did, all righteousness.
Small flaws are most dangerous because least noticeable. More Christian
men lose their chance of promotion in the kingdom by a multitude of
little sins than by single great ones.

Verse 20. As the King has Himself by His perfect obedience fulfilled the
law, His subjects likewise must, in their obedience, transcend the
righteousness of those who best knew and most punctiliously kept it. The
scribes and Pharisees are not here regarded as hypocrites, but taken as
types of the highest conformity with the law which the old dispensation
afforded. The new kingdom demands a higher, namely a more spiritual and
inward righteousness, one corresponding to the profounder meaning which
the King gives to the old commandment. And this loftier fulfilment is
not merely the condition of dignity in, but of entrance at all into, the
kingdom. Inward holiness is the essence of the character of all its
subjects. How that holiness is to be ours is not here told, except in so
far as it is hinted by the fact that it is regarded as the issue of the
King's fulfilling the law. These last words would have been terrible and
excluding if they had stood alone. When they follow 'I am come to
fulfil,' they are a veiled gospel, implying that by His fulfilment the
righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.

II. We have an illustrative example in the case of the old commandment
against murder. This part of the passage falls into three
divisions--each occupying two verses. First we have the deepening and
expansion of the commandment. This part begins with the royal style
again. 'What was said to them of old' is left in its full authority.
'But I say unto you' represents Jesus as possessing co-ordinate
authority with that law, of which the speaker is unnamed, perhaps
because the same Word of God which now spoke in Him had spoken it. We
need but refer here to the Jewish courts and Sanhedrim, and to that
valley of Hinnom, where the offal of Jerusalem and the corpses of
criminals were burned, nor need we discuss the precise force of 'Raca'
and 'thou fool.' The main points to be observed are, the distinct
extension of the conception of 'killing' to embrace malevolent anger,
whether it find vent or is kept close in the heart; the clear
recognition that, whilst the emotion which is the source of the overt
act is of the same nature as the act, and that therefore he who 'hateth
his brother is a murderer,' there are degrees in criminality, a