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 §98
Now watch. The first time they're in his hands, when He's delivered them out, the sun turns to sack... black as sackcloth. Now, this is the second time, the end of the tribulation period. Now, in Daniel 12, if we had time, we could read it. In Daniel the 12th verse ... 12th chapter rather, Daniel said, every one that was found written in the book would be delivered. Now remember, Daniel is now speaking of this period when this thing is supposed to happen, when Israel is to be delivered, when the end of the seventie...
Things that wasn't so from the beginning
61-0120 §2
...hemselves. They had taken the commandments of God, and perverted it into a creed. Now remember, there is only one creator, and Satan is not a creator. What is sin? Sin is unrighteousness, and unrighteousness is righteousness perverted. Maybe I'll make it clearer. You're a mixed congregation. You listen to your doctor---I'm your brother. For a man to live with his wife is righteousness. He's married to her. The same act with another woman is death. One brings life, the other one is death, see. Unrighteousness is rig...
Questions and Answers
62-0527 §95
O God, let Your people realize that soon the angel shall set foot upon the land and sea and raise up His hands and say, "Time shall be no more!" Then O, what a weeping and wailing, When the lost ones are told of their fate; They'll cry to the rocks and the mountains, They'll pray, but the prayer is too late. Now is the day of salvation. "Let him that has an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Grant it, Lord. May there not be one person here be missing on that day of the rapture. May we be so filled w...
A Missionary Talk
58-0330A §10
...into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them ... confirming the word with signs following. Amen. This is one of the most outstanding missionary texts that could be taken. You know, in our Word, the first commission God ... or, Christ gave to His church was, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, raise the dead, as freely as you have received, freely give." St. Matthew, the 10th chapter. The last commission He gave to His churc...
Living, dying, buried, rising, coming
59-0329S §5
...ise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him. For the kingdom is the LORD's: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and...