Matthew 5:8

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

From Background Notes [BN] for May 26^th & 27^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

An impure heart is a divided heart, filled with conflicted loyalties and competing demands. Where will the heart turn? What will have the heart’s faithfulness? In his address, Kierkegaard explores the implications of his prayer in terms of how the heart becomes pure by willing one thing.

Judaism called Israel to holiness and to purity. Torah is full of purity laws and detailed requirements for keeping them. When Jesus speaks in this beatitude about the “pure heart” he has in mind the legacy of holiness that set Israel apart from the other nations. “Be holy, for I am holy,” Yahweh instructed His people (Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7, 26), a theme echoed in 1 Peter 1:16. Holiness, and the purity code that encouraged it, had to do with Israel maintaining its distinctive, unique, and peculiar character as the people of Yahweh. They were His people and they were to exhibit those marks that showed that they were His people. They were not to be like the other peoples, but were to shine as lights for the other nations to see what a people in covenant with Yahweh looks like. At the same time, Israel constantly ran the risk of giving up its peculiarity — its uniqueness — for something more comfortable and more acceptable. Constant reminders flow from the words of the prophets not to surrender the distinctive identity God gave Israel as His holy people. And so we have a text like this one:

I will make known my holy name among my people Israel. I will no longer let my holy name be profaned, and the nations will know that I the LORD am the Holy One in Israel (Ezekiel 39:7).

Much is at stake for God and for Israel. The nations must know that Yahweh is “the Holy One in Israel.” However, the project of God’s holiness in Israel broken down frequently, as the name of God was “profaned” through disloyalty and disobedience. Too much emphasis fell on the externals and on the details. Too much energy flowed into putting the nations down and excluding people from Israel’s national life. Impurity became a matter of washing hands frequently, tithing fastidiously, observing the Sabbath arduously, and making certain one’s life was not defiled by being around the wrong people. Many people were kept out so that only the holy people could be kept in. Little was done about Israel as a light for the nations. [BN, 11]

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