“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” –Matthew 5:20
What Jesus said here isn’t as shocking to us as it would have been to those who first heard it. For us, the Pharisees are a bunch of goons who had little to no righteousness. And so we translate Jesus as saying something like, “if you can beat the Cleveland Browns at football, you won’t stand much of a chance of winning”. That’s generally true—but it misses the point. The Pharisees—much like the Cleveland Browns—missed the heart of what they were supposed to be and do.
But the Pharisees weren’t the Cleveland Browns, they were the New England Patriots. They were the team that everybody was gunning for. And I don’t think we really understand the difference.
I say this because of how and where I see the charge of Pharisee dropped. I’ve watched from the sidelines as some of my friends have written articles on The Shack and how biblical discernment would have us to avoid such a representation of God. Almost without fail, though, are comments which call the author a Pharisee and accuse him/her of thinking like a Pharisee.
I get the charge. The Pharisees were the guys who missed the heart of the gospel and ended up hating the Messiah who came to redeem them. And so I understand why we’d be so quick to call somebody a Pharisee who seems to be preaching law and missing grace. I get that. But I think it misses what role the Pharisees play in the role of the Bible.
We aren’t meant to read the Bible with ourselves on team Jesus and everybody who disagrees with us on Team Pharisee. The Pharisees were the cream of the crop when it came to dedication to God and the Law. That isn’t a bad thing. And so when Jesus said, “your righteousness must exceed the scribes and Pharisees” not a one of them in the audience would have thought like we do—“whew, that’s a pretty low bar. I think we can attain the righteousness of these rank hypocrites”. Not a one. Instead, they’d have been trembling and wondering “who then can be saved?”
The Pharisees are there to cause us to ask, “If the most religious dudes can miss it that much then what hope do we have?” It’s meant to drive us to Jesus as the only hope for our sorry and pathetic attempts at righteousness. It’s like we believe if we just get love and tolerance and the right feelings about stuff in order then we’ll be able to pass the righteousness of the Pharisees. I think we believe that if I just accept whatever teaching and love everybody and their attempts to get to God (or god) however they see fit that I’ve somehow put myself in a better position than the Pharisee. Somehow “playing nice” has come to mean that my righteousness has exceeded those stick in the mud Pharisees and now everything will be all good for me.
The only way our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees is whenever the perfect righteousness of Jesus is credited to our account. And when the Son of God gives to us His Spirit and our hearts are transformed and then we begin actually doing righteous things from a righteous heart. That’s the point of the Pharisees…to drive us desperately to the only one who can truly give righteousness.
