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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-101
The Holy Spirit In Every Age Revelation 2:11, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." There is not one church age where this verse is not mentioned. Every single age has the same admonition to the people of every age. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith." But it is absolutely impossible for all men to hear what the Spirit says to the different ages. I Corinthians 2:6-16, "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world,...
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...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-118
...clear up why students have never ever found Paul saying at any time, "Be born again and THEN be Spirit-filled." They have inferred it is there, and they have put their own meanings to make it say it, BUT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY THAT. Jesus never said it either. Look at John 7:37-39, and read it now with understanding. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly s...
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...