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.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. For the characteristics of the Pharisaic school, see the notes at Matthew 3:1-12, Remark 2. But the superiority to the Pharisaic righteousness here required is plainly in kind, not degree; because all Scripture teaches that entrance into God's kingdom, whether in its present or future stage, depends, not on the degree of our excellence in anything, but solely on our having the character itself which God demands. Our righteousness, then-if it is to contrast with the outward and formal righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees-must be inward, vital, spiritual. Some, indeed, of the scribes and Pharisees themselves might have the very righteousness here demanded; but our Lord is speaking, not of persons, but of the system they represented and taught.
Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. If this refer, as in the preceding verse, rather to the earthly stage of this kingdom, the meaning is, that without a righteousness exceeding that of the Pharisees, we cannot be members of it at all, except in name. This was no new doctrine (Romans 2:28-29; Romans 9:6; Philippians 3:3). But our Lord's teaching here stretches beyond the present scene, to that everlasting stage of the kingdom, where without "purity of heart" none "shall see God."
The spirituality of the true righteousness, in contrast with that of the Scribes and Pharisees, illustrated from the Sixth Commandment (Matthew 5:21-26).