Jesus’ words, “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. Matthew 5:20 (NIV) is hard to grasp. The Pharisees and teachers of the law appeared righteous to some today. Some people’s thinking may be due to how we define righteousness today, with a focus on actions. How could someone be more righteous than the scrupulous Pharisees? What if we were to change the meaning of righteousness? What’s the potential impact of that?
The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders flaunted their giving, praying, and fasting to appear righteous. Suppose we redefine spiritual disciplines; like fasting, Bible reading, praying, giving, and other such deeds — not be acts of righteousness, but to be acts of wisdom. Would that alter the definition of genuine righteousness? Jesus condemned them for their obsession with those actions. Those practices, in the end, are only wise actions that lead to righteousness. Think about it, is it righteous not to strike someone back or is it a wise response to an abuser? Jesus wasn’t righteous because He prayed to His Father. Prayer was only the tool He used to talk to His Father, which led to His humanity being righteous. Dieting doesn’t automatically make a person lose weight, but it is a wise strategy for losing weight. So then, what is a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees?
Interestingly, God, who told the Hebrews how to worship (offer sacrifices, lift up hands when they pray, attend Holy Feasts, and the like), yet later had Isaiah tell them to stop doing all those things because it made him ’sick’. The church of Ephesus had learned from Paul, John and others who pastored them, how to do all the things they were commended for doing in Revelations 2. Yet Christ told the believers that they had left their first love of Him and if they didn’t make a 180-degree change in direction, He would remove their candlestick, which represented His presence among them. How can it be that in both cases, they were doing all that some might think to be the ‘righteous’ things, and they still would have been classified as not meeting His minimal requirements? What makes an action ‘righteous’ is the motivation of the heart.
If we look at the whole of scripture, we find God is not as concerned about what we do as He is in why we do those things. It is the motives of the heart that changes everything. Motives in the heart turn good deeds, including fasting, into righteousness. That means we can have good people in the church who have been faithful for many decades, yet have exchanged their intense passion to grow into the likeness of Jesus, for their cherished tradition, head knowledge, right doctrine, giving, raising their hands in worship, and sitting in the same seat at church, i.e., their rituals. Their attitudes towards others, including other believers in the church, reflect those of the Pharisees more than a reflection of Jesus.
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3 (ESV) Little children depend more on what they sense inside, their intuition, than they do on their logic. As adults, if we can’t get our minds around a Bible principle, we don’t practice it. Does our tendency to lean on our own understanding inhibit us from accepting the Spirit’s whispers as we meditate on His Word?
Our own understanding can lead us to wrong understanding!