The Pure In Heart

   Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Psalm 24.3–4

    Heart purity is necessary if one is to ever see God. Isaiah saw God and was stricken with terror. “Woe is me, for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts (Isa. 6.5). It was then that one of the seraphim took a live coal from the altar and laid it on Isaiah’s lips, removing his iniquity and purging his sin. After this, Isaiah would write about a highway, “a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it” (Isa. 35.8). If one is to be on this road as a child of God, his heart/life must be clean/pure.

Jesus said that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness (Mk. 7.21–23). The only way to be rid of these sins is to have a pure heart. But how does one get such a heart? What Reinhold Niebuhr said is true: “Even our best good is corroded by self-centeredness and pride.” How can one as impure as we ever be pure? David had the answer. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51.10). Only God can make us clean. Men try to make themselves clean, but all they can do is to scrub or whitewash the outside. A dirty man is never made a clean man by reform from without but only be regeneration from within. Origen said that every sin puts filth upon the soul, and the Bible brands all sin as unclean. God wants His children clean. John warned that we allow no one to deceive us in this regard: “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who practices sin is of the devil” (1 Jn. 3.7–8).

To keep us clean, God has given us light through His word and cleansing through His Son’s blood. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1.7). God has opened up a fountain for sin and uncleanness (Zech. 13.1); those who come to the fount filled with blood can be cleansed.

Spiritual purity is the essential condition for fellowship with God. To that end we pray, “Wash us thoroughly from our iniquities, and cleanse us from our sins; purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow” (Isa. 1.16–18). Our sins defile us, but God in His grace cleanses and purifies us, making it possible for us to be His children.                        Kenny Chumbley