“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8)
Last week we looked at how the blessings of the pure heart in seeing God fit with other beatitudes. The big view of lets us see that a single beatitude is linked with the Beatitudes as a whole. The Beatitudes set out the true nature of heart religion and shows that rites and externals are far from the heart that God dwells in and shines forth His beauty and glory. This week we want to look a little deeper at what it means to really see God. While we have looked at that previously, it is a good idea to go some deeper into this wonderful blessing which is really sharing in the life of God.
In a world that lives by its five senses and can hardly believe that anything that does not come through those senses or science can be true, what we are about to enter into will seem like the height of absurdity and a crossing into the irrational. When we talk about seeing God, we are not talking about what we see with our physical eyes and not limited to the eyes of the soul in a literalistic sense either. What we must see is that seeing God is really a term that at times stands for the entire experience of the soul. It is by faith that the soul is enabled to see, but we are also told to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). It is by tasting that we see in that text. In Psalm 119:103 the text tells us “how sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” When we read or hear the words of God and they are sweet, this tells us of the delight of the soul. The taste of the soul is referred to as its delight. This means that seeing God is really the experience of the soul in all of its aspects.
We know this is true in other aspects of life as well. When we have a hard time understanding something and then finally get around to understanding it, we say something like “now I see.” Seeing is a word for understanding. If one spouse sees the second after a long absence, he or she might say something like “I was so glad to see you.” By that term the words do not refer to physical sight alone, but of the joy and pleasure in the soul of seeing the person and then talking to and embracing him or her. In other words, in common language we use the word “see” in a far more encompassing way than just a plain sight of the eyes.
Hebrews 11:1 seems to muddy the waters a bit with a surface reading. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is said to be a conviction of things not seen, so surely one would think that faith is not part of seeing God. However, it is speaking of a physical seeing as the context of the chapter makes clear. In verse 3 we are told that “by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that which is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Surely that verse makes clear that verse 1 is talking about the things that are seen by the physical eyes. But now we see something else. It is by faith that we understand. Whatever faith is it enables people to understand things that the physical eyes cannot see. Understanding spiritual things is through and by faith rather than the physical senses. It is by faith that we see in the spiritual realm.
We then see in Hebrews 11:6 that a person cannot please God without faith because one must believe that God is “and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Here we see that faith understands the character of God and that God is one who rewards. Then in verse 7 we see that it was by faith that Noah prepared the ark when warned by God about things not yet seen. Again we see that in some way faith perceives the spiritual realm and operates upon it as more real than the things that the physical eyes can see. Faith sees God and functions by that belief, understanding, and sight rather than operating by things in the physical realm. We see this again in verse 8 where by faith Abraham left his home and went out “not knowing where he was going.” Faith is, so to speak, the spiritual organ of perception in the spiritual realm. When people live by faith, it means that they live by the sight of God rather than by what worldly wisdom and the physical senses tell them.
We really begin to see what is going on in verses 9-10. “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.” Why did Abraham do that? What was it that faith saw? “For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Verse 13, speaking of those mentioned previously, tells us that “all these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance , and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” Without question, then, the sight of the soul is faith. It is that faith that all the Old Testament saints saw God and obeyed what He said in contrast to all that worldly wisdom and their own eyes told them. The clincher for this view is in verses 26-27 of Hebrews 11. Here Moses is said to consider “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.” How was he looking to the reward when Christ had not been born yet? Surely it was by faith. Then verse 27 says that “by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” In other words, by faith he saw God who cannot be seen and so did not fear the king that he could see with his physical eyes.
At this point some might try to understand all of this as an intellectual sight only. However, we must not misunderstand this as that only. The verses in Hebrews do not fill in all the blanks, but surely we can understand Abraham and Moses as being human beings that operated like other human beings. Human beings operate by the things or persons that they love. Human beings operate by affections, the spiritual senses, beauty, excellence, and glory. While the movies and certain aspects of society have forced a picture of an objective person making decisions based on the evidence and nothing but the evidence, that is quite opposite of what Scripture and evident reason teach us. Human beings make choices and live as whole beings and not just part of their being.
Did Abraham and Moses just have a bare sight of God and then make choices on what was the most reasonable? Of course they didn’t. We are told that they had reverence and that Moses looked ahead to the reward. It said that he considered “the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (11:26). These are not the words of a bare reason. These are words that give us insight into the soul of these men. They loved God, hoped in God, and treasured God above all things. It takes a discovery of the glory of God to have a taste of worldly riches and then to prefer Christ to those riches.
Faith is more than just a rational decision, it is the tasting and delighting in God. I Peter 1:8 describes faith in this way: “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” The context of this verse is that of faith. This verse describes what a strong and purified faith does. It loves God and believes in Him. It rejoices in Him with a joy that cannot be expressed with words and a joy that is full of glory. In other words, coming back to the pure heart, a pure heart is one that has been tried and it has a pure faith in God. The sight of God that the pure heart has is indeed a spiritual blessing and does fill the soul with great joy. The fire of trials (context of I Peter 1) purifies the heart and so purifies the sight of the heart. That heart has true joy because it sees God and tastes of the glory of God. This seeing of God is not a bare sight, but a sight that fills the soul with the joy of the Lord and gives the soul a burning love for God. This is the soul that is truly blessed. The soul that is blessed in this way is blessed with the life of God in the soul and that is true sight and true spiritual riches.
We must be careful not to fall into some form of a hyper-intellectual approach. There is the bare truth of the proposition that is set out about something, but then there is the sense and taste of the heart. There is the factual information, but then there is the experience of the information. It is the difference between hearing a scientific statement about the taste of chocolate and the taste of chocolate. There is a massive difference between the theological statement of the sovereignty of God and living before God and walking in the light of the beauty, excellence, wisdom, and glory of His sovereignty. There is a difference between telling someone that God is sovereign and tasting God in the soul as beautiful and glorious.
All believers must learn that they can learn many bits of factual information and store it in the head. However, that is far different than learning a truth from the core of the soul and tasting that the Lord is good. All believers must learn the truth of God, yet all believers must learn the beauty and glory of that God. Unbelievers can learn many things about God, but only believers have God in their souls giving them a true sweetness of the sight of Him and His glory. The unbeliever may have delight in musing upon the information about God but only as it is focused on himself and his gain. The true believer delights in God as God. All of this is simply a description of the sight of God that a pure heart has. It is an understanding, but not just the intellectual understanding. To see God as the promise in Matthew 5:8 sets out is to see Him in His glory and for the soul to taste and see that He is good. It is a sight that He gives of Himself and a sight that cannot fail at some point to bring delight and pleasure to the soul. He is, after all, the standard of all beauty. He is also true love and true holiness. To see God in His glory is to see the highest beauty, love, and holiness. To see that in the soul is to taste and be delighted. To see God is for the soul to be ravished with Him. This is a true blessing and should give all believers the desire to pursue God and His glory from a pure heart.
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