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

5:8 The pure in heart - The sanctified: they who love God with all their hearts. They shall see God - In all things here; hereafter in glory.

Uh, yeah...Wesley.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/23/2009 1:24:59 PM (GMT-5)

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart For they Shall See God
St. Gregory of Nyssa
 

Bodily health is a good thing, but what is truly blessed is not only to know how to keep one’s health but actually to be healthy. If someone praises health but then goes and eats food that makes him ill, what is the use to him, in his illness, of all his praise of health?

We need to look at the text we are considering in just the same way. It does not say that it is blessed to know something about the Lord God, but that it is blessed to have God within oneself. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I do not think that this is simply intended to promise a direct vision of God if one purifies one’s soul. On the other hand, perhaps the magnificence of this saying is hinting at the same thing that is said more clearly to another audience: The kingdom of God is within you. That is, we are to understand that when we have purged our souls of every illusion and every disordered affection, we will see our own beauty as an image of the divine nature.

And it seems to me that the Word of God, in these few words, was saying something like this: In you there is a certain desire to contemplate what is truly good. But when you hear that God’s majesty is exalted high above the heavens, that his glory beyond comprehension, that his beauty is beyond description, that his very nature can neither be perceived nor be understood, do not fall into despair or think you can never have the sight that you desire.

So if, by love and right living, you wash off the filth that has become stuck to your heart, the divine beauty will shine forth in you. Think of iron, which at one moment is dark and tarnished and the next, once the rust has been scraped off, shines and glistens brightly in the sun. It is the same with the inner core of man, which the Lord calls the heart. It has been in damp and foul places and is covered in patches of rust; but once the rust has been scraped off, it will recover itself and once more resemble its archetype. And so it will be good, since what resembles the good must be good itself.

Therefore, whoever looks at himself sees in himself what he desires. And whoever is pure in heart is blessed because, seeing his own purity, he sees the archetype reflected in the image. If you see the sun in a mirror then you are not looking directly at the sky, but still you are seeing the sun just as much as someone who looks directly at it. In the same way, the Lord is saying, although you do not have the strength to withstand the direct sight of the great and inaccessible light of God, if you look within yourselves once you have returned to the grace of the image that was placed in you from the beginning, you will find in yourselves all that you seek.

For to be God is to be pure, to be free from weakness and passion, to be separated from all evil. If these things are all true of you then God is within you. If your thought is kept pure from evil habits, free from passion and weakness, separated from all stain, you are blessed because your vision is sharp and clear. You are able to see what is invisible to those who have not been purified. The eyes of your soul have been cleansed of material filth and through the purity of your heart you have a clear sight of the vision of blessedness. What is that vision? It is purity, sanctity, simplicity, and other reflections of the brightness of the Divine nature. It is the sight of God.

Theoria, baby...

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/23/2009 1:24:19 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/23/2009 6:06:05 PM (GMT-5)

Tommy:  Why must a certain level of completed sanctification only make sense as a requirement to get into heaven? Why can’t I pursue godliness because it’s beautiful and because it pleases the Father?

Brandon:  I like "character conformity" by why can't we use these terms:  maturity or matruation.  This is how I've always understood UR to be in what D has said on these boards.  Punishment isn't simply for the sake of "blow by blow for wrong doing."  Maturation includes everyone.  Interestingly, I picked up John G. Stackhouse eleven year old book now in its second edition, "Can God be Trusted?" in which I was reading about this very thing.  God could have made a world in which there was no need for "moral goodness" (which is different than moral innocence) in which we would freely never sin like a situation in which it would be impossible for a loving mother to ever torture her children no matter if the whole world was at stake, she just would never be that kind of person to do that kind of thing.  So, Christians throughout the ages have looked forward to enjoying that state of moral maturity in which sin has lost its appeal and all we want or prefer is the good.  This is the same for believers as well as non-believers.

Now, we can ask why God never created us that way from the start but that might be like asking (as Stackhouse says) God to make a square circle.  It may be in the nature of things that a creature does not ENJOY THE CONDITION of moral maturity WITHOUT the maturing or without undergoing the process of moral training, conditioning or some type of purification process.  Adam and Eve in their state of innocence were as good as God wanted them to be--as good as he made them--but they had to embark, necessarily so, on a journey of moral maturation.  And this involves the ever-present possibility of moral decline.

Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 3/23/2009 6:39:11 PM (GMT-5)

You can read...... http://www.amazon.com/Light-Christian-East-Introduction-Tradition/dp/0830825940

or hear.... http://www.myocn.net/index.php/CRTL-Archives/An-Introduction-to-Eastern-Orthodoxy-for-Western-Christians.html

Luke 23:39-43 

ALL from God's Grace.  Definitely not from my efforts.  Some of y'all know how close I was to becoming an atheist a few years ago. (Biblegal, ya saved mah life.  Thanks, again. )

Thanks be to God.

*: I'm diagnosed and on medication for my ADHD now because of a very patient and knowledgeable wife!

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/24/2009 7:51:17 AM (GMT-5)

Parenthetically, D., I'm going to send you a PM with an audio of two profs from Chicago evangelical colleges: Bradley Nassif from North Park--who is Antiochian Orth. and grew up in protestant Kansas; and another guy, George Kalantzis, who is Greek and gerw up in Greece, who was born into an evangelical (NOT protestant though, as the only thing their denomination rebelled against was their own secular atheism that they thought a careful study of the Bible would confirm!) family in an Orth country and culture.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 3/24/2009 8:35:03 AM (GMT-5)