“Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.”

Context

The beatitudes introduce the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus addresses the Jews who had been given God’s Law, and had repeatedly failed to follow it. He explained the real nature and purpose of the Law in relation to his role as the Messiah.

The Pharisees

The Scribes and Pharisees had taken God’s commands and turned them into many volumes of detailed regulations that only they could hope to perform, which excluded ordinary working people from feeling acceptable to God, while the Pharisees prided themselves on obeying those regulations and sitting in condemnation of everyone else.
But Jesus ends the Beatitudes by saying the Pharisees were not good enough. Verse 20 reads, “unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The Beatitudes

The Beatitudes summarise the requirements of the Law in terms of our motivation and general attitude and behaviour, in contrast to the detailed examples of the Sermon on the Mount. They outline in general terms what makes a person acceptable to God, to have the joy of entering the kingdom of God.
Unlike the legalism of the Pharisees, they point to attitudes and behaviour that ordinary people could understand.

Meaning of “Pure in Heart”

It’s easier to see what is impure in heart – when one’s every motivation is for selfish gain or pleasure at the expense or injury to others, with no regard to God or to social norms of ethical behaviour.

We tend to see purity of heart in selfless behaviour, in having the best of intentions or motivation towards God and other people, seeking only to do God’s will, and thinking of the well-being of others just as much or even more than ourselves.
And while we may like to think our intentions are always good regardless of how things turn out, as fallen people in a fallen world we tend to develop a healthy degree of self-preservation and advancement. So, while I would like to think of times of selfless generosity, my thoughts and motives have been, and still are, mixed with what is not acceptable to God.

How to be pure in heart?

The question is not what we must do to be pure in heart.
The message of the Sermon is summarised in Matthew 5:48, “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
The purpose of the sermon is to convict us that nothing we can do can make us acceptable to God; in our fallen state we all fail to meet His perfect requirements. The sermon convinces us of our need to be saved from that predicament, and only Jesus could make us acceptable to God, when he took our penalty for sin on himself on the cross.

Jesus provided the way for us to be pure in heart. Through his sacrifice, resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit, he fulfilled God’s promise in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes”

The work of the Holy Spirit in changing the nature of our heart is only possible when we stop actively resisting and rebelling against God, when we turn to Him and accept his rule of our lives to free us from slavery to sin, to accept his free gift of salvation in Jesus, and the new life he gives through his Spirit living in us.

Personal response

For me, it’s a source of joy to look back and reflect on those times when my motivation and intentions appear to me to be in accord with God’s will, and to extend his love and care to others, without any thought of self. And I realise that wasn’t the old self I know, that was entirely God’s action.
But I am also keenly aware that my selfish desires are still active; each day I need to look to God to guide my thoughts and motives, to make my intentions purely his, and to equip me to put that into action.

Praise God for what he is doing to make my heart acceptable to Him and to others.