For the Bible Verse of the Week, I would like to read one of my favorite passages from the New Testament then quote Pastor John MacArthur...
Matthew 5:20  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.
 
 
 
Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
On the one hand, Jesus was calling His disciples to a deeper, more radical holiness than that of the Pharisees.  Pharisaism had a tendency to soften the law's demands by focusing only on external obedience.  In the verses that follow, Jeus unpacks the full moral significance of the law, and shows that the righteousness the law calls for actually involves an internal conformity to the spirt of the law, rather than mere external compicant to the lettter.
 
Will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
On the other hand, this sets up an impossible barrier to works-salvation.  Scripture teaches repeatedly that sinners are capable of nothing but a flawed and imperfect righteoiusness (Isaiah 64:6).  Therefore the only righteousness by which sinners may be justified is the perfect righteousness of God that is imputed to those who believe (Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:5)