For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:20

This may not mean too much to the modern Gentile reader, but I guarantee you it was a most impacting statement in the ears of those Jews who heard Jesus say it. Why? Because in their world, the Scribes and Pharisees were the most righteous people of all. But were they?

There are three kinds of righteousness. Relative righteousness, self-righteousness, and the ultimate righteousness of God. Relative righteousness is being more righteous than someone else. Self-righteousness is thinking of oneself as righteous. The ultimate righteousness of God is altogether different. Its basis has nothing to do with comparisons to others. It is complete, pure, and without even the potential of any unrighteousness at all.

What Jesus said, and what we must understand if we are to comprehend the gospel, is that since God’s judgment is not based on how anyone does compared to anyone else, relative righteousness will not get anyone into the kingdom of God. Self-righteousness, which stems from pride, will actually keep people out of the kingdom of God. What is needed to enter the kingdom of God is the ultimate righteousness of God—which no one but God has. Unless…

The only way to have this righteousness is for God to graciously give it to you. He graciously gives it to all who continually trust in Jesus Christ and who follow Him as Lord. Are you doing that? Then rejoice that God has graciously given you His righteousness, without which no one will see God.

A Theological Footnote: The righteousness imputed to the spiritual accounts of the redeemed is not the intrinsic righteousness of God. Rather, it is the earned righteousness of the God-man, Jesus Christ. To be sure, as God, Jesus was, is, and always will be intrinsically righteous. But by living sinlessly as an actual human being, doing only the will of His Father, He earned the eternal reward for living righteously. He did not earn that righteousness for Himself since He was already intrinsically righteous. He earned it to give it to His people, those He came to save!