Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. —Matthew 5:8
In last week’s sermon, Pastor Jamie mentioned the “beatific vision,” the immediate knowledge of God which we will experience in eternity—or more simply, “the happy sight of God.” You’ll find references to this concept at the end of Psalm 17 (vs. 15), as well as in many of the hymns and psalms we sing this week. The God Of Abraham Praise and There Is A Redeemerlook forward to a future beatific vision: “I shall behold His face,” and “When I stand in glory, I shall see His face.” The King Shall Come makes this hope explicitly eschatological, looking to the time when “Christ, our King, in beauty come and we His face shall see.” Both The Lord I Will At All Times Bless—Psalm 34 and Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus encourage us to “look up” to our Savior, finding in His face a brightness that overshadows the things of the world and causes our own faces to be radiant. Even What Wondrous Love Is This (which is closely related to the Scripture reading from 1 John 3) and God Moves In A Mysterious Way use the imagery of faces and facial expressions: the Lord is described as having both a “righteous frown” and a “smiling face.” —Henry C. Haffner