2 Corinthians 7:1

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 2 Corinthians 7:2 would fit on very well to 2 Corinthians 6:13 : it is indeed a return to the topic of 2 Corinthians 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 1 Corinthians 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 2 Corinthians 6:1 this exhortation to purity of faith and conduct comes in here naturally enough. The return to the affectionate appeal of 2 Corinthians 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 2 Corinthians 12:19 : comp. 1 Corinthians 10:14; 1 Corinthians 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 (John 13:10). Even good Christians are constantly incurring taints which need to be as constantly removed. For καθαρίζειν� comp. 1 John 1:7; Hebrews 9:14; Psalms 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); Jeremiah 23:15; 2Ma 5:27); but the verb is frequent in both LXX. and N.T. (1 Corinthians 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 Romans 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 (Matthew 5:48). The process of bringing ἁγιωσύνη (Romans 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:13) to completeness (2 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 8:11; Philippians 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. Acts 9:31; Romans 3:18; 1 Peter 3:15. We have ἐν φόβω̣ Χριστοῦ Ephesians 5:21. Qui sine timore Domini vult bonum aliquod facere superbus est (Herveius Burgidol.).