“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8)
Last week we looked at how it is a sovereign God that must open our eyes to see and also to shine His glory in our hearts. In other words, it is not that we are to pursue a pure heart and think that it is something we can work up to merit a sight of God. Seeing God is the work of His grace in the hearts of His people. God alone can cleanse the heart by faith and God alone can sanctify the soul by His continued and sustaining grace. While human beings are to seek a pure heart, they are to seek it by way of grace and not by works or merit. It is much the same thought of Augustine who said that God rewards His grace with more grace. Believers never obtain anything spiritually beneficial from God based on anything but grace. We are saved by grace, cleansed by grace, and then enter and enjoy glory by grace.
This week we will look at the lens we need to see God. The real lens that we must have to see God is Jesus Christ. It is true that the Spirit must illuminate our minds and the Word, but the lens that needs to be focused in order to bring in the sight of God with sharpness and clarity is Jesus Christ. There is no sight of the true and living God in His beauty and glory apart from Christ. It is true that unbelievers know God and see something of God. What they see should give them nothing but sheer terror, though it is true that they have suppressed the knowledge of God so far that they are no longer afraid and have the idea that He is something like a God of love that they have imagined and worked up in an effort to suppress the truth of God.
We will start off with John 1:14 and how it explains this truth to us: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The eternal Logos, the Word, took human flesh to Himself. In this, then, what the text is teaching is that the divine Person took flesh and in that flesh the eternal Logos is said to tabernacle or dwell. The fleshly body of Jesus Christ was the very tabernacle of God. It was through that flesh that all who were there were seeing something of God, but those that had eyes to see saw the very glory of God. That glory was a glory full of grace and truth. That is exactly what Moses saw when God shined forth His glory in response to the cry of Moses to see His glory. Exodus 33:18 has the cry of Moses and verse 19 has God’s response: “Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”19 And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
What God was telling Moses was that He would show Moses His glory. That glory consisted of grace. In Exodus 34 we see what happened when God came down and shone forth His glory to Moses: 5 “The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD. 6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” In this text the Lord adds the word “truth” to what He shows to Moses. Without any real question, then, the glory of God in the book of Exodus is the glory that shone forth in Christ in the New Testament. However, in the New Testament the glory of God takes on a different luster. We are now enabled to see the glory of the Lord in action in a different way in the life of Christ.
John 1:18 leaves no doubt as to how one comes to know God: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” It is only through Christ that God is explained and seen. While Moses saw God in one sense, the text goes on to tell us that “no one has seen God at any time.” In some way, then, Christ explains the Father and gives His people a sight of God that is superior to what Moses saw. In fact, in Hebrews 1 we are told that God had spoken or revealed Himself in many ways in former times. But now in Christ He has spoken in a new and different way. It is in Christ that God has shined forth His glory because Christ is the shining forth of His glory. “1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” One must see the glory of God in Christ to get a true sight of God in His glory.
John 14:4-12 teaches us the same thing in a different way. “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Here Jesus is clearly teaching that He is the only way to the Father. But what does He mean by that in this context? Indeed there is no way to the Father apart from the cross and resurrection of Christ, but is that what He means in this text? Again, we must remember back to Exodus 33-34 that we mentioned earlier. God shone forth His glory in grace and truth to Moses. Here we see that Christ is the way to the Father. He is the way of understanding the Father and the only way to love the Father. He is also the truth in the sense that He is the truth of and about the Father. He alone has explained who God really is. He is also the life in the sense that apart from Him there is no life of God in the soul of human beings. Christ is the only way to the Father because He is the truth of God and the life of God. No one will ever see the glory of God apart from Christ because they will not have the truth or life of God apart from Him.
Jesus continues on in verses 7-11 to verify the interpretation given above: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father ‘? 10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” What powerful and searching words. What He said was that if Philip had really and truly known Him he would have seen the Father. To truly know Christ is to know the Father and in fact is the only way to know the Father. Christ was saying that both His words and His works were in reality the Father speaking and working through Him.
We see these words in terms of the Gospel and of eternal life from John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” This gives us more insight from John 14:6-11. Not only is Jesus Christ truth and eternal life and not only does one have to know Christ to know the Father and the way to the Father, but it is in knowing the true God through Christ that one has eternal life. Jesus tells us there that eternal life is to know the only true God. But we cannot know that God apart from Jesus Christ who is the truth of God and the life of God. There is no escaping the basic and foundational truth that God can only be seen and known through Christ. Jesus Christ is the very outshining of the glory of God and the very explanation of God. How can anyone claim to know or see God apart from Christ? People do claim it but they are quite deceived.
What we must see, therefore, is that the blessing of the sight of God is only found in Christ. If we want this blessedness promised in the Beatitudes we will never find it by seeking it by works or in any other way than through Christ. It is the glory of God that makes the soul blessed and not some sight of the physical eyes. While God can manifest Himself in physical ways if He so desired as He did in the Old Testament, He has given us the perfect sight of Himself in Jesus Christ. We are to look for no greater sight of God than found in Christ. While God is “eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever” (I Timothy 1:17), He is visible in one sense in Jesus Christ. It is Christ who is the perfect “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and so we do not need pictures, idols, or anything else to see God in His glory. To see God is to see Him in Christ and Christ alone.
Seeing God is an immediate understanding of God’s glorious excellencies. We cannot give others or ourselves a sense of the beauty and delightfulness of God in His holiness. Rather than giving it to ourselves it is an understanding of His love and an apprehension of His presence in Christ. We see in the Old Testament that it is a blessed thing to see the face of God. In the New Testament it is in the face of Christ that we see the glory of God. Man might think that this sight is speculative and notional, but it is far more than that. It is the sense of the heart; the sense of beauty, sweetness, amiableness and delight in the presence of the glory of God. The difference is between reading in a dictionary about chocolate and then tasting it. In Christ by grace we can taste it. The way of obtaining spiritual sight is a pure heart. A pure heart is humble because God gives grace to the humble. We must be humble not to rest in our own wisdom and pursue the knowledge of God in the foolishness of Christ and His cross. Humility is necessary because a humble heart will not want knowledge to lift up itself with and God will not give His glory to another but focuses that glory and access to the sight of that glory in and through Christ. In Christ and by the indwelling Christ we see and taste the blessedness of His glory. That is the sight of the soul and the experience of eternal life.
God Loves... Himself 
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