“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8, NASB)
What is it that you want most? What is your heart’s desire? That is the question this beatitude challenges us to ask. Here Jesus brings us into the inner chamber of our being to evaluate what is inside. He is not dealing with actions, but the passions and desires behind our actions. What is our motivation for the outward works we do, whether good or bad? Let’s dive in.
Pure in heart
What does it mean to be pure in heart? Purity is not some abstract concept left to anyone’s definition. Biblical purity finds its source in God Himself. God is holy, holy, holy. He is the very definition of purity. Biblically, the way we understand anyone’s level of purity is by holding them up in comparison to God. Consider the example of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-7). Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne. He heard the exclamation of the Seraphim, declaring the absolute holiness and purity of God. He was then devastated by his own impurity. He then records the reason he saw his impurity.
“…For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5, NASB)
The measuring stick for his level of purity was the purity of God. Obviously, he didn’t even come close. None of us do. To be pure is to be godly. In every way we live according to the ways of God we are pure. In every way we fail to do so we are impure. Purity is what is being commanded by Peter in his epistle.
“…but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’.” (1 Peter 1:15-16, NASB)
No one can live perfectly holy in all their behavior. We are all sinners. But Jesus drives the call even deeper than external behavior. He says we must be pure in heart. Not only must our actions mirror His, but our desires and passions must also. We can’t get away with just obeying God. We must obey God because we love God. We must want the things He wants.
This raises the same problem for us that it did for Isaiah. Our hearts are desperately sick (Jer. 17:9). All of us are sinners. Even the finest Christian is not perfect in all his ways, and especially not in all his desires. So upon seeing the absolute purity of God, we are all devastated. This is what initially brought all of us, as believers, to repentance and faith. We needed a way to wash ourselves of all our impurity so that we could live in the presence of God. Jesus died in our place, taking the shame of our impurity as His own. He lived in our place, crediting His purity to us as our own. This brings us to the latter half of today’s beatitude.
They shall see God
Jesus tells us it is the pure in heart who shall see God. If you don’t understand the last few sentences I just wrote, this statement is incredibly discouraging. We must understand the work of Christ in order to understand our hope in this world. Those who do not know Christ are left to their own impurity and judged according to it. Those who belong to Christ, impure as they may be, are being brought out of their own impurity and judged according to His purity. We have the purity of Christ as a covering while He is working in us our own purity of heart. This is the process of sanctification in a nutshell.
What does it mean that the pure in heart shall see God? This view of God is definitely a promise, but it also a process. In fact, the visio Dei, the vision of God, is the beginning, middle, and end of the entire Christian life. Let the Apostle John expound on this for us.
“We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:2b-3, NASB)
The promise is that we will be like Him in the end. We will be perfectly purified in heart and action. And what is it that causes us to be that way? It is because “we will see Him just as He is.” It is the perfect, complete vision of Christ that will make us perfect and complete ourselves. But John goes further. He says the assurance of this promise ought to have an effect on us in the meantime. Whoever has this hope “purifies himself, just as He is pure.” What is our standard of purity in this world? Jesus Christ. How will we be ultimately purified in the end? By seeing Him. How did we come to the realization that we even needed to be purified? He revealed Himself to us.
So yes, it is the pure in heart who will see God. But it is also those who have seen, and continue to see God, who are becoming pure in heart. This is the sum of the Christian life; seeing Christ more and more. The first sight of Him brings us to repentance. The continued “seeing” of Him brings us into greater degrees of purity in this life. The perfect sight of Him at the end finalizes and consummates our perfection.
Do you want to be pure in heart? Look to Christ and do not look away. Do you want to see God? Keep looking and you will see Him more and more.
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