2 Corinthians 7:1

These verses contain a double exhortation: -

I. To make a progress in holiness, or to perfect holiness in the fear of God, Co2 7:1. This exhortation is given with most tender affection to those who were dearly beloved, and enforced by strong arguments, even the consideration of those exceedingly great and precious promises which were mentioned in the former chapter, and which the Corinthians had an interest in and a title to. The promises of God are strong inducements to sanctification, in both the branches thereof; namely, 1. The dying unto sin, or mortifying our lusts and corruptions: we must cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Sin is filthiness, and there are defilements of body and mind. There are sins of the flesh, that are committed with the body, and sins of the spirit, spiritual wickednesses; and we must cleanse ourselves from the filthiness of both, for God is to be glorified both with body and soul. 2. The living unto righteousness and holiness. If we hope God is our Father, we must endeavour to be partakers of his holiness, to be holy as he is holy, and perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. We must be still perfecting holiness, and not be contented with sincerity (which is our gospel perfection), without aiming at sinless perfection, though we shall always come short of it while we are in this world; and this we must do in the fear of God, which is the root and principle of all religion, and there is no holiness without it. Note, Faith and hope in the promises of God must not destroy our fear of God, who taketh pleasure in those that fear him and hope in his mercy.

II. To show a due regard to the ministers of the gospel: Receive us, Co2 7:2. Those who labour in the word and doctrine should be had in reputation, and be highly esteemed for their work's sake: and this would be a help to making progress in holiness. If the ministers of the gospel are thought contemptible because of their office, there is danger lest the gospel itself be contemned also. The apostle did not think it any disparagement to court the favour of the Corinthians; and, though we must flatter none, yet we must be gentle towards all. He tells them, 1. He had done nothing to forfeit their esteem and good-will, but was cautious not to do any thing to deserve their ill-will (Co2 7:2): "We have wronged no man: we have done you no harm, but always designed your good." I have coveted no man's silver, nor gold, nor apparel, said he to the elders of Ephesus, Act 20:33. "We have corrupted no man, by false doctrines or flattering speeches. We have defrauded no man; we have not sought ourselves, nor to promote our own secular interests by crafty and greedy measures, to the damage of any persons." This is an appeal like that of Samuel, 1 Sa. 12. Note, Then may ministers the more confidently expect esteem and favour from the people when they can safely appeal to them that they are guilty of nothing that deserves disesteem or displeasure. 2. He did not herein reflect upon them for want of affection to him, Co2 7:3, Co2 7:4. So tenderly and cautiously did the apostle deal with the Corinthians, among whom there were some who would be glad of any occasion to reproach him, and prejudice the minds of others against him. To prevent any insinuations against him on account of what he had said, as if he intended to charge them with wronging him, or unjust accusations of him for having wronged them, he assures them again of his great affection to them, insomuch that he could spend his last breath at Corinth, and live and die with them, if his business with other churches, and his work as an apostle (which was not to be confined to one place only), would permit him to do so. An he adds it was his great affection to them that made him use such boldness or freedom of speech towards them, and caused him to glory, or make his boast of them, in all places, and upon all occasions, being filled with comfort, and exceedingly joyful in all their tribulations.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ch. 2Co_7:1. Having therefore these promises] Literally, promises such as these (soche promeses, Tyndale and Cranmer), i.e. those that have just been mentioned.

let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness] Rather, defilement (see last note but two), sin taking the place of ‘the unclean thing’ under the law. For what is meant by defilement in the case of a Christian, see Mat_15:18-20; Mar_7:20-23, where, however, the word translated ‘defile’ means to make common, i.e. to reduce to the same condition as the rest of mankind. Here it is the stain of sin which is the predominant idea.

of the flesh and spirit] i.e. inward as well as outward. See 1Sa_16:7; Mat_12:34-35. The outward defilement is caused by sins of the flesh, or bodily part of man, the inward by those of the spirit, such as pride, unbelief, and the like.

perfecting holiness in the fear of God] Perfection, and nothing less, is to be the aim of the Christian. Cf. Mat_5:48; Rom_12:2; Col_1:22; Col_1:28; Col_4:12. With this view he is to cleanse himself daily by sincere repentance from every defilement of sin, and to watch that he offend not in like kind again. Cf. also 1Th_4:3; 1Pe_3:15. The fear of offending God (cf. ch. 2Co_5:11) is a very necessary element in the process of sanctification. “We cannot do without awe: there is no depth of character without it. Tender motives are not enough to restrain from sin.” Robertson.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_7:1

Having these promises … let us cleanse ourselves … perfecting holiness:

Having the promises of God

Under what notion have we the promises of God?

1. We have them as manifest tokens of Gods favour towards us.

2. We have them as fruits of Christs purchase.

3. They are plain and ample declarations of the good-will of God towards men, and therefore as Gods part of the covenant of grace.

4. They are a foundation of our faith, and we have them as such; and also of our hope, on these we are to build all our expectations from God; and in all temptations and trials we have them to rest our souls upon.

5. We have them as the directions and encouragements of our desires in prayer.

6. We have them as the means by which the grace of God works for our holiness and comfort, for by these we are made partakers of a Divine nature; and faith, applying these promises, is said to work by love.

7. We have the promises as the earnest and assurance of future blessedness. (Matthew Henry.)

Personal purification

I. The ground of the apostles request--Having these promises (2Co_6:16-18). Observe the gospel principle of action: it is not, Separate yourself from all uncleanness in order that you may get a right of sonship; but, Because ye are sons of God, therefore be pure. It is not, Work in order to be saved; but, Because you are saved, therefore work out your salvation. Ye are the temple of God: therefore cleanse yourself. The law says: This do, and thou shalt live. The gospel says: This do, because thou art redeemed. We all know the force of this kind of appeal. You know there are some things a soldier will not do, because he is a soldier: he is in uniform, and he cannot disgrace his corps. There are some things of which a man of high birth is incapable: he has a character to sustain. Precisely on this ground is the gospel appeal made to us.

II. The request itself. St. Paul demanded their holiness. In Jewish literalness this meant separation from external defilement, but the thing implied was inward holiness. We must keep ourselves apart, then, not only from sensual but also from spiritual defilement. The Jewish law required only the purification of the flesh; the gospel demands the purification of the spirit (Heb_9:13). There is a contamination which passes through the avenue of the senses, and sinks into the spirit. Who shall dislodge it thence? Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts. The heart--there is the evil! And now what is the remedy for this?

1. The fear of God. An awful thought! a living God, infinitely pure, is conscious of your contaminated thoughts! So the only true courage sometimes comes from fear. We cannot do without awe: there is no depth of character without it. Tender motives are not enough to restrain from sin; yet neither is awe enough.

2. The promises of God. Think of what you are--a child of God, an heir of heaven. Realise the grandeur of saintliness, and you will shrink from degrading your soul and debasing your spirit. To come down, however, from these sublime motives to simple rules--

(1) Cultivate all generous and high feelings. A base appetite may be expelled by a nobler passion; the invasion of a country has sometimes waked men from low sensuality, has roused them to deeds of self-sacrifice, and left no access for the baser passions. An honourable affection can quench low and indiscriminate vice.

(2) Seek exercise and occupation. If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps.

III. The entireness of this severance from evil--perfecting holiness. Perfection means entireness, in opposition to one-sidedness. This expression seems to be suggested by the terms flesh and spirit; for the purification of the flesh alone would not be perfect, but superficial holiness. Christian sanctification, therefore, is an entire and whole thing; it is nothing less than presenting the whole man a sacrifice to Christ. I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The Christian in various aspects

I. As possessed of most glorious privileges--Having these promises. Not promises in reversion merely, but in actual possession.

1. The promises referred to are--

(1) Divine indwelling.

(2) Divine manifestation:

(3) Divine covenanting.

(4) Divine acceptance.

(5) Divine adoption.

2. These promises are already fulfilled in our experience.

II. As labouring to be rid of obnoxious evils.

1. The matter has in it--

(1) Personality: Let us cleanse ourselves.

(2) Activity; we must continue vigorously to cleanse both body and mind.

(3) Universality: From all filthiness.

(4) Thoroughness: Of the flesh and spirit.

2. If God dwells in us, let us make the house clean for so pure a God.

3. Has the Lord entered into covenant with us that we should be His people? Does not this involve a call upon us to live as becometh godliness?

4. Are we His children? Let us not grieve our Father, but imitate Him as dear children.

III. As aiming at a most exalted position--Perfecting holiness.

1. We must set before us perfect holiness as a thing to be reached.

2. We must blame ourselves if we fall short of it.

3. We must continue in any degree of holiness which we have reached.

4. We must agonise after the perfecting of our character.

IV. As prompted by the most sacred of motives--In the fear of God. The fear of God--

1. Casts out the fear of man, and thus saves us from one prolific cause of sin.

2. Casts out the love of sin, and with the root the fruit is sure to go.

3. Works in and through love, and this is a great factor of holiness.

4. Is the root of faith, worship, obedience, and so it produces all manner of holy service.

Conclusion: See how--

1. Promises supply arguments for precepts.

2. Precepts naturally grow out of promises. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Holiness inculcated on gospel principles

1. The tender compellation by which these Corinthians are here addressed--dearly beloved. However deficient some of them were in affection for this apostle (1Co_4:14-15), and with all their faults, he retained a paternal affection for them. How careful should both ministers and people be to guard against everything that tends to impair their mutual affection.

2. The duty to which the Corinthians are here exhorted, and we together with them.

3. The manner in which the apostle urges the exhortation. He speaks not in the second person, but in the first, let us cleanse. The same exhortation that he gives to them he also takes to himself. We must recommend by our example the duties which we doctrinally inculcate.

4. The manner in which the exhortation is to be complied with, and the duty performed: in the fear of God. Not slavish fear.

5. The motive by which this exhortation is enforced: Having these promises, etc. It is the duty of public teachers in the Church to make known to their hearers both the precepts and threatenings of the law, as well as the promises of the gospel.

I. The first thing to be spoken of is the duty here enjoined. This, in general, is self-sanctification.

1. Because the law of God necessarily requires it. That law, even before sin entered into the world, prohibited every species of moral pollution, and required the utmost perfection of holiness in heart and life, in nature and practice. Through the entrance of sin God neither lost His authority to command, nor did the law of God lose its binding obligation.

2. Because, when the Holy Ghost comes to accomplish this work, He always does it in a way of stirring up the person to diligence in the duty which is incumbent upon him in this respect. Thus we are made a kind of instruments in promoting His gracious design in ourselves. In justification we are wholly passive; because, this being a judicial deed, none can be active in it but He whose prerogative it is to forgive sins. In regeneration also, which, indeed, is the beginning of sanctification, we must be passive; because we can perform none of the functions of spiritual life while we continue dead in trespasses and sins. But the moment that the principle of life is implanted the soul begins to be active; and it continues to be a co-worker with God in every part of its own sanctification. Now, sanctification consists of two parts, usually called mortification and vivication; and we must be active in both.

(1) To the duty of mortification, which is here expressed by our cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. By all sin we contract filthiness as well as guilt. The guilt of sin exposes us to condemnation and punishment; and the filth of it renders us hateful in the sight of God. This filthiness has infected every part of human nature. Both body and soul are polluted. With regard to the body, being a piece of matter, it may be thought incapable of spiritual or moral pollution. And doubtless so it would if it subsisted by itself. But, being united to a rational soul, it is a part of a human person, who is a subject of moral government; and every part of the rational person is defiled. A great part of the filthiness of our corrupt nature consists in a disposition to gratify our appetites in a manner prohibited by the law of God, and ruinous to the dearest interests of the immortal soul. With regard to the soul or rational spirit, that also is become altogether filthy. Its whole constitution is depraved, its extensive desires are all perverted, being set upon sinful and vain objects. All its faculties are depraved. Though the cleansing of the whole man from this spiritual filthiness must be a work beyond the power of any mere creature, yet there are various things incumbent upon us by which we may actively contribute to the gaining of this desirable end. To this purpose let us betake ourselves, by renewed actings of faith, to the blood of Jesus Christ, in its sanctifying as well as in its justifying efficacy. Let us carefully abstain from all those outward acts of sin by which our corruptions might be gratified. Let us earnestly pray to God for His sanctifying Spirit. Let us confidently trust in God, that, according to His promise, He will cleanse us from all our filthiness. And if we are favoured with the motions of the Holy Ghost to this effect, let us cherish them with the utmost care.

(2) We are exhorted to the duty of vivication, or living unto righteousness, here expressed by perfecting holiness. Concerning this we may observe the following things. Holiness is that perfection which is opposed to moral impurity. In Scripture it is represented as the glory of the Divine nature (Exo_15:11). Among creatures it is that which renders a rational being agreeable in the sight of God, and fit to be employed in His service. It consists not barely in freedom from spiritual filthiness, but is opposed to it, as light is opposed to darkness. Every corruption has an opposite grace. And grace does not barely consist in freedom from corruption, but includes something positive in opposition to it. Thus holiness is not only something required of us by the law of God, it is something highly ornamental to our nature. Hence we read of the beauty of holiness (Psa_29:2). This holiness is not only a thing absolutely necessary to the happiness of a rational being, but is itself a principal branch of happiness. That it is necessary to happiness is clear from various considerations. There is no happiness adequate to the desires of a rational soul without the enjoyment of God; and this can never be attained without holiness. As happiness can never be perfect without the gratification of all the persons desires, it is manifest that an unholy person never can be happy. While he continues possessed of a rational soul his desires must be infinite; nor can anything satisfy them but an infinite object. Impure desires can never find an infinite object to fix upon; for nothing unholy can be infinite. The original standard of all holiness is in the nature of God. What is conformable to that infinite nature is holy; and what is contrary to it must be impure and unholy. But as the nature of God is not perfectly understood by any creature, nor is capable of being so, it is impossible for us to judge of our holiness immediately by that standard. For this reason God has given us in His holy law a transcript of His nature adapted to our capacities; and this is the rule of all holiness to mankind. As broad as that law is, so extensive is holiness. It must reach to the inward as well as the outward man. To perfect holiness every genuine Christian will aspire. In the text we are expressly required to perfect holiness. But why require of us an impossibility? For us to perfect holiness is not only impossible by any strength of our own, but it is impossible by the help of any grace that we can expect in this world? Every argument that enforces holiness at all pleads equally for the perfection of it. The broad law of God requires it; and without it we never can be conformable to that unerring rule. It is absolutely necessary to perfect happiness; and as no man can satisfy himself with an imperfect happiness, no man can act as becomes a rational creature without aiming at perfect holiness. As much as our holiness is imperfect, so much pollution must remain about us, and it must be so far unfit for the full enjoyment of God. As our cleansing from filthiness, so, more especially, the perfecting of holiness in us must be the work of God. There are various things which you ought to do in order to your making progress in holiness. Make continual application by faith and prayer to that infinite fulness of grace and strength, that God has made to dwell in Christ, for all those supplies that are necessary to enable you to be holy. Strive to live in the constant exercise of all those graces which constitute that inward holiness of heart in which you wish to grow. The weapon that is seldom used gathers rust. Continue in the exercise of that love to God which is the principle of all practical holiness, and is therefore called the fulfilling of the holy law of God. Attend carefully and regularly upon all the ordinances of Gods worship in their appointed seasons. Frequent the society of holy persons, and maintain communion with them in holy duties. Think much of the obligations that you lie under to be holy. Of all the different species of spiritual filthiness none is more hateful to God than the filth of legality. Bear it always in mind that no holiness of yours can ever be a righteousness to answer the demands that the law of works has upon you.

II. The manner in which this duty is to be performed--In the fear of the Lord.

1. There is a slavish fear of God, such as a slave entertains of the whip in the hand of a rigorous master. Though this is not the fear mentioned in the text, it is in danger of being mistaken for it; and therefore it is proper that Christians should know something of the nature of it. It may be distinguished by the following marks. It is always the fruit of a legal principle, i.e., a disposition to seek righteousness as it were by the works of the law. It is always accompanied with a servile hope. In proportion as his fear prevails when he is under the conviction of sin, his hope preponderates when he can persuade himself that his services are regular. In proportion as he fears the punishment of his sin, he vainly hopes for happiness as a reward for his obedience. Where it reigns the person is neither affected with Gods displeasure nor the dishonour done to him by sin. He fears for himself only. In a word, it is always accompanied with torment; and the degree of torment is always in proportion to the measure of fear.

2. There is a holy filial fear that God puts into the hearts of His people when He implants every other gracious habit in the day of regeneration. It includes a holy reverence of God and a profound awe of His omniscient eye. There may be reverence where there is no fear; but this fear cannot subsist without reverence. Neither can there be due reverence to God in any person who has sin about him without a mixture of fear. It includes a holy caution and circumspection in the persons walk. Knowing how ready he is to turn aside, he examines every step of his way before he takes it, and reflects upon it after he has taken it, comparing it with the Word of God. If it is asked, What influence this fear of God may be expected to have in exciting us to sanctify and purge ourselves? we answer, much every way. Where no fear of God is all manner of wickedness is indulged in the heart, and all kinds of immorality abound in the persons life. The fear of God impresses our minds with a sense of Gods presence, which is always with us, and of His omniscient eye upon us in all that we do.

III. The argument by which this exhortation is enforced--Having therefore these promises. And here two things are to be inquired:

1. What promises are they to which the Spirit of God here refers? All the promises of the gospel are left to all that hear it. And there is no promise belonging to the covenant of grace that may not have influence to excite us to the duty here enjoined. And particularly--

(1) We have a promise of Gods gracious presence in the Church and in the hearts of believers--I will dwell in them, and walk in them, or among them, as some read it. In the literal temple there was but one particular apartment where God was peculiarly said to dwell, viz., the most holy place within the veil. But He dwells in every part of this spiritual temple, and is as really present in the heart of every Christian as He was upon the mercy-seat between the cherubim. His presence in the Church is neither inactive on His part nor unprofitable to her or to her members. He not only dwells, but walks in her, and among them. If a man sits still in any place and does nothing, His presence can be of little use. But if he walks up and down he sees everything as he passes.

(2) We have a promise that He will be our God, and we shall be His people. This imports that God will graciously bring us within the bond of that covenant by which alone He can be so related to any of mankind, bringing us into a state of union to Christ, and of favour with God through Him. That He will do all that for us, which any people expects their God to do for them; subduing our enemies, delivering us from spiritual bondage, guiding us through the wilderness of this world, and bringing us at last to possess a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By the same promise we have security that His propriety in us, as His people, shall be acknowledged both on His part and on ours; on our part by a solemn dedication of ourselves to Him, and on His part by a gracious acceptance of that dedication; for, as He will have none to be His people but such as are made willing in the day of His power, so neither could our consent make us His peculiar property without His acceptance.

(3) We have a promise that God will graciously receive us. By nature we are all unclean and hateful in the sight of God. This promise is conditionally expressed, though the others run in an absolute form. It is upon our coming out from among a wicked world, and abstaining from the practice of sin, here called touching the unclean thing, that we may hope to be graciously accepted of God. If any man, therefore, thinks that he is accepted of God, and yet indulges himself in the practice of sin, or in keeping society with sinners, or hopes to be accepted, while that continues to be the case he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him.

(4) We have a promise of being received into Gods family and made His sons and daughters. To be the people of God is much, but to be the children of God is more. Yet this honour have all His saints. Adam was the son of God, in his original estate as being created by Him, after His own image and likeness. But Christians, after having been the children of the devil in their natural estate, are created anew in Christ Jesus after the image of Him that made them.

2. What influence these promises, and others connected with them, should have in exciting us to comply with the exhortation in the text. Our having such promises left us is itself a benefit calling for such a return. The promises of men, especially of great men, are often made without any resolution to perform them. And often where there was such a resolution it is changed or forgotten. Hence the making of such promises, instead of being a benefit, proves a very great injury to those who trust in them. But none of these things can take place with God. Never did He make a promise without an unfeigned intention to perform it to all who trusted in it. Never did any change of circumstances produce a change of mind in Him. And surely our warmest gratitude is due to Him who has given us this security. We ought to be grateful for what we hope to enjoy, as well as for what we already possess. And there is no way in which we can express our gratitude to God acceptably, without endeavouring to cleanse ourselves and be holy; for there is nothing else in which He has so much pleasure. Besides, by the promises of God we are furnished with security that, if we are sincerely employed in what is here recommended, our endeavours shall be crowned with success. God has graciously promised to make you both willing and able to do what He requires of you in every other respect. He is ready to accomplish His promise. In a word, every particular promise contained in the gospel of Christ furnishes a corresponding argument for the study of holiness in both its branches. If we have a promise of Gods dwelling in us and walking among us, shall we not endeavour to prepare Him a habitation? Being infinitely holy Himself, He cannot dwell with pollution. The promise that He will be our God, and that we shall be His people includes an engagement that we shall serve Him, and live to Him as our God, and shall walk as becomes His people. This we cannot do without being holy. We are now to conclude with some application of the subject. The subject affords us much useful information. It sets before us the polluted state in which all mankind are by nature. We could have no need of cleansing if we were not defiled. From this subject it appears that the doctrine of salvation by Divine grace through faith is so far from being inimical to holiness, that it sets the necessity of it in the clearest light, and affords the most powerful motives to it. (J. Young.)

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.--

The difference between fearing God and being afraid of Him

I was afraid … and hid thy talent (Mat_25:25); Perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Co_7:8). I was afraid. Why? Because I knew thee that thou art a hard man. Then our thought of God determines the character of our emotion, and shapes and regulates our lives. Thou art a hard man … I am afraid. The emotion follows upon the conception; the terror waits upon the severity; the life takes shape from the thought. What think ye of God? The thought you make of God is the thought which makes you. That is not a matter of chance and caprice; it is a fixed law. Your thinking colours your living. If you think God hard, you will live a life of terror and gloom. If you think God effeminate, your life will be characterised by moral laxity. Mark, then, how deeply vital is the occasion when we give ideas of God to little children. We are putting into their lives germs of tremendous power. I have met with old men who in their later years have not been able to shake themselves free from the bondage of a false idea received in the days of their youth. In the days of Isaiah social life was putrid and corrupt. Men and women were passionate and licentious. Drunken carousals and luxurious indolence were the daily delight of ruler and ruled. Yet, even when life was most debased, religious worship was most observed. Their idea of God permitted and encouraged immorality in life. Such is the blasting potency of a false idea. But now what is the idea of God which begets this paralysing terror recorded in our text? The Scriptures tell us the servant had thought of God as a hard man. Was the idea a true one? No; it was a false idea. Why? Because it was only partially true, and partial truth is falsehood. Is God severe? No. Is severity an element in His character? Yes. Is a ray of light of violet colour? No. Is violet colour an element in the composition of a ray of light? Yes. God is light. You must not pick out the violet element, the darker element, the severity, the justice, and say, This is God. He is these in combination with others, and only of the resultant combination can you say, This is God. And yet that is how many people profess to know their God. They know an isolated feature, but not their God; and features, when torn from their relationship, may become repellent. Take a most beautiful face, a face in which each feature contributes to the loveliness of the whole. All the features combine to form a countenance most winning, Now lay the face on the surgeons table. Dissect it; separate its various features, Immediately each feature loses its beauty and becomes almost repulsive. It is not otherwise with spiritual dissection. Yet how many men base their religion upon a feature, and not upon a face! One of the most religious men I have ever known is also one of the gloomiest. His mind is fixed upon Gods severity and justice, and all things are regarded from their sombre and terrible side. The Bible is to him a book of terrible judgments. When I turn away from separate features and gaze upon Gods countenance as portrayed in this book, I see it wears, not a threat, but a promise; not a scowl, but a smile; not a look of hardness, but the attractive look of love. But when a man has isolated a feature of Gods countenance, and by isolation made it dark and forbidding, and then regards it as his idea of God, see what happens. It makes him afraid of God. It fills his life with terror and gloom. It paralyses his spiritual growth. All the most luscious fruits of the Spirit find no place in his life. Gods severity is an element to be mixed with the soil, to help us in resisting the vermin of sin, but is never intended to constitute the bed in which we are to rear our flowers. If your leading, uppermost thought of God is His hardness, you will grow no flowers; they will every one be scorched; you will bring nothing to fruition. Your talents will never blossom into flower or ripen into fruit. To be afraid of God means a flowerless garden, an empty orchard, a barren heart. Now turn away from this hard conception of God, with its accompanying terror, to consider a life which is full of spiritual activity and growth. Here is a man, the aged Paul, at work perfecting holiness; that is to say, he is busy consecrating everything to his Lord. He wants every little patch in his lifes soil to be used and adorned by some flower growing for his Lord. He wants no waste corners. Let us read the whole clause: Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Then is Paul afraid of God? The man of the parable was afraid of God, and so brought nothing to perfection. Paul is seeking to bring everything to perfection. Can these two attitudes be the same? Is it the same thing to be afraid of God and to fear Him? One was afraid of God because he thought Him a hard man. What was Pauls idea of God? He uses an exquisitely tender word in telling us his conception of God, the Father of Jesus! Listen to his jubilant saying: He loved me, and gave Himself for me. Was he afraid of Him? The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Why, then, to fear the Lord is not to be afraid of the Lord, but to be afraid of sin. The fear of God is the God-begotten fear of sin. Beware of any conception of God which does not create in you a fear and hatred of sin. That is the only fear which God wishes our hearts to keep. Any other fear is powerless to accomplish His will. Men may be afraid of God, and yet may love their sins; and that is not living in the fear of the Lord! Now, how can we obtain this sensitiveness which will recoil with acute fear from all sin? You remember when Peters eyes were opened to behold the foulness of sin, how he cried, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. He had seen the King in His beauty, and he felt the awfulness and the fearfulness of sin. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

Perfecting holiness

I. Our business on earth is to act with our Lord in heaven in attaining complete deliverance from sin. One great reason why many Christians come so far short of what God requires is, because they do not aim at, or care for, any eminent degree of sanctification. They are satisfied with a decent mediocrity in the service of God, and aspire to nothing more than abstinence from grosser inconsistencies. How unlike is their spirit to that of St. Paul, who, after years of earnest endeavour, is still found exclaiming, I count not myself to have apprehended, etc. If you ask an unfailing test of a true believer, it is that he is always aiming after higher attainments in the Divine life. Now what destruction is it to all such attainments to have in our minds the conclusion that it is not necessary to aspire after any very extraordinary sanctity. If one aims not high he cannot shoot high. Your attainments in holiness are proportionate to the standard you have adopted. The soul that pants not to be like God can be none of His.

II. The means of attaining it is--

1. Mutual exhortation. The Word of God speaks frequently of exhorting one another. When I am in the country, I find that my watch is apt to get very much out of the way; but when I am in the city, where there is a dial-plate on every church, all regulated by a good standard, I am reminded of the incorrectness of my time if it varies, and set it right by that of others. So Christians, where they are faithful in their intercourse, regulate themselves by the common standard of Gods Word, and help to regulate each other.

2. Faithfulness in private prayer. This is the thermometer of your souls, suspended in your closet of devotion, and as it stands so is it with you in the sight of God. Look at it by day, and see how it is between you and your God.

3. Gladness in service. We must not set about our religious duties as a sick man does about his worldly employments, without life, relish, or vigour. God loathes a lukewarm service. Do not let your devotions be like the turning of a chariot-wheel that needs oiling, betraying its every motion by a painful creaking and laboured progress; but as that which revolves on the moistened and well-polished axle, silent, swift, and with scarce an effort. Love makes all labours light.

4. Watchfulness against everything which is opposed to the smallest whisper of conscience. The finer and more perfect the instrument, the more carefully must it be kept for the work to be done with it. The heavy cleaver may be knocked about against wood and stone, but the surgeons implements must be nicely locked, where nothing shall dim their polish or blunt their edge. Conscience must not be blunted if we would have its office faithfully performed. Sensual appetites, engrossing worldliness, and especially evil tempers, indulged, will ever prevent any high attainments in holiness. All the prayer in the world would never make one eminent in holiness who habitually gives way afterwards to evil tempers. To kindle devotion in the closet, and expose it to the gusts of unhallowed tempers would be like lighting a candle in the house and carrying it out into the wind of the open air. We must shield the flame with watchfulness which we kindle by prayer. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 7:1. Having therefore these promises — Of blessings so unspeakably great and precious, encouraged by them, and in order to our obtaining their complete accomplishment; let us — By the exercise of a lively faith in them, and in God’s word in general, by fervent prayer for the purifying influences of the Divine Spirit, and by obedience to the truth, 1Pe 1:22; cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh — All irregular appetites, all outward sin; and of the spirit — All unhallowed affections, corrupt passions and tempers, and all unholy designs and desires; all inward sin; perfecting holiness — Universal, in all things; constant, at all times, and persevering to the end of our days; not resting in a mere negative religion, but aspiring after all the mind that was in Christ, a full conformity to the image of God; in the reverential, loving fear of God — Setting him always before us, in whose presence we always are, by whom all our actions are examined, and to whom our hearts lie open; and therefore, guarding against every disposition, word, and action, whereby we might grieve his Spirit, and deprive ourselves of the light of his countenance.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_6:14 to 2Co_7:1

The paragraph may be gathered up round the central figure—

The Temple of the Living God.—The Church collectively, then, is:—

I. The scene of special Divine manifestation.—

1. His manifestation makes “holy ground.” The flame which played harmless around the Bush in Horeb made a spot where, for the nonce, every man must tread with bare feet. [I.e. he is no better than the poorest or than a slave when he stands there in the presence of God; seen from God’s elevation all disparities of rank are merged in one common lowliness.] So whilst God is manifest in all His works,—in Nature to those who have eyes opened to see Him; in mankind,—for there is no need to deny, no honour done to God or the Church in denying, that God by the redemptive Gift of the Spirit, is amongst all men, of every race and religion and age; yet He is most conspicuously manifest in His choicest Work, His Church. So also a Church has no holiness unless He be in its midst, in its means of grace, in its success, in its members: all, in all. Solomon built his Palace for Jehovah, as Moses’ workmen had, long before, made the Tent; but, until God entered, and in both “dwelt amongst them,” the one was a Palace only, and not a Temple, and the other was only a tent, larger and of more costly materials than the others round it, but not the Tabernacle. [Cf. even the theory of classical heathenism (Smith, Dictionary of Antiq.): “It was necessary then for a temple to be sanctioned by the gods, whose will was ascertained by the augurs, and to be consecrated or dedicated by the will of man (pontiffs). When the sanction of the gods had not been obtained, and where the mere act of man had consecrated a place to the gods, such a place was only a sacrum, sacrarium, or sacellum.”] So, also, let there be an organisation of the most thorough and perfect, part and part closely articulated, wisely related, admirably adapted to its high purpose; let wealth, numbers, influence, all fill the Church roll; yet if there be no presence of God, there is no Church. If He be not amongst them, they are not His people. “Your house—not My—is left unto you,” was said when the material fabric was at its culmination of beauty and glory, the treasury never better filled, the ritual never better observed, the show of religiosity never greater in all the history of Israel. But no Shekinah, though a Holy of Holies was there still; no Presence, to be hid by as splendid a Veil as had ever been wrought. Pompey was amazed to find the inmost shrine empty. The world sometimes makes proof of the Church; the inquirer penetrates within, and within again; is it only to find a Most Holy without a God? Then that “Church” is no Temple of God; or is one no longer. The inquirer finds in even a half-organised Church like that of Corinth: “God is among you of a truth” (1Co_14:25).

2. This is the glory of the Church.—When Solomon substituted Temple for Tabernacle, everything was new, with one exception; everything but that was more costly and on a larger scale. The same ark was brought into the new Sanctuary from the old. Looked, perhaps, small, unsuitable, unworthy, “mean”; its art very far beneath that of the grand new shrine of Solomon’s “advanced” days. But he dared not change that. The throne of Jehovah, His mercy-seat [=“throne of grace,” with the elements of the name reversed], the testimony of His Law,—all these must be the same. The same God must own, hallow, inhabit, the new Who had in that way made the old a dwelling-place of God on earth. [As, then, the continuous connection with the same personality year after year is no small note of the identity of the body; so also, that the organisation should, age after age, be the dwelling-place (or, to change the figure, the ὄργανον) of the same God, is one of the notes of the One Church, in all the Churches, ages, creeds, lands.]

II. Separated that it may be this.—

1. Here again the Jewish idea coincided with the heathen; it was universal. In classical heathenism, e.g., the separateness was of the essential of a temple. In strictness the templum, like the Greek τέμενος, was the separated area, within which usually rose the special building that came to appropriate the name of Temple. It was, literally, marked off, as well as hallowed by rite and sacrifice, from the outside area beyond. Tabernacle and Temple in Israel had their surrounding court and open space, as well as the true shrine [the ναός of this passage] which stood in its midst. [Cf. the “bounds” set round the base of Sinai.] If God is to dwell in the midst of a people, peculiarly His own (Tit_2:14), His own purchased possession, they must “come out and be separate.”

2. Separateness is inevitable, whether we start from the requirement of the nature of God, or from the innate difference between the “sons and daughters” and the “enemies” of God (Jas_4:4). “What communion? What fellowship? What part?” It lies in the ἐκ-of ecclesia. The congregation called together, is first of all called out from the world. Singularity is not necessarily the true separateness; oddity is not certainly or invariably holiness, or a mark of it. No virtue in mere disconformity. But given the holiness, given the real heart separateness, then outward distinction, of perhaps a very marked type, is inevitable. None know it, or expect it, with a more sure instinct than do the excluded “world.” If the figure be pushed so far, as it may, and—to correspond with the facts—must often be; if, in the very Temple of the Church there be, as in the literal Temple of sacred antiquity, an outer court of inferior holiness, and an inner court, and again an inmost building, with its shrine; yet even the outer court must have its wall. It cannot be left the mere open ground, undistinguishable from the space beyond. Certainly the Church is not co-extensive with the redeemed Race. “Come out from among them.”

3. The customary code of distinctions between Christians and non-Christians, between Church and world,—not only formulated in registered membership, or in attendance at the Lord’s Table, but in amusements, books, friendships, and the like,—is no gratuitous limitation of liberty or pleasure,—which are naturally as desirable to Christians as to anybody else; it is only the orderly statement of the issue of repeated, numerous, varied experiments, and these often made by those who would not unwillingly have discovered, if it had been possible, a modus vivendi under which Church and world need not have stood so sharply apart. The things “tabooed” are only so put under ban, because often verified experiment has shown, either that they are the expressions of a heart-alienation from God, or that they minister to it; a heart which cannot be that of “sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.”

4. Particular case of this, often drawn out from 2Co_6:14 : Mixed marriages. [Obviously there are many other cases, analogous in the principle which governs them.] It is a false start in “building the house” (Psa_127:1), when a young couple stand side by side before God, to “plight their wedding troth either to other,” perfectly fitted for each other, physically, in education, in character, in social status,—perfectly, in all but the one thing. For years, perhaps, to have every taste, every interest, in common, their two wills working together in perfect harmony, the “twain one,”—until they come to the deepest interest of all; then, deeply sundered! Not a secret between them, except here. They can talk about everything else together, with the most open-hearted confidence, but on the Dearest Friendship, upon the deepest joys and sorrows, the closest interests of all, the lips of one are closed. It is a poor fulfilment of the ideal of marriage, when, as the two travel side by side on life’s journey, there is between them the deep and far-reaching cleavage which parts between the new creation and the old nature. A poor finish to the married life, when, after fifty, sixty years, during which husband and wife have lovingly lived one life, the wife, perhaps, goes forward to her part in the “inheritance incorruptible,” etc., and he, to find that he has been “treasuring up wrath against the Day of wrath.” Peter (1Pe_3:7) has a fine expression: “Heirs together of the Grace of Life,” i.e. heirs of the “Life which is life indeed” (1Ti_2:15, best reading), and which is a “grace” of God. An ideal marriage is suggested there. Husband and wife marrying with “great expectations” indeed! Jointly heirs of Life; both with Life eternal as a holy, glorious reversion. Fellow-travellers, helpers of each other’s weary footsteps. Held together by the profound common understanding which “spiritual” have with “spiritual.” An “unequally yoked” marriage usually either means “a cross” for life for the Christian—a cross of his own making, never designed for him by God—or that Christian turning back again into the world.

Some Christian business men will take no partner but a Christian, on the very intelligible ground that, since religion is to come into business, as into all else in their life, it may occur—in fact, it does—that they should on principle be divided as to the acceptance or non-acceptance of a business proposal, or as to the following up, or the turning aside from, a promising opening. In all such matters, the Christian man is accustomed to do nothing without reference to a great Adviser, Whose “advice,” once obtained, he is bound to follow. But if his partner can be told nothing of this Divine Counsellor? If all such motives and reasons seem to him amiable but unpractical “ideals,” with which he has scant patience? “What communion?” etc. Take the best specimen of the man of the world in business, and take a poor specimen of Christian,—it may be possible to show the “worldling” more admirable. But take one of the many fine samples of Christian men of business, one whose religion permeates and pervades, and has a real hold upon, every transaction with the outside world, and upon all his dealings with his employés; “yoke” him—not by any means with the worst specimen of worldly man, but—with a man of fair, or very good, business character who, however, makes no claim or attempt to “mix up religion with business”; it is inevitable, either that the Christian man must sooner or later adjust himself to the standard of his yoke-fellow, or that their relations will be strained till they both discover, “What part hath he that believeth?” etc. “Unequally yoked” in pleasure-taking will follow similar lines. More decidedly than in other cases must the word often be used in regard to this, “the unclean thing.” Novels whose motif is some irregular relation between man and woman; “irregular” being euphemistic for adultery or fornication, at least such as is condemned in the Court of the Great Judge of hearts (Mat_5:27-28). Plays whose code of morality will not bear being laid by the side of the rule of even the surface reading of the Ten Commandments, to say nothing of their deeper, searching significance, touching motive and secret thought. Places whose atmosphere and associations are notoriously unfriendly to the spiritual life; where the non-Christian does not expect to find a Christian man. Say to him: “What are you doing, reading that book,—you, a Christian?” Or, “What affinity can bring you here,—you, a Christian?” “What possible liking can you have for the atmosphere of this place?” Of no practical service to discuss or defend what “might be”; to discuss ideals of books, pleasures, places, friendships, which are simply visionary, and “in the air.” Of very much of the actual, concrete recreation (in the widest sense) of the non-Christian community, one must say to the Christian, “Come out, … be separate.” The healthy, vigorous, spiritual life will secure, will create, a definite, far-reaching separateness, befitting the “temple of God.” On no other conditions can God dwell amongst His people. The Temple must be kept for Him, and for Him alone.

III. The obligation lies on every Christian man to keep the Temple separate from sin.—There are no merely official guardians of the holiness of the Temple of God. Christ made Himself a pattern of the duty of every Christian to vindicate the holiness of Jehovah’s sanctuary. He had no official authority, to purify the Temple courts as He did. At most, it was the extraordinary, self-vindicating prerogative of a Zealot or a Prophet. But every man who is a member of the new Israel of God must regard himself as a guardian of the sanctity of Jehovah’s dwelling-place. The Temple is nothing, as distinct from its component “sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.” It has indeed a corporate holiness which each one of them must guard; but their personal holiness underlies the corporate. Unholy Christians cannot make a holy Church. Hence the illustration of the Temple passes over into that of a holy Family, whose every “son and daughter” is to be jealous for the family honour; and this again passes over in 2Co_7:1 to that of a personal “cleansing from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” The Temple in this paragraph is the actual Temple-building only. But it is noteworthy how Christ would have even the Outer Court hallowed. What He cleansed was the great marble-paved Court of the Gentiles. “Would suffer no man to carry any vessel through it” (Mar_11:16). The life of the Church, like the life of the individual Christian, has its outer court, as well as its inner and its inmost shrine. All lies within the holy precinct; all is part of the Temple; and even the outer-court life—the business-meeting, the finance, the organisation, and much more the philanthropy and social work—must be kept holy. “Separateness” is the law throughout; “no touching of the unclean” thing must be tolerated, even in these. The Church must, e.g., have clean hands when she touches money, and must handle none which would defile her. The Church, the Christian Temple, has its outer court of personal attachments. There is a Church within the Congregation. See in Act_21:28-29 a vivid illustration of a zeal which should find its higher, its highest, embodiment in the Christians to whom our paragraph appeals. They thought Paul had brought the Gentile Trophimus, not only into the Court of the Gentiles, but beyond, into the inner court reserved for Israelites. M. Clermont Ganneau some years ago found built into a door-jamb in Jerusalem one of the marble tablets which were inserted into the boundary-wall of the Court of Israel in the Temple of Herod: “LET NO MAN OF OTHER RACE ENTER HERE ON PAIN OF DEATH.” Whatever welcome into its outer court the Church may give to all who care to come thus far from the outside into a holy precinct of approach to God, she must have an inner Court of Israel. If the “unequally yoked” man may bring his partners in the yoke so far as into the outer court, they may come no farther. No heathen alliance must find lodging within the holy Temple itself (Neh_13:4-9). Every man will be a Christian Zealot for the honour and the purity of the Temple; every son of God Almighty will regard himself as charged with the care of the honour of the family for holiness; he will “cleanse himself,” lest he be the occasion of defilement or dishonour to the Temple in which he has a place. Note, that all this is put by way of exhortation, and not of obligation only. Paul reasons; God calls; He allures to separateness and holiness by gracious promises. Every man of God’s Church shall be a Solomon, to whom Jehovah will be “a Father.” [Further material on this Temple topic may be found under 1Co_3:16-17; 1Co_6:19.]

CRITICAL NOTES

2Co_7:1. Therefore.—This verse a branch broken from 2Co_6:16-18. This word is like the jagged fibres which tell of the violence, and point back to the parent stem. Having.—Observe, the evangelical generalising of the scope of, and ownership in, these Old Testament sentences (see Appended Note). Cleanse ourselves.—“Deliverance from sin, although … God’s work in us, is yet obtained by our own moral effort and our own faith. It therefore depends upon ourselves whether we are made clean.” (Beet.) Beet adds: “The aor. subj. exhorts us, not to a gradual and progressive, but to a completed, cleansing from all defilement. So Eph_4:22; Eph_4:25; Col_3:5; Col_3:8; 1Jn_1:9.” Spirit.—Observe, even the Godward, most Godlike part of our (tri-partite) nature may be “defiled.” All filthiness.—As usual in St. Paul, “all” is “All kinds, types, aspects, degrees, of,” etc. Not this or that one particular pollution. Cf. condemning “sins we have no mind to,” excusing those “we’re most inclined to.” A very subtle temptation is this moral partiality when we are cutting off our sins. [We “spare the best of the sheep and of the oxen,” etc. (1Sa_15:3; 1Sa_15:9).]

2Co_7:2. Receive.—Verbally distinct from 2Co_6:17; related in suggestion. R R.V. has “open your hearts to us”; cf. 2Co_6:11-13 and Act_20:3. See how Paul repeats Samuel’s challenge of old (1Sa_12:3) (cf. also Joh_8:46). As to these charges against Paul (perhaps not very distinctly formulated, but rather gathered from hints, and from their bearing towards Titus), see under 2Co_12:16-18. Corrupted.—Perhaps not stronger than in 1Co_3:17.

2Co_7:3.—Observe, “I” begins here in the Epistle. Ye … in our hearts. Cf. the curiously (grammatically) ambiguous sentence, Php_1:7. Stanley compares Horace: “Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.”

2Co_7:4. Boldness.—Reverts to 2Co_3:1 to 2Co_4:6, particularly 2Co_3:12. “To them he speaks without reserve strong words of warning; to others he speaks about them glowing words of joy and confidence” (Beet).

2Co_7:5.—“Observe, “even” (R.V.); the “afflictions” of “Asia,” 2Co_1:8-11—the story of which is continued up to Troas, in ii. 13—were not at an end even when he crossed over into Macedonia. No rest.—Cf. 2Co_2:13. “Rest” in the sense of the unstringing of a bow, or of the strings of a lyre; “no relief from the constant tension” (2Th_1:7). Fightings.—Human opponents, unknown to us (cf. 1Co_15:32). Fears.—One can bear anything from without, if only the heart be light; but to have fears within!

2Co_7:6-7.—Observe, the Father a Paraclete, as in 2Co_1:4 [making Paul in his turn a Paraclete to others]. Cast down.—Note (as in R.V.) an adjective—“the lowly”—not a participle. [The combination of “affliction,” “reft,” “comfort by the parousia of Titus,” recalls 2Th_1:7 again.] Observe, “while” he was telling his good news, and describing what he had seen at Corinth, the “comfort” with which Titus had left the city, was visibly renewed and intensified, to the added comfort also of Paul himself, who was already greatly cheered by the very presence of Titus with him. “Longing” for me; “Mourning” that you had grieved me, “zeal” to do my wishes.

2Co_7:8.—“Regret” (R.V.) better than “repent” (A. V.). My Epistle.—Viz. 1 Cor. (2Co_5:1-8).

2Co_7:9.—Sorrow (like joy, or like self-denial) is of no moral worth in itself; only worth anything as a means to an end,—here “to repentance,” Asceticism makes sorrow and self-mortification to be ends, of worth in themselves. Receive damage.—“Suffer loss” (R.V.); i.e. “Had their sorrow been without result, it would have been an injury, a small and under-signed one, caused to them by Paul. God designed [?] their sorrow to be a means of blessing, so that not even in the least degree they might receive injury from the Apostle.” (Beet.)

2Co_7:10.—Choose between

(1) “Repentance,” and

(2) “Salvation,” “not to be regretted” The play upon the word and thought turns the balance in favour of

(1). Observe, “the world” can share in sorrow; God cannot sorrow. Hence “the sorrow of the world”; but “sorrow according to (the mind of) God.”

2Co_7:11. “This … thing, viz., that ye sorrowed,” etc.; “carefulness” not now so good a word as “earnest care” (R.V.); “vehement desire” same word as “earnest desire” (2Co_7:7); both give way to “longing” (R.V.). “Carefulness” is expounded in the six following particulars (as in Conybeare and Howson): “What eagerness to clear yourselves from blame, what indignation (against the offender), what fear (of the wrath of God), what longing (for restoration to Paul’s approval and love), what zeal (on behalf of right and against wrong), what punishment of wrong.” Somewhat differently, Stanley draws out a “conflict of feelings”: “Self-defence (for their sin), self-accusation (against it), fear (of Paul’s arrival), longing (for it), zeal (against the offender), punishment (of his sin).” More briefly Farrar: “Self-defence and indignation against wrong, and a fear and yearning toward me, and zeal for God, and punishment of the offender.” Surely not (as some) that they had—even a majority of them—been pure all along in this matter; else his strictures were undeserved, or his informants had overstated the facts. Surely rather, approved themselves—manifestly showed themselves—to be now clear in the matter of the incestuous person.

2Co_7:12. His cause, etc.—Viz. the father of the offender (1Co_5:1). Cf. again, the many concurrent, consistent motives in chap. 2. See how one object out of many is stated so strongly as to seem the only object, and also how the conception of an object indirectly secured runs into that of an object distinctly contemplated. (Cf. Winer, Grammar, on ἵνα, Part III., § liii., 6.) Observe the change in R.V., on account of the reading which makes the first and second personal pronoun change places. For

(1) the R.V. is the recurrence of the word in 2Co_7:11; for

(2) the A. V., the greater simplicity of sense; and “unto you” is in

(2) superfluous, unless with some far-fetched idea that he desired to show to the Corinthians their truer, better selves qua their feelings toward him.

2Co_7:15.—Cf. their reception of Titus with that which Paul deprecated in the case of Timothy (1Co_16:10).

2Co_7:16. I have confidence.—Meaning not, “I trust in you,” but, “I am now entirely reassured about you.”

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_7:1

1. 2Co_7:1 really belongs by all right to the preceding chapter, and in any continuous exposition should be taken along with it. There is no Divine inspiration about the division of the Bible into chapters and verses. Indeed, there seems sometimes to have been a very sudden failure of human “inspiration” about the apportionment of the matter into such sections. 1Co_11:1 plainly belongs to chap. 10; the new paragraph before us as plainly commences at 2Co_7:2. This verse is just a summary conclusion drawn from several Old Testament promises to Solomon and to Israel, in which Paul, taught by the guiding and illuminating Spirit of God, sees promises for every man who has become a son of God by his faith in Christ Jesus,—every man of the spiritual Israel.

2. The gist of these promises is that men may be admitted into the Favour, the Family, the Fellowship, of God. “I will be their God; they … My people.” “I … their Father; they My sons and daughters.” “I will be to them an indwelling God; they shall be, soul and body, a temple for Me.” Dominion and defence on God’s side; obedience and reverence and love on man’s side. Indeed, love on both sides; fatherly on this, filial on that. Then comes the indwelling, bringing illumination, purity, and glory.

3. And as Paul remembers what these Corinthians had been, his heart is kindled and glows within him, as promise after promise rises to his view and is dictated to his amanuensis. He found them without God, almost at the farthest remove from Him of all the heathen world. Yet, “I will be their God; they shall be My people.” A few years before he had found them utterly unholy; unlike, and hateful to, a holy God. Yet here is an offer: “I will be a Father to them; they, the wretched and vile, shall be My—My—sons and daughters.” Their hearts had been the temples of indwelling devilry; they should become the shrines of indwelling Deity.

4. “Having therefore these promises,” etc. [Illustrate by the advertisements of unclaimed dividends; of articles found for which owners are wanted; the tempting lists of heirs wanted for unclaimed estates. So] shall these promises, these so great blessings, such fellowship with God, lie unapplied for, unclaimed, unappropriated? Shall the “sons of God” live beggars and in want, when all this is open, and “on offer”?

5. Only, all “filthiness of flesh and spirit must be put away.” [This link of thought lies condensed into the one word “for,” in 1Pe_1:16, where God’s holiness is the foundation reason for the holiness of His people. The “for” may be read:

(1) Vindicate your sonship; show the family likeness, the likeness to your Father. “Ye shall be, … because I am.”

(2) “Let us have fellowship. I want it; your heart needs it. But there can be none unless ye are holy “for I am holy.”

(3) “Do not force Me to withdraw from the fellowship. Put away sin, or I must. Ye shall be, … for I am,” etc.]

6. “Flesh” and “spirit” is only a quasi-popular statement of an all-inclusive range of requirement. Perhaps, if any line of division is to be traced, it will be this: There are sins which depend upon a bodily organisation for their occasion and possibility, whereas there are many forms of sin which could as easily be, and actually are, committed by devils and the disembodied spirits of the lost.]

Sorrow upon Sorrow; Comfort upon Comfort (2Co_7:2-7; 2Co_7:13-16).

I. Sorrow upon sorrow.—

1. An apostle is himself “in heaviness through manifold temptations” (Jas_1:2). No man certainly had a richer Christian life than he. No man understood more fully than Paul how “the peace of God—passing understanding—could guard the heart and the thoughts, through Christ Jesus” (Php_4:7). No man more fully accepted and embraced the truth that “All things work together for good.” Surely no man was more entirely lifted above all self-centering of life than he who said, “Neither count I my life dear unto me,” etc. (Act_20:24). Yet he is deeply “moved” by the experiences of these painful months. This Second Epistle is an itinerary, where every step of the way is connected with trouble. This Apostolic sower goes forth into the field of the world, with his seed basket of precious seed, weeping every step of the way he just now takes. Many adversaries at Ephesus; trouble there until he despaired of life (chap, i.); himself going about for weeks a man as good as sentenced to death, his life seeming to be worth no longer purchase than that of a condemned criminal; perhaps in poor health through excessive anxiety about his Corinthian Church, certainly greatly distressed about the news he has received of the condition of that Church. And now he has made for himself a new anxiety, by sending his sharp letter of rebuke and disciplinary instruction, the nature of the reception of which is a very uncertain matter indeed. His departure from Ephesus has been precipitated by the riot of Demetrius and the guild of silversmiths, though he had intended in any case soon to finish his work at Ephesus (1Co_16:8); at Troas he is so distressed about Corinth, and at not meeting Titus there with news from that city, that, restless in spirit, he cannot settle down to work, but with an anxious heart hurries across to Macedonia. And now even Macedonia is no asylum. There is no rest for his flesh there. “Fightings without, fears within.” Beset and burdened, he has almost come to the end of all strength. He is only just “not destroyed” (2Co_4:9). And to any man of sensitive honour, such suspicions or accusations as are suggested in 2Co_7:1 will not be the least heavy burden. True his own conscience does not accuse him; before God he is clear; his reputation may be left with God. Yet it were folly to attempt not to feel such charges, unwelcome addition as they are to the distresses of the time.

2. Such a sample case is serviceable as a standard of the possibilities of Christian experience, for the comfort of many distressed children of God. Distressed most of all by the fear that their “heaviness” is dishonouring to God’s grace and its keeping and sustaining power; afraid that they are grieving the Spirit of God by not so “rejoicing evermore” that, though perhaps sorrow be accumulated upon their head and heart, or though circumstances be such as to put faith and endurance to an uttermost test, or though they be alone, friendless, misunderstood by those who ought to know them and respect or love them, they are not lifted up to a level of insensibility to, of inaccessibility to, such “natural” considerations and feelings. “Ought they not to feel nothing?” they ask. Well, at any rate there was no such Stoical indifference in Paul; his was no American Indian insensibility to torture; no statuesque impassiveness, no matter what happened, blow heat, blow cold, be it sunshine or storm. Paul felt—felt keenly—with distressing, and almost killing, intensity; and showed it too. His heart hungered for human sympathy. The days seemed terribly long till Titus came! “Ought not a Christian man to be able to disregard all human opinion, whether censure or praise; to care nothing whether men understand him or not, so long as the Master smiles upon him?” At all events, Paul was no such cast-iron, machine-made man with a merely mechanical heart, to which everything was simply a matter of indifference, and which, with unaffected regularity, went rigorously on with its beating, as the man might do with his work. The possibilities of grace are unspeakably large. The peace of God might “keep” us, with a power too seldom even apprehended by the people of God. Most of them set the standard too low, and hope for too little; and they live lower than even their low standard, and on a more narrow scale than even their meagre hopes. Yet exaggerated expectations are an evil and a mischief. Grace is above nature, and lifts nature up gloriously; but it works through nature. It does not dehumanise the saint. Neither Paul, nor Paul’s Divine Master, was indifferent to pain. Nor does God expect His people not to feel. He is entirely reasonable (to use a human word) in what He expects from them. Heaviness is one thing; darkness is another. The lowliest child of God need never come into darkness. “He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness.” An apostle may be in heaviness. And no fulness of gifts or grace will, or need be expected to, exempt a man from feeling and smarting and sorrowing. [All will be bright and warm and “tight” within, yet the storm that howls around the house and thunders against the barred door and tightly closed shutters will not be a matter of indifference when its mighty force makes the very house tremble to its foundations, until more than a passing fear visits the heart of those who cheer themselves with its fire and light, lest their very shelter should after all fall about their ears. And if “fears within” seem to make it hard to keep the fire blazing and the lamp burning!] The storm will indeed not disturb the deepest depths of “the peace of God,” but its “surface” commotion may go far down. There will be a holy of holies of peace and security within a Paul, into which no foot of distressing circumstance shall ever intrude; but all the outer courts of the temple of the humanity may, for a while, be in possession of an overwhelming mob of anxious, distressing thoughts.

3. Yet there is a limit beyond which these shall not pass. [Weights may be heaped upon the strong steel spiral spring until it snaps, or at least until its elasticity is gone, and until there is no resilient power left when the pressure is removed.] “Sorrow upon sorrow,” but there is a ne plus ultra. [Cf. Php_2:27 for a beautiful case in point.] All but up to the breaking-point, but never beyond it. “My feet had well nigh slipped;” well nigh, no more. The night may darken, and darken, and darken; bad in Ephesus, no better in Troas; no relief in Macedonia. But the light comes at last; Titus comes, for one thing. There is always a daybreak to a man of God (Psa_112:4). They who wait, even “out of the depths,” watching “as they who watch for the morning,” watch for what is certain to come. An apostle, as well as many a humbler member of the great Church of Christ, may be brought, pushed, driven, to “man’s extremity.” But never beyond! As we see here.

II. Comfort upon comfort.—

1. The Lord of Paul’s life knew the limit of the endurance of His servant. He knew him no Stoic, but keenly sensitive; he saw him on the rack in his anxiety about Corinth; he understood the hungry longing for friendship, and the not unworthy desire for the favourable judgment of the Corinthians themselves (2Co_7:2). Titus came; even to have him back was comfort; Paul’s affectionate nature made him greatly dependent upon human friendships. Then Titus brought good news; the strain of these long weeks upon Paul’s spirit was off, the tension was relaxed, in a moment. In the reaction and revulsion of feeling, he is overflowing with an exuberant sense of relief, of joy about Corinth, of affection for his people there; indeed, he is proud of them! (2Co_7:3-4). Not that the surrounding “tribulation” is any less, or less real; but he is “exceeding joyful in the midst of it.” Nor is this all. Whilst Titus is telling him the good news,—how well himself had been received as representing Paul, how they “longed” to see Paul also, how deep had been the “mourning” over wrong-doing, whose aggravated evil, and their own complicity with which, they had hardly appreciated until Paul’s stern letter gave them an “outside” view of it (2Co_7:7),—his face glows whilst he “recalls” it (2Co_7:16); it gives him renewed “comfort” to remember and to tell of the “comfort” he had received at Corinth. And it is comfort—added comfort—to Paul to see Titus so gladdened. “He rejoices with him that doth rejoice” (2Co_7:12). Yet more, all his misgivings and fears about Corinth are gone. He is entirely reassured about them (2Co_7:16). Now he only wants one thing more, and “his joy will be full”: will the Corinthians not open their hearts to make him room? Love lives and makes its home in other hearts. And we may believe that the “God of all comfort” did not deny His hard-pressed servant even this.

2. “Sorrow upon sorrow; comfort upon comfort;” that is always God’s rule, and the latter half of it obtains as certainly and as universally as the former. Need and supply always are kept at the same level. There is neither sense nor faith in a pessimist view of the world or of one’s own life. And the measure of the comfort is no stinted or meagre one. “I am exceedingly joyful.” “My cup runneth over.” God’s rule for man’s dealing with man is what has first of all been His own rule in dealing with man: “Good measure, pressed down, running over” is dealt into the bosom (Luk_6:38). There is also neither sense nor grace in clinging to the memory of sorrow. “Thou shalt remember thy misery as waters that have passed away” (Job_11:16). But when the flood has subsided there is no need to nurse the sorrow of the days of inundation. Be natural. Be thankful for the comfort. [Archbishop Trench’s poem, in Appended Note, may be useful.]

3. The capacity for keen sorrow like this of Paul is the price to be paid—the penalty—of a finely made humanity. Yet they need not be envied who pass through life incapable of woe; to whom nothing seems greatly to matter. They have their price to pay too; they are incapable of the comfort upon comfort. The very avenues which permit the assault and entrance of invading pain give access also to the relieving forces which bring God’s comfort.

4. The heart full of Christ, and that loves His appearing, will catch at the suggestion of the word “parousia,” used by Paul in regard to Titus’s arrival (2Co_7:6). As Paul longed for Titus, as there are days coming when, as never till then, even in the days of sharpest, darkest tribulation, the hearts of the faithful Church shall look longingly for the coming of Jesus. [2Th_2:6-7 has the “tribulation” and the “rest” of this passage. And—it may be only a coincidence—this passage was written from Macedonia, perhaps from Thessalonica itself.] The night will have worn away until the “third watch” (Luk_12:38); the servants listen with strained eagerness for any sound of His approach. For, strangely, the sub-final times are not by any means times of faith and of favour for the Church, but of persecution and of daring blasphemy against “all that is called God or is worshipped.” Never so dark a night for the Church as that which is broken in upon by the sudden, lightning-quick (Mat_24:27), flashing, blinding glory of the Dawn of His Appearing and Presence. Sorrow upon sorrow until that moment. The few faithful ones can hardly hold their footing amidst the rushing flood of persecution and unbelief and distress. But in a moment, more welcome than Titus to the strained heart of Paul, He comes, and “God, who comforteth them that are cast down,” shall give “rest.” The crisis is then for ever past; the tension is eternally removed; the “fightings” cease; the “fears” are swallowed up in “exceeding joy.” And may a loving fancy venture to carry the parallel so far as to sketch out moments of happy, privileged intercourse, which shall repeat the joy which Paul caught from Titus’ face so full of comfort? Any hours of converse, when the face of the servants shall light up with new comfort, as they hear and see the Master’s own complacent satisfaction in the remembrance of the welcome given Him, by the few faithful ones who were waiting for Him amidst a world of unfaithful or revolted ones? This, however, is for the reverently imaginative heart, rather than for the preacher.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_7:8-12

The Purification of a Church.—This is accomplished—

I. By Paul’s disciplinary action.

II. By a thorough Church repentance.

I.

1. It was the sharp, stinging stimulant, applied not from any love of giving pain, but to arouse the sluggish Church life and Church conscience into healthier activity. Which is exactly the purpose of all the chastening of God. All pain which He now sends is disciplinary, and, if it may be, reformatory. By-and-by pain shall be—not vindictive, but—calm, righteous, simple execution of penalty and sentence, upon persistent, impenitent violators of law. Paul’s action had in it the parental pain of giving pain to those who, even in their wrong-doing, are beloved (2Co_7:8). Touchingly natural is this confession of Paul that, after his letter had been despatched he could have wished he had not despatched it. Like the heart of God [wo might say that Paul’s writing, its motive, its result, were, like the Corinthian sorrow, “after the mind of God” (κατὰ Θεόν)], in its measure did his heart yearn over Corinth. If less of pain, if words less severe, might have served the purpose, how gladly would he have taken the tenderer course, and abated his paternal sharpness! [“God loved the world” (Joh_3:16); where it should be remembered how “the world” has always an ethical colouring in John’s writings. It is not merely the human race in its entirety which God is said to have loved, but the “worldly” world, as John and Paul have taught us to speak. In its worldliness, and in its antagonism to God, He nevertheless “loved” it.] Paul loved Corinth, even when he was threatening “a rod,” and the exercise of his powers of miraculous punishment.

2. When Paul’s letter had served its immediate turn, its usefulness was not exhausted. Hear what Paul saith to Corinth; hear what Christ saith to Ephesus and the rest; and, in all this, “hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches” (Revelation 2, 3). The written Word is the admonitory, didactic, comforting, stimulant, disciplinary letter to the larger Church, of every land and of all time.

3. A conjoint motive appears. “Not for his cause,” etc. It seems narrower, personal; but it is not an unworthy one. The letter would make it “appear” clearly, even to the most perverse and factious Corinthian who said, “I am of Cephas,” that although Paul had been a long time away from them, his heart was unchanged, his interest in them had not diminished, his “care for them” was still real, and was felt as a real burden of obligation lying upon him. For he bore the obligation to care for them as “in the sight of God.” Whether they gave it recognition or not, God did. Yet he was not above desiring that it should be recognised by them also. Why not? It would be happier for his own sake if he thought that they understood his disciplinary sternness. And the letter would have a greater chance of accomplishing its object, if it were seen to come from a heart which cared for them even in the fact of writing it. [Even the most narrowly restrictive commands of God are “for our good alway” (Deu_6:24). They are proofs of His “care for us.”] Had he no thought for the wrong-doer as well as for the suffering father-in-law? Yes; but an act is never in man [it is in an animal, or in a child hardly come to a stage beyond that of mere impulse] the result of one single, direct, uncombined motive; it is, speaking in mathematical phrase, the resultant of many motives. It is, further, in the inscrutable mystery of the co-working of the two free volitions, the human and the Divine, always full of the purpose and will of God. Sometimes the one motive may, with perfect truth, be so insisted upon, that for the time it eclipses or casts out any other; or the Divinely secured result may be so fully in view, that the human motive and purpose may sink out of sight in comparison.

4. “Corporations have no conscience;” so it is said, in half pleasantry. But the Church corporate has, and a responsibility, and it may have a corporate sin in that it tolerates sin in its midst, and may fall into a corporate indifference on all moral questions. The letter of Paul, the written Word of God, stands out an objective standard of unalterable force, an abiding rebuke or an awakening cry, and an abiding witness to the care which cannot simply or indifferently look on while good is slackening in its hatred toward evil, or is itself becoming corrupted. The sharp surgery of the excising-knife which cuts off Ananias and Sapphira, is God’s care for His Church, that it should be holy, and should share and keep His own sensitiveness to sin.

II. A Church repentance—the disciplinary action of a Church upon itself.—

1. A very healthy and successful issue. The physician succeeds best when he can awaken or stimulate the recuperative force of the body. That Church life is healthiest which “cleanses itself from all filthiness” that may have gathered around its corporate life, and which indeed cannot bear persons or things that are evil (Rev_2:2). The true discipline of the Church is that which grows out of and expresses the revolt of the Church conscience against evil. [The analogy between this and personal holiness is obvious and close. The healthiest holiness is the expression of a healthy moral life; personal holiness also may need the stimulus or the rebuke from the outside.] No discipline will long survive the weakening or decay of this. Discipline, like any other legislation, cannot be carried out far in advance of public opinion. The officials of a Church are but the pre-eminent exponents of its life. They lead the Church, indeed, or should lead it; but they are of it, and their disciplinary zeal will never far outrun the disciplinary life of the whole Church. The responsibility lies, then, upon each single member of a Church, to be himself so spiritual, and to keep himself in such a holy sensitiveness to sin, that his contribution to the collective moral standard is of the very highest. Corporate holiness is co-operative personal holiness. Each member is thus the guardian of the purity of the whole. That body is safest in the presence of infection, of which each component unit is in fulness of vigour and health. Paul’s Epistle is, under God, a sharp tonic which, happily, arouses “carefulness” in this Corinthian Christian body.

2. The details of the various phrases used by Paul are given in the Critical Notes, above. The interpretation of some, as may be seen, is variously given by different readers of the Epistle. But the general drift is clear, and follows closely the lines of the repentance of an individual sinner. There is the same awakening of “earnest care,” where there has been a mortal torpor, or indeed a criminal indifference. This awakened feeling is translated into prompt and decisive action, instead of being allowed to spend itself in mere “confessions,” and in deprecations of Divine wrath; and, above all, the sorrow is “after God.” There is “a sorrow of the world.” The shame of sin before men is lamented; the sin itself before God is eclipsed by the shame; there is no real sense of sin. The consequences, rather than the evil character, of the act, are the only matter of regret. The world’s sorrow turns away from God and the very thought of Him, and may easily harden either into a more hopeless indifference than before, or into a Judas-like despair; the true, “godly” affection turns the soul, with contrition, with confession, with appeal, with hope, to God.

3. And there is a Church “salvation.” And for a Church as for the individual, there is no “salvation” where there has been no practical repentance. Joshua lay prostrate, in his grief that Israel seemed weak, and that six-and-thirty slain men of Israel lay on the steep path down from the gate of Ai. The answer of Jehovah came with startling definiteness: “Get thee up; wherefore art thou fallen upon thy face? Israel hath sinned” (Jos_7:10). There are times when it is of no use to go on confessing, or to go on praying; when the first thing is to go and seek out sin and to cut off the offender. If the Church is to be “saved,” then the self-acting discipline of a life of real, intense, corporate godliness must be vigorously at work, whether under the stimulus of a Paul or not, and making a thorough “Church repentance.”

SEPARATE HOMILIES

2Co_7:1. Promises, Purity, Perfection.

I. God’s requirement in order to fellowship.

II. Our encouragement in seeking to fulfil it.

I. “Cleanse yourselves; perfect holiness.”—Put away the sins which are in plain contradiction to God’s will; put away the sin which is in plain contradiction to His nature.

A.

1. The principle of this, and the necessity of this, are seen in earthly friendships.—Two cannot walk together unless they be so far agreed that each abstains from what he knows will offend the other. There can be no association, no bond, where each disregards the feelings of the other, and does not hesitate to offend his prejudices; and, much more, if his practice traverse some of the principles dearest to his convictions. Indeed, if the connection is to be at all close and to be lasting, there must not only be this reciprocal self-denial; there will also need to be some similarity of tastes, opinions, habits, character. The two friends must not be copies of each other. The helpfulness of friendship lies just there, that each contributes something to the character of the other. Yet there must be so much in common that neither shall have to say, “I cannot make a friend of that man. His habits and tastes and whole disposition are an offence to me.”

2. All this holds as between men and God.—Sins are the negative of His holy law; sin is the negative of the holiness of His nature. God and sin are light and darkness. To hold fast to worldly or sinful pleasures or associates, and to hope to be ranged amongst the sons and daughters; to hope to continue the prodigal life in the far country, or even to remain a swineherd and to eat the swinish husks, and yet to hope for the fulness of the complacent love of the Father and for the life of a son in the Father’s home; is impossible on the very face of it. “The friendship of the world is enmity with God” (Jas_4:4). The words came indeed from that apostle who has the reputation of being the sternest moralist of them all, but they owe nothing to the presumed character of him who writes them; they simply lift up into the higher, the spiritual, region what men feel is inevitable in all human friendships. Everything must be put away which has about it even the suspicion of sin. “Cleanse yourselves.” As he is, the gutter child would never be taken, to put him at the table, amongst the children. With all their pity for his rags and misery, there is not a father or mother who would not shrink from his dirt and rags and depravity. They would insist upon the washing, and the clothing in decent raiment; upon the giving up of the old associates, the slang, the profanity, the pilfering. Not less must be expected of God. Decent people feel such a child vulgar, disgusting; God feels, as we cannot feel, man’s sinful condition abhorrent. To feel less strongly, to abate His rigidity of requirement, would be to be untrue to Himself.

3. The human heart was designed to be a temple; but it cannot be a temple of two Gods jointly. Certainly no Christian heart can be like the private Pantheon of Alexander Severus, a temple of all the gods, including Christ. From the first moment of a man’s seeking Him, and throughout the whole course of his Christian life, God’s sine quâ non is, “All, or not at all.” [The need of all this very patent in Corinth. A city exceedingly profligate in a profligate world. Old habits too strong for many young converts. Converts they were, but the heathen husband, or wife, or friend often led them astray. Thoughtlessly or ignorantly they continued, or fell back into, old habits and practices which entangled them, and compromised great principles; some were indulging in gross sin. Between them in their impurities and complicity with idolatry, and even in their party spirit, and the holy God, there could plainly be no lasting, perfect communion.] The average world of the member of a Christian congregation is widely removed, and for the better, from that of a Corinthian convert; but there are still sins of the flesh and of the spirit to be renounced. The temptation to idolatry in its coarsest forms is gone. The temptation to impurity or gluttony or drunkenness may be slight in power or rare in occurrence, with the members of an average congregation. Yet there is vanity in personal advantages, whether original or acquired; there is the widely inclusive group of sins called in the old Evangelical dialect “softness and needless self-indulgence”; there are sins of eye and tongue. There is the heart’s idolatrous love of the creature—wife, or child, or friend—more than the Creator; there is the worship of man’s favour rather than God’s. Covetousness is a sin far more seriously estimated in the New Testament—in the judgment of God—than in the customary estimate of even Christian judgment; it is utterly unlike that God Who is always giving, Who spared not His costliest, His very Only-begotten, for those who could give Him in return nothing which was not first His gift. There is pride, of all sins the most of the very nature of the devil; and anger; and uncharitableness; and indolence,—all “sins of the spirit” alone. These things, and the like, are defilements of the temple. If the heart be unwilling that these should be cleansed away, then the Holy God cannot consent to enter. If His house has once been “emptied, swept, and garnished,” but these things are again being suffered, or perhaps encouraged, to accumulate, He cannot long remain, or fulfil such promises as are here.

4. “Cleanse yourselves!”—“I cannot.” True, and not true. No native power is in any man, to put away sin; but in all men is something of grace, to work along with, and to work upon. Is the will by grace set upon the cleansing? Then the words mean: “Use the appointed means of cleansing; the fountain is open for sin and for uncleanness.” If the man lying helpless by the side of the pool, desires to plunge in and be healed, then he has a gracious Helper near at hand to enable him. If God has awakened the will, He enables that will. He lays commands upon dead souls, and bids them “Arise,” and “Come forth”; and with the word there goes life to obey. He must give, and does give, the will and the means to cleanse; His grace is in the resolving, and praying, and struggling, and lifelong watchfulness, and self-denial, and self-discipline. But a responsibility for all these is still upon men themselves. “Cleanse yourselves.”

B. This is only the negative requirement. There is a positive one. “Perfecting holiness.”—

1. The gutter child not only consents to, and assists in, the stripping off of the old clothes, and the laying aside of the old street habits and talk and play and friendships, if he is to be adopted even into the service of the kitchen, and much more into the sonship of the drawing-room, but more is required of him. If he is to be a friend or a son, if there is to be any real communion between him and his adoptive parents, then day after day he must cultivate his mind, at least up to their standard; he must submit to, and co-operate in, a training of manners and habits; he must study the ways of those about him, until he loses all the low, mean mind of the street Arab, and becomes so thoroughly one of the new circle, that his very instincts are theirs. He must aim at copying the very mind of those who have made him their son.

2. Paul brings out man’s part in the sanctification of life. In the progress of a Christian man’s sanctification are two closely related, but perfectly distinct, elements—the creation of holiness, and the cultivation of holiness. The first God alone can effect; in the second man works together with God [though never without Him] under His guidance and relying on His help. The plant is not created full-grown. God never creates at a stroke the result of growth of character. He creates the seed in nature; He puts into it the inscrutably mysterious thing, Life. He creates what man must cultivate. Man must clear away weeds and give full play to all the genial influences of air and sun and rain upon the soil; man must guard the growing seed from injury, and must feed the plant, till it expand into full beauty of flower and fruit. The work of moral renewal is all wrought on the lines of the ordinary, natural laws of mind. To shed abroad in our hearts a sense of His love to us (Rom_5:5) is directly and alone His. It is in accordance with the most ordinary and natural “law” that this should call forth in us an answering love to Himself (1Jn_4:19). Only He can create the sense of His love to us. But the answering love which “naturally” springs up within us, is the seed-motive, and the seed-power, out of which may grow all the many-sided holiness of principle and of practice. It is man’s business, then, to tend and cultivate this new and precious germ. He must pray for “the fruitful rain from heaven”; he must cleanse away all the choking weeds of habit or practice which, as matter of experiment or observation or instruction, he learns, do actually hinder the growth of this germ-like love, and help to keep his holiness a dwarfed and stunted thing. He must do his part to get a “perfected” plant.

3. God’s creation of love, and of perfected love, may be the work of a moment.—The gracious communication of the fact of His own, and man’s answering, grateful, love, may be a graciously “short work,” in most perfect accord with the normal working of mind and heart. Man’s cultivation of this love and its fruit will fill a lifetime. One of the earliest and most bitter lessons of a soul, full of its “first love” and striving to live like Christ the pattern, is to find that it is full of things which hinder the attainment of even its own standard of a holy life. The painter tries to copy the Face he loves, but at first has not the perfect mastery of brush and materials and technique, and he cannot embody upon the canvas what in his awakened artist mind he sees clearly enough. And when by-and-by artistic skill is perfected, and he can at once put upon the canvas all he sees, he will not stop there. No; his perception will grow finer; every day he will see more to see; he will find more in his Face—more beauty, new lines of character; there is no reason why he should not go on growing artistically, and go on “perfecting” incessantly the transcript of what he understands with ever more “perfect” insight, and with ever “perfecting” skill can fix in permanent record. So there are many “perfect” stages in this “perfecting” of holiness; there is no ne plus ultra stage of “perfection.” When full consecration on man’s part has been met by full acceptance on God’s part, and “a perfected love” has been given and awakened which “casta out fear” and the very principle of sin (1Jn_4:18), the work is not by any means done. The man has got rid of all within that hindered the copying of the Divine Pattern; the power is coming, has come, to put into life all he sees in his Bible and his Christ. But every day will still have its external hindrances; every day, moreover, will bring new insight into duty, new sensibility of conscience to sin, new views of God’s will. And all these new discoveries must be put in; “perfecting” in the practical living what in germ God “perfected” in principle in the heart. It is one stage of “perfection” when the plant no longer grows a dwarfed and stunted thing, but healthy, symmetrical, beautiful, not a thwarted growth about it. There is still open an ever perfecting perfection year after year, of larger growth and more abundant fruitfulness; “your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Rom_6:22). The adopted gutter lad’s new life will from the first spring out of his abounding grateful love to his new parent. So long as the old life has any charm for him, it will be hard work to bring himself to the new, though the love of his benefactor will be a perpetually operative force and assistance. Yet, when the love of the old life is gone, the work is not done; the training and the educating may go on without end, though more easily than before. The “perfecting” is never done.

4. Hence learn what in this business is the place of: “In the fear of the Lord.” It would be a long time before the lad would feel the confident security of a born son; for a long time he would always remember his true origin, and the wide interval that once was between his new parents and himself. He is in their home by mere favour; unworthy conduct or disobedience might in a moment justly forfeit all. His sense of obligation would be a strong motive to obedience; and it might be an almost tremulous sense. The remembrance of the true footing on which he stands in the house, would be a check upon presumption and carelessness in fulfilling the wish of the benefactors to whom he owes so much. The little parable needs no explanation. It is the “reverence and godly fear” with which His people “serve God acceptably” (Heb_12:28). It is the fear in which they “perfect their holiness.” There is no such reverent love as “perfect love.”

II. Encouragements.—If the fear is to be the guard, and even upon occasion the spur, the promises are to be a lure. Paul does not so much feel, “If we do not cleanse ourselves, we shall have no fellowship here or hereafter,” as, “Here is an honour for sinners. Our heart should leap at the very thought of being Sons and Temples of the living God.”

1. In order to claim such promises.—We cannot claim them without seeking to cleanse ourselves.

2. Stimulated by such honour.—We cannot, like Esther, win any love or favour by putting on any finest apparel of our own. But at least we should seek to retain favour by putting on the “best robe” our Father has given us. [Cf. 1Jn_3:3; though this strictly is in view of the Coming of Christ.]

3. Staying our hearts on such promises.—“We can, then, be clean; we can, then, perfect holiness in His fear.” It is hard to think it, if men look at the world’s sin, environing so closely; if they look at the average success, or failure, of other Christian men; if they remember how inadequately all their own effort and vowing and praying and determining have ended in the past; if they see how little others, even the most successful, sometimes hope for. They despond and despair. But let them look at Him and listen to His promises. He does not bid us climb to any inaccessible height if He calls at all. Long fight? Wearisome climb? Perhaps; but He does not simply sit on high and watch: “Come on, higher yet; I will receive you!” No; but at every point

4. He gives help in obeying, in climbing, in cleansing ourselves, in perfecting holiness.—[Prodigal lad in America not only hears from his father in England, “I will receive you; come home,” but the father sends the passage money, that he may respond to the invitation.]

2Co_7:10. Sorrow, Repentance, Salvation.—A quite general maxim, interjected into, growing out of, a special discussion. One of the standing formulœ of the philosophy of religion.

I. Closely connected, but not by any means identical.—Very vital and of practical necessity to keep them distinct. Deeply stirred feeling is by no means always part of, or a preliminary to, repentance, though true repentance always begins in “godly sorrow.” Even “godly sorrow” is not “salvation.” [There has always been preached in the Christian Church an “only believe” pattern of Gospel. Very popular often, and often very useful. It cannot be, therefore, wholly a false Gospel. But it is an imperfect one. It is the exaggeration, the unbalanced presentation, of a truth. It is right, and has its strength, here. The passage from condemnation to glory is through repentance to faith, and from faith, through all holiness of heart and life, to heaven. Faith which saves, thus stands guarded on the one hand by repentance, and on the other by holiness. There is no saving faith where there has been no sense of sin; there is no saving faith where a holy life does not grow out of “believing.” But the repentance which prepares for faith does not save. The holiness which is the fruit of faith does not save. The penitent man is saved when he believes, and not till then. The holiest man living is saved as a sinner believing in Christ, and only as a believer. The real penitent may be cheered by “Only believe.” The holiest man needs cautioning, “Only by believing.” “Only believe” is no message for the man who feels no “godly sorrow”; nor for the careless, or inconsistent, man who calls himself a Christian, but who is presuming on a past faith. “Only believe” is no medicine to be dealt out indiscriminately at every stage of spiritual sickness or spiritual recovery, valuable and exactly suitable as it is at a particular point. Similarly,] without ever being formulated into a distinct and express type of theology or preaching, there is an “only repent” Gospel. The natural heart always tends to find, and claim, merit in any right doing or right feeling. It seems natural to rest and to hope in the “godly sorrow.” But it is “unto salvation,” and only “unto.” It works towards it. It leads a man towards it. It need not, and does not always, lead into it. It may, it is likely to, it is meant to, issue in his salvation; but that is all. Examine in more detail—

II. Godly sorrow.—Literally “sorrow according to God”; in contrast with the “sorrow of the world.” [Dean Vaughan suggested, at a Greek Testament lecture, me prœsente, H. J. F.,] “God-wise, God-wrought, God-ward”; after the mind of God; after the manner of God; leading towards God.

1. God’s way of looking at sin, at everything, is different from the world’s way; the standard, the standpoint, are different. God hates sin for its own sake; the world hates, is angry at, mourns over, its consequences. Accordingly “godly”—“godwise”—“sorrow” sees sin with God’s eyes, measures by His standard, learns to hate with His heart; and this, even though sin be pleasant, or pay well, or be trivial, or “done by everybody.” “Godly sorrow” makes a man grieve that he has sinned; the world, that sin has brought suffering. Even the abandonment of a sin is on different lines: this sorrow “according to” God’s mind and heart loathes sin, and leaves it because it is sin; the sorrow of the world fears hell and the penalty of holding on in an evil way, and only gives up a sin as a captain may alter his course, and turn his vessel’s head from a prize which he cannot capture, and which he may only attack or continue to pursue, to his own damage and perhaps destruction.

2. The difference begins here: it is God-wrought. Men take up some specially characterised piece of work, and say, “That is in So-and-so’s manner.” Or, “That shows the hand of a master workman.” Or, “That speaks of great wealth of resource and invention.” So, to look at a sample-case of “godly sorrow,” so widely differenced from mere sorrow at the results of sin—to note its pattern (so to speak), its depth and thoroughness and abundant measure—is to say, “That shows the hand of God. That is His characteristic method and manner.” A frivolous nature made serious; a worldling made to know the sin of mere worldliness; stolid indifference stirred to its depths with shame and fear; a hardened heart suddenly dissolving into tears of uncontrollable grief; a proud man openly bowing in confession that he is “a great sinner”; the high walls of pride of self, which have been the despair of preacher or godly friend, falling flat,—all the marvels of moral change, all the variants upon the one theme, “Repentance,” make an observer say, “Only God’s power could have done that! That sorrow is after God’s manner of working!” Tell a man the right. Will he see himself wrong? Not at all of necessity. Conscience will find fifty “refuges of lies” [i.e. refuges which are lies, and delusions to the sinner himself (Isa_28:15; Isa_28:17)], to be shelters from condemnation. The hard heart will not feel, or “fires up” at reproof. The subterfuges of conscience, the blindness and perversity of the judgment, defeat the human rebuke. Suddenly the veil is torn away which hid the man from himself. “Secret faults,” so “secret” that they eluded the notice even of the man’s own heart (Psa_19:12), are set in the condemning light of the man’s own awakened judgment. He who could not be awakened by the roughest shake or the loudest appeal, now is awake at a whisper; but it is a whisper of the voice of God’s convincing Spirit. God has done it! “That is God at work!”

3. All through, then, this sorrow is God-ward. God is working to bring the soul to Himself. It is all “God, God, God” now. “I have broken God’s law; I have sinned against God’s love. What man thinks, or will do, is nothing. What will God think?” And the prodigal, who has “come to himself,” next returns to his Father. [See this possession of the mind with the thought of God and God’s holy displeasure in Psa_51:4 : “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight!” Had he not sinned, and that grievously, against the poor murdered Uriah? Or against Bathsheba herself? For what greater sin can man do against man than to tempt him to sin, and lead him into its committal? Or against his people? For it is a grave sin against the well-being of a nation when its very rulers do evil, with all the teaching power of their position and its great influence. Yes. But the godly sorrow has brought David into God’s presence (2Co_7:11), to God’s feet. He sees God, and hears. He is face to face with God. Man sinks back, is excluded, forgotten. Bathsheba, Uriah, Israel,—these are lost sight of. God fills all the field of vision, and of David’s thought and fear. What man thinks,—that is nothing. What will God do? His sin has shut him up in a terrible isolation, a guilty soul alone with God. “Thee only!” God-ward sorrow.] He returns in some degree of hope. The “sorrow of the world” is oftener “despair.” [We may add to Vaughan’s analysis of the phrase]

4. Intensified by the worthier appreciation of God’s holiness and patience and love. Measured by these standards, sin is exceeding sinful. On the background of these it shows out the more staringly, glaringly evil. “Against Thee!” means against such love as David had received from Jehovah. But especially does

(3) approve the sorrow the genuine work of the Spirit of God. It moves God-ward in an active “repentance.” A real repentance is always “repentance towards God” (Act_21:21), just as conversion is “turning to God” (Act_26:20). [“Fruits meet for repentance;” “fruit worthy of repentance” (R.V. reading), Mat_3:8.]

III. Repentance growing out of this.—[This is not formally theological language. In the accustomed and necessary definitions of systematic theology, “Repentance” includes the “godly sorrow” in the ground it covers. But they may be distinguished.] The tree may be distinguished from the root; the root may be reckoned part of the tree. Paul’s words only distinguish between what the penitent feels and what he does. The godly sorrow is first indeed to awaken, but it runs on side by side with the doing, until it is swept away in the “joy of God’s salvation” (Psa_51:12). The deeper the sorrow the more active the doing and the undoing. The exposition by Paul of his own term, given in 2Co_7:11, is the pattern of a corporate, a Church, “repentance.” But the repentance of a Church is traced on the same lines as the repentance of a soul. All feeling, unless it is translated, and that quickly, into action, evaporates, leaving the heart less susceptible, less easily aroused, than before. The new attitude of thought and view and feeling towards sin wants making permanent, wants making the concrete habit of the life. When godly sorrow goes no further than itself, and is not crowned by the salvation which is the designed goal, it will frequently be found that it has been arrested in its growth, and has never been suffered to take shape in the activities which Paul here groups under the word “Repentance.” Penitent souls sometimes lose their godly sorrow, because they will not put away friend, or pleasure, or practice in business, which they see to be evil. The penitent, indeed, has not learned to triumph over heart sin (Rom_7:14-24); that victory belongs to the man who has found salvation. But many a soul loses even the godly sorrow, because it will not “clear” itself from this friendship; or it listens to a plea for keeping that sin; sparing, instead of “revenging upon,” itself; and, indeed, turning away from the light of the leading Spirit, from an uncomfortable misgiving that the road to which He invites, would lead to some very little welcome conclusions in the direction of putting away sin. “Not measure penitence by tears, but by grief. Grief not by sensitive trouble, but by hatred and avoidance of sin.”

IV. All this is only “preparing the way of the Lord.—Note the two sequences: “Sorrow to repentance” (2Co_7:9); “repentance to salvation” (2Co_7:10). It issued in a corporate, Church salvation, at Corinth. But the formula is general. One gracious operation in the purpose and working of God, who loves to finish His work. [On all these topics we are at the very heart of the whole business of the Gospel and of Redemption. The minute study of this Divine directory of the practice of soul-healing, and the minute study of the ever-varying phases of the one spiritual process in the ten thousand “cases” which come under the notice of the spiritual physicians, have compelled an analysis of the “plan of salvation” which, when exhibited in a bare, tabulated set of results and doctrines, is to many moods and minds very repellent. But the urgency of the proved necessity has compelled an exact analysis of the relation between repentance and faith, and between both and salvation. Paul’s formula is not, nor is intended to be, complete; he does not interject faith between repentance and salvation. [As in Act_16:31, he said nothing about “repentance.”] His analysis of the process is the dissection of the “living subject” before him in Corinth. The theologian is too often practising his dissection upon (what to him are) dead dicta of a Bible page. Indeed, a living thing is apt to die under the dissecting process. But the whole, co-ordinated teaching of the New Testament agrees with, and gives light to, and receives light from, the experience derived from an infinite variety of co-ordinated and closely studied facts, to make it clear that repentance only brings a soul to the threshold of the city of refuge, within which is “salvation.” The one step which definitely takes a sinner over the threshold and into safety is the act of faith; of penitent faith always, that lays hold of Christ. The whole penitent heart is in the faith that saves. Without, in some sense, a faith that hopes for the mercy of God, repentance is despair, and may be a foretaste of hell itself. A degree of faith in God goes hand in hand with godly sorrow. But the faith that exactly and precisely saves, is that which lays an appropriating, desperately clinging hand on Christ.]

HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS

2Co_7:10. Profitable and Unprofitable Sorrow.—

1. Paul suggests that not only had this Church sorrow done them no harm, but it had done them a service; he had done them a service in causing it (2Co_7:9). Sorrow is worth nothing in itself. Its value and its moral character are fixed by

(1) the origin, and

(2) by the issue of it. If God-wrought, and sanctified into a preliminary of salvation, it has been profitable.

2. The world’s unprofitable sorrow.—

(1) It plays only on the surface of the matter. It only understands crime. Its balances are not sensitive enough, the reagents of its spiritual chemistry are not efficient enough, to detect and appraise sin.

(2) Its thought mounts no higher than man. Shame, vexation, mortification, annoyance at discovery, are often the world’s “repentance.” It tends to make a man careful only to guard against being betrayed into such sins as are liable to be found out. Hence its standard of judgment is my personal convenience, or social convention. [“Bad form” is the unpardonable sin.]

3. The sorrow that is after God.—

(1) Sin, as sin, is the trouble. See how in the night of Jacob’s wrestling, as the struggle proceeds, Esau is lost sight of, and the one prayer is, “Tell me Thy Name.” The day breaking brings the danger; no matter, “Let the day break, let Esau come, let him slay, let him take all, I will not let Thee go unless,” etc.

(2) It measures by God’s standard, and scourges for what was not condemned at the time, or was only noted to be defended and applauded, but which now starts up, “Sin!” It is as grieved about secret, heart sins, as about overt acts, which nevertheless man might not know, or condemn if he did know.

(3) It always leads to the putting away of sin. The people cried, “Jehovah, He is the God!” “Then take the prophets of Baal; let not one escape.” The soul whose repentance is to lead to salvation, must slay every prophet of the Baal-sin which has ousted Jehovah from His place in heart and life. Many a soul’s godly sorrow evaporates, because the heart could not put away some one last thing, and simply turn to God.

4. Repentance unto salvation.—

(1) No man is saved because he repents; he is not saved unless he repents. He who excuses himself excludes himself.

(2) Repentance is the act of a poor fellow bitten by a fiery serpent in the wilderness, and fallen in his last agony with his back towards the serpent Turn him over so that his glazing eye can look and he be healed. Turning toward God in order to look to His mercy in Christ, that is repentance; just as the “look” was essentially faith. The lame man can move no step of the way to God. God meets him. His Spirit is in the very desire to meet God and to win His peace. That desire is help given by the grace of God in Christ, preparing the soul to make an effort to draw near to God. It is John Baptist coming before Christ. Not always leading up to Christ. Pointing Jesus out, “Behold the Lamb of God,” in order that the soul may go to Him and find rest. John Baptist must precede Christ. Repentance is the Old Testament stage of life, leading up to the New Testament, the Gospel, stage.

APPENDED NOTES

2Co_7:1. Notice carefully that God’s words to Israel in the wilderness and through Isaiah are promises now possessed by Christian believers. For God acts always on the same principles, and therefore His words to one man are valid for all in similar circumstances. Moreover, the Mosaic ritual and the Old Testament history are symbolic of the Christian life. God’s visible presence in the midst of Israel was an outward pattern of His spiritual presence in the hearts of Christians; and the obligations which His presence laid upon Israel [e.g. in even a matter concerning the sanitation of the camp (Deu_23:13-14)] were a pattern of those resting upon His people now. And when, through the pen of Isaiah, God called the exiles returning from the dominion of idolaters His sons and daughters, He taught plainly that in days to come He would receive as such those whom He rescued from sin. Indeed, the universality to believers of the favour of God in Gospel days makes His promise to David a promise of adoption for all believers.—Dr. Beet.

See Homiletic Analysis (2Co_7:2-7), 2Co_2:2.

“Oh, leave us to a world of sin, unrest,

And trouble, to be sad!”

I spake, and thought to weep,

A settled grief to keep,

When, lo, as day from night—

As day from out the breast of night forlorn—

So from that sorrow was that gladness born,

Even in my own despite.

Yet was not that by this

Excluded [cf. 2Co_7:4]; at the coming of that joy,

Fled not that grief, nor did that grief destroy

The newly risen bliss,—

But side by side they flow,

Two fountains flowing from one stricken heart,

And ofttimes scarcely to be known apart—

That gladness and that woe.

And both are sweet and calm

And flowers upon the banks of either blow,

Both fertilise the soil, and, where they flow,

Shed round them holy balm.

—Archbishop Trench.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

2 Corinthians

HOPE AND HOLINESS

2Co 7:1

It is often made a charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men’s religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy does not condemn them half so emphatically as their own religion does: the sharpest censure of others is not so sharp as the rebukes of the New Testament. If there is one thing which it insists upon more than another, it is that religion without morality is nothing--that the one test to which, after all, every man must submit is, what sort of character has he and how has he behaved--is he pure or foul? All high-flown pretension, all fervid emotion has at last to face the question which little children ask, ‘Was he a good man?’

The Apostle has been speaking about very high and mystical truths, about all Christians being the temple of God, about God dwelling in men, about men and women being His sons and daughters; these are the very truths on which so often fervid imaginations have built up a mystical piety that had little to do with the common rules of right and wrong. But Paul keeps true to the intensely practical purpose of his preaching and brings his heroes down to the prosaic earth with the homely common sense of this far-reaching exhortation, which he gives as the fitting conclusion for such celestial visions.

I. A Christian life should be a life of constant self-purifying.

This epistle is addressed to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the _saints_ which are in all Achaia.

Looking out over that wide region, Paul saw scattered over godless masses a little dispersed company to each of whom the sacred name of Saint applied. They had been deeply stained with the vices of their age and place, and after a black list of criminals he had had to say to them ‘such were some of you,’ and he lays his finger on the miracle that had changed them and hesitates not to say of them all, ‘But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.’

The first thing, then, that every Christian has is a cleansing which accompanies forgiveness, and however his garment may have been ‘spotted by the flesh,’ it is ‘washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.’ Strange cleansing by which black stains melt out of garments plunged in red blood! With the cleansing of forgiveness and justification comes, wherever they come, the gift of the Holy Spirit--a new life springing up within the old life, and untouched by any contact with its evils. These gifts belong universally to the initial stage of the Christian life and require for their possession only the receptiveness of faith. They admit of no co-operation of human effort, and to possess them men have only to ‘take the things that are freely given to them of God.’ But of the subsequent stages of the Christian life, the laborious and constant effort to develop and apply that free gift is as essential as, in the earliest stage, it is worse than useless. The gift received has to be wrought into the very substance of the soul, and to be wrought out in all the endless varieties of life and conduct. Christians are cleansed to begin with, but they have still daily to cleanse themselves: the leaven is hid in the three measures of meal, but ‘‘tis a life-long task till the lump be leavened,’ and no man, even though he has the life that was in Jesus within him, will grow up ‘into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ’ unless, by patient and persistent effort, he is ever pressing on to ‘the things that are before’ and daily striving to draw nearer to the prize of his high calling. We are cleansed, but we have still to cleanse ourselves.

Yet another paradox attaches to the Christian life, inasmuch as God cleanses us, but we have to cleanse ourselves. The great truth that the spirit of God in a man is the fontal source of all his goodness, and that Christ’s righteousness is given to us, is no pillow on which to rest an idle head, but should rather be a trumpet-call to effort which is thereby made certain of success. If we were left to the task of self-purifying by our own efforts we might well fling it up as impossible. It is as easy for a man to lift himself from the ground by gripping his own shoulders as it is for us to rise to greater heights of moral conduct by our own efforts; but if we can believe that God gives the impulse after purity, and the vision of what purity is, and imparts the power of attaining it, strengthening at once our dim sight and stirring our feeble desires and energising our crippled limbs, then we can ‘run with patience the race that is set before us.’

We must note the thoroughness of the cleansing which the Apostle here enjoins. What is to be got rid of is not this or that defect or vice, but ‘_all_ filthiness of flesh and spirit.’ The former, of course, refers primarily to sins of impurity which in the eyes of the Greeks of Corinth were scarcely sins at all, and the latter to a state of mind when fancy, imagination, and memory were enlisted in the service of evil. Both are rampant in our day as they were in Corinth. Much modern literature and the new gospel of ‘Art for Art’s sake’ minister to both, and every man carries in himself inclinations to either. It is no partial cleansing with which Paul would have us to be satisfied: ‘_all_’ filthiness is to be cast out. Like careful housewives who are never content to cease their scrubbing while a speck remains upon furniture, Christian men are to regard their work as unfinished as long as the least trace of the unclean thing remains in their flesh or in their spirit. The ideal may be far from being realised at any moment, but it is at the peril of the whole sincerity and peacefulness of their lives if they, in the smallest degree, lower the perfection of their ideal in deference to the imperfection of their realisation of it.

It must be abundantly clear from our own experience that any such cleansing is a very long process. No character is made, whether it be good or bad, but by a slow building up: no man becomes most wicked all at once, and no man is sanctified by a wish or at a jump. As long as men are in a world so abounding with temptation, ‘he that is washed’ will need daily to ‘wash his feet’ that have been stained in the foul ways of life, if he is to be ‘clean every whit.’

As long as the spirit is imprisoned in the body and has it for its instrument there will be need for much effort at purifying. We must be content to overcome one foe at a time, and however strong may be the pilgrim’s spirit in us, we must be content to take one step at a time, and to advance by very slow degrees. Nor is it to be forgotten that as we get nearer what we ought to be, we should be more conscious of the things in which we are not what we ought to be. The nearer we get to Jesus Christ, the more will our consciences be enlightened as to the particulars in which we are still distant from Him. A speck on a polished shield will show plain that would never have been seen on a rusty one. The saint who is nearest God will think more of his sins than the man who is furthest from him. So new work of purifying will open before us as we grow more pure, and this will last as long as life itself.

II. The Christian life is to be not merely a continual getting rid of evil, but a continual becoming good.

Paul here draws a distinction between cleansing ourselves from filthiness and perfecting holiness, and these two, though closely connected and capable of being regarded as being but the positive and negative sides of one process, are in reality different, though in practice the former is never achieved without the latter, nor the latter accomplished without the former. Holiness is more than purity; it is consecration. That is holy which is devoted to God, and a saint is one whose daily effort is to devote his whole self, in all his faculties and nature, thoughts, heart, and will, more and more, to God, and to receive into himself more and more of God.

The purifying which Paul has been enjoining will only be successful in the measure of our consecration, and the consecration will only be genuine in the measure of our purifying. Herein lies the broad and blessed distinction between the world’s morality and Christian ethics. The former fails just because it lacks the attitude towards a Person who is the very foundation of Christian morality, and changes a hard and impossible law into love. There is no more futile waste of breath than that of teachers of morality who have no message but Be good! Be good! and no motive by which to urge it but the pleasures of virtue and the disadvantages of vice, but when the vagueness of the abstract thought of goodness solidifies into a living Person and that Person makes his appeal first to our hearts and bids us love him, and then opens before us the unstained light of his own character and beseeches us to be like him, the repellent becomes attractive: the impossible becomes possible, and ‘if ye love Me keep My commandments’ becomes a constraining power and a victorious impulse in our lives.

III. The Christian life of purifying and consecration is to be animated by hope and fear.

The Apostle seems to connect hope more immediately with the cleansing, and holiness with the fear of God, but probably both hope and fear are in his mind as the double foundation on which both purity and consecration are to rest, or the double emotion which is to produce them both. These promises refer directly to the immediately preceding words, ‘I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be My sons and daughters,’ in which all the blessings which God can give or men can receive are fused together in one lustrous and all-comprehensive whole. So all the great truths of the Gospel and all the blessed emotions of sonship which can spring up in a human heart are intended to find their practical result in holy and pure living. For this end God has spoken to us out of the thick darkness; for this end Christ has come into our darkness; for this end He has lived; for this end He died; for this end He rose again; for this end He sends His Spirit and administers the providence of the world. The purpose of all the Divine activity as regards us men is not merely to make us happy, but to make us happy in order that we may be good. He whom what he calls his religion has only saved from the wrath of God and the fear of hell has not learned the alphabet of religion. Unless God’s promises evoke men’s goodness it will be of little avail that they seem to quicken their hope. Joyful confidence in our sonship is only warranted in the measure in which we are like our Father. Hope often deludes and makes men dreamy and unpractical. It generally paints pictures far lovelier than the realities, and without any of their shadows; it is too often the stimulus and ally of ignoble lives, and seldom stirs to heroism or endurance, but its many defects are not due to itself but to its false choice of objects on which to fix. The hope which is lifted from trailing along the earth and twining round creatures and which rises to grasp these promises ought to be, and in the measure of its reality is the ally of all patient endurance and noble self-sacrifice. Its vision of coming good is all directed to the coming Christ, and ‘every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is pure.’

In Paul’s experience there was no contrariety between hope set on Jesus and fear directed towards God. It is in the fear of God that holiness is to be perfected. There is a fear which has no torment. Yet more, there is no love in sons or daughters without fear. The reverential awe with which God’s children draw near to God has in it nothing slavish and no terror. Their love is not only joyful but lowly. The worshipping gaze upon His Divine majesty, the reverential and adoring contemplation of His ineffable holiness, and the poignant consciousness, after all effort, of the distance between us and Him will bow the hearts that love Him most in lowliest prostration before Him. These two, hope and fear, confidence and awe, are like the poles on which the whole round world turns and are united here in one result. They who ‘set their hope in God’ must ‘not forget the works of God but keep His commandments’; they who ‘call Him Father,’ ‘who without respect of persons judgeth’ must ‘pass the time of their sojourning here in fear,’ and their hopes and their fears must drive the wheels of life, purify them from all filthiness and perfect them in all holiness.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 7:1

Consider:—

I. That part of the exhortation which requires the destruction of evil: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." By filthiness is meant moral pollution of any kind. It denotes not exclusively or especially any particular sin, but sin as such—everything which renders the character loathsome in God’s sight. (2) The words "flesh and spirit" we understand as denoting the seat of the sin. Filthiness of the flesh we take to be sin in its outward manifestation; filthiness of the spirit, sin in its internal emotions. (3) The cleansing required extends to both. (4) The extent of the cleansing required is shown by the use of the word all. He who would taste Christianity’s joys and reap her rewards must have no favourite sins. He must cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. (5) The exhortation of the text shows us that, while God is the sanctifier of His people, there is an important sense in which we must sanctify ourselves.

II. That part of the exhortation which enjoins the cultivation of perfect holiness. Trusting in Christ for sanctification no less than for forgiveness is our first duty; for until we trust in Him and are united to Him by a living faith, no effort we may make in order to sanctify ourselves will be of any avail. The danger against which we need to be on our guard is that, instead of resting in Christ for sanctification, we should be persuading ourselves that we are sanctified, when it is only too manifest that we are resting, not in Christ, but in our own fancies about Christ—resting not for but without sanctification, and thereby jeopardising our own souls.

W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 328.

References: 2Co 7:1.—R. W. Dale, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxv., p. 81; F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 360. 2Co 7:2-8.—Ibid., p. 365. 2Co 7:4.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 265. 2Co 7:6.—S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 213; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 51. 2Co 7:9, 2Co 7:10.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 372; Ibid., Sermons, 3rd series, p. 104.

2Co 7:10

Notice:—

I. Godly sorrow: its nature and origin. (1) The nature of godly sorrow. In the immediate context it is directly contrasted with a commoner truth, the sorrow of the world. The sorrow of the world, though it seem a thick homogeneous covering over all human life, is yet made up of as many kinds as that carpet of green which covers the earth. Godly sorrow is like the rest, inasmuch as it is sorrow; it is unlike the rest, inasmuch as it springs, not out of the sufferer’s connection with earth and time, but out of his connection with God and eternity. The expression clearly intimates that the attitude of the soul must be changed ere it can be sensible of this sorrow. Away from the world, with its hopes and fears, the man must turn, and open his inmost being towards God. Godly sorrow is an affection which the carnal mind never knew. (2) Consider the cause of this sorrow: "The goodness of God leadeth to repentance." The sorrow for sin was not felt until God’s goodness aroused it; and that sorrow once aroused, instantly manifests true repentance in an eager effort to put sin away.

II. The repentance which godly sorrow produces. It is a change of mind which imparts a new direction to the whole life, as the turning of the helm changes the course of the ship. Two things are said in the text about this turning: (1) it is unto salvation; and (2) it is not to be repented of. The repentance which led unto salvation is the only repentance which the saved see in the memory of the past, and that repentance they will never repent.

W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits, p. 300.

References: 2Co 7:10.—A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, vol. ii., p. 113; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical, p. 65; H. \V. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 331; Ibid., Sermons, vol. ii., p. 31; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 287; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 122.

2Co 7:11

Marks of Godly Sorrow.

No sham work will suffice in religion. Heart work must be God’s work. He who made the heart alone can change it from its natural hardness and stubbornness into one that is broken and contrite.

I. Godly sorrow is such a sorrow as God approves of, because it brings us to see the hatefulness of sin; because it has touched the heart and brought the offender back, in penitence, to his forgiving Father. Many a wounded and agonised conscience is like a sheet of ice shivered on the pavement, and which lies there stiff and cold; but let the sun burst forth in his might, and the frozen mass is melted. So, too, true godly sorrow is accompanied by the softening influences of the Holy Spirit, and brings forth fruit meet for repentance.

II. If we have really experienced this godly sorrow, it will assuredly have wrought in us great carefulness to seek an amendment of life: we shall feel ashamed and indignant with ourselves for our past misdoings; we shall cherish a wholesome fear of relapsing into evil ways; a vehement desire for pardon and sanctifying grace; a zeal for the honour of God and for the advancement of His kingdom; and a revenge, as it were, against the sinful lusts that once caused us to offend. While Sir Christopher Wren was engaged in demolishing the ruins of old St. Paul’s, London, in order to make room for the new and grander cathedral, he used a battering-ram, with which thirty men continued to beat upon a part of the wall for a whole day. Our prayers and repentances may seem like puny agencies for overturning the strongholds of sin within us, but God can and will render them effectual in the end.

J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 143.

References: 2Co 7:11-16.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 379. 2Co 7:16.—A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, p. 229. 2Co 8:1-12.—F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 387. 2Co 8:4.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 249. 2Co 8:5.—T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross, p. 299; Outline Sermons to Children, p. 234.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:1 Paul wanted the church to be a holy people, filled with God’s presence. • because we fear God: We should be reverent in the presence of a holy God (see study note on 5:11).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 7:1. Καθαρίσωμεν, let us cleanse) This is the last part of the exhortation, set forth at 2Co 6:1, and brought out ib. 2Co 7:14. He concludes the exhortation in the first person. The antitheses are the unclean thing, 2Co 6:17, and filthiness in this passage. The same duty is derived from a similar source, 1Jn 3:3, Rev 22:11.—μολυσμοῦ, filthiness) Filthiness of the flesh, for example, fornication, and filthiness of the spirit, for example, idolatry, were closely connected among the Gentiles. Even Judaism, occupied, as it is, about the cleanness of the flesh, is now in some measure filthiness of the spirit. Holiness is opposed to the former; the fear of God, promoting holiness (comp. again 1Co 10:22) to the latter.—πνεύματος, of spirit) Comp. Psa 32:2; Psa 78:8.—ἐπιτελοῦντες, perfecting) even to the end. It is not enough to begin; it is the end that crowns the work. The antitheses are ἄρχομαι, ἐπιτελέω, I begin, I finish, ch. 2Co 8:6; 2Co 8:10-11; Gal 3:3; Php 1:6.—ἁγιωσύνην, holiness) corresponds to be ye separated, ch. 2Co 6:17.—ἐν, in) he does not say, and [perfecting] the fear. Fear is a holy affection, which is not perfected by our efforts, but is merely retained. [The pure fear of GOD is conjoined with the consideration of the most magnificent promises, ch. 2Co 5:11; Heb 4:1.—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_7:1 closes the previous section.

Since we accordingly (according to 2Co_6:16-18) have these promises (namely, that God will dwell among us, receive us, be our Father, etc.), we wish not to make them null in our case by an immoral lif.

ταύτας] placed at the head, bears the emphasis of the importance of the promise.

καθαρίσωμεν ἑαυτούς] denotes the morally purifying activity, which the Christian has to exert on himself, not simply the keeping himself pure (Olshausen). He who has become a Christian has by his faith doubtless attained forgiveness of his previous sins (Rom_3:23-25), is reconciled with God and sanctified (comp. 2Co_5:19 ff., and see on Act_15:9); but Paul refers here to the moral stains incurred in the Christian condition, which the state of grace of the regenerate (1Pe_1:22 f.) as much obliges him to do away with again in reference to himself (Rom_6:1 ff; Rom_8:12 ff.), as by the power of God (Php_2:12-13) it makes him capable of doing so (Rom_6:14; Rom_8:9). And no one forms an exception in this respect; hence Paul includes himself, with true moral feeling of this need placing himself on an equality with his reader.

σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος] The Christian is in the flesh, i.e. in the material-psychical part of his nature, stained by fornication, intemperance, and such transgressions and vices as directly pollute the body (which ought to be holy, 1Co_6:13 ff; 1Co_7:34); and his spirit, i.e. the substratum of his rational and moral consciousness, the seat of the operation of the Divine Spirit in him and therewith the bearer of his higher and eternal life (1Co_2:11; 1Co_5:3; Rom_8:16), is stained by immoral thoughts, desires, etc., which are suggested to him by means of the power of sin in the flesh, and through which the spirit along with the νοῦς is sinfully affected, becomes weak and bound, and enslaved to sin (comp. on Rom_12:2; Eph_4:23). The two do not exclude, but include each other. Observe, further, that Paul might have used σώματος instead of σαρκός; but he puts σαρκός, because the flesh, in which the principle of sin has its seat and hence the fomes peccati lies, serves as the element to which every bodily defilement ethically attaches itself. This is based on the natural relation of the σάρξ to the power of sin, for which reason it is never demanded that the σάρξ shall be or become holy, but that the body (1Co_7:34) shall be holy through the crucifixion of the flesh, through putting off the old man, etc. (Col_2:11). By these means the Christian no longer lives ἐν σαρκί (Rom_8:8 f.) and κατὰ σάρκα, and is purified from everything wherewith the flesh is soiled; comp. 1Th_5:23; Rom_8:13; Rom_12:1. The surprising character of the expression, to which Holsten especially takes objection (see z. Evang. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 387), is disposed of by the very consideration that Paul is speaking of the regenerate; in their case the lusts of the σάρξ in fact remain, and the σάρξ is defiled, if their lusts are actually gratified. Calovius, we may add, rightly observes: ex illatione etiam apostolica a promissionibus gratiae ad studium novae obedientiae manifestum est, doctrinam apostolicam de gratuita nostri justificatione et in filios adoptione non labefactare pietatis et sanctitatis studium, sed ad illud excitare atque ad obedientiam Deo praestandam calcar addere.

On μολυσμός, comp. Jer_23:15; Jeremiah 3 Esdr. 8:83; 2Ma_5:27; Plut. Mor. p. 779 C.

ἐπιτελοῦντες ἁγιωσύνην] This is the positive activity of the καθαρίζειν ἑαντούς: while we bring holiness to perfection (2Co_8:6) in the fear of God. To establish complete holiness in himself is the continual moral endeavour[254] and work of the Christian purifying himself. Comp. Rom_6:22.

ἐν φόβῳ θεοῦ] is the ethical, holy sphere (Eph_5:21) in which the ἐπιτελεῖν ἁγιωσ. must move and proceed. Comp. Rom_11:19-22, and already Gen_17:1. Thus the apostle closes the whole section with the same ethical fundamental idea, with which he had begun it at 2Co_5:11, where, however, it was specifically limited to the executor of the divine judgment.

[254] Although with this the moral perfection itself, which the ideal injunction of it requires, is never fully reached. It is non viae, sed metae et patriae (Calovius); but the Christian labours constantly at it, striving towards the goal at which finis coronat opus. Comp. BengeL The success is of God (Php_1:6), the fear of whom guides the Christian.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 7:1 . ταύτας οὖν ἔχοντες κ . τ . λ .: having therefore these (note the emphasis given to ταύτας by its position) promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all contamination of flesh and spirit ( cf. 1Pe 2:11 , 1Jn 3:3 ). We find the construction καθαρίζειν ἀπό again in Sir 38:10 and Heb 9:14 (see also Deissmann, Neue Bibelstud. , p. 44). We have already pointed out (on 2Co 6:14 ) that μολυσμός is always used of the defilement which springs out of evil (and especially heathen) associations; this may affect the πνεῦμα (see on 2Co 2:13 ) as well as the σάρξ . ἐπιτελοῦντες ἁγιωσύνην κ . τ . λ .: perfecting holiness in the fear of God, sc. , the fear that man ought to feel towards God (see 2Co 5:11 ), which is, indeed, one of the gifts of the Divine Spirit (Isa 11:3 ), and which was repeatedly commended to the chosen people (Deu 6:2 , Psa 111:1 ). The practical issue of belief in the promises of the Old Covenant (which have a yet larger meaning under the New) is positive as well as negative , sanctification as well as separation. St. Paul’s word for man’s sanctification is ἁγιασμός , the result of which process is here expressed by ἁγιωσύνη (see reff.); this is especially an attribute of God in the O.T. (Psa 95:6 ; Psa 96:12 ; Psa 144:5 , 2MMal 3:12 ).

2Co 6:14 to 2Co 7:1 . PARENTHETICAL. HE WARNS THEM AGAINST TOO FAMILIAR ASSOCIATION WITH THEIR HEATHEN NEIGHBOURS. These verses are somewhat perplexing, inasmuch as they seem to interrupt the appeal of 2Co 6:11-13 by the introduction of an irrelevant warning. If they be omitted, the argument is quite consecutive, 2Co 7:2 f. being in close and evident connexion with 2Co 6:11-13 . And it has been supposed that the whole section is an interpolation either ( a ) added by St. Paul after the arrival of Titus, in consequence of the news he had received as to the state of the Corinthian Church; or ( b ) belonging to another Pauline letter (possibly the Lost Epistle of 1Co 5:9 ), and inserted here at a later date when a collection of Pauline letters began to be made; or ( c ) it has been regarded ( e.g. , by Heinrici) as a fragment of an ancient homily, not by St. Paul, which has found a resting place here. It is urged in favour of the non-Pauline authorship of the section that ( α ) it contains a considerable number of words which do not occur elsewhere in St. Paul. To this it may be replied that ἑτεροζυγεῖν and βελίαρ have their origin in O.T. phraseology, while μολυσμός is a LXX word (see reff.); and that, as to the words μετοχή , συμφώνησις , συγκατάθεσις , it is not surprising that some of the synonyms which are found in this section should be comparatively rare. It is not easy to find (as has here been done, with no small skill) five distinct terms to convey almost the same idea. ( β ) Schmiedel urges that the phrase μολυσμός σαρκός (2Co 7:1 ) is quite un-Pauline, and that it is inconsistent with St. Paul’s psychology to speak of being “cleansed” from it, inasmuch as for him the σάρξ is always tainted by sin. But there is no thought here of the taint of sin which remains in fallen man; μολυσμός is always used in the LXX (see reff.) of a too intimate association of the chosen people with heathen nations, and such “contamination” is exactly what it stands for in this place. As an argument on the other side, there occur in this section several quite common Pauline ideas and phrases, e.g. , the contrast of Christianity and heathendom as light and darkness (2Co 6:14 ), the description of Christians as God’s temple (2Co 6:16 ), the phrases “the living God” (2Co 6:16 ) and “the fear of God” (2Co 7:1 ), the introduction of the term ἀγαπητοί (2Co 7:1 ), etc. We regard, therefore, the section as undoubtedly Pauline; and, further, its connexion with what precedes reveals itself on a close inspection of the phraseology. The Apostle has bidden the Corinthians “Be ye enlarged in heart”. But he is reminded that this phrase has a bad meaning in the Law (Deu 11:16 ; see Chase, Classical Review , 1890, p. 151), where it is applied to that excessive tolerance which should permit the worship of other gods beside Jehovah; and so he hastens to give a warning (parenthetically introduced) to the Corinthians that he does not mean by enlargement of heart any undue tolerance of or contaminating association with their heathen neighbours (see on 2Co 4:4 above for ἄπιστος ).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14–7:1. Warning against heathen modes of thought and life. The Corinthians are to keep themselves apart from such influence. There is here no unintelligible change of topic; and it is exaggeration to speak of “a remarkable dislocation of the argument” and “disconnexion with the context.” It is true that 2Co 7:2 would fit on very well to 2Co 6:13: it is indeed a return to the topic of 2Co 6:11-13. But that is no sufficient reason for maintaining, against all textual evidence, that this is an interpolation from the lost letter of 1Co 5:9, or some other lost letter. That the end of one of these lost letters might get attached to another letter is intelligible. One might be imperfect at the end as the other was at the beginning. But could a fragment of one roll get inserted into the middle of another roll? That this passage is wholly spurious, an interpolation composed by an early scribe, is very improbable. Βελίαρ, μετοχή, συμφώνησίς, συγκάθεσις, and μολυσμός are found nowhere else in the N.T.; but ἅπαξ λεγόμενα abound in S. Paul’s letters. There are about 38 such words in Colossians, about 41 in Philippians, about 42 in Ephesians. And it should be noticed that three out of the five in this passage are the result of trying to vary the word for union and fellowship. The tone of these verses is thoroughly Pauline; and after the hint given in 2Co 6:1 this exhortation to purity of faith and conduct comes in here naturally enough. The return to the affectionate appeal of 2Co 6:11-13, as soon as the exhortation is concluded, is also quite natural. So long a letter as 2 Corinthians was of course not all written at one sitting. There may have been many sittings, and some of the rapid changes in the letter may be due to this cause. But, apart from this possibility, S. Paul is given to rapid changes, especially in this letter. “Probably there is no literary work in which the cross-currents of feeling are so violent and so frequent” (Chase in the Classical Review, April 1890, p. 151: see also July, p. 317, and October, p. 359).

1. ταύτας οὖν ἔχοντες τὰς ἐπαγγελίας. These, then, being the promises which we have. The emphasis is on ταύτας, promises so glorious and gracious as those which have just been mentioned.

ἀγαπητοί. For the first time in this letter he uses this affectionate address. It occurs once more 2Co 12:19: comp. 1Co 10:14; 1Co 15:58.

καθαρίσωμεν ἑαυτούς. The Apostle makes the exhortation more gentle by including himself. He refers to that τοὺς πόδας νίψασθαι which even ὁ λελουμένος requires (Joh 13:10). Even good Christians are constantly incurring taints which need to be as constantly removed. For καθαρίζειν ἀπό comp. 1Jn 1:7; Heb 9:14; Psa 51:2; Sir 23:10. It is found in inscriptions; Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 216.

ἀπὸ παντὸς μολυσμοῦ. From every kind of defilement, inquinamentum. The substantive occurs here only in the N.T. and thrice in the LXX. (1Es 8:80 (84); Jer 23:15; 2Ma 5:27); but the verb is frequent in both LXX. and N.T. (1Co 8:7; &c.). Greiner, Lex. p. 785; Trench, Syn. § xxxi.

σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος. The genitives mark the recipients of the defilement, not the sources of it. The cause of the pollution is sin, which attacks the spirit through the flesh. But no hard and fast line can be drawn between defilement of flesh and defilement of spirit, for each communicates its condition, whether evil or good, to the other. The general meaning here is sensuality of all kinds.

There is no sufficient reason for believing that S. Paul had added to Jewish conceptions of the frailty of the flesh the Gnostic idea that the flesh is originally and in its own nature evil. It is perhaps true that S. Paul gave to σάρξ a more moral signification than it had previously carried. But in the opposition to which he points (e.g. in Romans 7) between σάρξ and πνεῦμα, he does not mean that flesh is in itself sinful and the source of sin. His theory of human nature is not dualistic. See Gifford on Romans, Speaker’s Comm. III. pp. 48–52, and Sanday and Headlam on Rom 7:14.

ἐπιτελοῦντες ἁγιωσύνην. This is the positive side, as ‘cleansing from every kind of defilement’ is the negative side, of the progress towards that perfection to which the Christian is called (Mat 5:48). The process of bringing ἁγιωσύνη (Rom 1:4; 1Th 3:13) to completeness (2Co 8:6; 2Co 8:11; Php 1:6) is continually going on.

ἐν φόβῳ θεοῦ. A lower atmosphere than the love of God, but one above which man cannot at all times rise. It is the level of the O.T. rather than of the N.T.; but it is necessary for Christians, especially for beginners, such as the Corinthians were. In this world at any rate, fear and love are complementary sides of the filial mind. Comp. Act 9:31; Rom 3:18; 1Pe 3:15. We have ἐν φόβω̣ Χριστοῦ Eph 5:21. Qui sine timore Domini vult bonum aliquod facere superbus est (Herveius Burgidol.).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:1.] Inference from the foregoing citations:—seeing that we have such glorious (ταύτας in the position of emphasis) promises, we are to purify ourselves (not merely, ‘keep ourselves pure:’ purification belongs to sanctification, and is a gradual work, even after conversion).

σαρκός, as the actual instrument and suggester of pollution: πνεύματος, as the recipient through the flesh, and when the recipient, the retainer and propagator, of uncleanness. The exhortation is general: against impure acts and impure thoughts.

ἐπιτελ. ἁγιωσ., as De W. remarks, gives the positive side of the foregoing negative exhortation: every abnegation and banishing of impurity is a positive advance of that sanctification, in the fear of God (as its element) to which we are called.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:1. Here again, as between 1. and 2., and between 3. and 4., and between 4. and 5., and between 5. and 6., the division between the chapters is not well made. As the οὐν shows, 7:1 belongs closely to what precedes. It closes the digression which warns the Corinthians against fellowship with heathen modes of life; and then we have a resumption of the tender appeal in which his beloved converts are implored to make some response to the frankness with which he has opened his heart to them.

1. Ταύτας οὖν ἔχοντες τὰς ἐπαγγελίας. Ταύτας comes first with emphasis; ‘These, then, being the promises which we have.’ They are so incalculably precious, and so sure to be fulfilled if they are properly met.

ἀγαπητοί. With us this affectionate address has become almost a canting expression in sermons, and it means very little. But the Apostle is not prodigal in his use of it, and with him it means a great deal; twice in 1 Cor. (10:14, 15:58), once again in 2 Cor. (12:19); twice in Phil. (2:12, 4:1); once in Rom. (12:19).

καθαρίσωμεν ἑαυτούς. He again softens the severity of his words, as in ώς τέκνοις λέγω (v. 13); this time by including himself among those who need cleansing. Baptism cannot be repeated, and earnest Christians would not need a repetition of it; but all in their walk through life become soiled and need frequent cleansing (Joh 13:10). He who looks for a fulfilment of the gracious promises must strive to be καθαρὸς ὅλος. If we are to have God to dwell in us, we must purify the dwelling. If we are to have Him as a Father, we must strive to acquire some likeness to Him. The verb is not peculiar to Bibl. Grk. It occurs in Josephus (Ant. xi. v. 4) and is found in inscriptions (followed by ἀπό, as here and Heb 9:14) in much the same sense as in this verse, of the necessity for purification before entering a holy place. Deissmann, Bib. St. p. 216. Cf. ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας καθάρισον καρδίαν (Ecclus. 38:10). Index IV.

ἀπὸ παντὸς μολυσμοῦ. ‘From every kind of defilement.’ The noun implies an evil stain, foul pollution; in LXX in connexion with idolatry (1 Esdr. 8:80 [84]; 2 Macc. 5:27; cf. Jer 23:15). In the Testaments (Symeon 2:13) we have ἀποσχῶ ἀπὸ παντὸς μολυσμοῦ. On the date of the Testaments see Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 320. Here there may be a reference to τὴν τῶν εἰδώλων κοινωνίαν, but not to that exclusively. The noun occurs nowhere else, but μολύνω is freq. in O.T. and N.T. Trench, Syn. § xxxi.; Wetst. ad loc.

σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος. Man may be defiled in either flesh or spirit, and in either case there must be cleansing. The two together sum up human nature, and the intercommunion of the parts is so close, that when either is soiled the whole is soiled. St Paul is using popular language covering the material and immaterial elements in man, and it is manifest that he is not under the influence of the Gnostic doctrine that everything material is ipso facto evil. He says that the flesh must be cleansed from every kind of pollution. Gnostics maintained that it was as impossible to cleanse flesh as to cleanse filth. In either case the only remedy was to get rid of the unclean matter. See P. Gardner, Religious Experience of St Paul, p. 165. He quotes Reitzenstein; “All the different shades of meaning which πνεῦμα has in Paul’s writings may be found in the magic papyri … Paul has not developed for himself a peculiar psychology, and a mystic way of speaking in accordance with it, but speaks in the Greek of his time” (Die Hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen, pp. 42, 137). Epictetus (Dis. ii.13) has a similar thought; “When you are conversing with others, know you not that you are exercising God? Unhappy man, you carry God about with you, and know it not. You carry Him within you, and perceive not that you are polluting (μολύνων) Him with unclean thoughts and filthy acts. If an image of God were present, you would not dare to do any of the things which you do. But when God Himself is present within and sees all, you are not ashamed of thinking such things and doing such things, ignorant as you are of your own nature and subject to the anger of God.” Nestle’s proposal to take only σαρκός with μολυσμοῦ and transfer καὶ πνεύματος to ἀγιωσύνην need not be more than mentioned.* The latter constr. is intolerable. With μολ. σαρκὸς κ. πνεύματος comp. ἁγία τῷ σώματι κ. τῷ πνεύματι (1Co 7:34). It is uncritical dogmatism to assert that St Paul would never have used such an expression as ‘defilement of flesh and spirit.’ See on v. 5.

ἐπιτελοῦντες ἁγιωσύνην. The mere cleansing oneself from defilement is not enough. It is right that the unclean spirit should be cast out; but the place which he has occupied must be filled with such things as will make it impossible for him to return; there must be a process of self-consecration always going on. This is the meaning of ‘bringing to completeness (8:6, 11; Php 1:6) a state of holiness’ (1Th 3:13; Rom 1:4). Cf. Zec 4:9. In LXX, ἀγιωσύνη is used generally of God. In the Testaments (Lev 18:11) we are told that the saints who enter Paradise will eat from the tree of life, καὶ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἔσται ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς. Here it is the divine quality of ἁγιωσύνη that fits Christians to become God’s sanctuary and to have Him as their Father.

ἐν φόβῳ Θεοῦ. Not in the fear or love of men. The ἐν may mark either the sphere in which the perfecting of holiness takes place or the means by which it is accomplished; cf. ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ, ἐν τῇ παρακλήσει (v. 7). ‘The fear of God’ or ‘the fear of the Lord’ is repeatedly given in O.T. as the principle of a good life; so esp. in Psalms (2:11, 5:7. etc.) and Proverbs (1:7, 1:29. 13, etc.). It is the whole duty of man (Ecc 12:13). “He who tries to do any good thing without the fear of the Lord,” says Herveius, “is a proud man.” Cf. v. 11; Rom 3:18; Act 9:31, Act 9:10:2, Act 9:35. In Eph 5:21 what is said in O.T. of Jehovah is in a remarkable way transferred to Christ, ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Both of body and soul, that by this means the sanctification may be perfect, consisting in both the parts thereof.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER VII.

The apostle's inference from the preceding exhortation, 1.

He presses them to receive him with affection, because of his

great love towards them, 2-4.

He tells them what distress he felt on their account in

Macedonia, till he had met with Titus, and heard of their

prosperity, 6-7.

He rejoices that his first epistle was made the means of their

reformation, 8, 9.

States how they were affected by his letter, and the process of

their reformation, 10, 11.

Shows why he had written to them, 12.

Rejoices that his boasting of them to Titus is found to be a

truth; and takes occasion to mention the great affection of

Titus for them, and his own confidence in them, 13-16.

NOTES ON CHAP. VII.

Verse 1. Having therefore these promises] The promises mentioned in the three last verses of the preceding chapter, to which this verse should certainly be joined.

Let us cleanse ourselves] Let us apply to him for the requisite grace of purification; and avoid every thing in spirit and practice which is opposite to the doctrine of God, and which has a tendency to pollute the soul.

Filthiness of the flesh] The apostle undoubtedly means, drunkenness, fornication, adultery, and all such sins as are done immediately against the body; and by filthiness of the spirit, all impure desires, unholy thoughts, and polluting imaginations. If we avoid and abhor evil inclinations, and turn away our eyes from beholding vanity, incentives to evil being thus lessened, (for the eye affects the heart,) there will be the less danger of our falling into outward sin. And if we avoid all outward occasions of sinning, evil propensities will certainly be lessened. All this is our work under the common aids of the grace of God. We may turn away our eyes and ears from evil, or we may indulge both in what will infallibly beget evil desires and tempers in the soul; and under the same influence we may avoid every act of iniquity; for even Satan himself cannot, by any power he has, constrain us to commit uncleanness, robbery, drunkenness, murder, c. These are things in which both body and soul must consent. But still withholding the eye, the ear, the hand, and the body in general, from sights, reports, and acts of evil, will not purify a fallen spirit it is the grace and Spirit of Christ alone, powerfully applied for this very purpose, that can purify the conscience and the heart from all dead works. But if we do not withhold the food by which the man of sin is nourished and supported, we cannot expect God to purify our hearts. While we are striving against sin, we may expect the Spirit of God to purify us by his inspiration from all unrighteousness, that we may perfectly love and magnify our Maker. How can those expect God to purify their hearts who are continually indulging their eyes, ears, and hands in what is forbidden, and in what tends to increase and bring into action all the evil propensities of the soul?

Perfecting holiness] Getting the whole mind of Christ brought into the soul. This is the grand object of a genuine Christian's pursuit. The means of accomplishing this are,

1. Resisting and avoiding sin, in all its inviting and seducing forms.

2. Setting the fear of God before our eyes, that we may dread his displeasure, and abhor whatever might excite it, and whatever might provoke him to withhold his manna from our mouth. We see, therefore, that there is a strong and orthodox sense in which we may cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, and thus perfect holiness in the fear of God.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. These promises, therefore. God, it is true, anticipates us in his promises by his pure favor; but when he has, of his own accord, conferred upon us his favor, he immediately afterwards requires from us gratitude in return. Thus what he said to Abraham, I am thy God, (Genesis 17:7,) was an offer of his undeserved goodness, yet he at the same time added what he required from him — Walk before me, and be thou perfect As, however, this second clause is not always expressed, Paul instructs us that in all the promises this condition is implied, that they must be incitements to us to promote the glory of God. For from what does he deduce an argument to stimulate us? It is from this, that God confers upon us such a distinguished honor. Such, then, is the nature of the promises, that they call us to sanctification, as if God had interposed by an implied agreement. We know, too, what the Scripture teaches in various passages in reference to the design of redemption, and the same thing must be viewed as applying to every token of his favor.

From all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Having already shown, that we are called to purity, he now adds, that it ought to be seen in the body, as well as in the soul; for that the term flesh is taken here to mean the body, and the term spirit to mean the soul, is manifest from this, that if the term spirit meant the grace of regeneration, Paul’s statement in reference to the pollution of the spirit would be absurd. He would have us, therefore, pure from defilements, not merely inward, such as have God alone as their witness; but also outward, such as fall under the observation of men. “Let us not merely have chaste consciences in the sight of God. We must also consecrate to him our whole body and all its members, that no impurity may be seen in any part of us.”

Now if we consider what is the point that he handles, we shall readily perceive, that those act with excessive impudence, who excuse outward idolatry on I know not what pretexts. For as inward impiety, and superstition, of whatever kind, is a defilement of the spirit, what will they understand by defilement of the flesh, but an outward profession of impiety, whether it be pretended, or uttered from the heart? They boast of a pure conscience; that, indeed, is on false grounds, but granting them what they falsely boast of, they have only the half of what Paul requires from believers. Hence they have no ground to think, that they have given satisfaction to God by that half; for let a person show any appearance of idolatry at all, or any indication of it, or take part in wicked or superstitious rites, even though he were — what he cannot be — perfectly upright in his own mind, he would, nevertheless, not be exempt from the guilt of polluting his body.

Perfecting holiness. As the verb ἐπιτελεῖν in Greek sometimes means, to perfect, and sometimes to perform sacred rites, it is elegantly made use of here by Paul in the former signification, which is the more frequent one — in such a way, however, as to allude to sanctification, of which he is now treating. For while it denotes perfection, it seems to have been intentionally transferred to sacred offices, because there ought to be nothing defective in the service of God, but everything complete. Hence, in order that you may sanctify yourself to God aright, you must dedicate both body and soul entirely to him.

In the fear of God. For if the fear of God influences us, we will not be so much disposed to indulge ourselves, nor will there be a bursting forth of that audacity of wantonness, which showed itself among the Corinthians. For how does it happen, that many delight themselves so much in outward idolatry, and haughtily defend so gross a vice, unless it be, that they think that they mock God with impunity? If the fear of God had dominion over them, they would immediately, on the first moment, leave off all cavils, without requiring to be constrained to it by any disputations.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

VII.

(1) Having therefore these promises . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness.—The thought is identical with that of 1Jn_3:3. In each there is the contrast between the high ideal to which the believer in Christ is called and the infinite debasement into which he may possibly sink. St. John characteristically presents the law of the spiritual life as a generalised fact of experience: “Every man who has the hope actually does purify himself.” The word for “filthiness” does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. In 2Ma_1:27, it is used of the “pollution” of idolatry; in the LXX. of Jer_23:14 (where the English version gives “a horrible thing,” and the margin “filthiness”) of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. The cognate verb is used of sexual impurity in Rev_14:4, and probably with the same sense in Rev_3:4, and this is manifestly what St. Paul has in his thoughts here. The two thoughts—idolatry and impurity—were inextricably blended in his mind. He had been warning men against the feasts that were held in the idol’s temple. He cannot close his eyes to the “hidden things of shame” that were their constant and inevitable accompaniments. But that contagion of impurity might spread to the inward parts. Mind and conscience might be defiled (Tit_1:15). The literature of the Empire, as seen in Catullus and Martial and Juvenal, shows only too terribly what St. Paul meant by “filthiness of the spirit.” The very element in man by which he is raised above the brute creatures that lead a simply animal or natural life—his imagination, fancy, discernment of analogies—sinks him to an infinite depth below them.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.—The word for “holiness” involves the idea of consecration, and grows out of the thought that the “saints” of God make up collectively, as in 2Co_6:16, the Temple in which He dwells. As the former clause of the verse presents the negative aspect of purity, abstinence from all that desecrates, this presents the positive, the perfect consecration, and this is wrought out in its completeness, in “the fear of God”—the reverential awe before the thought of God’s presence. The word is the same as that mis-translated “terror” in 2Co_5:11.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Having therefore these promises,.... That God will walk in his temple, and dwell in his churches, be their God, and they his people, that he will receive them, and be their Father, and they his sons and daughters; which promises they had not in hope, as Old Testament saints had the promises of the Messiah and his kingdom, and as New Testament saints have of the resurrection, the new heavens and new earth, and of appearing with Christ in glory; but in hand, in actual possession; for God was really become their God and Father, and they were his people and children; they had had communion with him, and were received, protected, and preserved by him; which promises and blessings of grace, and which are absolute and unconditional, the apostle makes use of to engage them to purity and holiness; and is a clear proof, that the doctrine of an absolute and unconditional covenant of grace has no tendency to licentiousness, but the contrary: and that his following exhortation might be attended to, and cheerfully received, he uses a very affectionate appellation,

dearly beloved; so they were of God, being his people, his sons and daughters, adopted, justified, called, and chosen by him; and so they were by the apostle and his fellow ministers, who, as he says in a following verse, were in their hearts to die and live with them; some copies read brethren, and so the Ethiopic version. The exhortation he urges them to, and, that it might be the better received, joins himself with them in it, is,

let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit: by "the filthiness of the flesh" is meant external pollution, defilement by outward actions, actions committed in the body, whereby the man is defiled; such as all impure words, filthiness, and foolish talking, all rotten and corrupt communication, which defile a man's own body; as the tongue, a little member, when so used does, and corrupts the good manners of others; all filthy actions, as idolatry, adultery, fornication, incest, sodomy, murder, drunkenness, revellings, &c. and everything that makes up a filthy conversation, which is to be hated, abhorred, and abstained from by the saints: by "filthiness of the spirit" is meant internal pollution, defilement by the internal acts of the mind, such as evil thoughts, lusts, pride, malice, envy, covetousness, and the like: such a distinction of , "the filthiness of the body", and , "the filthiness of the soul", is to be met with among the Jews; who say (r), that when a man has taken care to avoid the former, it is fit he should take care of the latter; they also call the evil imagination, or corruption of nature, "the filth of the body" (s). Now when the apostle says, "let us cleanse ourselves", this does not suppose that men have a power to cleanse themselves from the pollution of their nature, or the defilement of their actions; for this is God's work alone, as appears from his promises to cleanse his people from their sins; from the end of Christ's shedding his blood, and the efficacy of it; from the sanctifying influences of the Spirit; and from the prayers of the saints to God, to create in them clean hearts, to wash them thoroughly from their iniquity, and cleanse them from their sin: besides, the apostle is not here speaking either of the justification of these persons, in which sense they were already cleansed, and that thoroughly, from all their sins and iniquities; nor of the inward work of sanctification, in respect of which they were sprinkled with clean water, and were washed in the layer of regeneration; but what the apostle respects is the exercise of both internal and external religion, which lies in purity of heart and conversation, the one not being acceptable to God without the other; he is speaking of, and exhorting to the same thing, as in the latter part of the preceding chapter; and suggests, that it becomes those who have received such gracious promises to be separate from sin and sinners, to abstain from all appearance of sin, and to have no fellowship with sinners; to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of haughtiness, and, under a sense of either external or internal pollution, to have recourse to the fountain opened; to deal by faith with the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, of heart, lip, and life; and which is the only effectual method a believer can make use of, to cleanse himself from sin; namely, by washing his garments, and making them white in the blood of the Lamb:

perfecting holiness in the fear of God; by "holiness" is not meant the work of sanctification upon the heart, for that is wholly the work of the Spirit of God, and not of man; he begins it, carries it on, and perfects it of himself; but holiness of life and conversation is here designed, which in conversion the people of God are called unto, and which highly becomes them: and this they are to be "perfecting"; not that a believer is able to live a life of holiness, without sin being in him, or committed by him; this is in, possible and impracticable in the present life; but the sense of the word is, that he is to be carrying on a course of righteousness and holiness to the end; to the end of his life, he is to persevere as in faith, so in holiness; as he is to go on believing in Christ, so he is to go on to live soberly, righteously, and godly, to the end of his days; which requires divine power to preserve him from sin, and keep him from falling; and the grace of God, the strength of Christ, and the assistance of the Spirit, to enable him to perform acts of holiness, and the several duties of religion, and to continue in well doing: all which is to be done, "in the fear of God"; not in a servile slavish fear, a fear of hell and damnation, but in a filial fear, a reverential affection for God, an humble trust in him, and dependence on him, for grace and strength; it is that fear which has God for its author, is a blessing of the new covenant, is implanted in regeneration, and is increased by discoveries of pardoning grace; and it has God for its object, not his wrath and vindictive justice, but his goodness, grace, and mercy. This shows from what principle, and upon what views believers act in a course of righteousness and holiness; not from the fear of hell, nor from the fear of men, or with a view to gain their applause, but as in the sight of God, from a reverential affection to him, a child like fear of him, and with a view to his glory.

(r) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 111. 2. (s) Zohar in Lev. fol. 43. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Ver. 1. Having therefore, &c.] Faith in the promises purifieth the heart, Act 15:9, and argueth notably from mercy to duty, melting the hardness of it by the consideration of the promises. Let a cart loaded go over a frozen river, the cart breaks the ice, but it remains ice still. But let the sun shine upon the river, and it dissolveth it. The apostle saith not, Having these menaces, but, Having these promises.

From all filthiness] Sin defileth a man worse than any jakes or leprosy. It is the devil’s excrement, it is the corruption of a dead soul. Seldom or never is there a birth of saving grace, but there follows it a flux of mortification.

Of flesh and spirit] i.e. Both of the outward and inward man. Or of flesh, that is, worldly lusts, and gross evils, as uncleanness, earthlymindedness, &c, And of spirit, that is, more spiritual lusts, as pride, presumption, self-flattery, &c. These lie more up in the heart of the country, as it were; those others in the frontiers and skirts of it.

Perfecting holiness] Propounding to ourselves the highest pitch and the best patterns. And having for our motto that of Charles V, Plus ultra, further yet. And here let faith and obedience make a perfect pair of compasses. Faith as the one foot must be pitched upon the centre, God, while obedience (as the other) walks about in a perfect circle of all good duties. He will not crush but cherish that worm Jacob. "He will not break the bruised reed," &c.

In the fear of God] Which is the fountain whence holiness flows. See Pro 8:13.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Having therefore these promises - The promises referred to in 2Co 6:17-18; the promise that God would be a Father, a protector, and a friend The idea is, that as we have a promise that God would dwell in us, that he would be our God, that he would be to us a Father, we should remove from us whatever is offensive in his sight, and become perfectly holy.

Let us cleanse ourselves - Let us purify ourselves. Paul was not afraid to bring into view the agency of Christians themselves in the work of salvation. He, therefore, says, ‘let us purify ourselves,’ as if Christians had much to do; as if their own agency was to be employed; and as if their purifying was dependent on their own efforts. While it is true that all purifying influence and all holiness proceeds from God, it is also true that the effect of all the influences of the Holy Spirit is to excite us to diligence to purify our own hearts, and to urge us to make strenuous efforts to overcome our own sins. He who expects to be made pure without any effort of his own, will never become pure; and he who ever becomes holy will become so in consequence of strenuous efforts to resist the evil of his own heart, and to become like God. The argument here is, that we have the promises of God to aid us. We do not go about the work in our own strength. It is not a work in which we are to have no aid. But it is a work which God desires, and where he will give us all the aid which we need.

From all filthiness of the flesh - The noun used here (μολυσμὸς molusmos) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The verb occurs in 1Co 8:7; Rev 3:4; Rev 14:4, and means to stain, defile, pollute, as a garment; and the word used here means a soiling, hence, defilement, pollution, and refers to the defiling and corrupting influence of fleshly desires and carnal appetites. The filthiness of the flesh here denotes evidently the gross and corrupt appetites and passions of the body, including all such actions of all kinds as are inconsistent with the virtue and purity with which the body, regarded as the temple of the Holy Spirit, should be kept holy - all such passions and appetites as the Holy Spirit of God would not produce.

And spirit - By “filthiness of the spirit,” the apostle means, probably, all the thoughts or mental associations that defile the man. Thus, the Saviour Mat 15:19 speaks of evil thoughts, etc. that proceed out of the heart, and that pollute the man. And probably Paul here includes all the sins and passions which pertain particularly to mind or to the soul rather than to carnal appetites, such as the desire of revenge, pride, avarice, ambition, etc. These are in themselves as polluting and defiling as the gross sensual pleasures. They stand as much in the way of sanctification, they are as offensive to God, and they prove as certainly that the heart is depraved as the grossest sensual passions. The main difference is, that they are more decent in the external appearance; they can be better concealed; they are usually indulged by a more elevated class in society; but they are not the less offensive to God. It may be added, also, that they are often conjoined in the same person; and that the man who is defiled in his “spirit” is often a man most corrupt and sensual in his” flesh.” Sin sweeps with a desolating influence through the whole frame, and it usually leaves no part unaffected, though some part may be more deeply corrupted than others.

Perfecting - This word (ἐπιτελοῦντες epitelountes) means properly to bring to an end, to finish, complete. The idea here is, that of carrying it out to the completion. Holiness had been commenced in the heart, and the exhortation of the apostle is, that they should make every effort that it might be complete in all its parts. He does not say that this work of perfection had ever been accomplished - nor does he say that it had not been. He only urges the obligation to make an effort to be entirely holy; and this obligation is not affected by the inquiry whether anyone has been or has not been perfect. It is an obligation which results from the nature of the Law of God and his unchangeable claims on the soul. The fact that no one has been perfect does not relax the claim; the fact that no one will be in this life does not weaken the obligation. It proves only the deep and dreadful depravity of the human heart, and should humble us under the stubbornness of guilt.

The obligation to be perfect is one that is unchangeable and eternal; see Mat 5:48; 1Pe 1:15. Tyndale renders this: “and grow up to full holiness in the fear, of God.” The unceasing and steady aim of every Christian should be perfection - perfection in all things - in the love of God, of Christ, of man; perfection of heart, and feeling, and emotion; perfection in his words, and plans, and dealings with people; perfection in his prayers, and in his submission to the will of God. No man can be a Christian who does not sincerely desire it. and who does not constantly aim at it. No man is a friend of God who can acquiesce in a state of sin, and who is satisfied and contented that he is not as holy as God is holy. And any man who has no desire to be perfect as God is, and who does not make it his daily and constant aim to be as perfect as God, may set it down as demonstrably certain that he has no true religion, How can a man be a Christian who is willing to acquiesce in a state of sin, and who does not desire to be just like his Master and Lord?

In the fear of God - Out of fear and reverence of God. From a regard to his commands, and a reverence for his name. The idea seems to be, that we are always in the presence of God; we are professedly under His Law; and we should be awed and restrained by a sense of his presence from the commission of sin, and from indulgence in the pollutions of the flesh and spirit. There are many sins that the presence of a child will restrain a man from committing; and how should the conscious presence of a holy God keep us from sin! If the fear of man or of a child will restrain us, and make us attempt to be holy and pure, how should the fear of the all-present and the all-seeing God keep us not only from outward sins, but from polluted thoughts and unholy desires!

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Having, therefore, these promises, mentioned just before, that God would be a father to us, &c. let us cleanse ourselves from all filth or defilement of the flesh, and of the spirit, that is, from all kind of sins. It is not without good grounds, that St. Thomas Aquinas, and the divines in the schools, tell us, that some sins, as those of impurity, gluttony, and drunkenness, may be called carnal sins, bring disorders that in a particular manner affect and defile the body: and that (though all sins whatsoever defile the soul, and when they are such as are called mortal, bring a spiritual death to the soul, by depriving her of the grace of God) other kinds of sins may be called spiritual sins, their malice and disorder affecting, and residing, as it were, in the mind or spirit of man; such are all the sins of pride, envy, idolatry, &c. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Having therefore these promises; i.e. of God’s dwelling in us, and walking with us; of God’s being our Father, and making and owning us as his sons; which promises are made to true penitents that will touch no unclean thing.

Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit; let us, through the assistance of Divine grace, endeavour to cleanse ourselves, or keep ourselves clean, not only from fleshly filthiness, such as are sins of intemperance, drunkenness, uncleanness; but also from spiritual filthiness, extravagant passions, corrupt affections, pride, envy, rash anger, idolatry, contention, division.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God; and that, because we are not only obliged to holiness, but to perfect holiness, in, or through, the fear of the Lord; awing our hearts, lest we should profane the temple of the Lord, or behave ourselves as undutiful sons to so good a Father. So far are God’s promises, and our belief of them, or affiance in God for the fulfilling of them, from hindering us in the practice and exercise of holiness, that there can be no more potent motive to persuade the perfection of holiness; and that not only from the argument of Divine love, contained in the promises, but from the consideration of the persons to whom, and the conditions upon which, the promises are made.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(e) 7:2-16. The Apostle's Joy in the Corinthians' repentance

St. Paul goes on to ask them to give him their affection, and renews his assurance of purity of deed and motive. He tells them of the suspense in which he had awaited their response to his 'severe' letter, and his joy at the return of Titus with good news. He is now glad that he vexed them by that letter—though he was inclined to regret his action for a time—because of its happy results in their attitude and conduct; and he concludes by expressing anew his affection for them, and his joy that mutual confidence has been restored.

2-4. Paraphrase. 'Give us your affection; we have done no man any injury either in influence or in character or in pocket. (3) I am not returning to this subject to blame you again, for whether I live or die I have the deepest affection for you. (4) I speak freely to you as I boast of you freely to others; I am greatly comforted, and rejoice exceedingly amid all my sufferings.'

2. Receive us] RV 'Open your hearts to us.' We have wronged.. corrupted.. defrauded no man] St. Paul is referring to charges that had been brought against him. For hints as to these, cp. 2Co_11:4, 2Co_11:7-8, 2Co_11:9; 2Co_12:14, 2Co_12:16, 2Co_12:17.

4. Glorying of you] i.e. boasting about you: cp. 2Co_9:2, 2Co_9:3.

Paraphrase. '(5) For when I came to Macedonia looking for your answer to my letter, I was troubled both by conflicts with enemies and by forebodings about you. (6) But God, who comforts those who are in trouble, comforted me by the arrival of my friend Titus. (7) Not only was I cheered by his presence, but by the comfort he communicated to me, which he had derived from your sorrow for your faults and your affection for me; so that my anxiety was transformed into joy.'

5. 'When I came to Macedonia': see Intro.

6. God, that comforteth] cp. 2Co_1:3, 2Co_1:4. Titus] was the bearer of the letter to the Corinthians mentioned in 2Co_7:8 : see Intro.

7. The consolation wherewith, etc.] Titus was comforted by their repentance, and this comfort he passed on to St. Paul when he gave him the good news.

8. Though I did repent] The Apostle for a time feared his previous letter had been too severe. The letter was probably that of which 2 Corinthians 10-13 of the Second Epistle form the chief part: see Intro.

10. Godly sorrow, etc.] The contrast is between repentance and remorse, between sorrow for sin and sorrow for its consequences: cp. St. Peter and Judas.

Repentance to salvation] cp. 'Heart-sorrow and a clear life ensuing' (Shakespeare). The sorrow of the world] i.e. grief that regrets not the sin, but the fact of being found out.

Death] Moral and spiritual ruin.

11, 12. Paraphrase. 'Your own repentance is a case in point. Yours was a godly sorrow, as the results proclaim; for it made you earnest to amend your ways, anxious to clear yourselves, indignant that you had been misled, afraid of the results of your conduct, anxious to see me, zealous for truth and justice, resolute in purifying the Church. In every respect you showed that you had no share in the offender's guilt, and no desire to shield him. (12) And this was the very purpose of that severe letter, not to secure the punishment of the offender, or to satisfy the resentment of the injured, but to cause you to recognise before God the feelings of affection and devotion with which you really regarded me.'

12. For his cause that had done the wrong.. for his cause that suffered wrong] The reference, of course, was obvious to the readers without particulars; but we are ignorant of some of the facts. It would seem that on the occasion of his brief visit St. Paul had been attacked and denounced by some leader of the disaffection in the Church, or else that Timothy on the occasion of his visit had been the object of vituperation; and that in either case St. Paul had insisted upon the punishment of the offender. This had now. been done. The doer of the wrong here is this leader of rebellion, and the sufferer either St. Paul or Timothy. This seems the most probable solution of the problem from the knowledge we possess. Our care for you] RV 'your earnest care for us.' The reading of RV is best attested by the MSS, and is more in harmony with the train of thought in 2Co_7:11. His letter was written to let them see the real feelings they had towards him, which were concealed for the moment by their irritation.

13-16. Paraphrase. 'Now that all has ended well, I am thankful; and my joy is increased because Titus also rejoices at your attitude. (14) For all that I said to him in your praise has been justified, and I am not ashamed of my boasting; (15) and the affection of Titus for you has increased since he visited you and saw your anxiety to do well. (16) I rejoice, therefore, that I have every confidence in you.'

14. Our boasting, etc.] Titus had evidently been rather despondent about the result of his mission with the letter when he started; but St. Paul had encouraged him by confident forecasts of the Corinthians' repentance.

15. With fear and trembling] not dread of punishment, but anxiety to fulfil their obedience: cp. Php_2:12.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Having—This verse completes the last section, and should belong to the sixth chapter.

These promises—In the Greek the position of these words in the sentence renders them emphatic, these glorious promises. Paul refers to the promises of the last verse of the previous chapter, in which Jehovah promises us, upon our departure from sin, that we shall be his sons and daughters.

Let us cleanse ourselves—Let us exert our active powers to our own purification; yet through the gracious power derived from God.

Filthiness—Pollution, soiling, staining.

The flesh and spirit—Sins of the flesh are those that arise from man’s animal or corporeal nature, as gluttony, intemperance, licentiousness; sins of the spirit are those that come from man’s intellectual nature, as pride, scepticism, falsehood, idolatry, etc. By the former, man is allied to brutes; by the latter, to devils. Yet both these classes of sins the apostle stigmatizes as filthiness. They defile the purity of man’s nature. He thereby stands before the perfectly pure God spotted with guilt.

Perfecting—The positive process of which the purifying is the negative. To perfect is to bring to completion or normal maturity.

Fear—That sentiment that deters and drives from sin, but can never bring us to holiness without the mingling and predominance of love.

On this passage we may note that a perfected holiness is here represented as a possible attainment; that it is the result of a properly-directed activity, and that its attainment is not to be delayed until death, but is to be realized and possessed during the Christian’s life.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Conclusion of his appeal (ver. 1). The apostle"s feelings towards them (vers. 2-4). Explanation of the objects of his last letter, and expression of his joy at the good results it had brought about (vers. 2-16).

Having then these promises. The promises of God"s indwelling and fatherly love. (2Co_6:16-18) Dearly beloved. Perhaps the word is added to soften the sternness of the preceding admonition. Let us cleanse ourselves. Every Christian, even the best, has need of daily cleansing from his daily assoilment, (Joh_13:10) and this cleansing depends on the purifying activity of moral effort maintained by the help of God"s grace. Similarly St. John, (1Jn_3:1-3) after speaking of God"s fatherhood and the hopes which it inspires, adds, "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure". (Jam_4:8) From all filthiness; rather, from all defilement. Sin leaves on the soul the moral stain of guilt, which was typified by the ceremonial defilements of the Levitical Law. (comp. Eze_36:25, Eze_36:26) The word used for "filth" in 1Pe_3:21 is different. Of the flesh and spirit. From everything which outwardly pollutes the body and inwardly the soul; the two being closely connected together, so that what defiles the flesh inevitably also defiles the soul, and what defiles the spirit degrades also the body. Uncleanness, for instance, a sin of the flesh, is almost invariably connected with pride and hate and cruelty, which degrade the soul. Perfecting holiness. This is the goal and aim of the Christian, though in this life it cannot be finally attained. (Php_3:12) In the fear of God. There is, indeed, one kind of fear, a base and servile fear, which is cast out by perfect love; but the fear of reverential awe always remains in the true and wisely instructed Christian, who will never be guilty of the profane familiarity adopted by some ignorant sectarians, or speak of God "as though he were some one in the next street" (Heb_12:28; 1Pe_3:15)

HOMILETICS.

Vers. 1-4.

A minister"s address to his people.

therefore these promises," etc. In these verses the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to two things.

I TO THE PURSUIT OF SPIRITUAL PURITY. "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." He seems to regard the attainment of spiritual purity as consisting in two things.

1. Getting rid of the wrong. "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." Perhaps the reference to "filthiness" here referred especially to the idolatry and unchastity which was so prevalent in the Corinthian Church. All sin is "filthiness," and cleansable; it is not nature, it is a stain on nature; it is not something inwrought into the very texture of our being, otherwise it could not be cleansed away. It is no more ourselves than the soil on the white robe is the robe. It can, it should, it must, be washed out, that we may appear "without spot or wrinkle.

2. Attaining the right. "Perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Holiness implies the consecration of our entire nature, flesh and spirit, body and soul, to the Divine will, and this requires habitual, solemn effort in "the fear of God." Now, the grand end of Christ"s mission to the world is to produce this purity in man. "Having therefore these promises" (viz. the promises in the last verse of the preceding chapter, which are in substance the promises of the gospel), this spiritual purity should be struggled for. "The grace of God hath appeared to all men, teaching them that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts," etc. The supreme desire of every true minister of the gospel is that his people shall become pure.

II TO REGARD HIM WITH AFFECTION. "Receive us open your hearts to us," etc. He grounds his claim on their affection:

1. On the fact that he had done harm to none. "We have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man." This is said, no doubt, in answer to some of the charges which his enemies had brought against him said in self-vindication. He had "wronged no man," done injustice to none; he had "corrupted no man" in doctrines or morals; he had "defrauded no man," he had availed himself of no circumstance in order to extort from them money or power. A grand thing this for a minister to be able to say to his people without any fear of contradiction, and in the sight of God.

2. On the fact that he loved them. "I speak not this to condemn you: for I have said before, that ye are in our hearts to live and to die with you." Although I might condemn" you, I still love you; you are so strong in my affections that I will not only visit you, but would live and die with you, if my mission would allow.

3. On the fact that he rejoiced in the good that was in them. "Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you: I am filled with comfort," etc. Thus he commends himself to their affection. It is self-commendation, it is true; but who else could commend him? There were none greater than he living. There is no egotism in his self-commendation.

HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB Ver. 1.

An exhortation to perfection.

therefore these promises," which the apostle had just mentioned, (2Co_6:16-18) what were the Corinthians expected to be? "Sons and daughters" of the Father, God in Christ. But the condition was, "Be ye separate, touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you." There was a character involved ("sons and daughters"); there was something to be done ("come out from among them, and be ye separate"); then "I will receive you." St. Paul is specific in his appeal: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The enlarged heart, of which he had been speaking and would soon speak again, has a tender voice, addressing them as "dearly beloved." Nothing magisterial appears; he is one of them us cleanse ourselves;" nor has he any doubt of their ability to do this thing. Separation from old associations, changes in customs and habits, call for firm resolution and self-denial; but he is well assured that God makes no promise without giving ample strength for the accepting party to comply with the terms offered. If the promises embraced every good connected with their relation to God as a Father, then they must be like God in Christ; they were to entertain no views of God, except as God in Christ, but were to reverence, love, serve him in this one single and complete relationship. The ground, motive, impulse of action, were to spring from this consideration God in Christ as a Father. If so, the righteousness of Christ was not only to be the reason of their justification before the law of rectitude, but they were also to have that righteousness as a property of personal character. By nature they were far gone from righteousness; they were defiled, born in sin; grace had already been communicated to renew their evil character; he had written to them as "washed, sanctified, justified," in the "name" of Christ, and by "the Spirit of our God." As yet the work was only begun. Much was to be done. Sinful tendencies were in them which had never come under the eye of consciousness. Enemies lurked within and without, of whom they were unaware. Imperfect as they and he were, they must go on to perfection. Strength consisted in putting forth strength, to be stronger. First of all, this perfection was to be sought by purifying themselves from evil. What an amount of corruption still remained was seen in the fact of the filthiness in the flesh and spirit. Each part of our complex nature was vitiated, and each combined with the other in opposing the progress necessary to attain holiness. There were vices of the animal man. There were vices of the moral man. And there were vices resulting from the union of the two, so that a thorough and complete cleansing was required. "All filthiness;" no matter of what class or kind, hereditary or acquired, local as respected the wickedness of Corinth, or general as belonging to the human family, the wrong doing among you from the Judaizers, from the free thinkers, from all your ambitious partisanships, yourselves from "all filthiness," whether of the "flesh" or the "spirit." This was the negative side of a great and imperative duty, not all, but much, and very much, since, until this were done, they could take no direct steps towards perfection. Observe now that gross bodily sins were not the only lusts. Tempers and dispositions were just as urgent as passions and appetites in seeking unlawful enjoyments. Reflect on this point. "The spirit in us lusteth to envy." Inordinate affections led to transgression. Nay, they often excited the body to wicked indulgences. Physical organs are frequently torpid; they are aroused by images in the intellect, and stimulated by an impure imagination; and, furthermore, after these organs, because of age or over gratification, have little or no originating force, and are well nigh worn out, the recollections of past pleasures kindle the expiring embers into a flame. Thus, indeed, depravity assumes its most licentious forms. For it is not the animal man that is the chief or the most dangerous factor in this sort of iniquity. The intellectual and moral man descends into corporeal abuses, and then it is these temptations are strongest. In many of these sins there is an element of sentiment supplied by an unholy imagination, which makes them far more tyrannical and debauching than they would be otherwise. And hence it is not the beastly possibility in man that is the greatest danger, but the Satanic agency brought to bear on the body by means of the spirit. It is the devil of the spirit that is the devil of the body. A terrible conjunction this, and yet it is not a common spectacle. Ordinarily the incipient stage of vice is a bodily evil merely. It is a matter of blood and nerves. Not such does it remain long. Satan knows his citadel, and hastens to its occupancy. While it does continue, a man may be reasoned with; he is open to shame, conscience may be reached, and concurrent motives made operative on his feelings, but when physical vice allies itself with spirit, men "glory in their shame," and are "taken captive by Satan at his will." In the final outcome there is but one will, and it is Satan"s will. Much more than this cleansing from the "filthiness of the flesh and spirit" is necessary, if "these promises" are to be fully realized. Therefore he adds, "perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Here we have the positive side of that experience which is demanded of those who are the "sons and daughters" of God in Christ. It is inward holiness. Under the Law, beasts were clean and unclean; things, vessels, places, were externally holy; emblems and symbols of purity abounded; manners, customs, domestic and national usages, were so ordered as to impress on the senses the difference between good and evil. Under the gospel, spiritual holiness is demanded. The circumcision is of the heart, not of the flesh; the sanitary idea of the human body, so frequently set forth in the Old Testament, is changed into that of the body as the temple of the Holy Ghost; and hence, no sooner does the Lord Jesus begin to unfold the constitution of the new kingdom in the sermon on the mount, than he speaks directly to the heart. Righteousness must exceed the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees. Impure thoughts are forbidden. Passions that have no outward voice utter their sinfulness in the ear of God; and feelings that escape not into visible acts are realities in the light of eternity. Inasmuch as the cleansing was a purification of body and spirit, St. Paul argues that the sanctification, begun in regeneration, was to continue, body and spirit sharing together the Spirit"s influence. Neither the one nor the other was to be lost sight of; neither part of the work was to be carried on in a way detrimental to perfect unity; neither was to be exaggerated at the expense of the other. But as body and spirit had been redeemed by Christ"s blood, so were both to be hallowed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Throughout St. Paul"s Epistles there run these two leading ideas the sanctification of body and of spirit and if, at times, the idea of the former is prominent, and then, at other times, the idea of the latter, we must recollect that this variation was necessary to the full presentation of his subject. Great truths are not to be vividly seen except in great moods, and great moods are not habitual, but occasional. Now, this mode of displaying his subject by a rotation of. its aspects exposes the apostle to misconception. The ascetic takes him in one mood of thought, dominant at the moment, because of the nature of his argument. The mystic takes him in another. And they both do him injustice, the ascetic by laying an undue stress on bodily mortifications, the mystic by extravagance in spiritual abstractions. St. Paul is always true to his theology. He never loses his balance, never exalts spirit at the expense of body, never forgets that body is mated with spirit under an economy of permanent neutrality. Hence the argument for inward holiness, that cleansing of spirit and flesh which proceeds from the Holy Ghost in the conscience and heart, and works from the centre and seat of vitality through all the organs of life. It is growing holiness. Growth is the law of existence. The body grows until it attains its physical development, say from twenty-one to twenty-five years of age in men, and then another and much higher growth sets in, that of intellectual and moral adaptiveness to the mind, whereby the nerves, the ganglia, the brains, are brought into closer union with thought, volition, sensibility, But it is in religious life that growth is most perceptible a growth in the fear of God, a filial and tender fear, that is jealous of its sense of sonship, and ever watchful lest it grieve the witnessing Spirit. There is an increasing delight in the discharge of duty, in taking up the daily cross, in practising self-denial, and especially in a clearer view of the ground and reason of self-denial. How the Scriptures grow upon us, the exercises of the closet, the Holy Communion, the fellowship of Christians! And, as we advance, we feel more and more the evil of sin as it is in itself. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." This psalm, the roost profoundly heart searching and personal of the psalms, is nevertheless most representative of that sense of sin which forgets all else in the thought of an offended God. In that bitterest hour of David"s life, his home, other homes, a nation"s homes, involved in his terrible transgression, there is the one overwhelming reflection, Against thee!" The growing Christian sees the innate quality of sin, its deep-seated hold, its presence in the life blood of his old nature, and learns from thence to perfect holiness, by realizing, as far as may be, the holiness of God. "By studying the character of Christ and imitating his example, this Divine holiness defines itself to his mind and engages his affections. "Looking unto Jesus" is the secret of his growth. He looks to him as the "Author" of his faith; how long ago it was! How feeble then! What gracious forbearance! The bruised reed not broken, the smoking flax not quenched! And the "Author" is the "Finisher;" for he is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Law changes into love, and love advances from one degree of strength and beauty to another, from one relation of life to another, from one victory to a victory still greater, the holy ideal rising before him and assuming new glory, and yet, as it retreats to a loftier height, drawing him towards itself with a stronger charm. "Blessed are the pure in heart." It is far on in the Beatitudes; but it is there, thanks to God, it is there as an attainment. The pathway to it is very clearly marked out, the successive steps, the preparatory agencies, the gradual advances, the blessedness of poverty of spirit, of mourning, of meekness, of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, of mercifulness. One may know what progress he is making towards it, and this is the great thing to be known. Milestones along the road record the onward tread and assure the pilgrim of the certain goal. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. L.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Ver. 1.

Holiness.

It is too customary for religions of human origin and authority to lay stress upon merely external and ceremonial purity. Many such religions pay not the slightest attention to the higher claims of morality. Now, Judaism used all its ceremonial cleansings as means for developing the idea of true morality. And Christianity is emphatically a religion of holiness. This appears from considering the unique and sinless character of Christ, the spirituality of his teaching; and further, from the atonement he has made for sin, and the provision for true purity made in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit.

I THE NEGATIVE VIEW OF HOLINESS. The text assumes that man"s state is naturally impure, that his heart is defiled and polluted by sin, that his life is stained and dyed with its moral blackness. Hence the admonition to cleanse:

1. From all filthiness of the flesh. There was a special reason why thisshould be made prominent in addressing the Corinthians, inasmuch as not only was their city celebrated for its licentiousness, but the Church itself had tolerated a flagrant case of immorality. The sins of the flesh are indeed the especial fault of those who have lately been rescued from the corruptions of paganism; yet we shall mislead ourselves if we suppose that, in any state of civilization or Christian privilege, men are free from temptations to offences of this kind.

2. From all filthiness of the spirit. Our Lord himself has been careful andfaithful to warn against these; the heart may sin as well as the body. In fact, it is the heart that needs to be the first and chief seat of purification.

II THE POSITIVE VIEW OF HOLINESS. The expression is noticeable, "perfecting holiness." Such language implies:

1. That there are degrees of moral purity, and that it is expected of theChristian that he should go forward, from one stage to another, conquering sin, achieving new degrees of virtue, and leaving infirmities behind.

2. It is implied also that this is to be the result of effort. No sanction can befound here for that quietism which represents holiness as acquired without effort, struggle, and conquest.

3. Yet it is to be understood that in this process we stand in need of thegracious influences of the Holy Spirit, whose distinctive work is a work of sanctification.

III THE CHRISTIAN MOTIVES TO HOLINESS. They are represented here as two.

1. The fear of God, by which we understand a reverence for his holycharacter, respect for his holy Law, and a proper dread lest we should by disobedience incur his displeasure and indignation.

2. The promises of God. The promises here adduced are indeed sufficientto animate us to the most ardent efforts. The favour and indwelling of the Eternal, his most tender representations of his fatherhood, and his assured consideration and treatment of us as his beloved children, these surely are promises which should and will exercise a mighty influence over the heart and urge to a cheerful and consecrated obedience. T.

HOMILIES BY E. HURNDALL Ver. 1.

The promises of God an incentive to holy living,

I CONSIDER THE DIVINE PROMISES.

1. How numerous they are. Some are specified in preceding verses. Divine promise is, however, found in all parts of the Scripture. The crown of revelation is thickly studded with the pearls of promise. God encourages his people by multiplying promises to them.

2. How varied. There are promises suited to every condition for joy, sorrow, sickness, health, penury, prosperity, weakness, strength. We change greatly in experience, but in every new condition we find a promise appropriate to it. The manna of promise covers the path of pilgrimage.

3. How needful to us. For our support, guidance, comfort, encouragement, happiness, advance. God"s promises are our rods and staffs. Were it not for such upholdings, we should soon sink in the mire.

4. How precious. What promises are like unto these? How can we compute the value of that which is invaluable? Divine promises are things by themselves. Nothing could compensate for their loss. Of such value are they that only a God is rich enough to bestow them.

5. How faithful. What reliance may be placed upon them! They are all "yea" and "amen" in Christ. (2Co_1:20) Promises, indeed, are easily obtained from men, but what men fail in is fulfilment. But the word of Jehovah cannot be broken. His promises are precious, but they are not more precious than sure.

6. Divine promise culminates in such special promises as those given inpreceding verses: (2Co_6:16-18) God"s engagement to dwell within us; God"s continuous adoption of us, whereby we are ever his sons and daughters. If these things be ours, then all things are ours.

II CONSIDER THE LIFE TO WHICH THESE PROMISES SHOULD LEAD.

1. Sins of the flesh should be discarded. If we are God"s, our body is the temple of God. (2Co_6:16) Such a temple must be kept pure. Such sins as intemperance, gluttony, lust, etc., must be renounced by the child of God. We are to glorify God in our bodies. (1Co_6:20) Many forget how truly they may do so. Sins of the flesh are defilements of the flesh. If we defile the temple of God, God will not bless us, but curse us. (1Co_3:17) It is not enough to be pure within, we must be pure without also. Our whole being must be consecrated to God and ruled by his laws.

2. Sins of the spirit must be renounced. Such sins as pride, malice, wrath, envying, falsehood, idolatry, impure conceptions, etc. Many cleanse the exterior only; they whiten the sepulchre, but trouble not about the dead bones within. Many are quite satisfied with external piety; God is not. Note: Sins of the spirit lead to sins of the flesh, and vice versa.

3. We are to seek complete holiness. We are to cleanse ourselves from "all" defilement. We are to "perfect holiness." We are not to be easily satisfied with ourselves. "Tis not enough to do a little and then rest. The statue must be finished; it is begun that it may be completed. The ideal set before us is a high one. Like the painter, the poet, the orator, we must strive to realize this ideal. We are not to rest until all things have become new.

4. All should be done in the fear of God. Our duty to God must influence us more than our own happiness or the welfare of others. True life is a life which is full of God. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and the fear of the Lord runs throughout the truly wise life. Much righteousness is society-satisfying righteousness; social sanction takes the place of Divine; our fellows become our god. In our righteousness we must seek to please and satisfy God. Fear of God"s disapprobation will spur us to sterner efforts.

5. Earnest effort on our part is necessary, The apostle says, "Let us cleanse ourselves." Many wait for God when God is waiting for them. Our salvation is ascribed to God; nevertheless, we are enjoined to work it out; and our efforts to work out our salvation are the evidence that God is working in us. All cleansing of our life is voluntary on our side; and there is no high spiritual life without striving.

III CONSIDER WHY GOD"S PROMISES SHOULD LEAD TO SUCH A LIFE.

1. Gratitude. This is a life well pleasing to God. He in his promises has done how much for us I What is our" reasonable service"?

2. The fulfilment of the Divine promises is conditional upon our seeking to live the new life. Newness of living is the evidence of newness of condition. God"s promises are made to God"s people, or to those who sincerely desire to be his people; but if we do not walk in righteousness we have evidently believed in vain. We are then only of the nominal, not the real, Israel; and the promises are for the latter, not the former. The nominal Jews lost their privileges because they possessed only nominal piety. All God"s promises are conditional. If we are not fruit-bearing trees, we must expect not to be cared for, but to be cut down. The promises of God are not for any save those who walk in his fear and love. H.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1.

The practical power of the promises.

The Apostle John gives a very similar counsel. In 1Jn_3:3 he says, "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Our hope is based upon the promises; and the promises which the apostle has been recalling to mind are

(1) the indwelling of God;

(2) his free reception of us; and

(3) his fatherhood and our sonship, with all the love and care and keeping which these involve. (2Co_6:16-18)

St. Paul argues in this way Because you are saved, because you have entered into such a state of privilege, because you are covered by such "exceeding great and precious promises," therefore be in earnest to cleanse yourselves from all evil, watch over all the various forms of conduct, and seek to tone and purify every expression of the life. The expression, "filthiness of the flesh and spirit," needs explanation. St. Paul evidently had in mind the immoralities which are associated with idolatry, and which the Corinthian Church had treated too lightly when brought into their midst by the incestuous member. Writing of the apostle"s association with Corinth, Archdeacon Farrar says, "There was one characteristic of heathen life which would come home to him with overwhelming force, and fill his pure soul with infinite pain. It was the gross immorality of a city conspicuous for its depravity even amid the depraved cities of a dying heathenism. Its very name had become a synonym for reckless debauchery .... So far from acting as a check upon this headlong immorality, religion had there taken under its immediate protection the very pollutions which it was its highest function to suppress. It was to the converts of this city that he addressed most frequently, and with most solemn warning and burning indignation, his stern prohibition of sensual crime. It was to converts drawn frown the reeking haunts of its slaves and artisans that he writes that they too had once been sunk in the lowest depths of sin and shame. It is of this city that we hear the sorrowful admission that in the world of heathendom a pure life and an honest life was a thing well nigh unknown." Distinguishing between the flesh and the spirit, though these are so subtly related, we may say, "The outward defilement is caused by sins of the flesh, or bodily part of man; the inward by those of the spirit, such as pride, unbelief, or the like." Dealing comprehensively with the topic suggested by the passage, we may show

I THE VARIETY OF THE PROMISES. They are found scattered throughout the sacred Word, and taking every variety of form. They are sometimes:

1. Involved in the Divine dealings with individuals.

2. At other times they are embodied in doctrinal truths, and found as soonas we try to give those truths practicable applications.

3. And at other times they are words which come to us with the seal of theexperience of good men through all the ages. In all God"s gracious dealings, as well as in all God"s gracious words, lie hid precious and inspiring promises for all who can read aright.

II THE ADAPTATION OF THE PROMISES. As life advances it comes to us with a great and blessed surprise, that we never pass into circumstances and conditions for which precise promises have not been provided. They are manifestly suited just for us, and for just the conditions in which we, at any given time, are placed. It seems as if they were fashioned and sent for us and to us.

III THE ESSENCE OF ALL THE PROMISES. This is given in the promises which St. Paul has been impressing on the Corinthians. It is God"s fatherliness. All promises are the assurance of our acceptance with God, our sonship with God, and the expression of the love and the faithfulness with which he fulfils his fatherhood. At the heart of every promise lies this declaration, "I will be a Father unto you.

IV THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE PROMISES. They set us upon seeking to be what God would have us be. Assuring strength they set us upon endeavour. Or, to put the matter in relation to the previous division of the subject, realizing the fatherliness of our God, we are set upon seeking to be true and faithful "sons and daughters pure sons of the holy Father, obedient sons of the King-Father, loving sons of the loving Father, very sensitive to the things that are unworthy of him, and very earnest in the endeavour to put them wholly away from us.

V THE COMFORTING POWER OF THE PROMISES. This may be added to complete the treatment of the subject, though it is not the point set forth prominently by the apostle, and is a familiar topic. The true comforting, however, of God"s promises only can come to those who carry out the Christian duties, walk worthily of the Lord, and need grace and upholding and cheer in their Christian conflict. R.T.

Our great life work.

holiness in the fear of God." The former clause of the verse indicates one side of Christian duty the putting away of sin; this presents the other side the putting on of holiness. We must "put off the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts." We must "put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." Melvill says, "At present the believer is like the marble in the hands of the sculptor; but though day by day he may give fresh touches and work the marble into greater emulation of the original, the resemblance will be far from complete until death. Each fresh degree of likeness is a fresh advance toward perfection. It must then be that when every feature is moulded into similitude, when all traces of feebleness and depravity are swept away forever, the statue breathes, and the picture burns with Deity, it must be that then we "shall be filled." We shall look on the descending Mediator, and as though the ardent gaze drew down celestial fire, we shall seem instantly to pass through the refiner"s furnace, and, leaving behind all the dishonour of the grave, and all the dross of corruptible humanity, spring upwards an ethereal, rapid, glowing thing Christ"s image, extracted by Christ"s lustre? The apostle had been speaking of the temple, and of Christians as Divine temples, and so his idea of" holiness" was chiefly "consecration," "separation unto God," "entire devotement to God." Treating the perfecting of holiness as a continuous work, to which the whole of the Christian life and effort must be given, we consider

I THE INITIAL STAGE. The winning of holiness. There is some danger of confusing justification with sanctification. The distinction between the two may be simply expressed if we say that a man must be set right before he can go right. Regeneration is the setting of our will right with God. Justification is the setting us in the right standing with God. These stand at the very threshold of the holy life, and there is no entrance to it by any other way. Regarded from another point of view, the act of solemn personal decision for God and consecration to his service is the winning of holiness, the beginning of the godly life.

II THE CONTINUOUS STAGE. The beginning is a frail and feeble thing. Good so far as it goes, and full of hopefulness; but needing growth, culture, perfecting. In New Testament Scriptures the word "perfect" stands for "whole," "entire," in opposition to "one-sided," to imperfect developments of parts, to monstrosities; and. so it is suggestive of the many-sided forms in which the perfecting of holiness must be carried on. The Christian has to win holiness in thought, expression of thought in word, in conduct, in relations. He is even to keep before him this unattainable ideal, "Be ye holy, even as I am holy," saith the Lord. And the perfect holiness is no merely cleaned surface, whitened free of all old stains of sin and self; it is that whitened surface painted all over with the infinite grace and purity and goodness of the Lord Christ. It is being free of the old image, but it is also being changed into his image. Whether the "perfect holiness" has ever been attained by any man while he dwelt among the shadows of the earthly can never be known, for the best of men will say to their dying days as did David, "My goodness extendeth not to thee, only to the saints that are in the earth." Enough for us to know that it is a lifelong pursuit, the cry of the soul as long as the soul can cry, the endeavour of the life so long as the life endures. Only when passed through shall We know that we are holy; and then "he that is holy may be holy still.

III THE INSPIRATION OF THE ENDEAVOUR AFTER HOLINESS. "In the fear of God." With the ever-present thought of him who is revealed as the "consuming fire." The fear of offending God, and the desire to please God, are necessary elements in the process of sanctification. F.W. Robertson says, "We cannot do without awe; there is no depth of character without it. Tender motives are not enough to restrain from sin. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let us cleanse ourselves - This is the latter part of the exhortation, which was proposed, chap. vi, 1, and resumed, chap. vi, 14. From all pollution of the flesh - All outward sin. And of the spirit - All inward. Yet let us not rest in negative religion, but perfect holiness - Carrying it to the height in all its branches, and enduring to the end in the loving fear of God, the sure foundation of all holiness.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

perfecting

(See Scofield "Mat 5:48").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Paul’s Consolation and Joy because of the Corinthians.

A frank and urgent appeal to sanctification:

v. 1. Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

v. 2. receive us; we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man.

v. 3. I speak not this to condemn you; for I have said before that ye are in our hearts to die and live with you.

v. 4. Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you; I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.

The first verse completes the appeal of chapter 6, to receive not the grace of God in vain. And in order to make his entreaty very impressive and winning, the apostle includes himself in the admonition: Since now these promises we have, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Great, exalted promises were those of which the apostle had reminded them, especially of the fact that they were the temple of the living God. Such a great privilege, however, naturally imposed obligations upon them, as it does upon all Christians, namely, those of putting away all pollution, all defilement, as it springs out of all evil associations, with unbelievers and heathen of every description. Such fellowship pollutes the absolute purity of the believer’s personal communion with God; it defiles not only the spirit, but the body as well; it is incompatible with the proper reception of the grace of God as offered in the Gospel. Every Christian must rather feel the necessity of growing in the proper fear and reverence toward God day by day, and thus becoming more perfect in holiness. That should be the state of mind, the disposition, of all believers, that they aim to walk before God and be perfect, Gen 17:1. The consecration to God which was begun by faith in Baptism must be actualized, developed, and perfected during the whole life, and always with the sense of the nearness, of the presence, of God, before whom nothing is concealed.

With this thought to challenge their emulation, Paul now repeats his appeal of chap. 6:13: receive us, that is, make room for us in your hearts; let the former unpleasant narrowness of sympathy he a thing of the past. He is anxious to possess their love, he is concerned about the fact that they were grieved by his letter, he is delighted on being reassured of their affection He assures them, therefore: No man have me done wrong, no man have we corrupted, no man have we taken advantage of. Here is the reason for his appeal to be accepted by them, into their hearts. All charges against his moral conduct were without foundation. For he had done injustice to no one, in his dealings with them he had violated no one’s rights by a needless severity of discipline; he had seduced no one by false doctrine, he was no deceiver; in all his dealings with them he had not attempted to take any advantage of them, neither by reminding them of their duty to provide for their teachers, nor by recommending to them a method of systematic collecting for the poor in Jerusalem.

But lest the Corinthian Christians in this very defense of the apostle feel their wrong in not having defended him against the attacks of his detractors, he hastens to add: By way of condemnation I do not say this; for I have stated before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. As a sentence of condemnation they were not to construe his words; he was not accusing them of mistrusting him. Rather it remained true what he had assured them of before, chap. 1:6; 6:11, that his heart was enlarged in loving sympathy for them, just as he felt sure of their affection toward him. Their image was in his heart, they were so inseparably connected with him in love that they would be absent from his heart neither in death nor in life. And the Greek word which he uses implies that this feeling was mutual, that his devotion to their welfare was equaled by their love for him. This fact makes him continue, with all joyfulness: Great is my frankness toward you, great is my glorying on your behalf. The assurance of their loving sympathy gives him the confidence to unburden himself so frankly to them, to boast so trustingly on their account, not only in this letter, but on the occasion of his visits to other congregations. Such was the exultation of his heart over their spiritual progress that he cried out: I am filled with comfort, I am more than filled, I overflow with joy in all our affliction. Misery, distress, sorrow there is indeed always for the faithful minister, both on account of the persecution of the world and by reason of apostasy and enmity within the congregations. But all this is overshadowed by the consolation derived from the success of the Gospel, as a result of which the apostle’s heart is filled with joy to overflowing; it could not contain his feeling in silence, but must needs break forth in happy exclamation. It is the experience of all pastors that are unswervingly faithful in the discharge of their duties, consolation and joy overshadowing the affliction of sorrow.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These words are argumentative, and infer the indispensable duty of Christians to preserve themselves untainted from the idolatrous, impute world, by the consideration of the promises specified in the preceding chapter, I will dwell in you, and walk in you, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; a promise which contains the highest honour, and most perfect felicity, of the reasonable nature.

Now from hence he infers, That Christians having such promises, such helps and assistances, should cleanse themselves from sinful pollution, and endeavour after perfection in purity and holiness. Having therefore, &c.

Observe here, 1. The title wherewith the apostle addresses himself unto them, Dearly beloved; this expresses both the truth and also the strength of his affections towards them: By this appellation he recommends his counsel to their acceptance: For, as light opens the mind by clear conviction, so love opens the heart by persuasive insinuation.

Observe, 2. The matter of the address, and that is, to cleanse ourselves from all pollution both of spirit and flesh, and the changing of us into the unspotted image of God’s holiness. The pollution of human nature is intimate and radical, diffused through all the faculties of the soul, and members of the body; we are therefore to pray for, and endeavour after renewing grace, and to be always advancing in holiness on earth, till we arrive at perfection in heaven.

Observe, 3. The motive exciting hereunto; namely, the exceeding great and precious promises assured to us from the mouth of God, Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves.

Observe, 4. The means to help us therein, the fear of God. This grace has an eminent casuality and influence in a Christian’s sanctification; it is a powerful restraint from sin both in thought and act, by considering that God’s pure and flaming eyes see sin wherever it is, in order to judgment. An holy fear of God, and an humble fear of ourselves, will both restrain us from sin, and engages us to obedience.

From the whole, learn, That the promises of the gospel lay the most powerful obligations upon Christians to endeavour after, and strive for the attainment of pure and perfect holiness. As the pollution is universal, so must the cleansing be; and though thankful we must be for the least measure of sanctifying grace received, yet not satisfied with the greatest, short of our perfection; perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God . [By an appeal to the prophets the apostle shows how it was God's design that his people should avoid all fellowship with unrighteous people in their unrighteous practices. To stimulate them to obedience, God had given them the wonderful promise that he would adopt them as his children if they would obey him in these things. This promise of adoption had been renewed in the new covenant, and belonged to all Christians, and therefore it behooved Christians not to temporize with evil because of any vainglorious desire to display their liberty, lest they should thereby lose the real and eternal glory of being adopted sons and daughters of God.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2 Corinthians Chapter 7-8

The apostle returns to his own relationships with the Corinthians-relations formed by the word of his ministry. And now having laid open what this ministry really was, he seeks to prevent the bonds being broken, which had been formed by this ministry between the Corinthians and himself through the power of the Holy Ghost.

"Receive us: we have wronged no one"-he is anxious not to wound the feelings of these restored ones, who found themselves again in their old affection for the apostle, and thus in their true relation with God. "I do not say this to condemn you," he adds; "for I have said before that ye are in my heart to die and live with you. My boldness is great towards you, great is my glorying of you. I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all my tribulation." He is not now unfolding the principles of the ministry, but the heart of a minister, all that he had felt with regard to the state of the Corinthians. When he had arrived in Macedonia (whither, it will be remembered, he had gone without visiting Corinth), after he had left Troas, because he did not find Titus there, who was to bring him the answer to his first letter to the Corinthians-when he was come into Macedonia, his flesh had no rest there either; he was troubled on every side: without were fightings, within were fears. There however God, who comforts those who are cast down, comforted him by the arrival of Titus, for whom he had waited with so much anxiety; and not only by his coming, but by the good news he brought from Corinth. His joy went beyond all his sorrow, for his heart was to die and live with them. He saw the moral fruits of the operation of the Spirit, their desire, their tears, their zeal with regard to the apostle; and his heart turns again to them in order to bind up, by the expression of his affection, all the wounds (needful as they were) which his first letter might have made in their hearts.

Nothing more touching than the conflict in his heart between the necessity he had felt, on account of their previous state, to write to them with severity, and in some sort with a cold authority, and the affections which, now that the effect had been produced, dictated almost an apology for the grief he might have caused them. If, he says, I made you sorry by the letter, I do not repent: even though he might have repented and had done so for a moment. For he saw that the letter had grieved them, were it but for a season. But now he rejoiced, not that they had been made sorry, but that they had sorrowed unto repentance. What solicitude! What a heart for the good of the saints! If they had a fervent mind towards him, assuredly he had given them the occasion and the motive. No rest till he had tidings: nothing, not open doors, nor distress, could remove his anxiety. He regrets perhaps having written the letter, fearing that he had alienated the hearts of the Corinthians; and now, still pained at the thought of having grieved them, he rejoices, not at having grieved them, but because their godly sorrow had wrought repentance.

He writes a letter according to the energy of the Holy Ghost. Left to the affections of his heart, we see him, in this respect, below the level of the energy of inspiration which had dictated that letter which the spiritual were to acknowledge as the commandments of the Lord; his heart trembles at the thought of its consequences, when he receives no tidings. It is very interesting to see the difference between the individuality of the apostle and inspiration. In the first letter we remarked the distinction which he makes between that which he said as the result of his experience, and the commandments of the Lord communicated through him. Here we find the difference in the experience itself. He forgets the character of his epistle for a moment, and, given up to his affections, he fears to have lost the Corinthians by the effort he had made to reclaim them. The form of the expression he uses shews that it was but for a moment that this sentiment took possession of his heart. But the fact that he had it plainly shews the difference between Paul the individual and Paul the inspired writer.

Now he is satisfied. The expression of this deep interest which he feels for them is a part of his ministry, and valuable instruction for us, to shew the way in which the heart enters into the exercise of this ministry, the flexibility of this mighty energy of love, in order to win and bend hearts by the opportune expression of that which is passing in our own: an expression which will assuredly take place when the occasion makes it right and natural, if the heart is filled with affection; for a strong affection likes to make itself known to its object, if possible, according to the truth of that affection. There is a grief of heart which consumes it, but a heart that feels godly sorrow is on the way to repentance. [10]

The apostle then sets forth the fruits of this godly sorrow, the zeal against sin it had produced, the heart’s holy rejection of all association with sin. Now also that they had morally separated themselves, he separates those who were not guilty from those who were so. He will no longer confound them together. They had confounded themselves together morally by walking at ease with those who were in sin. By putting away the sin they were now outside the evil: and the apostle shews that it was with a view to their good, because he was devoted to them, that he had written to testify the loving occupation of his thoughts about them, and to put to the test their love for him before God. Sad as their walk had been, he had assured Titus, when encouraging him to go to Corinth, that he would certainly find hearts there that would respond to this appeal of apostolic affection. He had not been disappointed, and as he had declared the truth among them, that which he had said of them to Titus was found true also, and the affections of Titus himself were strongly awakened when he saw it.

Footnotes for 2 Corinthians Chapters 7&8

10: Greatness of heart does not readily talk about feelings, because it thinks of others, not of itself. But it is not afraid, when occasion arises, to do so; because it thinks of others, and has a depth of purpose in its affections, which is behind all this movement of them. And Christianity gives greatness of heart. And besides, from its nature, it is confiding, and this wins, and gives unsought, influence this greatness of heart does not seek, for it is unselfish. His true relationship for their good the apostle did maintain.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Having therefore these promises. Those named in the 17th and 18th verses of the preceding chapter. This verse is properly in that connection, and should not have been separated by the chapter division. Let us cleanse ourselves. See 6:17 above. From all filthiness of the flesh. All sensual sins, such as those to which the Corinthians were addicted. And of the spirit. The spirit of a man is defiled by such sins as those named in Gal. 5:19–21. Perfecting holiness. Every Christian in purifying himself should strive for greater holiness and constantly seek to attain to the ideal of which Christ is the example.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul continues to remind them to be separated from sin and to seek holiness purposefully.

Loved ones

"You whom I love" or "Dear friends"

let us cleanse ourselves

Here Paul is saying to stay away from any form of sin that would affect one's relationship with God.

Let us pursue holiness

"Let us strive to be holy"

in the fear of God

"out of deep respect for God"

translationWords

promise

clean

clean

spirit

holy

fear

God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Filthiness [μολυσμου] . Rev., defilement. Only here in the New Testament. For the kindred verb molunw to defile, see on Rev 14:4. Compare 1Co 8:7.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.