Ιf
taken out of context, it may be tempting to read this statement in the
Reformational/Pauline sense of the righteousness of God as a gift. This
interpretation is supported by the verb προστεθησεται, which could be taken as implying
that "all these (temporal) things" are bestowed in addition to the
spiritual gift of righteousness or salvation. However, the problem with this
view is that it ignores the four strongly ethical instances of δικαιοσυνη in the passage
leading up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1).
Jesus has urged his disciples to hunger and thirst after ethical righteousness
(5:6), to be willing to suffer for the sake of the ethical righteousness set
forth by Jesus (5:10), to excel in ethical righteousness beyond the external righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees (5:20), and to take care that they do not practice their
deeds of righteousness before other people to be seen by them (6:1). With this
context in view, we come to the exhortation of Matt 6:33 to seek first God's kingdom
and righteousness. The whole thrust of the Sermon on the Mount is that it is Jesus'
teaching concerning the righteousness of the kingdom, that is, the kind of righteous
life demanded of those who are identified with Jesus as those who have a share in
his saving reign. This verse "is so bound up in the general thought of the
Sermon on the Mount that it is out of the question to interpret dikalosynē in
the Pauline sense of God’s righteousness through which man is justified."
(Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew. 90) Even Hagner admits that in
this instance "it is difficult to exclude altogether the possibility of a
reference to ethical righteousness" and that the phrase "his
righteousness" focuses on "the unique righteousness defined by Jesus
in the Sermon on the Mount and differentiated from that of the scribes and
Pharisees (5.20)." (Hagner, "Righteousness in Matthew's
Theology," 115) (Charles
Lee Irons, “ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗ ΘΕΟΥ: A Lexical Examination of the Covenant-Faithfulness
Interpretation” [PhD Dissertation; Fuller Theological Seminary, May 2011], 377)
