Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 1. It may be easily understood that impurity of heart hinders the soul from seeing God. Under the power of perverse affections the mind sees nothing aright — nothing in its just relations and proportions. Least of all can the mind thus blinded in its highest faculties see God aright; it gets no inspiring and attractive perception of His glory. As earthly vapours, condensed into clouds and darkening the world with storms, hide from the outward sense the beauty and glory of the visible heaven, so sensual passions, grovelling affections, and the dominion of sin in the soul, all the habits of an impure and unbelieving mind, intervene as with impenetrable clouds, to shut off from the view and reach of the spiritual faculties the grand realities of that upper sphere, where the eternal relations of duty are and where God is. 2. This is further illustrated by remembering distinctly that the normal or right state of the mind — the state in which its faculties and susceptibilities are properly adjusted in relation to each other and in relation to their objects — is just what our Saviour means by purity in heart. As the normal condition of the eye is not when the optic nerve is paralysed or otherwise diseased, nor when the surface is covered by a film, nor when inflammation or a mote under the eyelids makes the light painful, but only when all obstruction or disease is absent, so the normal condition of the mind, as made for the knowledge of things invisible and eternal, is not when its sensibilities are perverted by selfishness, not when sin reigns within, but only when the heart is pure.We may now inquire, What is the blessedness of thus seeing God? 1. To see God is to see the central light which reveals the order and beauty of the universe. The unity of all created things is found only in their relation to God's power, to His love and wisdom, to His plan and government. 2. To see God is to see the fountain of all blessedness. Such intuition of God's glory is identical with the peace of God that passeth all understanding 3. Such an intuition of God as this promise assures to the pure in heart is that for which the soul was created. It is the soul's chief end, and therefore it is the highest blessedness of which the soul is capable. (L. Bacon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. |
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