A GREATER RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Least of These Commandments

The last few weeks, we have been looking at a passage of Scripture that is surrounded by confusion and controversy. We have been unpacking what Jesus meant when He said that He didn’t come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. What we have seen is that because Christ fulfilled the Law, we are no longer under it. The Old Covenant has passed away, and a New Covenant has been ushered in through the blood of Christ. What we are going to see today is that although we are not under the Law, we are not to live lawless lives. The New Covenant has much to say about how we should live our lives in service to the Lord. May it never be said of us that “everyone does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6)”! We are not to live in sin that grace may abound.

Romans 6:1–2 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Romans 6:14–15 “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”

Although the Old Covenant has passed away, the moral standards of God are eternally binding. That is why we see so many commands from the Old Covenant that are repeated in the New Covenant. As a matter of fact, there are hundreds of commands given to us in the New Testament. And what we see in the passage before us today, is that the Lord expects us to obey Him down to the least commandment. As a matter of fact, Jesus said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments (John 14:15).

It might seem strange to some of us to see Jesus referring to the least of these commandments. Aren’t all sins equal in the sight of God? And if that is true, then why would He refer to any of His commandments as “the least of these”? All sins are equal in the sense that the wages of all sin is death. Sin is so serious that any one sin is enough to send you to hell for eternity. That is clearly true according to God’s Word. But when we read Scripture, we see that some commandments are more serious than others. We see this even in the Old Covenant. That is why the punishments were different depending on the sin. We see Jesus make it more clear when He was asked what the greatest commandment was in the Law (Mark 12:28-31). Jesus didn’t correct the man and tell him that all of the commandments are equally great. He told him the two greatest commandments.

During Jesus’s earthly ministry, He obeyed every single point of the Law, from the least commandment to the greatest. And He didn’t relax those standards when teaching the people. We see an example of this in what He told a leper after healing him.

Mark 1:44 “and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.””

The Pharisees, on the other hand, were notorious for seeking to obey the fine points of the Law while ignoring the most important parts.

Matthew 23:23–24 ““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”

They would strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. A gnat was the smallest of the unclean animals listed in Law, while the camel was the largest unclean animal. Jesus is telling them that although they strained the liquids they drank to ensure that they didn’t accidentally consume a gnat, they would inadvertently swallow a camel. In other words, they spent all of the time focusing on the little things while ignoring the more important matters of the Law. Although the Pharisees neglected the weightier matters of the Law when it came to themselves, they were quick to heap burdens on the people that they taught. They loved to be teachers of the Law and all of their man-made traditions, but they didn’t obey the commandments themselves.

Matthew 23:2–3 ““The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.”

The passage we are examining today is a much needed reminder of the heavy responsibility given to teachers of God’s Word. We can’t pick and choose what we want to teach, but we must teach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

James 3:1 “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

We also can’t pick and choose what we want to obey. We must obey all of His commandments. And although we are no longer under the requirements of the Old Covenant, we have much to obey under the New Covenant. The moral standards of God are eternal. There are moral requirements in the New Covenant, just like there was in the Old. That being said, we must understand that it is not our obedience that saves us. We don’t obey to earn our salvation. We obey in gratitude that we have been saved.

A Righteousness that Exceeds the Scribes and Pharisees

The last statement that Jesus makes in our passage today would have been absolutely shocking to His hearers. He said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Pharisees were seen as the most devoutly religious people in Israel. They were so serious about obeying the Law that they had made a multitude of additional commandments to keep themselves from breaking the Law. These man-made commandments were viewed as a fence around the Law to keep them from breaking the actual law. And although they were so diligent in seeking to obey the Law, Jesus said that on the inside they were filled with rottenness and decay; just like a tomb. How could people who were so zealous about keeping the Law fail so miserably in their pursuit of righteousness?

See Romans 9:30-33 and Romans 10:1-4...

When you seek to please the Lord by your obedience, you are doomed to failure, because our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). The Pharisees were using the Law in an unlawful manner. They were seeking to be justified by their obedience to the Law. The Law was never designed to save us. It was given to show us the holiness of God, our own sin, and our need of a Savior. However, when you seek to be justified by your obedience to the Law, you end up blinding yourselves to those things. 1. You become blind to the holiness of God. 2. You become blind to your own sin. 3. You become blind to your need of a Savior. And as long as you are blind to those things, you will never be saved. So how can we be saved, if the standards are so high that the Pharisees couldn’t reach it? Let’s read the words of a former Pharisee to see how he was saved.

See Philippians 3:3-9...

The only way that we can be saved is by understanding the depths of our own sin and realizing that we have no hope of saving ourselves. We must come to understand that we can’t earn our salvation, it must be given to us as a gift. We cannot make ourselves righteous. God must make us righteous. And the only way we can receive this righteousness is by grace, though faith in the finished work of Christ. So does your righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees? If not, flee to Christ in repentance and faith and you will be clothed with the very righteousness of Christ! And being clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ guarantees that you will enter the kingdom of heaven.