Blessed—Happy—Are the Pure in Heart

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

The Amblified Bible adds interesting expansions to Matthew 5:8: “Blessed—happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous [that is, possessing the happiness produced by experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their outward conditions]—are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!” And reading from Eugene Peterson’s The Message Bible, the verse is stated: “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” Jesus taught in this Beatitude that it is possible for the pure in heart to see God. We expect to see God when we reach heaven, but is it possible to see God in this present life? When God talked to Moses on Mt. Sinai and wanted to see God in all His glory, the Lord said to him, “You cannot see My face, for no man shall see Me, and live.” God provided a place for Moses to stand in the cleft of the rock and He passed by in all His glory, but Moses did not look upon God’s face. “In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). In Psalm 24:3-5 we get a strong clue as to who can see and know God: “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”

“The pure in heart are the profoundly sincere and honest. Such shall ‘see God.’ “(Master Study Bible, Holman, 1981, p. 1674). The commentator might have added those who profoundly, honestly and sincerely seek to know God and His Word, who shun evil and walk in God’s ways will experience Him. “He calls us from the worship of a God remote and beyond us into a reverence that finds God everywhere.” (ibid., p. 1674). I think this was the idea Peterson expressed in his translation of this beatitude. If our mind and heart are right and focused on God, then we will see God at work in persons, things, events all around us. We need the right attitude to see God, the right spirit to seek Him out. The Greek word used for “pure” is “katharos.” It means unmixed, unadulterated, without alloy, cleansed thoroughly. What are our motives behind our service to the Lord? Are they pure and done from our love and dedication to Him? Or do we like men’s praise, a sense on our part that we are doing a good job? Dr. William Barclay gives this paraphrase of the sixth beatitude: “O the bliss of the man whose motives are absolutely pure, for that man will some day be able to see God!” (Daily Study Bible: Matthew. Westminster, 1956, p. 103). It takes constant diligence to attain toward a pure mind and to see God.

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Saturday, September 18, 2010