This section of the Sermon on the Mount is one that deeply challenges me. If I am honest, I sometimes wish Jesus had not said these things. They are too convicting because I know I cannot live up to them in my own strength. But that is exactly His point: we cannot meet the full requirements of the Law by our own effort. In fact, Jesus makes the Law even more specific and penetrating. As I mentioned previously, He enhances God’s commands by extending them beyond outward behavior to the heart, while at the same time He restricts the permissions that the Pharisees had expanded.
The Pharisees created a religion of external rules—humanly achievable standards that produced a kind of horizontal, comparative righteousness. Their version of the Law made them look righteous in the eyes of people, but it fell far short of the true vertical righteousness God requires. Jesus calls them—and us—out of self-deception. He reminds us in Matthew 5:20, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” And He concludes in verse 48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The standard God sets is perfection. The bar is so high that even the best among us fall short. Our natural tendency is to compare ourselves to others rather than to God. We hope that if we are better than most people, God will “grade on a curve” and let us into heaven. But this is a false hope. God does not lower His holiness to match our performance.
Many people think of spirituality in terms of “religion,” but I often say I am not a religious person—I am about relationship. Religion, as most people understand it, is an external system of rules, rituals, and expectations. It is about doing the “dos” and avoiding the “don’ts.” But Jesus confronts that mindset in the Sermon on the Mount. He looks beyond the surface to the inner life: our thoughts, motives, and desires. He asks why we do what we do, not just what we do.
The kind of righteousness God requires is deeper and more demanding than any external list. I often put it this way: The righteousness that God requires is the righteousness that His own righteousness requires Him to require. God’s holy character demands perfection because He cannot have fellowship with anything contrary to His nature. Light cannot coexist with darkness. As Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Sin, in its simplest definition, is anything that falls short of God’s character.