SCRIPTURE: Romans 3
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 5:20].
How do we do better than the Pharisees?
The answer – we don’t, we can’t.
The answer, Jesus helps us.
Paul is making the point that the Law does not make the Jews superior because they are now better people, but because it exposes their sin, and reveals their need for divine mercy and help.

Across the board, whether Jewish or not, people are guilty of rejecting and offending God.
The Jews were established as a light – not by their own perfection but by God’s truth revealed through them.
The blessing that they were to bring to the world was a consciousness of sin, and of our need for God’s mercy and help.
The Jews did not understand this.
They thought having and keeping the Law of Moses made them morally superior to the other nations.
They assumed that by observing the Law, they were more worthy of God’s love.

Yet Jesus teaches them and us that even the most holy, the most pure, the most obedience Jews (the Pharisees) are not pure enough.
Only Jesus is the righteousness of God, He is the only perfect human to ever live, to keep God’s law perfectly.
He does it for us because we can’t do it for Him.
This is the gift, the good news: those who cling to Jesus by faith are welcomed just as they are, as perfect in Him. By accepting Jesus, putting our faith in Him, we are joined to Him in His death, so that our guilt is punished in Him; we are joined to Him in His resurrection, so that our sin and death cursed lives are restored to life.

The purpose of the Law of Moses, as well as all of the Bible, is to show us our failure so that we seek God’s mercy and help. When we seek, we find. The Bible does not make us better than others, it keeps us honest, humble and serious about trusting in Jesus, boasting in Him and not in our own accomplishments.

From this I get the clear sense that I am not superior to ANYONE.
I am what I am by the grace of God [1 Corinthians 15:9-10].
There is no room for moral superiority over people of other faiths or no faith, for people who are supposedly less moral than me.
We all stand equally guilty and needy before God, and He freely offers Jesus to all, without partiality.
Jew, Gentile, German or Dutch, Native American or African American, Tamil or Sunni or Swahili or Iroquois.

PRAYER:
Lord, keep me humble, honest, and confident in You. By faith alone…