see in Mark 7:3-4, that they prescribed a special washing of the hands before eating, and when they had been out in the market-place, jostling with sinners and unclean people, they would purify themselves by full immersion in water when they got home. The Pharisees also held to high ethical standards, outwardly at least. If we consider the Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:11-12, and take him at his word, we can see that he did not extort money, did not commit adultery and gave away a tenth of his income.
So here is the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees: they were steeped in the Scriptures, scrupulous in their religious observances, ethically of the highest standards and generous to the poor. Yet the Lord Jesus tells us that our righteousness must exceed all that if ever we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. How on earth are we going to manage it?
In order to understand what our Lord is saying, it will be helpful to read again the whole of Chapter 5 before proceeding. In v17, He is making a qualification. His teaching up to this point has been absolutely remarkable- speaking of the poor in spirit, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted and calling them ‘blessed.’ Obviously this is the reverse of what we see in our society. Today we say, blessed are the rich, the confident, the physically beautiful, those with high self-esteem. Blessed are the footballers’ wives; for they shall get higher divorce settlements. But our Lord’s words were also the opposite of what the Pharisees would have believed. They would have said, blessed are those with a righteousness of their own; blessed are the proud and those who are well thought of. So strange and remarkable was this teaching of the Lord Jesus that it was natural for people to ask, “Has this Jesus of Nazareth done away with the Scriptures? Is this preaching of his something entirely new?” So wise teacher that He is, He immediately deals with this question head on.
“Don’t imagine,” He says, “That this teaching of mine is replacing the Old Testament Scriptures. I’ve not come to do away with the Scriptures; I am their fulfilment. I am where they have been pointing and heading.” Elsewhere He declared, “these are [the Scriptures] that testify of Me” (John 5:39). This is most important to understand. When Paul declares in Rom 10:4, ‘For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,’ he doesn’t mean that Christ has put an end to the law as, say, divorce puts an end to marriage. Rather it’s the way that a terminus is the end of a railway line. It’s where the train was always headed; its fulfilment, its very purpose indeed. That is why not one jot nor tittle- not the smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen- shall disappear from the law until the end of time (v18).
I need to clarify this a little. There are three parts to the law given by Moses, Ceremonial, Judicial and Moral. The ceremonial law is all the sacrifices and other stuff that the Jews had to do. These were signs and types of Christ. He is the Burnt Offering, the Grain Offering, the Fellowship Offering, the Sin Offering, the Guilt Offering the Yom Kippur, the Red Heifer, the turtledove and the two pigeons. All these sacrifices looked forward to Him in their various ways (4) and He is the fulfilment them all (cf. Heb 10:11-14). They served their purpose and are finished.
Then there are the judicial laws. These included the laws governing the land of Israel and also the sanctions against sin. Adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft and other sins were punishable by death. These laws were given to Israel as a theocracy, but with the coming of Christ, and the Gospel going out into all the world, the penalties no longer apply. They do show God’s hatred of these sins and He will certainly punish those who commit them and do not repent, but we are no longer stoning adulterers, but calling upon them to repent and trust in Christ for forgiveness. “Go and sin no more!” (John 8:11).
Thirdly, we have the moral law, summarized in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, and summarized still further by the ‘Royal Law’ as given by the Lord Jesus in Mark 12:29-31 etc. The Decalogue is special in three different ways. Firstly, all ten of the commandments given in Exodus 20, can be found either in Genesis or in Exodus 1-19 if one looks for them. Secondly, these commandments alone were written by God Himself on tablets of stone (Deut 5:22). The rest of the Mosaic law was given, apparently by angels (Acts 7:53; Gal 3:17; Heb 2:2), to Moses who relayed it to the people. Thirdly, and following on from this, we see from Romans 2:12-15 that the Decalogue is actually written on the hearts of all men, Gentiles as well as Jews. This writing is smudged, defaced and barely legible because of the fall of man and resultant sin, but it survives in the human conscience. People know instinctively that murder, adultery and lying are wrong even if they continue to commit these things. Likewise I suggest that people also know in their hearts the claims of God on their lives even if they reject Him, which is why God will be just when He judges them.
A moment’s thought will reveal that these same commandments applied in the garden of Eden. Imagine that Adam had strangled Eve or built an altar to the sun in the middle of the garden. Do you suppose that God would have said, “That’s alright, Adam! Just so long as you don’t eat the apple!”? The very thought is ridiculous. No, no. The Decalogue represents the eternal righteousness of God and His just demands on all people. And it is in this respect that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. You sometimes hear it taught these days that the Christian has nothing to do with the ten commandments, but has only to walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit by all means, but if you think that the Spirit is telling you to break one of the commandments , then I beg leave to question whether it’s the Holy Spirit of God that you’re hearing. It is the moral law of God of which the Lord Jesus is speaking in v19 and calling ‘commandments.’ Read the verse again before continuing.
[continued]
Matthew 5:20. ‘For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of Heaven.’
I think this verse must be one of the scariest texts in the Bible. There are others, like Luke 13:5 or Rom. 1:18, but I fancy this one is scarier. The scribes and the Pharisees were considered the cream of the religious world when our Lord was on earth. The scribes were the teachers of the Old Testament law; experts on the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. We read of Ezra that he was ‘a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given’ (Ezra 7:6). Under God, we owe a debt of gratitude to these men, since they were the ones entrusted with making accurate copies of the O.T. Scriptures, a task that they undertook with painstaking accuracy.
The Pharisees were the strictest sect within Judaism. The word Pharisee means ‘separated one.’ They believed that all the woes that had come upon Israel in the Inter-Testamental Period had occurred because of her failure to keep the law. They not only commanded obedience to every precept in the Mosaic law with scrupulous attention, but they added other regulations to them, the ‘traditions of the elders’ as they were called. We see in Mark 7:3-4, that they prescribed a special washing of the hands before eating, and when they had been out in the market-place, jostling with sinners and unclean people, they would purify themselves by full immersion in water when they got home. The Pharisees also held to high ethical standards, outwardly at least. If we consider the Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:11-12, and take him at his word, we can see that he did not extort money, did not commit adultery and gave away a tenth of his income.
So here is the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees: they were steeped in the Scriptures, scrupulous in their religious observances, ethically of the highest standards and generous to the poor. Yet the Lord Jesus tells us that our righteousness must exceed all that if ever we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. How on earth are we going to manage it?
In order to understand what our Lord is saying, it will be helpful to read again the whole of Chapter 5 before proceeding. In v17, He is making a qualification. His teaching up to this point has been absolutely remarkable- speaking of the poor in spirit, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted and calling them ‘blessed.’ Obviously this is the reverse of what we see in our society. Today we say, blessed are the rich, the confident, the physically beautiful, those with high self-esteem. Blessed are the footballers’ wives; for they shall get higher divorce settlements. But our Lord’s words were also the opposite of what the Pharisees would have believed. They would have said, blessed are those with a righteousness of their own; blessed are the proud and those who are well thought of. So strange and remarkable was this teaching of the Lord Jesus that it was natural for people to ask, “Has this Jesus of Nazareth done away with the Scriptures? Is this preaching of his something entirely new?” So wise teacher that He is, He immediately deals with this question head on.
“Don’t imagine,” He says, “That this teaching of mine is replacing the Old Testament Scriptures. I’ve not come to do away with the Scriptures; I am their fulfilment. I am where they have been pointing and heading.” Elsewhere He declared, “these are [the Scriptures] that testify of Me” (John 5:39). This is most important to understand. When Paul declares in Rom 10:4, ‘For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,’ he doesn’t mean that Christ has put an end to the law as, say, divorce puts an end to marriage. Rather it’s the way that a terminus is the end of a railway line. It’s where the train was always headed; its fulfilment, its very purpose indeed. That is why not one jot nor tittle- not the smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen- shall disappear from the law until the end of time (v18).
I need to clarify this a little. There are three parts to the law given by Moses, Ceremonial, Judicial and Moral. The ceremonial law is all the sacrifices and other stuff that the Jews had to do. These were signs and types of Christ. He is the Burnt Offering, the Grain Offering, the Fellowship Offering, the Sin Offering, the Guilt Offering the Yom Kippur, the Red Heifer, the turtledove and the two pigeons. All these sacrifices looked forward to Him in their various ways (4) and He is the fulfilment them all (cf. Heb 10:11-14). They served their purpose and are finished.
Then there are the judicial laws. These included the laws governing the land of Israel and also the sanctions against sin. Adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft and other sins were punishable by death. These laws were given to Israel as a theocracy, but with the coming of Christ, and the Gospel going out into all the world, the penalties no longer apply. They do show God’s hatred of these sins and He will certainly punish those who commit them and do not repent, but we are no longer stoning adulterers, but calling upon them to repent and trust in Christ for forgiveness. “Go and sin no more!” (John 8:11).
Thirdly, we have the moral law, summarized in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, and summarized still further by the ‘Royal Law’ as given by the Lord Jesus in Mark 12:29-31 etc. The Decalogue is special in three different ways. Firstly, all ten of the commandments given in Exodus 20, can be found either in Genesis or in Exodus 1-19 if one looks for them. Secondly, these commandments alone were written by God Himself on tablets of stone (Deut 5:22). The rest of the Mosaic law was given, apparently by angels (Acts 7:53; Gal 3:17; Heb 2:2), to Moses who relayed it to the people. Thirdly, and following on from this, we see from Romans 2:12-15 that the Decalogue is actually written on the hearts of all men, Gentiles as well as Jews. This writing is smudged, defaced and barely legible because of the fall of man and resultant sin, but it survives in the human conscience. People know instinctively that murder, adultery and lying are wrong even if they continue to commit these things. Likewise I suggest that people also know in their hearts the claims of God on their lives even if they reject Him, which is why God will be just when He judges them.
A moment’s thought will reveal that these same commandments applied in the garden of Eden. Imagine that Adam had strangled Eve or built an altar to the sun in the middle of the garden. Do you suppose that God would have said, “That’s alright, Adam! Just so long as you don’t eat the apple!”? The very thought is ridiculous. No, no. The Decalogue represents the eternal righteousness of God and His just demands on all people. And it is in this respect that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. You sometimes hear it taught these days that the Christian has nothing to do with the ten commandments, but has only to walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit by all means, but if you think that the Spirit is telling you to break one of the commandments , then I beg leave to question whether it’s the Holy Spirit of God that you’re hearing. It is the moral law of God of which the Lord Jesus is speaking in v19 and calling ‘commandments.’ Read the verse again before continuing.
[continued]
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