Matthew 5:8 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 5:8

Comments

The Jews thought that because they were Jews they were God’s people and they were privileged, and one of the things that is being taught here is that that is not so. It is not the Jews as Jews who are saved, though many of them would be without doubt; it was those who answered to certain characteristics. They and they alone would see the kingdom of heaven and would be members of it. By this device, as it were, the Lord makes that clear. ‘You’, he says to his disciples, ‘are the privileged ones; you are the ones to whom I speak, the people who follow me and hear me and obey my commands and injunctions.’This is about sincerity, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’ When we come to Christ, our thought life, our plans are to be pure. They are not to involve unclean and forbidden things. Our interests and delights are to be first and foremost for the kingdom of God and for the Lord.‘A clean heart’: this is an Old Testament phrase. You find it in Psalm 51 and Psalm 73. James says that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. A person who with part of his mind professes to be converted, interested in spiritual things, in worship, and in the truth; but part of his mind is for worldly comforts and pleasures and entertainments, and he cannot do without those as well. He is like a split personality. Such a person is unstable. Blessed are the pure, the sincere, the single-minded, in mind and heart for the Lord. That is the aim for us, to have that depth of character.The pure in heart are those who know that their hearts are seen by God, and who feel his gaze upon them. They have willingly allowed him into the innermost part of their being. They have stopped making excuses before him, and welcome his scrutiny. They are no longer regulating their behaviour for the observation of men who can only look on the outside, but they understand that true religion is a matter of the heart. They cannot any longer pretend that they are one thing on the outside while being something else entirely within. Away with hypocrisy! And if God sees their hearts then they strive to be like him, and they understand that their dealings with God are at a very intimate level. There is no pretence before him, for he sees past all of it.Look at the promise to such people – ‘For they shall see God.’ They will see Christ in eternity and see him now by faith. They shall see him in their affairs, in his answers to their prayers. They will have so much assurance and see the evidence of his presence with them. If we strive after sincerity and genuineness and purity of heart, not mixing spiritual with worldly, we see ever more of his glories, his beauties, his character, and his ways as we read the word. And then one day when faith is turned into sight we will see him face to face. When Christ comes, we shall see him no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face, knowing him even as we are known. That vision which as a mortal man John could was not able to bear (Revelation 1:17), we will be enabled to see, and we will understand things which we are not capable of understanding at present. To see and explore the being of God will fill our horizons for all eternity.

Application

What a tragedy it is today that even when the church meeting in worship, so often it is deliberately mixing the world with sacred things, bringing in the music of the world, the entertainment beat styles and so on. That is not the pure in heart, the people who are single-minded for Christ, for the things of God: to abolish the ancient distinction between what is sacred and what is profane, between what he has ordained for his worship and what must be shut out because it is abomination to God and is against his moral standard. It is astonishing how widespread this is.

How can those who do not allow God to see the real person, to see into their hearts, and who purify their hearts before him; how can they expect to see God? If we hide from him, then we tell him very clearly that we do not desire fellowship with him. Therefore purity of heart is connected with seeing God.

What is a pure heart?

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1. It is a heart contrasted with that of the Pharisees who concentrated on externals. The inward man is renewed day by day. In this life, we are not perfect, but character is being formed within us and we have a certain outlook. For Christ, purity meant perfection, but for the believer it means a great and ongoing change. ‘With the mind I myself serve the law of God’, says Paul, ‘but with the flesh the law of sin’ (Romans 7:25). Every Christian is in a measure a divided person. There are new desires, character, desire for purity, and change, and we hate the sin that continues in us.

2. It is defined as a single in heart. How many loyalties to this world do we have? To possessions, fame, home and business? Do they become absorbing passions? That is not a pure heart. We keep those things in proportion. Of course God has given us many things to enjoy in ordinary life, but above all we live for Christ. A pure heart is a consistent heart. There are some for whom butter would not melt in their mouths. They seem so genuine, but then they switch to their worldly conduct and aims.

3. It is a sensitive heart, not calloused over. It is not corrupted, hardened in conscience. Are there things that used to trouble us, but now we have steamrollered conscience down. We used to speak first of Christ, but now we speak of earthly things. We don’t want to pray, and we drag our feet into the house of God. Can we still be touched by our Saviour’s love?

4. A pure heart means the thought life is maintained. You may be angry, grieved at what someone has done to you. Do you rehearse this in your mind, justifying yourself? It is not enough to hold back from raving outwardly, if there is a simmering resentment within you. Sometimes Christians indulge in foolish daydreams. They construct situations, in which they are the centre of it all, especially when young. You would like to brag on the outside, but don’t think you should, so you do it on the inside.

5. It is a believing heart. Unbelief was Adam’s crime at the fall, but a pure heart accepts what God says without suspicion.

God has given a great measure of purity of heart to every true Christian. We must maintain it.

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Matthew 5:8 Commentary and Bible Study