Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8
“But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” Exodus 33:20
The beatitudes compel us, in part, because of their concision. Jesus speaks a handful of words and they have been working their way into hearts and minds and imaginations for two millenia.
The words themselves are common enough - meek, blessed, mourn, comforted, merciful, heart peace-maker, etc. It is not the words that challenge, it is the combination of words that invite us into deeper reflection.
What does it mean to be pure in heart? And what does it mean to see God?
Exodus 33 is a pivotal moment in the Old Testament. The Israelites had just been caught making an idol of gold. As part of their punishment God commands them to go into the promised land but tells them that he will, in some tangible way, not go with them. His motivation for this is mercy; he says, “I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
But, Moses stands his ground.
Timid Moses boldly proclaims to the Lord that he will not go unless the Lord promises to go with them. He knows that the only thing that distinguishes them from all the other nations is God’s presence (Exodus 33:15-16).
God responds by saying, “Okay.”
Moses goes further. “Then, show me your glory.” To which, God again, graciously assents with one caveat. Moses can’t see God face to face. He can only see him in passing. God places Moses in the cleft of a rock and passes by him and allows Moses to see him when he passes by. The reason God gives for this, again, is mercy, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.”
Then, God passes by Moses and proclaims his name:
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.
Moses responds, as everyone does in the Bible who has such experiences, by bowing down in worship. He then re-ups his request, “If now, I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
Notice, God’s reason for not going with the Israelites was because of their “stiff-necks.” “Stiff-neck” is the Old Testament idiom for stubborn, hard-hearted, slow to turn and repent, in short, sinful. Moses does not deny this stiff-neckedness, he admits it. And he uses it as the reason God should go with them. Left to their own devices they will surely fail. Moses essentially says, “God, go with us, because we are stiff-necked. Forgive us. You said it yourself, you are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
God once again responds positively to Moses’ request. He renews his covenant. He promises to be their God. He promises to lead them into the promised land. And he reiterates their end of the relationship - I will do amazing things for you therefore you will be wholly devoted to me. Get rid of all the altars to foreign gods. Do not make any more idols of metal or stone. Devote your firstfruits to me. The rhythm of your week and your year will demonstrate that you trust me to care for you and not your own production.
And after forty days with God on the mountain, Moses comes down and his face is glowing.
It is an incredible passage. There are all kinds of questions. What’s with God changing his mind? What do we make of all the anthropomorphisms (God’s face, hand, back, changing his mind, etc.). How is God merciful and gracious and just (“who will by no means clear the guilty”) at the same time? Where does Moses’ sudden bold-ness come from? How long did Moses’ face glow? But, we’ll have to look at some of those questions in a different post.
The reason I bring this passage to our attention here is because God specifically tells Moses that no one can see him and live. Jesus’ beatitude promises that the pure in heart will see God. Which is it - no one or the pure in heart? We’ll come back to that question in a moment.
First, what does it mean to be pure in heart? The heart in the Bible is the driving engine of a person. It is not just about emotions but it includes emotions. It is not just the intellect but it includes the intellect. It is not just about your desires but it includes your desires. The Bible is consistently asking the question who or what do you trust, serve, love, seek, or in whom do you hope. The heart of a person is what leads to that trusting, serving, seeking or hoping.
For example, someone who has incredible anxiety about money, whether they recognize it or not, are most likely putting an inordinate amount of trust in money. And since money is unstable - markets can crash, jobs can be lost - anxiety arises. Putting our trust in unstable things never brings peace. Money is one of a multitude of things that David Powlison refers to as an “idol of the heart.”
In Matthew 12, Jesus says that it is out of our hearts that our mouths speak. The point he is making is what we do on the outside, inevitably reveals, what is going on inside. Jesus claims that you know a tree is healthy or not by the fruit it produces. Anxiety about money can lead to all kinds of bad fruit - workaholism, inability to ever rest or enjoy leisure time, miserliness, greed, various escapes (food, drink, etc.), obsession with markets, and so on. But, Jesus is never simply concerned about the bad fruit. He always plunges us deeper into the inner workings of the heart.
The pure in heart then would be those who put their trust, hope, service, joy in the one true God who is securely stable. This is why in Exodus 34, after telling the Israelites what he plans to do for them, God quickly calls them back to total devotion - do not make idols, get rid of the altars to other gods, remember the sabbath, dedicate to me your first-fruits. Those are not just arbitrary laws. First-fruits and Sabbath keeping are about remembering where our production ultimately comes from - materialism (contra first-fruits) and workaholism (contra Sabbath keeping) are terrible gods. They will fail you.
Other gods will demand everything from you - eventually your life or worse, your children’s lives (Molech in the Ancient Near East demanded child sacrifice - but do we not sacrifice our children today in multiple ways to the gods of success, autonomy, progress, convenience?). The true God knows this (“the sorrows of those who run after other gods will multiply” Psalm 16:4) and therefore calls his people back to pure heart devotion to him. First and foremost because he alone is worthy. But, relatedly, because all other gods are counterfeit, they never will come through on what they promise - they only lead to sorrow and ruin.
Jesus also demands everything from us, “for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25). But, even in that he is wooing our hearts away from counterfeit gods (a Timothy Keller phrase). His promise is true life - if we let go of the things our hearts so desperately and delusionally want to hang on to we actually find true life. And if that is not enough, the same Jesus who calls us to lose our lives is the very God-Man who willingly gave up his life for us. Do any idols - ancient or modern - come close to such devotion to their devotees?
This brings us back to the promise of the beatitude. The pure in heart are those who are wholly devoted to the Lord. But, how will they see God?
Admittedly, I am not sure. Moses’ glowing face might give us some understanding.
In 2 Cointhians 3, Paul makes a contrast between the covenant of Moses and the new covenant in Christ. The law given to to Moses was glorious (that is why his face was shiny) but it was a fading glory - ultimately all the law could do was condemn because no one could live up to it whereas the glory in the New Covenant is permanent (it’s a complicated passage but I think that is the gist of it). Then Paul says:
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone on our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6
God’s glory was too much for Moses or anyone else to see. But, something has changed. In Christ, by His Spirit, God has shone into our hearts. And what only Moses could see - filtered and indirectly at that - is now accessible to us fully and unveiled. The glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus tells Philip, “If you have seen me you have seen the father” (John 14:9).
The pure in heart are those who are wholly devoted to God. If that sentence feels like it weighs you down more than lifts you up, take heart. For, who among us is wholly devoted to God. If you think you’re wholly devoted to God that might be a good sign you’re not - remember blessed are the poor in spirit. The good news is that God gives new hearts.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:25-27
God does for us what we can’t do for ourselves. He makes us new. Not always as fast as we would like but slowly and surely we are becoming more and more holy - devoted to him. He is fitting us for heaven (and earth) to live with him there. And we will see him. “Behold, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples and he will be their God” (Revelation 21:3).
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
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