Matthew 5:20

20. For I say unto By way of illustration of the terrible danger of making void God’s law. Exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees These not only violated the spirit of the law, but often both letter and spirit, and systematically taught men so. They could not be even the least within the kingdom; they were excluded from it. They, with all the ancient fathers of their tradition, had lowered the power of God’s law, as Jesus proceeds to show in the following verses.

2 . Christianity distinguished from degenerate Judaism, Matthew 5:20 to Matthew 6:18.

(1.) In regard to angry passions:

In interpreting much that follows, it is important to understand that corporeal and earthly objects are often made to stand as symbols for spiritual ideas. Sometimes the entire sentence is constructed with a series of such symbols; as, for instance, Matthew 5:25. A true interpretation will reduce the figurative to the literal, by substituting the idea symbolized for the symbol. Having prepared his way by showing that he does not oppose but fulfil the pure Judaism, the Teacher now proceeds to reject and condemn the false glosses and traditions heaped upon Moses, which the people had heard from the Jewish doctors.