In Jesus’ day, the religious elite were obsessed with external purity, with keeping up appearances: Do all the right things, and say all the right things and it will appear as though you’ve got clean hands and a pure heart. Never mind that you’re dying on the inside and that the keeping up appearances leaves you feeling more like a fraud with every passing day. Still today, far too often religion operates according to a purity-obsessed beatitude that says, “Blessed are the posers.
Jesus also addressed it this way in Matthew 23:27-28 (MSG), "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds."
In the Greek language, hypocrite was a drama term that referred to someone playing a part. For Jesus, the religious obsession with purity had far more to do with how one would be seen by others than it did with actually seeing God.
The pure in heart are those who live an undivided life. The Hebrew word for heart, “lev”, refers not only to the heart but also to the will and the mind. The pure in heart aren’t playing a part for others. Their entire being, heart, mind, and will aches to see God and nothing else. According to the religious conventions of the day, the lepers, the sick and diseased, and the demon-possessed people sitting around Jesus didn’t stand a chance at seeing God. But having sat on that hillside with Jesus, seeing God is exactly what they had done. "Blessed are you," Jesus said. And to those who have stopped living in obedience to the perception of others, and to those who ache to see God, Jesus still announces, "Blessed are you for you will see God."
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