 The
Proclaimer
Pharisaic Righteousness
Jesus said,
“Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees,
ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). The
distortions of the Pharisees were among the greatest barriers to the kingdom
of God. Concerning this Jesus said, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you
neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in”
(Matt. 23:13). There was no way the kingdom could be understood in Israel
until these terrible mutilations of God’s law were exposed and put away.
This Jesus proceeds to do in the Sermon on the Mount.
The word
“righteousness” is used here to refer to a righteousness of attitude and
conduct, the transformed life of the kingdom citizen. The “righteousness”
of the Pharisees will not do in any quantity. They could have
reached up to God’s righteousness and been humbled, but instead dragged His
law down to their level and became smug. To begin with, the Pharisees were
hypocrites (Matt. 23:13, 15, 23, etc.). What appeared to be on the outside
was but a façade. They wanted to give the appearance of being righteous,
but were in reality inwardly self-serving. Their “righteousness” was a vain
show to be seen of men (Matt. 6:1-18). If we are to “enter the kingdom of
heaven” our worship and service to God must come from the heart to glorify
Him (Matt. 15:7, 8), not merely to exalt ourselves in the eyes of men. No
one likes a hypocrite, God least of all.
Furthermore, the
Pharisees had a distorted view of the righteousness of God. Concerning this
Jesus said, “Ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition”
(Matt. 15:6). He further quotes Isaiah who said of them, “In vain do they
worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men” (v. 9). This
same problem exists today as many in the religious world have turned from
the word of God to teach and practice that which is of human origin. There
are hundreds of denominations in the world today each with their own written
creed outlining their particular beliefs and practices.
Paul says that
God has given His word in scripture “that the man of God may be complete,
furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). He says further
that we must “learn not to go beyond the things which are written” (1 Cor.
4:6). This being so, the Bible is sufficient to determine both doctrine and
practice. Consequently, human creeds can only contain the traditions and
precepts of men. It is the Bible, and the Bible alone that must govern our
teaching and practice.
But the
“righteousness of the Pharisees” not only exists in denominationalism, sadly
it can exist among the Lord’s people as well. Just as the Pharisaic
movement originally began as an effort to protect the sanctity of the Law of
Moses, so has the intense desire to defend the truth and restore New
Testament Christianity caused some to confuse God’s law with “Church of
Christ traditions” and replace obedient saving faith with overt acts of
justifying merit. That’s not to say that all human tradition is wrong, for
it’s not. But it must be recognized for what it is: a mere expediency that
cannot and must not be placed equal to or instead of divine dictates.
The
Pharisees of Jesus’ day lived their lives with a smug, “holier-than-thou”
self-righteous attitude that criticized all who did not meet the criterion
of their sect. We too must be careful lest we are rejected entrance into
the kingdom heaven because of a hypocritical Pharisaic “righteousness.”
--
Clark Dugger
The Proclaimer
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