Matthew 5:20

"For I say unto you, that except your justice shall exceed the justice of the writers and Expounders, you shall in no way be entering into the realm of upward-vision."

As noted earlier in this blog, the Greek word translated as "justice" by the Etymological New Testament is often "righteousness" in many versions.  They do tend to translate the verb as "justify".  In the ENT, all the various forms of the word are translated with the literal root sense of "justice."

Commonly rendered "scribes and Pharisees", the ENT makes the etymologies of these words clear.  As noted in the Concordant Publishing Concern's Lexicon and Concordance, the root sense of the Aramaic word "Pharisee" comes from the verb "to expand" or expound. They loved to embellish and expound upon the divine law.  And thus sometimes missed the essential nature of these very directives.

Unless our hunger for justice exceeds that of the religious literati, we are unable to be entering into this new realm. It is not that we are prohibited. We are simply incapable (without a hunger for justice) of coming into this highest vision for humanity.