We know this because he tells us so – he wasn’t immune to a little bit of boasting, if it might help to further the gospel message. Reflecting on what an impressive Pharisee he had been, Paul writes: ‘If someone else thinks that they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the Church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless’. That’s a clear message, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, in today’s Gospel Jesus confronts us with the truth that ‘unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’.
So where does that leave us? How does our righteousness exceed this impressive display of righteousness and pursuit of a holy life?
Well, if we go back to Paul, we discover the secret of the righteousness that Jesus had in mind. Paul had come to understand that we don’t stand before God based on our own righteousness. But rather we stand before God based on Jesus’ righteousness. We tend to think of the things we do for God: we pray, we go to church, we fast, we give to charity, and we strive to be noble and good. This, however, isn’t what makes us righteous because righteousness cannot be earned – it can only be received. Paul put it like this: ‘For Jesus Christ’s sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith’. We can exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees by trusting in the saving death of Jesus, believing him to be our Saviour and Lord, and looking to the righteousness of Christ and not our own.
