Two soldiers were on a transport going overseas. Standing on the
deck they gazed out across the vast expanse of water. One who had
never been near the ocean said, "That's the most water I've ever seen
in all my life. Did you ever see so much water?" His companion
responded, "You haven't seen anything yet-that's just the top of it!"
Even the surface of the sea is impressive, but the depths take away
your breath in awesome wonder. The beatitudes we have looked at so
far are far from being shallow surface saying of Christ. They are deep
and challenging, but they are at least within the range of what seems
possible to us.
But in this sixth beatitude, Jesus plunges to such depths in the
ocean of holiness that we feel it is impossible to follow Him deeper,
and that up to now we have only seen the top of it. We feel we are just
not built for this kind of depth. The pressure we feel would crush us.
Both the condition of purity of heart, and the promise of the vision of
God seems so far beyond our capacity that the whole thing appears
impractical. It is like asking a man with a snorkel and swim fins to
follow an atomic powered submarine.
No one claims to be adequate for the task of even explaining this
beatitude. Preachers apologize for their audacity in even presuming
to try and preach on this text. It is agreed, however, that Jesus is not
mocking us here, but offers the hope of attaining an apparently
impossible ideal. It is agreed that Jesus gets to the very heart of
happiness in this beatitude. All else stands or falls on the basis of what
we do with this one. Matthew Henry in his commentary writes, "This
is the most comprehensive of all the beatitudes; holiness and happiness
fully described and put together. Here is the most comprehensive
character of the blessed; they are the pure in heart. Here is the most
comprehensive comfort of the blessed; they shall see God."
Hastings in the Great Texts Of The Bible writes, "If in blessedness
there be a crown of blessedness it is here." A. R. Clippinger says, "In
the bright constellation of the beatitudes this star of promise shines
the farthest and is the most beautiful." The great hope of God's people
has always been to see God and behold His presence. Moses cried out,
"I beseech Thy, show me Thy glory." (Ex. 33:18). In Psa. 17:15 the
Psalmist describes his greatest bliss: "As for me, I will behold Thy
face in righteousness." In Psa. 41:12 he expects his integrity to be
rewarded by being set before God's face forever. In Psa. 63:2 he says,
"So I have looked upon Thee in the sanctuary, beholding Thy power
and glory." Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted
up, and many are the texts in the Old Testament that refer to seeing
God, or the great hope of seeing God. This is true in the New
Testament also.
Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Paul holds
forth the hope of seeing Christ face to face, and no longer through a
glass darkly. In Rev. 22:4 it says of the servants of God, "They shall
see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads." In both the
Old and New Testaments the condition for seeing God is a pure heart.
In Psa. 24:3-4 we read, "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And
who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure
heart." In I John 3:2-3 we read, "We know that when He appears we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is, and everyone who has
this hope in Him purifies himself as He is pure." The longing of every
Christian should be for a pure heart. Walter C. Smith expressed it in
poetry:
If clearer vision Thou impart,
Grateful and glad my soul shall be,
But yet to have a pure heart
Is more to me.
Yea, only as the heart is clean
May larger visions yet be mine,
For mirrored in its depths are seen
The things divine.
The clearer the heart the greater the vision. The heart is the
telescope whereby the believer sees into the heaven of heavens, and
the cleaner the lens the further he sees. As a man thinks in his heart,
so is he. A man is what his heart is. The heart is the telescope by
which we see beyond the heavens which declare the glory of God into
the heaven of the very presence of God. A man with a telescope can
see what others do not, even though it is present to all. He can point at
a star and say it is two stars, but you look and see one, and you do not
believe it until you look through the telescope. So the man with a
clean and pure heart can see God at work where others see nothing, or
only men working.
Jesus is not just talking about the vision of God when time is over,
and we see Him face to face. The seeing begins now in the life of the
pure.
1. When you point to the big dipper and look up and say, "I see it,"
that is physical sight.
2. When you tell me how to find the big dipper by looking to the
Northwest, and I say, "I see," that is mental sight.
3. But when I look up at the dipper and feel the wonder of God's
creation, that is heart sight. You are seeing God on a level that the
physical and mental cannot penetrate. You are going beyond the body
and mind into the realm of the spirit where you have the ability to
enter the presence of God and praise Him for His creation.
Men only see what they are prepared for seeing. The man who
loves and studies nature sees the beauty of animals and plants that
most men never see. A sightseer once stopped to watch Turner the
great artist at work. "Why Mr. Turner," he said, "I never saw any
such light and color in nature as you put on your canvas." Turner
merely replied, "Don't you wish you could? As for me, I never can
hope to match with pigments the glory I see in the sky." Wesley had
this same experience in the spiritual realm and wrote:
Lo! to faith's enlightened sight,
All the mountain flames with light.
Hell is nigh, but God is nigher,
Circling us with hosts of fire.
Keith Miller in his book The Second Touch tells of two men who
were traveling at night in the brush land of the Southwest. The driver
lived on a ranch in the area, but the passenger was from the East. As
they approached a cut in a hill the Easterner saw in the headlights a
boulder rolling down into the road ahead of them. He yelled and
leaped into the back seat in fear. The driver, however, drove on
undisturbed, for he knew it was a tumbleweed. Both saw the same
object, but what they saw was determined by their experience in that
environment. So it is with all of life, and so it is in the spiritual life.
We see what we are fit to see, and prepared to see, and only the pure
in heart are prepared to see God. This includes both the literal vision
of the future as well as the spiritual vision of the present.
Alexander Maclaren, one of the most famous preachers of all time,
summed up all that is meant by the present vision of God that is
helpful to our understanding. He wrote, "Whether you call it the
vision of God, or whether you call it communion with God in Jesus
Christ, or whether you fall back upon the other metaphor of God
dwelling in us and we dwelling in God, it all comes to the same thing.
The consciousness of His presence, the realization of His character,
the blessed assurance of loving relations with him, and the communion
in mind, heart, will, and conduct, with God who has come near to us
all in Jesus Christ." In other words, purity of heart is the condition of
experiencing all that the New Testament says about having fellowship
with God. The impure lose the sense of the presence of God. The
Christian with sin in his life is out of fellowship with God. The lens of
his telescope is out of focus and smeared. The paradox is, many feel
God has faded from their life, and is no longer a vital factor, when in
reality, it is they who have lost focus, and their impure heart has
clouded their vision.
This beatitude keeps a balance on the former one of being merciful.
Some may interpret mercy for the sinner to mean toleration of his sin,
and even participating in his sin. Jesus clearly destroys that idea, and
make it plain for all to see that mercy that sinks to the level of
fellowship with the sinner in his sin cuts one off from fellowship with
God. We must be merciful, but at the same time be pure. Notice how
the happy life must maintain a perfect balance in relation to God and
man.
In hungering and thirsting after righteousness-God is central.
In being merciful man is the object of attention.
In being pure in heart we are back to God and
In being a peacemaker we are again relating to men.
Get out of line on anyone of these and you destroy the framework of
the perfect life of happiness. If we learn nothing else from these
beatitudes, we will certainly learn why most Christians are not as
happy as they could, and should be. It is because they do not work at
following the pattern Christ has given, and they do not give heed to
keeping their life balanced.
Even a partial understanding of this profound beatitude will do
wonders in our lives if we heed what we hear. We must come to it with
the attitude of David who prayed, "Create in me a clean heart O God
and renew a right spirit within me." We must already be poor in
spirit, and totally dependent upon God, for pride is the worst
contamination of the heart. With Joseph Hart we look to the power of
God.
Tis Thine to cleanse the heart,
To sanctify the soul,
To pour fresh life in every part,
And new create the whole.
We must look at two things that will characterize us and be evident if
we are becoming pure in heart by the grace of God. The first is-
I. SPIRITUALITY.
By this we mean a perspective on life that sees the inner man as
central. It is to see life as God sees it who looks, not on the outward
appearance, but at the heart. The Pharisees were very religious, as
were the pagans Paul spoke to on Mars Hill, but neither group were
spiritual in the sense that Jesus demands of Christians. Their concept
of purity was external and ceremonial. They cared only for that
purity that was visible to the eye. Jesus demanded purity in the heart
which was not visible to the eye. Jesus was not opposed to keeping
clean and washing your hands and feet, but He was opposed to making
this kind of purity the ultimate. Jesus said, there is no sense on
cleaning the outside of the cup if the inside is left filthy. What good is
whitewash on a tomb if the inside is full of rottenness and corruption?
This is what the Pharisees were doing, and Jesus rejected their purity
as superficial. It is the inner man that really counts. The real man is
represented by the heart. The heart in the Bible is the symbol of
man's mind, emotions, and will. All of this is unseen, but all of it is far
more than what is seen. Shakespeare put it-
I am but the shadow of myself
.My substance is not here,
For what you see is but the smallest part,
And least proportion of humanity.
The pure in heart are those who see this, and are vastly different
than those who emphasize only the external. The spiritual person is
far more concerned about controlling his temper than controlling the
weeds in his garden. He cares more for cleaning up his thoughts than
cleaning the car. He does not neglect the externals, but he does not
make them primary. The man who is spiritual has his eyes focused on
the inner man; on motives more than conduct. He longs to see as
Jesus sees-
Out of the mist into the light,
O blessed gift of inner sight.
The spiritual man is sensitive to his own sin. He mourns for it,
confesses it immediately, and trusts in the blood of Christ alone for
forgiveness. He does not trust in externals like the Pharisees. If a
Christian thinks he can atone for sin by reading his Bible, going to
church, and having family devotions, or anything of this nature, he is a
carnal Christian. His very Bible reading and church attendance can
be a sin, for he has a false perspective. His heart is not pure. His
motives are mixed, and he does not have a spiritual perspective. Like
the Pharisees, he paints the pump when the water goes bad. He
changes the crystal when his watch spring breaks. He putties the
cracks when the foundation decays. He never gets to the heart of the
matter, because he fails to see that the source of all troubles is the
inner man. He is like many neurotics who wash their hands a hundred
times a day to try and wash off guilt, because they do not see that
externals do not cleanse the inner man.
The pure in heart do not forget externals, but their focus is on
internals. You can test your own spirituality by asking yourself on
what you really rely for comfort, courage, and guidance in the
Christian life. If you are depending on externals and conformity to
someone else, you will never be the Christian God wants you to be,
and you will miss the happiness He wants you to have. Each of us
must let go of those things that keep us floating on the surface, and we
must plunge into the depths of the inner life. Keith Miller has done
this, and his testimony is so refreshing and honest that he became a
speaker in great demand. For example, he was a typical Christian
man who wanted to be the best Christian he could be, and so he
wanted to have family devotions.
Good Christian families did this, and so he tried it after an evening
meal. The phone rang consistently; dishwashing and homework were
delayed, and the whole thing left the family tense and cross. Mr.
Miller found himself becoming so determined to be spiritual that he
was cross and aggravated at meals all the time, but he was having
family devotions. He finally woke up to realize that it was not Jesus
who needed him to have family devotions. It was his need to conform
to what was suppose to be a standard of spirituality. He had very
subtly become a Pharisee and didn't even know it. He forgot
devotions and worked out a plan for prayer with his children that fit
the shape of their lives and schedule. It was a plan that was from the
heart, and not an external appendage. In many other areas of life he
did the same, and became honest with himself before God. He became
a deeply spiritual man rather than a superficial conformist. This is
part of what it means to be pure in heart. The second thing we want to
consider is-
II. SIMPLICITY.
The Greek word for pure means without blemish, admixture, or
alloy. The Greeks used it to describe an army unit purged of every
undesirable element, or of language free of error, or gold free of any
other metal. Anything that is pure is fully one thing. Pure nylon is100%
nylon and not 99% and 1% cotton. Oneness, or singleness
characterizes that which is pure. It is reduced to its simplest form
with no mixture.
The idea of purity of heart is several times expressed as singleness
of heart or eye. In chapter 6:22 Jesus says, "If your eye is single your
whole body will be full of light." Singleness of heart and light of vision
are again connected. Paul in Col. 3:22 tells slaves to serve their
masters, not with eye-service as man pleasers, but with singleness of
heart fearing the Lord: that is, without duplicity-not looking to men
but to God only. The double minded are unstable in all their ways
says James. Duplicity and the tainted motive is what blinds and blurs
one's vision of God. Pureness of heart is singleness and simplicity.
One motive dominates. One master is served. This is the way to
God's best.
Ibsen's character Peer Gynt made his money by sending shiploads
of idols each spring to China, but to soothe his conscience he sent
missionaries to China each autumn. He was double minded, and thus
impure, and, therefore, not happy. He compared his life to an onion
that you can peal and peal and never find a core, but discover, as he
did, that he had no inner life. He was all outsides and superficial with
no depth, and blind to ultimate values. Christians sometimes try to
serve two masters and wonder why they are not happy. God made
man to be happy only when he has an ultimate loyalty. Even the
sinner who is sold out to sin is often happier than the double minded
Christian, because he has a simplicity to his life with only one master.
Keats said, "Oh! What a power has white simplicity. G. K.
Chesterton said, "The only simplicity that matters is the simplicity of
the heart." To be pure in heart is to be controlled and motivated by
one, and only one, source of power: The power of the Holy Spirit.
Who would dare say that they have arrived. Many times Christians
feel they are pure, when really they have just been still and unmoved
so long that the sediment has settled to the bottom. The liquid looks
pure at the top as long as it is undisturbed. Let something come along
and jar them, and shake them up, and all the dirt and mud in them
rises and clouds the pureness, and they see they were not so pure after
all. True pureness of heart is when you can be shaken, and still be
totally yielded to the Holy Spirit, and react with singleness of heart,
rather than with a mixture of self-pride.
Satan gains his greatest victories over the Christian when he can
divide their loyalty, and split their simple and pure devotion to God.
C. S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters picture Satan instructing
Wormwood on how to best corrupt Christians. He advises, "The
point is to help a man feeling that he has something other than God,
and the courage God supplies, to fall back on. So that what was
intended to be a total commitment to duty becomes honeycombed all
through with little unconscious reservations."
Just a few spots of reservation can spoil the pureness and simplicity
of the Christian heart, and destroy his happiness. Along with the
happiness it also destroys health. Dr. Ligon says, "All mental
disorders are the result of the failure to integrate one's drives into a
single purpose." Let your life stray from the simplicity of
wholehearted commitment to Christ, and the result is complication
and chaos, and loss of happiness and health. Thomas a Kempis, way
back in the 15th century said, "The more a man is united within
himself, and interiorly simple, the more and higher things doth he
understand..." This is just another way of saying, blessed are the pure
in heart for they shall see God.
Eternal light! Eternal light!
How pure that soul must be,
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee.
This can be our happy experience if we become truly spiritual, and
focus our eye on the inner man, and focus it in simplicity on Christ
alone. Christ in you the hope of glory. Such spirituality, simplicity,
and singleness of eye will, Christ promises, lead you to the depths and
the very heart of happiness.
