Purity of Heart: Matthew 5:8

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

William Sangster declared that “the purpose of God for man is to make him holy. Not happiness first, and holiness, if possible, but holiness first and bliss as a consequence.” However, the unreflecting person is not sure that he or she wants to be holy. Most people are not sure what the term holiness means, and they are almost certain that they do not like what they think it means. The word seems musty and hints at other-worldliness and repression. Therefore, Sangster said the best way to approach the study of holiness is to gaze steadily at Jesus Christ, as well as the lives of the saints. Then we find that instead of being repelled, we are fascinated, and adoration stirs in our souls.((The Pure in Heart, xi.))

Sangster also explained that since Wesley did not believe in purgatory, purity of heart must be realized in this life.((The Path to Perfection, 38.)) Wesley himself explained that the pure in heart were the sanctified who love God with all their hearts. He preached that “the pure in heart”

are they whose hearts God hath “purified even as he is pure”; who are purified through faith in the blood of Jesus from every unholy affection; who, being “cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfect holiness in the” loving “fear of God.” They are, through the power of his grace, purified from pride by the deepest poverty of spirit; from anger, from every unkind or turbulent passion, by meekness and gentleness; from every desire but to please and enjoy God, to know and love him more and more, by that hunger and thirst after righteousness which now engrosses their whole soul: so that now they love the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and mind, and strength.((“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Third,” Sermon #23, 1.2.))

Wesley lamented the fact that it often has been taught that we should merely abstain from outward manifestations of pride, anger, and unholy passion without any reference to inward corruption. Joseph Benson expanded this list to include vain thoughts, unprofitable reasonings, earthly and sensual desires, and corrupt passions: pride, self-will, discontent, impatience, anger, malice, envy, covetousness, and ambition. Benson also described a purity of intention, serving God with a single eye and undivided heart.((Notes, 4:59.))

Joseph Sutcliffe, a lesser-known Methodist commentator, wrote, “A clean heart is the mother of every virtue.” David expressed the same sentiment in Psalm 24:3–4, “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.”((Commentary, 2:37.))

While the beatitudes are well known, the Greek word for blessed (makarios) can be translated fortunate or happy—as Wesley does. Thus, holiness and happiness should be connected. Albert Outler observed that there was much joy in Wesley and that he died happy.((Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit, 86–87.))

In his Exposition, Richard Watson explained:

Here again our Lord, according to the spirit and intent of his whole discourse, turns the attention of his hearers from those outward purifications which the more superstitious Jews, and especially the Pharisees, so carefully preached, and the importance of which they so greatly exaggerated, to the purification of the heart. In that lies the true foundation of evil; and there the sanctification of man must begin and be completed. This purity of heart respects the intention, in opposition to religious hypocrisy; and so consists in the simple, unmixed desire to please God in all things: it implies, also, the extirpation of all unholy desires, imaginations, tendencies, and affections. But this cannot be a negative state only; the absence of evil is necessarily the presence of all good. Hence, in this condition of mind, truth becomes the clear light of the judgment, and the exact rule of conscience; the will is rendered cheerfully submissive to divine authority; God is loved “with all the heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves;” and “whatsoever things are” externally, and in their outward, practical manifestation, “true, whatsoever things are” honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise: the root of all, if they are real, and not simulated virtues, is a pure heart; a nature, to use St. Paul’s words, “sanctified wholly;” to effect which entire sanctification of man is the peculiar and glorious work of the Holy Ghost, through the Gospel.((Exposition, 55–56.))

Summary Points

1. Purity of heart is to will one thing. That was the title of Sören Kierkegaard’s 1846 book.
2. Those with a pure heart have a foretaste or vision of him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). This vision is transformative. George Allen Turner wrote, “The Reformers, in their emphasis on the object of faith, and the forensic consequences of faith, stopped short of an adequate emphasis on the inner renewal and transformation of character.”¹
   Theologians call this vision the beatific vision. That continuous vision of him will transform us into his likeness. It is living in the light of God’s countenance, as expressed in the Aaronic benediction where the grace of God was depicted as his face shining upon his people (Num. 6:25–27; see also 2 Cor. 3:18). Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face (1 Cor. 13:12; Ps. 17:15). Someday we will see him as he is, and that hope motivates us to live in holiness (1 John 3:2–3).
3. Those with a pure heart will see God’s face (Rev 22:4). Watson explained that the pure in heart see God on earth in his visible works, in recognition of his agency, and in understanding his purposes. We see God more fully and habitually, as our purity becomes more perfect. The promise, however, chiefly respects a future life. To see God as he manifests himself to the glorified spirit of the redeemed in heaven is our crowning hope.

1. The Vision Which Transforms, 218. [↩]