Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

FROM NICKY GUMBEL:

Jesus used to make the point that God is concerned about our hearts, our inward motivation. That is the place where God looks. He is concerned for the inward and moral rather than the outward and ceremonial (Mark 7:1-23). He wants us to have 'pure' hearts. The word for 'pure' means 'unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed', like pure clean water.

In a world where the pressure to conform is very great, it means to be free from masks and free from having different roles for different occasions. It means being ourselves as God intended, instead of playacting; living life in the open and letting people see right through us. The pure in heart are those who are completely sincere in their relationships. They are those who are totally open and have nothing to hide.

Jesus promises that God will reveal himself to people like that and that one day they will see God face to face. Deception blinds us, but purity opens our eyes to see God. The merciful hold nothing against their brothers and sisters. The pure in heart allow others to see them as they are.

FROM ROBERT MOUNCE:

According to James, the hypocrite needs to "purify [the] heart" (4:8). Ulterior motives divide the heart. Jewish writers understood this inclination to moral schizophrenia as resulting from an evil impulse. What God required of those who would ascend the hill of the Lord was "clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24:3-4.

THE BLISS OF THE CLEAN HEART:

Matt. 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Here is the beatitude which demands that every man who reads it should stop, and think, and examine himself.

The Greek word for pure is katharos (GSN2513), and it has a variety of usages, all of which have something to add to the meaning of this beatitude for the Christian life.

(1) Originally it simply meant clean, and could, for instance, be used or soiled clothes which have been washed clean.

(2) It is regularly used for corn which has been winnowed or sifted and cleansed of all chaff. In the same way it is used of an army which has been purged of all discontented, cowardly, unwilling and inefficient soldiers, and which is a force composed solely of first-class fighting men.

(3) It very commonly appears in company with another Greek adjective--akiratos. Akiratos can be used of milk or wine which is unadulterated with water, or of metal which has in it no tinge of alloy.

So, then, the basic meaning of katharos (GSN2513) is unmixed, unadulterated, analloyed. That is why this beatitude is so demanding a beatitude. It could be translated:

Blessed is the man whose motives are always entirely unmixed,
for that man shall see God.

It is very seldom indeed that we do even our finest actions from absolutely unmixed motives. If we give generously and liberally to some good cause, it may well be that there lingers in the depths of our hearts some contentment in basking in the sunshine of our own self-approval, some pleasure in the praise and thanks and credit which we will receive. If we do some fine thing, which demands some sacrifice from us, it may well be that we are not altogether free from the feeling that men will see something heroic in us and that we may regard ourselves as martyrs. Even a preacher at his most sincere is not altogether free from the danger of self-satisfaction in having preached a good sermon. Was it not John Bunyan who was once told by someone that he had preached well that day, and who answered sadly, "The devil already told me that as I was coming down the pulpit steps"?

This beatitude demands from us the most exacting self-examination. Is our work done from motives of service or from motives of pay? Is our service given from selfless motives or from motives of self-display? Is the work we do in Church done for Christ or for our own prestige! Is our church-going an attempt to meet God or a fulfilling of an habitual and conventional respectability? Are even our prayer and our Bible reading engaged upon with the sincere desire to company with God or because it gives us a pleasant feeling of superiority to do these things? Is our religion a thing in which we are conscious of nothing so much as the need of God within our hearts, or a thing in which we have comfortable thoughts of our own piety? To examine one's own motives is a daunting and a shaming thing, for there are few things in this world that even the best of us do with completely unmixed motives.

Jesus went on to say that only the pure in heart will see God. It is one of the simple facts of life that we see only what we are able to see; and that is true not only in the physical sense, it is also true in every other possible sense.

If the ordinary person goes out on a night of stars, he sees only a host of pinpoints of light in the sky; he sees what he is fit to see. But in that same sky the astronomer will call the stars and the planets by their names, and will move amongst them as his friends; and from that same sky the navigator could find the means to bring his ship across the trackless seas to the desired haven.

The ordinary person can walk along a country road, and see by the hedgerows nothing but a tangle of weeds and wild flowers and grasses. The trained botanist would see this and that, and call it by name and know its use; and he might even see something of infinite value and rarity because he had eyes to see.

Put two men into a room filled with ancient pictures. A man with no knowledge and no skill could not tell an old master from a worthless daub, whereas a trained art critic might well discern a picture worth thousands of pounds in a collection which someone else might dismiss as junk.

There are people with filthy minds who can see in any situation material for a prurient snigger and a soiled jest. In every sphere of life we see what we are able to see.

So, says Jesus, it is only the pure in heart who shall see God. It is a warning thing to remember that, as by God's grace we keep our hearts clean, or as by human lust we soil them, we are either fitting or unfitting ourselves some day to see God.

So, then, this sixth beatitude might read:

O the bliss of the man whose motives are absolutely pure, for that man will some day be able to see God!

other scriptures you might look at: Mark 7:1-23, James 4:8, Psalm 24:3-4

possible discussion questions:

What does it mean to be pure in heart?

How does the world try to corrupt our hearts?

What can we do to protect our hearts?

What does it mean to "see God"?