And we see this concept echoed in other parts of the New Testament. Since Jesus is telling us that only those who are pure in heart now will see God, we had better try to discover what He means by “pure in heart.” As it happens, I believe that Jesus is drawing on the Old Testament for the concept of being pure in heart. There is no getting around it Jesus tells us that only those whose hearts are pure now, today, in this life, will see God, will inherit the kingdom one day. And thus, those who are “pure in heart” now will see God and His kingdom in the future. Those who mourn now will be comforted in the future. Those who are poor in spirit now will inherit the kingdom in the future. I understand each of the beatitudes to have the same structure: those whose lives today are characterized by X are the truly fortunate people because they will inherit the kingdom of God in the future. (Institutes 3.14.9)Ĭould we get around this seemingly impossible demand for purity by postponing it to the next age? Could Jesus be saying, “One day, in the kingdom of God, you will be blessed by being pure in heart, totally free from sin”? Well, no, he is almost certainly not saying that. Let the holy servant of God, I say, select from the whole course of his life the action which he deems most excellent, and let him ponder it in all its parts he will doubtless find in it something that savors of the rottenness of the flesh, since our alacrity in well-doing is never what it ought to be, but our course is always retarded by much weakness. ![]() Is anyone “pure in heart”? I could never claim that my heart has been completely “pure” in anything I have thought or done. Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
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