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.
The Queen of Sheba
60-0110 §14
...that the people ... they're standing, no place to sit down to listen. You'd be comfortable and could get more out of the service, of course. But to you who are now ... got your Bibles, and you like to kind of follow the scriptures, turn with me to the book of St. Matthew, twelfth chapter, and we'll begin from the twelfth chapter at the thirty-eighth verse for just a portion. Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them,...
Seals 8: The Sixth Seal
63-0323 §66
Just perfectly. Turn right back over and see what Jesus said here now in Matthew 24:29. Listen (after this Eichmann case and so forth). Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, ... the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: [Now watch.] And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and they shall see ... and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man comin...
It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness
61-1001M §43
...John knew that Jesus was the Messiah of the hour, and that they both clearly had an under-standing. Oh, if the church of the living God could only get that into their heads this morning, and their hearts; that the church would not be separated by denominational barriers, that differences in creeds and colors, and so forth; that we might come together in the name of the Lord Jesus, not having anything to bear us away from the true Word of the living God; and walk straight down that line of Scripture, to fulfill all...
The anointed ones at the end time
65-0725M §9
In the book of St. Matthew (Pardon me. [Brother Branham clears his throat.]), twenty-fourth verse ... twenty-fourth chapter, rather, beginning with the fifteenth verse, I wish to read a portion of His Word. And when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which are in Judea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 5:E-12
...were forced to stand erect while each heart throb poured out the blood until they crumpled in death. And the tragedy was even greater to think about when one realizes that this was not solely the work of the heathen, but many times it was caused by so-called Christians who felt that they did God a favor in exterminating these loyal soldiers of the cross who stood for the Word and obedience to the Holy Spirit. John 16:2, "They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you wil...