Matthew 5:
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.
It is often said that God cannot look at sin. This isn’t true, for the Bible says that the Lord looks throughout the earth, beholding the good and the evil. The Bible also says that God examines the earth, looking for those whose hearts are completely His.
Sin does not affect God, but God has a great affect on sin. Sin can’t stand before God’s presence. We get a glimpse of this in the Old Testament. God designed the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament to be a place where God could interact with His people. The Ark was placed in the holiest place in the temple, and only the High Priest could go there once a year. Even then, he had to atone for his sins through the sacrifice, go through many cleansing rituals, and be covered from head to toe with specific garments.
Now we can look back at these and see how each of these represented what Christ was going to fulfill as our final High Priest. The garments also represented that God’s righteousness covers our sins so that we can now approach God. In Isaiah, the Bible says that God covers our sins with the robe of His righteousness.
For the priest in the temple, sin was taken out of the way through the sacrifice, and he was covered with righteousness so that his sinful flesh wasn’t exposed. If anyone walked into the place of God’s holiness, it didn’t affect God. However, sin is destroyed in God’s presence, and the sinner would die.
That was how the people had to approach God in the Old Testament, but because of Christ, we have something better. God has sanctified us, made us clean through the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, and covered us with His righteousness. We receive all these promises by faith. The one who stands in faith sees God. It’s not just in heaven that we will see God, but we have the honor of seeing God daily in our lives. The more we stand in faith, the more we receive of God through faith. Everything is a gift of God – including purity and righteousness.
Just before Jesus went to the cross, He laid out the New Covenant He was bringing into the world. See John chapters 14 through 17. During this teaching, Jesus said, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” In Ephesians 5:26, the Bible says that God cleanses His people through the washing of the water through the Word of God.
In Ephesians, the topic is that the church is the Bride of Christ. In that culture, the bride was washed before her wedding as a symbol of her purity going into the marriage. Each individual in the church is washed to make them pure before God so that we can have a complete relationship without anything between us and God. The image of a pure bride is the picture God is painting of your purity before God. Just as in the ancient culture, a bride who was not pure would not be able to stand before the groom to be united, in the same sense, we cannot stand before God without purity in our heart.
The good news is that this is not dependent upon what you do, but where you place your heart. The word of God is the purifying agent in your heart – but it must be received by faith. The Bible explains this by pointing back to the Old Testament people who missed the promise of God. Look at Hebrews 4:
2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
Just as it was with them, it is with you and I. The word has the power to cleanse our hearts, but only cleanses those who hear, and receive by faith. In other words, God reveals His purpose to our hearts as we study His word, and then we must choose whether we are willing to let go of our focus on the world so we can receive His cleansing power, or whether we value this passing world more.
Those who trust in His word have the promise of being cleansed, and receive the promise, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” As we grow in purity, we also are growing into God’s work in every part of our life, and experiencing the great adventure of this amazing walk of faith.
Eddie Snipes
August 2025