What Does This Mean: Matthew 5:20 Kjv - Except Your Righteousness Shall Exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees?
1) Direct answer
It means entrance into the Kingdom requires a righteousness that is not outward rule‑keeping like the scribes and Pharisees, but an inward righteousness—Christ’s own life in you—fulfilling God’s law from the heart by the Holy Ghost.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says the Pharisees were clean outside but full of uncleanness within (Matthew 23:25–28). Jesus was not asking for “more” of that; He demanded a different kind: heart righteousness.
- Right in this chapter, Jesus raises the law to the heart level: anger is murder in seed, lust is adultery in seed (Matthew 5:21–28). That shows the righteousness God requires is inward.
- By the law shall no flesh be justified (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16). If outward works could open the Kingdom, the Pharisees would have qualified.
- Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Romans 10:4). God made Him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
- The new covenant writes the law in the heart (Hebrews 8:10; Ezekiel 36:26–27), so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:3–4).
- You must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom (John 3:3–5). That new birth is the only way your righteousness can exceed theirs.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- How will you “out‑Pharisee” the Pharisees—men who fasted, tithed, and kept traditions strictly—if righteousness is measured by external performance? You can’t.
- Jesus exposed the heart. Since sin begins within, righteousness must begin within. That’s why He pointed from acts to motives.
- The law can measure you but cannot change you. Christ gives a new nature; then the life of the Spirit produces what the law demanded: love that fulfills the law (Romans 13:10), the fruit of the Spirit against which there is no law (Galatians 5:22–23).
- So “exceed” means a higher quality, not a higher quantity—God’s righteousness, not self‑righteousness. It is received by faith and proven by a transformed walk.
4) Reinforcing statement
Repent and believe the Gospel, be identified with Christ, and receive the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38). Then the One who wrote the law will live it through you. That is the righteousness that exceeds and that opens the Kingdom.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Seals 8: The Sixth Seal
63-0323 §62
Now, the fifth seal---Matthew 24:9-13. Let's see if I got this right now again, see. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: [there you are] and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And when ... and then many shall betray ... many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and ... deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that ... endures to the end, the sa...
Church Ages, part 10: The Laodicean Church Age
60-1211E §35
[Now, watch, now, He's speaking back to Israel. Now, what did He say?] For behold the day cometh [way over] that shall burn... But to you that fear my name ... the Sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. [Not... The day that He shall burn the earth we'll tread upon their ashes. That's the mill...
Lean not unto thy own understanding
65-0120 §39
...ad alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Why is it, women? You hear me preach against these things of wearing shorts, and paints, and hairdos of this here bobbed hair, and all that kind of stuff; and then every year when I come back you're still sitting in the same condition. It's because you're leaning to your own understanding, instead of the Word of the Lord. And pastors, why don't you clean up your church? Because you're going to your denominational creed, instead of the Word of the...
Daniel 9: Gabriel's instructions to Daniel
61-0730M §44
To save time, the people standing, I want you to get to the 20... till we get down now to the twentieth verse. And while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplications before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God; Yet, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, a...
A True Sign that's overlooked
61-1112 §128
Watch! Now Malachi 4, let me read this. He's going to come again. ... behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, . . That's today. I walk down the street and see these people. You can talk to them, and they laugh at you and make fun of you. I think, "What is it?" The other day I was walking along down the side of the square down here. I was talking to some people, and they just said, "Aw... ," walked on. Something just said to me, "They're atomic fodder, soon to be ashes scattered u...