Sermon On The Mount

Blessed are the Pure in Spirit

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 04- 25

Genre:

Track: 04

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount - 04

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that our times are in Thy hands who dost all things well. Give us grace to walk day by day in the confidence of Thy government knowing our Father that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man may do unto me. We pray our Father for [unknown], Thou wouldst bless his work mightily, protect him from the enemy and give him a mighty victory in the face of the State of Texas and its humanistic leaders. We pray for the fathers in North Dakota who are on trial and for all those everywhere who face the wrath of humanistic statism. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of Thy word and grant that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

We have been studying for the past few months the Sermon on the Mount, first in a general way and now going through and concentrating on particular verses or words. This morning our subject is Matthew 5:8. Matthew 5:8.

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

Who are the pure? The pure in heart? There is one word in English for pure but there are three in the Greek New Testament. One of these words is a word related to and in fact our English word holy is derived from it. It means set apart, dedicated and the doctrine of holiness conveys very much what is meant by this Greek word hagnos. The second word for pure in the Greek means unalloyed, such as pure gold, unmixed. It has reference to an unalloyed clear cut moral character. The third word is kathoros, k-a-t-h-o-r-o-s. We have that in the English as [unknown] and it means cleansed, purged.

Now the word kathoros has reference to cleansing both physical and moral. It means the cleansing of our total beings. When our Lord sat with publicans and sinners whom the Pharisees regarded as unclean He was severely attacked. The Pharisees were most hostile and our Lord answered and said:

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.”

These verses are from Matthew 23:25-27. Now Phariseeism of course put a strong emphasis on purity in an outward sense, in a formal sense. It emphasizes, our Lord said, the appearance, the outward aspect but it did not deal with the heart of man. And our Lord makes clear that purity is a total thing, it begins within and it alters the whole of man’s life within and without. But throughout much of history purity has been seen in an outward sense, entire religions have been formed in terms of that doctrine. For example, one religion which has through the centuries placed a tremendous emphasis on purity in that sense is Shintoism. Shintoism does require a tremendous purity, many other religions like Shintoism require all kinds of cleansing, purification and rituals which stress this. There have been some cults in history that have stressed bathing to three times a day, they have included an emphasis on the brushing of the teeth that would make any dentist’s heart glad.

This has been because of their belief in purity as an outward, a physical cleansing, but total purity is what our Lord calls for, blessed are the pure in heart. The Lord sat with publicans and with sinners, with prostitutes, whom men regarded as unclean but it was because He knew that an inner cleansing was at work and again and again we have references to that as in Mark 2:13-17. Paul himself speaks of this at great length when he contrasts as in Philippians 3:3 and Colossians 2:11. The physical circumcision was the circumcision of the heart and of course this was not new, it goes back to Moses. We find Moses calling for the same thing, the circumcision of the heart, the inward cleansing in Deuteronomy 10:16 and in Deuteronomy 36. In fact the whole of the Old Testament stresses this again and again and it is foolishness to assume that only with the New Testament was suddenly an emphasis born on the inner man. Not so. We are told that this purification, this catharsis, this cleansing, is only possible for man by the blood of Jesus Christ. The clearest statement of course is in 1st John 1:7 and 9. Our Lord tells us that it is His sovereign word that cleanses us, John 15:3. He is the king and the priest, it is He who makes us clean. Forgiveness is linked to cleansing, in Hebrew 9:22. Now it is interesting we have this same concept of purity and impurity in the Old Testament in the doctrine of things clean and unclean. It is also significant that one of the great areas singled out by the Old Testament and referred to by the New of the clean and the unclean is the sexual life of man. That because the sexual sin defiles both the mind and the body and true sexual virtue cleanses the totality of one’s being.

The beatitude tells us blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. We are told first of all that all such are blessed; remember we dealt with the meaning of the word blessed. To be blessed by God goes back to the root meaning of the word blessed which means to kneel. When God blesses us He kneels down and He lifts us up, He takes us as a father takes his children so the blessing of God is His kneeling down to us. When we bless God we kneel before Him in submission, in total acceptance of His word and faithfulness thereto. So the word blessing is extremely important. Purity apart from Christ is a myth. As I indicated all religions have stressed this and they have believed that it is possible apart from God. For example, a Greek temple, the temple of [unknown] had an inscription which read ‘Let only the pure cross the threshold of the fragrant temple and no one is pure save he that has holy thoughts’. But what fallen man is pure at heart? To tell people to be pure in heart when they are unregenerate is like telling a soldier with both legs shot off to stand up and run away or to walk or to charge. It is absurd. Purity comes only when we are blessed by God and when we bless Him. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. How shall they see God? Well John speaks of this in the fourteenth chapter, verses eight and nine.

“Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”

Now through the centuries the direct vision of God has long been a quest of various religions and especially of mystics and of mysticism. This is presumptuous. The bible tells us emphatically as in Colossians 1:15 that God is invisible. Man is a creature and man is unable to comprehend God, to see God in himself but the pure in heart can see God as only a creature can, in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Lord. Hence the practical emphasis of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount again and again stresses the results, fruits, works, by their fruit shall ye know them. The vision of God therefore requires the service of God. It requires obedience. What both James and Paul say is therefore in line with what our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount: faith without works is dead. By their fruits shall ye know them. The word that sums it up is faithfulness. Faithfulness is faith in action, faith that obeys and this is what the word faith is about. We are very wrong when we reduce the word faith to mere belief, to easy believism, as though saying yes to certain ideas or doctrines or set of beliefs makes us a Christian, no. The word faith in the bible, both in the Old Testament and the New, implies a unity of life, of mind in action, of belief and of the results of that belief. So James can say ‘you say you have faith, then show me thy works’ because faith without works is dead, it is nonexistent, it is meaningless. We can never reduce faith simply to a set of beliefs important as beliefs are. When beliefs are faith they produce action.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. The pure in heart are those who submit themselves to the cleansing of the Holy Spirit, who allow their lives, their thoughts, their actions to be governed by God and in terms of that cleansing which now comes out of them is of God and His spirit. It results in a life lived in faithfulness. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that in Jesus Christ we have been cleansed, forgiven and made a new creation in Jesus Christ. Give us ever increasing faithfulness so that in all things we may show forth the fruits of righteousness, might be faithful sons and daughters of the King of Kings. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now first of all on our lesson? No questions? Well then we will meet again two weeks from today and continue our studies in the Sermon on the Mount.