Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” –Matthew 5:8 (KJV, NKJV, ESV).

The statement of this beatitude is so clear that three versions I consulted use the same words for expressing its truth.  A note in my English Standard Version Study Bible notes:  “The pure in heart are those whose pursuit of purity and uprightness affects every area life” (p. 1828, note)..  “They shall see God” notes the ultimate fulfillment of Revelation 22:4:  “They shall see His face, and their names shall be on His forehead.”  John 1:18 reads, “No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father’s side; He has made Him known.”  In Jewish thinking, no one had ever seen God in His full and complete glory. But John wanted the people to see that “the Word made flesh”—Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us—is the way we see the heart and nature of God.  Jesus is the Word of God; He is God revealed to humankind.  The Jews also laid much store in external ritual purity.  They performed ritual washings before worshiping in order to symbolically rid themselves of the contamination of the world before they went into the temple or synagogue to worship God.  The rituals were their outward manifestations of inward cleansing.  But Jesus, as always, gets to the heart of purity and righteousness by stating, “blessed are the pure in heart,” those whose purity is so much a part of them that it is deeply ingrained in the heart.  And the expression “in the heart” means—then and now—in the inward being, at the center of control of one’s emotions and thinking.

Jesus certainly did not mean the ceremonial cleansing of the Jewish law that required ritual washing.  Neither did He mean the blamelessness of outwardly manifested conduct, as in “he or she is a righteous person” or has the reputation of being and doing what is right.  An ore, for example, is pure when it contains no admixture of other substances.  “Pure gold” would have gone through the refining process, an action that rendered the metal without alloys.  Thinking of the actions and motives of the Christian, we can give examples of what being pure means.  When we perform benevolent acts, we do them not for any selfish motive but for the benefit of helping others, not expecting a return from the action.  In practicing justice for others, there is no partiality.  Love is pure when it has no inferior motives that are selfish and self-promoting.  The heart is pure when it loves only the good, when motives are right, and when it seeks the welfare of others above selfish desires.  The kind of purity Jesus means in this beatitude is not synonymous with chastity.  Those who cleanse their hearts understand God in proportion to their own hearts.  With these thoughts in mind, do we begin to see that Jesus was aiming at the very center of our relationship with God and with others?  If we cleanse our hearts, we begin the see holy God and how much He is above our meager righteousness.  We are as “filthy rags” in comparison to His holiness.  But thanks be to God, as we come to Him for cleansing, He can set us right.  He can impute His righteousness to us.  And with that spiritual and inward cleansing, we can stand before God; we can “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” One day, not within the parameters of this present world, we will “see God” fully and wholly.  Paul expressed that day of complete holiness for the Christian in this way:  “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  With the change of heart possible for us when we trust the Lord for salvation, we are beginning the journey of purity and holiness.  One day it will be fulfilled!  Amen.