The older I get, the more I think about friends and loved ones who have gone to heaven before me. I start thinking about how great it will be to see them again. And it will be great. But as much as I want to see them, who I really want to see is Jesus.
I want to bow down before him and worship his greatness and holiness. I want to thank him in person for all he’s done for me. I want to look in his face and tell him how much I love him and hear him tell me how much he loves me.
But as I write this, it isn’t time for me to see him yet. Until then, there is plenty of work to do.
We’re looking at the Beatitudes, and in Matthew 5:8, Jesus tells us who will see God.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
What does Jesus mean by “pure”? And is he saying that I have to be pure before I can get to heaven?
Purity is what happens when our outside appearance matches what’s on the inside. You’re not pretending to be one way to those around you when on the inside you’re a different person. When people see you, they see the real you, and the real you is seeking to be holy.
Do we have to be holy before we can see heaven? Yes. Purity is required for entry into God’s presence:
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. (Psalm 24:3-4)
We must be holy before we can see Jesus:
Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)
We instinctively know that we don’t have that kind of purity. We’re far from holiness.
The only way forward is to accept that Christ has paid the penalty for your sins by his death on the cross. When you accept Christ’s forgiveness, at that moment all of your sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven, and you are declared to be righteous and holy (Hebrews 10:10, NIV). You are God’s child, and you will be his child forever.
At the moment of salvation, our eternity is secured. Positionally, we are righteous. But practically, we know we are anything but righteous. God has given us a forgiven, righteous, holy, pure heart (Ezekiel 36:26-27). And since we’ve been given a pure heart, we’re expected to live a pure life.
It isn’t enough for us to be declared holy, God says that we must be holy. That’s why Peter wrote, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), and why the author of Hebrews told us to “strive…for holiness” (Hebrews 12:14.) It’s why Paul said that Christians are to kill sin:
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)
I’m not saying we have to work and earn our way to heaven. Salvation comes only by the grace of God, and it can’t be earned or deserved. Period. Once we accept his salvation through faith, though, God calls us to live our lives as a great big thank you note for his forgiveness. He calls us to be holy.
And our holiness, our purity, without which we can never see Jesus, is also a gracious gift from God. God doesn’t just require purity, he promises it. He demands holiness from us, and then he provides it.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
…and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)
At the moment that you accepted Christ, he began a work in you to bring you to perfect holiness. The life-long process of being more and more holy is what we call “sanctification,” and it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. One day, when we enter heaven, we’ll reach the final stage of our growth, when we finally become all that God calls us to be. The word for that is “glorification,” and only then will we be able to see God, to be in his presence.
For the believer, that process of glorification has already begun.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
So God, at salvation, declares us to be holy, and then he commands us to be holy, and he provides the holiness that he requires. But does that mean that believers are just to sit around letting God work in our lives, without making any effort at all in growing in holiness? Do we just sit back, live however we want, and wait on the day when we see Jesus? Of course not. We have a role to play. The Apostle John wrote these words in his first letter:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
One day we will see Jesus as he truly is. We’ll also see ourselves as God sees us. We’ll share in his glory and be glorified (Colossians 3:4). This is the promise of God.
But John didn’t make that statement merely so we would keep our eye on the end prize. His reason for writing is ethical.
And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:3)
The more we fall in love with Christ, the more we look forward to the day when we will see him, the more we’ll want to be pure in the here and now. So we seek to kill sin in our lives because God has already forgiven our sins. We strive to be holy because he’s already making us holy. We continually ask the Holy Spirit to change us and mold us into being more and more like Jesus, because he’s promised to do just that. And what God promises to do, he does.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24-25)
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”