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.
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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.
A Greater than Solomon is here
62-0628 §41
...he belly of the whale after three days, the Son of man will rise again. Of course, any Scripture reader knows that all Scripture has a compound answer, all prophecies. Take your marginal reading, like "Out of Egypt I've called my son," Matthew 2, and find out if that don't refer back to out of Egypt he called Joseph, see. Joseph was his son, and so was Jesus his son. It always has a compound meaning. So then, that also ... that generation did not believe the resurrection sign to both Samaritan and Jew. And now here...
The greatest battle ever fought
62-0311 §22
Now, over in the book of Daniel, I would like to read some more. Now, Daniel the 12th chapter; I want to begin at the 1st and read quite a lengthy part of this, fourteen verses. And at that time ... Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be ... time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even unto that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in...
Turn on the Light
64-0125 §6
Now, I wish to call your attention to Isaiah 42:1 to 7; and also to Matthew 4:15 to 16. Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, or lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break ... a smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment into the earth: and the...
Church Ages, part 10: The Laodicean Church Age
60-1211E §36
Now, Jesus said, Matthew 17:10, speaking of this... All the Jews are looking for that coming Elijah. Now watch what Jesus said about it. Matthew 17:10. We'll begin at the 9th verse, Matthew 17:9: And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell no man the... ["Tell the vision to no man, see. Don't tell this. You know it, but keep it to yourself."] Tell no man the vision, until the Son of man be risen ... from the dead. [Don't tell it.] And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then said the...
Daniel 9: Daniel's Seventy Weeks
61-0806 §21
...ermined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, ... to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Twenty-fifth verse: Know therefore and understand, that from... Now, that's what we've been speaking on, and we ended up on that last Sunday night, "Anointing the most Holy." Here's where we begin this morning, on the twenty-fifth verse. Know therefore and unders...