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Unless your righteousness — your innocence or guilt in the sight of your Heavenly Father — exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees you're in big trouble. And they were mighty righteous in their deeds! They knew every law of God and every law of man derived from them and laid on top of them. They knew how many steps one could take before breaking the no working on the Sabbath rule. They knew how to properly wash eating utensils, how to properly wash hands, how to do this, how to do that. They knew just when to say which prayer, when to attend this festival or service, perform that ritual or sacrifice. They could outdo anyone in outward shows of religious devotion and piety.
But they also could outdo anyone in being inwardly corrupt and sinful to the core. They hated their fellow neighbors if they did not step into their line. They hated the Samaritans. They hated the tax collectors. They hated our Lord Jesus. They had our Lord Jesus killed. They later sent out the Pharisee of Pharisees, Saul, to capture, jail, persecute, and kill followers of Jesus after Pentecost.
Do you know someone like that? Outwardly, they seem religious, pious, devout. We might even say, “There goes a Christian person.” Inwardly, they bare grudges, hold mistakes over people's heads, look to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye while forgetting the beam the size of a redwood tree in their own. What about the person who looks the part of a devoted Christian, only to find out he or she inwardly is dirty to the core, who lusts after that which does not belong to him or her in materialism run amok or after another's spouse or after another person not their spouse or who covets money, wealth, prestige?
Remember the old school yard saying: “If you've got one finger pointed out at me, pointing back at you are three!” Before we go looking for our neighbor and seeking to self–justify ourselves by comparing ourselves to our neighbor, we'd better take a long look in the mirror. You do know someone like the Scribes and Pharisees, mostly outwardly religiously devout, most often inwardly spiritually dark and sinful. You know that person most of all to be yourself. That is, if you are being honest in the mirror of God's righteous law.
All mankind fell in Adam's fall; one common sin infects us all.
From one to all the curse descends, and over all God's wrath impends.
Through all our powers corruption creeps and us in dreadful bondage keeps;
In guilt we draw our infant breath and reap its fruits of woe and death.
From hearts depraved, to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone;
God's image lost, the darkened soul seeks not nor finds its heavenly goal.
(Lutheran Service Book #562, stanzas 1–3)
You and I do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees on our own account. We are by nature sinful and unclean in thought, word, and deed, with good things left undone and sinful things well and truly done — and done over and over again. We may not literally murder our neighbor, but we do get angry with, hold hatred for, and insult our neighbors. We may not literally commit adultery by acting to satisfy our desires sexually outside of marriage, but we do indeed lust after others inwardly. Jesus calls not just for outward fulfilling of the Law, but inwardly fulfilling it in the heart as well.
If, then, we are so poor as sinners and our righteousness does not exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, if inwardly and outwardly we are totally guilty of God's law, then how are we to enter the kingdom of heaven? How, then, are we ever to “do and teach” the commandments of God and so be called “great” in the kingdom of heaven if we cannot by our own strength follow them? How can we be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” and “a city set on a hill” that others may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven? (Matthew 5:13–16) Or, as Jesus promised in last week's Gospel that from now on we would “catch men alive”, how can we fish for — share the Gospel with — our neighbor if we are unable to fulfill God's law? At best, will we not be hypocrites?
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But they are justified — declared righteous and “not guilty” — by God's grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ to be received by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24–25). Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them. To be the one who would crush the ancient serpent's head. To be the one who would overcome Adam's sin and fall. To be the suffering servant who would bear in His body all the marks and scourges and finally would suffer the punishment of death and hell, of being forsaken by God the Father, in our place
But Christ, the second Adam, came to bear our sin and woe and shame,
To be our life, our light, our way, our only hope, our only stay.
As by one man all mankind fell and, born in sin, was doomed to hell.
So by one Man, who took our place, we all were justified by grace.
(Lutheran Service Book #562, stanzas 4–5)
Good news! On account of Jesus, we are justified before God — declared not guilty. His righteousness is now our righteousness. But there is still an important question. How do you know that God means this justification — this righteousness of Christ that far exceeds the Scribes and the Pharisees — to be for you?
In a sermon on this text, Dr. C.F.W. Walther (the first president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod) answered it this way:
How can a poor weak sinful man acquire a righteousness which avails before God? Our Gospel shows us the way: Faith in Jesus Christ. Yes, whoever despairs of his own righteousness, all his works, all his volition, ability, running, and chasing, and believes in Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the Law for all men, and by His innocent suffering and death bore and atoned for their sins, him God graciously absolves from all his sins.
God acts as though He had fulfilled the Law as perfectly as Christ Himself. Whoever believes on Christ, though he may be head over heels in debt to God, has in the Gospel a receipt in full which God Himself has given. Whoever believes in Christ though he may have no good work which he can present to God, has in the life, suffering, and death of his Savior, a merit of such value, that God Himself will not condemn him; before all angels and creatures He must declare him completely righteous. In short, whoever believes in Christ has that righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees without which no one can enter heaven.(Sermon on Trinity VI)
And whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved (Mark 16:16). A believer in Christ is one who trusts in his baptism into Christ. In baptism, we received this “receipt in full” Dr. Walther speaks of, the redemption of our debt to sin on account of Jesus, in the blessed waters. Saint Paul says in the today's epistle, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? …We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin…. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:3, 5, 6, 11)
This is why our Lord Jesus instituted baptism. That we would know that we belong to Him. That we would know we have been given His righteousness. So that, when the devil comes accusing us of our sins past and present and torments our conscience, we can point to our baptism into the death of Christ and tell the devil: “Hit the road, and don't come back. I've been baptized into Christ.”
The promise is for you and for your children. We all need Jesus'baptism, from infant babies on up to those at the end of life. In Christ, given faith in Him to receive His blessings of forgiveness and eternal life, we are righteous before God and are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness.
The Holy Spirit works through us, clothed as we are in Christ's righteousness, to confess this good news to our neighbors, to our family members who are not here today or in any church anywhere. The Holy Spirit works through us to perform acts of mercy for our neighbors. The Holy Spirit works through us to support the preaching of the Gospel in this place, in our school in Plano, and in the mission fields of the world for the sake of the salvation of our neighbors.
When we falter before God and neighbor — when the mirror of God's Law shows us our ugliness — know and trust that our Lord Jesus has covered over and paid for it. Repent and turn again to your baptism each and every day into His most holy and righteous and living body. Come with glad and sincere hearts to receive your Lord Jesus' body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. You are alive in Christ Jesus. Your righteousness before God the Father is His Son's perfect righteousness and innocence. Give God thanks for His abundant mercy and grace and live confidently in this world knowing that your life in Christ extends to all eternity, and nothing can separate you from the Savior who fulfills all things for you.
We thank You, Christ; new life is ours, new light, new hope, new powers.
This grace our every way attend until we reach our journey's end.
(Lutheran Service Book #562, stanza 6)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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