Self-righteousness or His Righteousness?

           If God should show up at your doorstep and give you the option for where you will spend eternity, heaven [eternal bliss in the Kingdom of God] or hell [eternal misery in a lake of fire], which would you choose? In my mind that is a no-brainer; surely, you would choose heaven over hell. Maybe not, but I want to believe that most of you would choose heaven.

          Theologically speaking, I know that none of us would choose heaven, regardless of how much I would like to believe that we would, unless and until God does something in our hearts that would cause us to desire Jesus [prior to that, we are all dead to God and have no interest in Jesus, whatsoever]. When that stimulus is given to us, we are left with but one option—to choose heaven.

          Anyway, Jesus had something very interesting to say about our entering the kingdom of heaven: For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20 NASB). As we say here in south Georgia, “this makes the cheese more binding!”

          In the first place, had we been among the “common folk” of Israel when Jesus uttered these words, we would have thought something like this: Well, I don’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of entering the kingdom of heaven because I could never be that righteous!

          On the other hand, had we been scribes and/or Pharisees, we would have thought something like this: You poor saps! Not one of you has a snow ball’s chance in hell of entering the kingdom of heaven because you could never be as righteous as we are!

          Both groups, however, would have missed something very important. Jesus word was this: Unless your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, Jesus leveled the playing field by declaring that self-righteousness is not to be equated with the righteousness that is required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

          You see, we have but one hope, and that hope is that the One whose righteousness does exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, will impute His righteousness to us. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19 NASB).

                          

"This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).