The Beatitudes Series Part 5
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God
By Marc Bastawrous
While serving in Sunday School a few years ago, one of my fellow servants thought of the clever idea to create a “Question Chest” for the kids. Basically, it was a home-made treasure box of sorts, where the kids would leave pieces of paper with questions on them anonymously for the servants to answer in the next lesson. During my week to answer questions, I pulled this out of the chest:
“Why should I believe in God, if I can’t see Him?”
The question broke me. Partly because I felt for my Sunday school kid who was going through a period of doubt, but mostly because I had no answer. I mustered up a half-hearted response, but I purposed in my heart that I wouldn’t let the year go past without offering a solution to this child’s problem.
A few months down the track, I was attending a revival for St Mary’s feast and the topic of the evening was purity, with the theme verse coming from Matthew 5:8 which says:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.”
You know in those Tom & Jerry cartoons when Tom gets a great idea for catching Jerry and a lightbulb hovers above his head. Well, I had one of those “lightbulb” moments. ? The answer has been there all along. If I wish to see God, I must be pure in heart. One of the most precious promises in the Bible and it’s been right under our noses this whole time. I couldn’t wait to tell my Sunday school kid, but before I did, I had to dig a little deeper.
In Exodus 33:11, it says this of the Prophet Moses:
“So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”
Why was Moses of all people allowed to see God? It’s simple. Because while Moses, was spending time in the presence of God, waiting to receive instruction, what were the Israelites doing at the bottom of the mountain? Worshipping idols, corrupting themselves.
Which is why King David said in psalm 24:
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 one who is pure in heart, can stand in the Presence of God and see His face. There is no other condition.
God emphasised this condition in Exodus 25 and 34 as well – which we sing about in our midnight praises. In these 2 chapters, Moses describes Gods instructions for the construction of the tabernacle and in them He says that they had to make things out of pure gold, in fact, the word pure in just one of these chapters is repeated 11 times.
It makes you wonder, why does God care about it so much? I can’t imagine God to care about whether the gold is made out of 10 carets or 24 carets and He doesn’t really. What He is trying to say is that His presence is only available in a place of purity. Purity is a necessary component to accessing God.
One of the most taken-out-of-context verses comes from James 4:8. It reads:
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…”
But the part we often forget is the remainder of that verse which reads:
“…Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
Before we can even contemplate drawing near to God, our hearts must first be pure. Which is why the final thing the priest prays in the Fraction right before communion is:
“Purify our souls, bodies and spirits. Purify our hearts, eyes, minds, thoughts, understanding and intentions. So that with a pure heart and an unashamed face we may dare with boldness to say unto You…”
So there! I finally had my answer. You can see God – but before you can even think about coming near Him, you had to be pure in heart. And just as I was about to offer this answer to my Sunday school class, I ran into another problem.
I discovered that in the Old Testament, seeing God was a problematic idea, to say the least. It was in fact considered to be life-threatening.
While on Mount Sinai, the Lord says to Moses:
You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live. (Ex 33:20)
Therefore, what God chose to do, was He appeared to people in the Old Testament in very filtered ways: in a fire, a cloud and even a whirlwind in the book of Job.
So then, what does Jesus mean when He says: “they shall see God”?
The word “see” here doesn’t actually mean to see with your eyes, but rather, loosely translated, it means, “to possess”.
Consequently, when Christ says:
Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God
What He really means to say is:
Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall possess God
It means that if I am pure, then I can possess God, He belongs to me. It’s a ridiculous thing to imagine but God is telling us that it’s possible. That if my heart is pure, then He will be my possession, God will belong to me and I to Him. How beautiful?
What God is describing here is the ideal relationship between a Bridegroom and his Bride. That they belong to each other. St Paul speaks of this relationship in 1 Cor 7:4 where he says,
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
This is the relationship God wants to have with me, this intimacy, this closeness. That He would allow Himself to belong to me. And do you know just how much God wants to belong to me?
In Isaiah 49:16 we read,
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands
What does He mean by using this picture of “inscribing” me in the palm of His hands? Well, in that time, people would own slaves. In order to ensure that others knew who these slaves belonged to, the masters would engrave their names on the hands of these slaves. What God therefore is essentially saying is, “I will be your Servant, and I will belong to you.”
A sentiment echoed in the Christological Hymn found in Philippians 2 that says:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. (Ph 2:5-7)
If all this wasn’t clear enough already, God makes sure the message is loud and clear in the book of Ezekiel. When talking about those who belong to His people, He says:
It shall be, in regard to their inheritance, that I am their inheritance. You shall give them no possession in Israel, for I am their possession. (Ez 44:28)
God is telling me, that He is my possession. How precious is it that He makes Himself my possession, my belonging?
Let us then conclude by understanding once and for all what it means to have a pure heart so that I can share in this intimate relationship with God. Simply put, to have a pure heart is to devote myself to Him. To dedicate every facet of my being to Him. My soul, body and spirit. And when I do that, only then will I see Him, only then will my name be “inscribed” in His hands as a symbol that He will forever belong to me.
In fact, the word “inscribed” that God uses in Isaiah is even more powerful in that, it means literally, “to engrave with nails”. He belongs to me, when He gives me His body on the Cross. To be pure in heart is to give Him mine in the same way.