Introduction

Jesus came in his earthly ministry preaching the kingdom of heaven (Mark 1:15). Understand that Jesus did not preach the kingdom and the gospel, as if those two things could be separated. Rather, the heart of Jesus’ message, and what lies at the heart of the ministry of the gospel throughout all ages until now, and which shall continue until the Lord returns on the clouds of glory is this: the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

That coming kingdom was promised throughout all the Old Testament from the mother promise of Genesis 3:15 to the flood, to the Israelites’ passing through the midst of the Red Sea, to the establishment of David’s throne, even all the way until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ came the first time, then the kingdom of heaven was at hand. You might say that the kingdom of heaven was at the door of the Jews’ houses. The coming of the kingdom was realized in Jesus Christ when he came and established that covenant and kingdom by his perfect work and atoning death. The very foundation of that kingdom is built upon the perfect satisfaction of Jesus Christ, in which Christ secured for his elect the right to and the possession of citizenship in that kingdom. And that kingdom is coming. That kingdom is coming because that kingdom is Christ’s kingdom. Being Christ’s kingdom, it is God’s kingdom. It is God’s kingdom in which he has set Christ to be the only blessed potentate, the king of kings and the Lord of lords, the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

That kingdom is not a merely external and earthly kingdom, but that kingdom is the kingdom of heaven; that is, it is God’s kingdom. God conceived of that kingdom from all eternity when God appointed to Christ a kingdom. The scriptures declare the very words of Jesus:

7. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

8. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Ps. 2:7–8, emphasis added)

The kingdom of heaven is God’s gracious rule in Jesus Christ within the hearts of his elect church by his word and Spirit. In that sense the kingdom of heaven is to be distinguished from God’s rule of sheer might in which he judges all the nations by Jesus Christ with a rod of iron. The kingdom is utterly gracious. Further, that kingdom comes every day when God by his gracious rule lays hold upon the hearts of men, who are by nature totally depraved and dead in trespasses and in sins, and breaks their stony hearts and gives to them hearts of flesh. That kingdom comes when God brings a man into saving fellowship with Christ by faith, justifying him and making him a new creature. That kingdom comes every Lord’s day in the preaching of the gospel, when Christ comes in judgment, justifying his elect people and hardening the hearts of the reprobate wicked. And that kingdom shall come when God shall appear in Jesus Christ to raise our bodies and burn this old world with fire, ushering in the new and everlasting age, wherein all things in heaven and on earth shall be made one in Christ, our head.

Jesus preached that same kingdom in the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. The sermon on the mount is utterly impossible to understand apart from a proper understanding and consideration of that kingdom. Within the sermon on the mount, we see that Jesus made the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom very sharp. Christ made that preaching very sharp over against the scribes and Pharisees. At that point in Jesus’ ministry, many followed him. The crowds went back as far as the eye could see, and among them were undoubtedly the religious leaders and officebearers of Jesus’ day.

As I have mentioned previously, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had their own kingdom-doctrine. The kingdom-doctrine of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day was entirely transfixed on the outward appearance. It mattered very little what a man did in his private life or what a man felt in his heart toward another man. It mattered very much what men said about another man and how men judged. It mattered very little how God judged a man or woman. And you must understand that this lie is very popular today, not merely among the world of the ungodly but also in the church world. It matters very little what a man believes in his heart concerning the truth. It matters very little how a man lives his life as long as he is well-spoken of by other men.

When Jesus preached the beatitudes, he gave all glory to God and none to man. For when God blesses someone, then God declares a judgment about that one that he is righteous in God’s sight and therefore worthy of everlasting life and of every spiritual blessing. And what God judges is the heart. God judges the heart. A man might be able to appear blameless and pure before the eyes of other men; but if in his heart he is corrupt, then God curses that man. Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Cursed are those who wash the outside of the cup but who on the inside are full of vileness. Cursed are those who are as white-washed sepulchers, who appear clean on the outside but whose hearts are full of dead men’s bones. Blessed are the pure in heart.

Who They Are

When Jesus declared the blessedness of the pure in heart, then he tore away all of man’s outward deeds and outward appearances and got to the very essence of who a man is. That is how the word heart is used most often in scripture. A man is not first what he does. A man is not how he presents himself before the prying eyes of other men. A man is who he is according to his heart. Out of the heart are all the issues of life; and out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. As a man’s heart is, so is that man. The heart, therefore, is man’s spiritual and ethical center. Here we may make a comparison between the heart as man’s spiritual and ethical center and the heart as that fleshly organ that pumps blood throughout the body. Just as the health of a man is wrapped up in the health of his heart, so also a man’s heart as his spiritual and ethical center is determinative for who that man is as to his essence.

The heart as man’s spiritual and ethical center is the seat of the will and emotions in man. That is why the scriptures also speak of the thoughts or motivations (intentions) of a man’s heart. Out of man’s heart, he desires, plans, purposes, and intends to perform all that he says and does.

With that understanding of the heart of man, we consider what Jesus meant when he declared the blessedness of the pure in heart. Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the pure of hands” or “Blessed are the pure of lips.” Rather, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” For something to be pure most basically means that something is unmingled or unmixed with any foreign material. When we speak of the purity of gold and precious stones, we speak of that which is undefiled by foreign contaminates and is itself one single substance, undivided and unmixed. And so, we speak of the pure in heart.

The pure in heart are not those who are judged by other men to be pure. Man can never judge another man’s heart. Man can only judge based on that which a man sees. However, that is not how God judges. When God judges, he judges the heart. The standard according to which God judges is always himself. God judges the heart and therefore also declares that the pure in heart are blessed according to his own perfect purity.

Purity in God is rooted in God’s simplicity. God is simple; that is, he is not a composition of parts. God cannot be divided into several different parts that make up God. No, God is simple. That God is simple also means that God is his perfections, and all his perfections are one in him. God is pure perfection. There is no division or conflict in God, neither is there any division in his perfections. God is pure love, grace, mercy, truth, and justice in himself. God is the only adorable one and the infinite and constant fullness of divine perfection.

What we say of God’s perfections, we must also say about God’s eternal counsel and will. God is simple. God always had his counsel with him as that which stood at the very front of his mind, as that which he beheld from all eternity as perfect in himself. Therefore, it is utterly impossible that God’s counsel could ever be divided. God does not have two wills, but God has one will. God never deviates to the right hand or to the left, but he is always perfectly consecrated to himself and to the glory of his own name.

The pure of heart therefore are those who in their hearts God judges to be pure as he himself is pure. Above all other things, that a man is pure in heart means that God is the sole desire of that heart. The pure in heart have a single eye toward God and seek his glory in everything. The pure in heart are those who possess perfect love for God and perfect love for their neighbors. As the psalmist puts it, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).

When Jesus declared the blessedness of the pure in heart, he also condemned all those who are not pure in heart. You may not misunderstand that all men by nature, you and me included, are not pure in heart. Indeed, man by nature according to his former state of rectitude in which God created him was pure in heart. Man was not always fallen. Man in the beginning possessed a heart that throbbed with love for God and was aimed at the glory and praise of God in all the works of his hands. That was man. That was part of the glory and honor that God gave to man and by which God separated man from the animals. However, man forsook that glory that God had given to him when man fell into sin.

Man by nature, according to the condemnation in Adam, is no longer pure in heart. God is not the ruler and the Lord in man’s heart, but man by nature is of his father the devil. The devil is man’s lord, and sin reigns in man’s heart. Man by nature therefore is the willing servant of sin, bound underneath sin’s terrible bondage and held in the iron grips of sin’s dreadful guilt. Man by nature has a wicked heart, deceitful above all things so much that no man can search out the depths of man’s wicked heart.

You must understand too that it belongs to the wicked heart of man by nature that he is also a deceiver. Man is very good at convincing other men that he is pure in heart. Man appears before the eyes of other men to be very pure. Man garnishes himself with many pious platitudes by which he appears before the eyes of other men to have a certain esteem for God, for his truth, and for his church. And yet, the devil reigns in man’s heart. Man is never one in his will or in his desires but always is divided. Man never seeks the glory and honor of the name of God to the exclusion of all other things, but man seeks his own glory and seeks to tear God down from his throne.

Therefore, the pure in heart are those in whom the ruling power of sin has been broken. Sin no longer reigns in their hearts. That is because God justified them as sinners. God does not justify the righteous or the godly person, but God justifies sinners. God justified them from all eternity when God appointed them to salvation in Jesus Christ and beheld them as perfectly righteous in him. God accomplished that justification at the cross of Jesus Christ when God judged Jesus Christ, the one man who was only ever pure in heart, who loved God perfectly, and who prayed always, “Not my will, but thine be done,” to be guilty for all our vile and impure hearts. At the cross Christ suffered the wrath of God, which should have fallen upon us on account of our wicked hearts and our wicked deeds, and merited perfect righteousness for us. Therefore, on the basis of the cross, God also justifies us in our hearts by faith, freeing us from the dreadful guilt of our sins and imputing to us the very righteousness of Jesus Christ, by which we are made worthy of everlasting life. Those whom God frees from the dreadful guilt of sin, God also frees from sin’s terrible bondage. The citizens of the kingdom no longer have a heart problem. They are pure in heart.

How This Is So

The citizens of the kingdom are pure in heart because God has transformed them in the very depth of their beings. The pure in heart are so because God has reached down to them by the wonder of grace in regeneration and has performed a dramatic heart surgery. The prophet Ezekiel prophesied concerning this in his prophecy of the valley of dry bones (see Ezek. 36). In regeneration God raises his people from the dead and breathes new life into them, removing their stony hearts and replacing them with hearts of flesh. Whereas formerly sin reigned and the motions of sin operated within their hearts, now God enthrones himself within their hearts and instills within those hearts new qualities and new desires. God utterly transforms those hearts, so that they hate what God hates and love what God loves.

Within those new hearts God works faith. Oh, yes, the pure in heart are the only ones who have faith. The pure in heart rest in the finished and completed work of Jesus Christ. The pure in heart rely entirely upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ for all their salvation and blessedness. The pure in heart are not those who profess faith in Christ and who also trust in themselves or in any other than Christ. All conditional theology is anathema to the pure in heart. No man can tell the pure in heart that Christ is not enough and that in order for man to be saved, there is that which man must do. Such foul and corrupt doctrine cannot proceed from someone who is pure in heart, but it is the manufactured lie of the wicked heart of man.

Then the pure in heart also mourn over their sins and turn from them daily. Only the pure in heart can do that. Only the pure in heart can truly examine themselves and confess that they by nature are conceived and born dead in trespasses and in sins. Putting aside for a moment all your imperfections and all the ways in which you fall short on account of the weakness of your faith and the sinful lusts of your flesh, if you truly love God, if you love his church and his truth, if you see your sins and more and more hate and flee from them, and if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for your salvation and cast aside all your works, then it is because God has made you pure in heart.

Their Blessedness

The pure in heart are blessed. Not all men are blessed. That any man is pure in heart is itself a blessing from God. For men and women to be pure in heart is for them to receive of the perfection of Jesus Christ, to be raised with him to newness of life, and to be made partakers of his anointing. That they are pure in heart is a gift of the grace of God by which God beautifies his people according as he has chosen them unto that glory in Jesus Christ. According to that great grace, God also crowns that gift by giving to the pure in heart this promise: “They shall see God.” They shall see God because God shall reveal himself unto them.

Here the text is not merely referring to that general revelation that is common to all men. All men from a certain outward point of view see God. They see God’s power and Godhead in all the works of his hands, so that they are left without excuse before the judgment of God. That is the only testimony that kind of revelation can give to man by nature. Wicked men too see God. They see God in the creation round about them, but they drown out the truth that may be known of God, holding it under in unrighteousness. Man saw God as he came in Jesus Christ in a form upon which man could lay his hands and handle him, thus challenging man as to what man truly thought of God. And man expressed what he thought of God when man nailed God to a tree. That is true of God’s people too by nature. That is why Christ had to die. Christ as he was the Son of God made flesh had to die so that all our hatred of God and all our vileness of heart could be forgiven.

Instead, the text is referring to an entirely different kind of sight. It is a sight that the pure in heart have now by faith. By faith the pure in heart see God in the preaching of the gospel and in the sacraments, as God lays hold on their hearts and strengthens their faith. The pure in heart see God in the light of his word. And the pure in heart desire to see God. The chief desire of the pure in heart is that they might see God. They desire to see God when God shall suddenly and at length appear in Jesus Christ in the last day, when they shall see him face to face and be made like unto him, both in body and soul.

Do you desire to see God? Put out of view now all your sins and shortcomings, which God has already forgiven in Jesus Christ. Is it true of you that you desire to see God? If so, then that can only be because God has made you pure in heart. Then you are blessed of God. Then you shall certainly see God. What a glory and day of rejoicing that will be, when God’s people shall see him face to face and know even as they are known of God. Such glory has never even entered the heart of man to conceive. Hallelujah, praise Jehovah!