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.
A Greater than Solomon is here
61-0412 §46
Now, laying aside all of our thoughts, the little things that we might have thought or said, let's approach this in a divine order. I like to read the Word, because that my word will fail. I'm a man. But I read his Word. Then if nothing else ... you get nothing else, you'll get something when I read the Word. In Matthew 12:42, we read these words: And the queen of the south shall rise ... in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdo...
Revelation, Chapter 4c Throne of mercy and judgement
61-0108 §156
Now get right back to the eleventh, and then we're just about ready to close. Matthew 11, and I got 20 and 21, Jesus speaking. All these are Jesus speaking, now. Not a one of them but what Jesus is speaking, every one. And on the morrow, when they... ^^came near^^ Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree... That's when He cursed the tree, that's Matthew 21. I got... 12. Pardon me. Mark 11:21 and 22. And Peter calling to remembrance ^^said ^^unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst^^ in the wa...
The Queen of Sheba
58-0503 §11
If righteousness is what pleases God, which it does, but all that God requires, the Pharisees were found blameless, but yet Jesus said, "Ye are of your father, the devil," because they did not believe---that horrible thing of unbelief. And Jesus had done many works in the cities, and said to them, "Oh, you, Capernaum, who are exalted into heaven, shall be brought down to hell. If the mighty works had been done in you ... that's been done in you, had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, it would've been standing until t...
A Greater than Solomon is here
62-0725 §34
Now I want to read a familiar little text out of the Scripture, and it's found in St. Matthew in the 12th chapter, and begins with verse 41: And the men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. And the queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, be...
Daniel 9: The sixfold purpose of Gabriel's visitation
61-0730E §79
...; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither ... after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove their iniquity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. The righteousness shall be ... girded of the loin, and the faithful the gird of the reins. And the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and...