Matthew 5:8 reads: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This simple yet profound beatitude invites us to ask ourselves searching questions: What are you aiming for in life? Where are you headed? What are you seeking?
The beatitude communicates a fundamental truth: You will find what you seek. The one who seeks God with simple affection, longing to live the life God requires, will be blessed to see God. But we know all too easily that, even as Christians, the desires of our hearts are often skewed. We are distracted not only by the cares and busyness of life, but by various idols and competing desires that pull our affections away from Christ.
Seeking God
What did Jesus mean when he said, “Blessed are the pure in heart”? To understand this, we must first grasp what it means to be “pure.” At its most basic level, purity means to be clean, untainted, or free of distortion. In the Old Testament, something pure was whole and complete—something as God designed it to be. Think of precious materials like gold or diamond being pure: They are that substance through and through, simple and uncomplicated, not mixed with other ores or rocks.
But what did Jesus refer to when he spoke of our “heart”? In Scripture, the heart refers to the inner life of a person—everything that makes us who we are. The heart is the seat not only of our emotions, but of our affections, intentions, desires, and allegiance. Our internal life can often be out of step with our external life, as the Lord says in Isaiah 29:13: “This people draw near with their mouth and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.”
To be pure in heart means there is simplicity of motive and intention. Psalm 24:3–6 illuminates this beautifully:
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, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.
Purity of heart describes a heart of integrity—someone who isn’t saying one thing but doing another, whose soul is not lifted up to what is false. If we allow the second half of Matthew 5:8 to interpret the first, we see that to be pure in heart fundamentally means we are seeking God. If the reward is seeing God, then surely that is what we desire in our hearts.
How do we assess purity of heart? One helpful test is this: Do you find it difficult to speak about God? Do you find it difficult to interact with warm emotions and affections towards him? Conversely, do you find it difficult to speak about anything other than your particular interests—exercise, work, art, or politics? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be. As Christians, we often lose our focus; our vision gets hazy. Our hearts are often not so pure, and we often seek things other than God.
No one’s heart is as pure as Jesus’ heart. His external life was in perfect connection with his internal life. He lived with perfect integrity. His desires and affections were simply focused on the will of his Father, and his motives were so pure that even the cross didn’t stop him from accomplishing what his Father had purposed. Yet the Christian who has been forgiven can put on a pure heart, even if only in measure, in Christ.
Seeing God
What do we get if we seek God with a pure heart? Jesus says clearly: We will see God. This is remarkable when the Old Testament declares that no one can see God and live, and that God dwells in unapproachable light.
This beatitude contains both a warning and a promise. The warning is that we will get what we seek—and nothing more. If we long for money or status, we will get that and nothing more. If we seek fame or riches, we will get that, but that’s all. However, if we seek God with the help of the Spirit, we get God himself.
What does this look like practically? We can speak of two realities: glimpses of God in the present, and the fulness of God in the future.
In the present, we can see God in remarkable ways. Hebrews 11:27 says of Moses: “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.” We see God revealed in creation—Psalm 19 makes this clear: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” It is our job to make the connection between a beautiful sunset or thunder before a storm and the majesty of God’s character.
We see God in the Scriptures as we meditate, memorise, hear it preached and taught. But here is a convicting truth: You cannot claim to see God in Scripture if you do not have a pure heart. You cannot claim to see God if you merely desire to know some propositions about him rather than seeking him with your whole heart.
We also see God in the body of Christ—the physical manifestation of Jesus on earth living out his resurrection life. First John 4:12 says: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” As we make the attributes of God known in our midst—as we worship together, love as Jesus loved, and serve as his hands and feet—God is glimpsed, if imperfectly.
But we also see God in the fulness of time when Jesus returns to consummate his kingdom. We will see him in the new creation when he remakes the heavens and the earth. We will see our brothers and sisters from every tribe, tongue, and nation, restored and resurrected. We will see the Word of God made flesh, the conquering Lamb that was slain, in all his glory.
First John 3:2 declares: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” When Jesus returns and remakes us, we will be transformed. When we see him, our hearts will be fully and finally made new. We will see what we have been seeking. We will get what we have aimed for. Then we will receive the reward of our pursuit—then we will see God.
Each beatitude expresses some sense of lack in us, something missing, something out of sorts in creation. But they all point us to that time when our lack will be filled, when Jesus will completely make us whole.
So when asked, “What are you aiming for? Where is your treasure?” may we answer with hearts increasingly purified by grace: “We are seeking the one who promises, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’”
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