Blessed are the Pure in Heart Matt 5:8
The Death of Mere Religion!
The Problem: Genesis 6:5-8 Note the contrast of hearts, between mans evil heart and God's Grieving Heart!!! Praise God for verse 8, "Noah found favor in the Sight of the Lord". Subsequent history shows, however, that the heart issue wasn’t just a defective gene in the pre-flood people. Apparently, the Graced man Noah, had the same disposition. Genesis 8:20-22
The Problem extended to the “religious”: Outward religion, no matter how perfect or strict, could change the heart!
Isaiah 29:13 “They have removed their hearts far from Me.” (The foundation of our Lord’s words to the Pharisees in Matt. 15:1-8 & Mark 7:1-11.
Ezekiel 33:30-32 Notice: “Their hearts pursue their own gain.”
Hosea 7:13-14 “They did not cry out to Me with their heart, when they wailed upon their beds.” In their misery, they did not cry out to the Merciful One!!!
Psalm 78:34-37 “their heart was not steadfast with Him”.
Why is the heart crucial in God’s sight?
Deut 6:4-6 Our Lord requires that we Love Him with ALL OUR HEART, with all our soul, with all our might. And that His commands dwell in our hearts. I believe that last phrase is a foreshadowing on the New “Heart” Covenant in Ezek 36:25-28. God requires a heart singly united to Him in devotion, dependence, and praise because that is how He Designed us. Our independent heart and will was and is our devastation and death.
Here is what God looks for:
I Samuel 13:13-15 The Lord is seeking for those who are “after His own Heart”.
I Samuel 16:6-7 The heart is the focal point of the Lord’s attention in His dealings with man. God judges on the basis of external behavior so that no one may question His Justice and Judgment, but He knows that everything proceeds from the heart. Matt 15:18. Herein lies the folly of legalism!!!
I Kings 8:37-40 No human escapes the gaze of the High & Lofty God upon his heart. Hence the absolute necessity of the first three beatitudes. We must be brought to agree with our God as to our terminal heart disease! “when each one knows the plague of his own heart”.
What then, is this heart purity?
James 3:13-4:10 (Note esp. 3:14 & 4:8) James gives us a strong clue in his usual “subtle” manner in what I think is his “digest” of the beatitudes. “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts you double minded.”
An impure heart is a self-centered heart, minding its’ own stuff first and foremost, and The Most High is secondary at best. As James 3:14 says, “But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.” This envious, self centered heart is exposed by its’ deeds and verifies that it is not of the beautiful “heart wisdom” of Vs 17 that is first pure! It will give God “lip service” as we see in the OT (Isa 29:13) and in the Gospels (Matt 23:25-28), but for its own gain!!! Our Lord even says such a heart can do many “wonderful” works in His name, but their end is damnation. (Matt 7:21-23) Human zeal may look very “spiritual”, but it is still from a human, fleshly, impure heart. It is double minded, and therefore unstable.(Js. 1:8)
Acts 15:7-9 Heart purification is by faith!!! After the gift of the Holy Spirit, this heart purification is the key element in Peter’s testimony of God’s gift of salvation to the gentiles. There is not a Jewish faith and a gentile faith. There is only one kind of heart, that which is purified by faith!!!
What does it look like?
I Peter 1:22-23 Notice here that soul/heart purity comes through obeying the truth through the Spirit, and is manifested in a real love of the brethren, that is, a growing fervent love. This text seems to imply that heart purity comes from and is manifested in this “love of the brethren” behavior!!! (Remember James’ pure religion in James 1:25-27.)
I Timothy 1:5 Here is the very purpose of the commandment—love from a PURE HEART, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith!!! I can’t stress this strongly enough. The God purified heart requires love from a PURE HEART. This is the TRUE GREAT COMMISSION (John 15:12), THE ONLY COMMISSION STATED IN SOME FORM IN EVERY APOSTOLIC EPISTLE IN THE NT!!! (Galatians 5:6)
II Timothy 2:22 The righteous are to put off fleshly lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord OUT OF A PURE HEART. Purity of heart is to be a collective characteristic of the people of God!!! This “calling on the Lord out of a pure heart is essential for the accomplishment of the first part of the verse. This is what a pure heart does, it calls on the Lord—continually and constantly!!!
Purity of Heart has a Glorious Benefit—“For they shall see God”.
To see--#3700 optom ahee—“to gaze with wide open eyes, as at something remarkable” This is far more than just looking at something. This is real eyesight for the first time!!!
II Corinthians 4:6 This is New Covenant Vision!!!
Remember God’s words to Moses in Exodus 33:20? “But He said, You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me and live.” Jesus’ words here are very radical!!! II Cor. 4:6 gives us the New Covenant explanation. As in everything in the New Covenant, this “safe”, life giving vision is only through Christ Jesus and only through the working of His Holy Spirit.
This is seeing as in Revelation 5:5-6, 10, 6:1. (Scan through Revelation and notice all the “vision verbs” throughout.) It is a vision, but it is seeing what God is doing from His Perspective. 19:11 “Then I saw heaven opened.”
Revelation 1:17-18
An interesting note, in the Old Testament, visions of God caused people to fall on their face before Him.(Lev. 9:23-24; Judges 13:17-22; I Chron. 21:16; Ezk. 1:28) That is not the case in Revelation. John tries
real hard to assume this posture, but in 1:17-18, Jesus raises him up—notice “but He laid His Hand on me saying to me, Do not be afraid.” Twice more John falls on his face, each time to be rebuked by the angel who was not to be worshiped. As Hebrews 10:19-22 states, we fallen humans now approach the High and Holy One “by a new and living way” by the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. A reverential submissive
grateful boldness now should characterize the people of God.
Fleshly people see fleshly things in the Word of God. Pure of heart people see God and therefore they see things from His Perspective. Their first sight of everything should be “through His Eyes”. Whether joy or trial, whether spiritual or natural, all is approached through Him, and that increasingly, first of all!
The Goal of this vision:
I John 1:1-4 Notice John’s “vision words”—“seen”, “looked upon”, “we have seen”. The Apostles saw the marvelous manifestation of God come in the flesh, and the goal of that sight and their declaration of it to us is that we might have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Any supposed vision of God or even a “viewpoint” of God that doesn’t lead to fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, is at best suffering from “spiritual glaucoma”, or at worst, are visions of a false god.
Remember the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26? In great contrast to Ex 33:20, it speaks of the Face of God shining upon the people (implying great grace to them), and God’s lifting His Countenance upon them as being their peace. Psalm 80 picks upon that theme and pleads with God to “cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved”, and that three times!!! This is prophetic of our Jesus who said in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Have you seen Him? For the Pure in heart SHALL see God!!! That is a promise!!!
The Death of Mere Religion!
The Problem: Genesis 6:5-8 Note the contrast of hearts, between mans evil heart and God's Grieving Heart!!! Praise God for verse 8, "Noah found favor in the Sight of the Lord". Subsequent history shows, however, that the heart issue wasn’t just a defective gene in the pre-flood people. Apparently, the Graced man Noah, had the same disposition. Genesis 8:20-22
The Problem extended to the “religious”: Outward religion, no matter how perfect or strict, could change the heart!
Isaiah 29:13 “They have removed their hearts far from Me.” (The foundation of our Lord’s words to the Pharisees in Matt. 15:1-8 & Mark 7:1-11.
Ezekiel 33:30-32 Notice: “Their hearts pursue their own gain.”
Hosea 7:13-14 “They did not cry out to Me with their heart, when they wailed upon their beds.” In their misery, they did not cry out to the Merciful One!!!
Psalm 78:34-37 “their heart was not steadfast with Him”.
Why is the heart crucial in God’s sight?
Deut 6:4-6 Our Lord requires that we Love Him with ALL OUR HEART, with all our soul, with all our might. And that His commands dwell in our hearts. I believe that last phrase is a foreshadowing on the New “Heart” Covenant in Ezek 36:25-28. God requires a heart singly united to Him in devotion, dependence, and praise because that is how He Designed us. Our independent heart and will was and is our devastation and death.
Here is what God looks for:
I Samuel 13:13-15 The Lord is seeking for those who are “after His own Heart”.
I Samuel 16:6-7 The heart is the focal point of the Lord’s attention in His dealings with man. God judges on the basis of external behavior so that no one may question His Justice and Judgment, but He knows that everything proceeds from the heart. Matt 15:18. Herein lies the folly of legalism!!!
I Kings 8:37-40 No human escapes the gaze of the High & Lofty God upon his heart. Hence the absolute necessity of the first three beatitudes. We must be brought to agree with our God as to our terminal heart disease! “when each one knows the plague of his own heart”.
What then, is this heart purity?
James 3:13-4:10 (Note esp. 3:14 & 4:8) James gives us a strong clue in his usual “subtle” manner in what I think is his “digest” of the beatitudes. “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts you double minded.”
An impure heart is a self-centered heart, minding its’ own stuff first and foremost, and The Most High is secondary at best. As James 3:14 says, “But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.” This envious, self centered heart is exposed by its’ deeds and verifies that it is not of the beautiful “heart wisdom” of Vs 17 that is first pure! It will give God “lip service” as we see in the OT (Isa 29:13) and in the Gospels (Matt 23:25-28), but for its own gain!!! Our Lord even says such a heart can do many “wonderful” works in His name, but their end is damnation. (Matt 7:21-23) Human zeal may look very “spiritual”, but it is still from a human, fleshly, impure heart. It is double minded, and therefore unstable.(Js. 1:8)
Acts 15:7-9 Heart purification is by faith!!! After the gift of the Holy Spirit, this heart purification is the key element in Peter’s testimony of God’s gift of salvation to the gentiles. There is not a Jewish faith and a gentile faith. There is only one kind of heart, that which is purified by faith!!!
What does it look like?
I Peter 1:22-23 Notice here that soul/heart purity comes through obeying the truth through the Spirit, and is manifested in a real love of the brethren, that is, a growing fervent love. This text seems to imply that heart purity comes from and is manifested in this “love of the brethren” behavior!!! (Remember James’ pure religion in James 1:25-27.)
I Timothy 1:5 Here is the very purpose of the commandment—love from a PURE HEART, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith!!! I can’t stress this strongly enough. The God purified heart requires love from a PURE HEART. This is the TRUE GREAT COMMISSION (John 15:12), THE ONLY COMMISSION STATED IN SOME FORM IN EVERY APOSTOLIC EPISTLE IN THE NT!!! (Galatians 5:6)
II Timothy 2:22 The righteous are to put off fleshly lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord OUT OF A PURE HEART. Purity of heart is to be a collective characteristic of the people of God!!! This “calling on the Lord out of a pure heart is essential for the accomplishment of the first part of the verse. This is what a pure heart does, it calls on the Lord—continually and constantly!!!
Purity of Heart has a Glorious Benefit—“For they shall see God”.
To see--#3700 optom ahee—“to gaze with wide open eyes, as at something remarkable” This is far more than just looking at something. This is real eyesight for the first time!!!
II Corinthians 4:6 This is New Covenant Vision!!!
Remember God’s words to Moses in Exodus 33:20? “But He said, You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me and live.” Jesus’ words here are very radical!!! II Cor. 4:6 gives us the New Covenant explanation. As in everything in the New Covenant, this “safe”, life giving vision is only through Christ Jesus and only through the working of His Holy Spirit.
This is seeing as in Revelation 5:5-6, 10, 6:1. (Scan through Revelation and notice all the “vision verbs” throughout.) It is a vision, but it is seeing what God is doing from His Perspective. 19:11 “Then I saw heaven opened.”
Revelation 1:17-18
An interesting note, in the Old Testament, visions of God caused people to fall on their face before Him.(Lev. 9:23-24; Judges 13:17-22; I Chron. 21:16; Ezk. 1:28) That is not the case in Revelation. John tries
real hard to assume this posture, but in 1:17-18, Jesus raises him up—notice “but He laid His Hand on me saying to me, Do not be afraid.” Twice more John falls on his face, each time to be rebuked by the angel who was not to be worshiped. As Hebrews 10:19-22 states, we fallen humans now approach the High and Holy One “by a new and living way” by the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. A reverential submissive
grateful boldness now should characterize the people of God.
Fleshly people see fleshly things in the Word of God. Pure of heart people see God and therefore they see things from His Perspective. Their first sight of everything should be “through His Eyes”. Whether joy or trial, whether spiritual or natural, all is approached through Him, and that increasingly, first of all!
The Goal of this vision:
I John 1:1-4 Notice John’s “vision words”—“seen”, “looked upon”, “we have seen”. The Apostles saw the marvelous manifestation of God come in the flesh, and the goal of that sight and their declaration of it to us is that we might have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Any supposed vision of God or even a “viewpoint” of God that doesn’t lead to fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, is at best suffering from “spiritual glaucoma”, or at worst, are visions of a false god.
Remember the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26? In great contrast to Ex 33:20, it speaks of the Face of God shining upon the people (implying great grace to them), and God’s lifting His Countenance upon them as being their peace. Psalm 80 picks upon that theme and pleads with God to “cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved”, and that three times!!! This is prophetic of our Jesus who said in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Have you seen Him? For the Pure in heart SHALL see God!!! That is a promise!!!