Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 7

Having therefore these promises . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness.—The thought is identical with that of 1 John 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 generalized 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 2 Maccabees 1:27, it is used of the “pollution” of idolatry; in the LXX of Jeremiah 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 Revelation 14:4, and probably with the same sense in Revelation 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 (Titus 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 2 Corinthians 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 mistranslated “terror” in 2 Corinthians 5:11.

Receive us; we have wronged no man.—Better, Make room for us; we wronged no man: with the same change of tense in the verbs that follow. There is an almost infinite pathos in that entreaty, uttered, we may well believe, as from the very depths of the soul—“Make room for us.” The undercurrent of thought flows on.

He had complained of their being restricted in their affections, had urged that they would enlarge their hearts towards him, as his heart was enlarged towards them. He has moved on in his thoughts—his thoughts turning now to the party of license, with whom he had pleaded so earnestly in 1 Corinthians 8–10—to the terrible, unspeakable contaminations to which they were exposing themselves by their companionship with idolaters. He now, almost, as it were, with sobs, pleads once more: “You can find a place for such as these in your heart. Have you no place for me?”

In the words we wronged no man we find a reference to charges of greed and self-interested motives that had been whispered against him, and to which he refers again in 2 Corinthians 8:20; 2 Corinthians 12:18. Perhaps, also, he contrasts himself with others, who did wrong and defrauded (1 Corinthians 6:8).

We have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man.—The word for “corrupt” is the same as that translated “defile” in 1 Corinthians 3:17, and is used with clear reference to sensual impurity in 2 Peter 2:12; Jude 1:10; Revelation 19:2. The word for “defrauded” is not the same as that in 1 Corinthians 6:8, and though meaning literally “to make a gain,” or “seek a gain,” had, with its cognate nouns, acquired a darker shade of meaning.

The verb is used in clear connection with impurity in 1 Thessalonians 4:3–6 (see the note on this passage). The nouns often appear in closest association with those that indicate that form of evil (1 Corinthians 5:10–11; Ephesians 5:5; 2 Peter 2:14; Romans 1:29; Colossians 3:5).

Mere greed for gain is commonly described by another word, which we translate the love of money (Luke 16:14; 1 Timothy 6:10; 2 Timothy 3:2). Therefore, there seems to be sufficient reason for connecting this verb also with the same class of sins. It would seem as if the word had colloquially acquired a secondary meaning and was used to describe those who sought gain by ministering to the vice of others—who became, as it were, purveyors of impurity.

The words, so understood, give us a momentary glimpse into a depth of evil from which we would willingly turn our eyes. But they leave no room for doubt that, in the boundless pruriency of such a city as Corinth, even such things as these had been said of the Apostle in the cynical jests of the paganising party of license.

They tolerated such things themselves. They welcomed those who practiced them to their friendship (1 Corinthians 5:11). They whispered, we may well believe, of private interviews in lonely lodgings, of public gatherings at night of men and women, and of the kiss of peace. They insinuated that, after all, he was even someone like themselves.

Similarly, the good reputation of a disciple of St. Paul's was attacked by Martial, not apparently with malignity, but only in the wantonness of jest (See Excursus on the Later Years of St. Paul's Life, at the end of the Acts of the Apostles). Similar charges were leveled at the reputation of Athanasius (Sozomen, Hist. 2.25) and of Hooker (Walton's Life).

So, generally, it was the ever-recurring calumny of the heathen against the Christians that their Agapae, or Feasts of Love, were scenes of the foulest license. It is obvious that there is much in the popular outcry against confession that shares, more or less, the same character.

Against charges of this nature St. Paul utters his indignant denial: "No," he virtually says; "you find a place in your affections for those who do such things: can you not find a place also for us who are free from them?" The sense which some have given to the word “corrupt,” as referring only to doctrinal corruptions, is clearly out of the question.

I speak not this to condemn you.—Better, I do not speak as condemning. There is no “you” in the Greek, and the form of expression seems intentionally vague, leaving it an open question whether his words might refer to his readers or to others.

Here we trace a sudden change of feeling. What he had just said seemed to imply that he condemned them for even listening to the slanders that had been circulated against him, or for joining in any measure of outward friendship with people of evil lives. Then, the recollection of all the good news Titus had brought rushes into his memory. Indignation and acute sensitivity are swallowed up in the overflowing thankfulness that this news had produced at the time, and which was now renewed.

I have said before . . .—He had not used this form of expression before, as far as this letter is concerned, but the fact was implied in what he had said in 2 Corinthians 6:11: Our heart is enlarged. The words that follow are partly an almost proverbial expression for strong attachment, as in Horace (Odes, iii. 9): “Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens”—

“With you I would gladly live,
With you I would gladly die;”

partly with a more profound meaning, that, whether in death or life (the order of the words reminds us of dying, but behold, we live, in 2 Corinthians 6:9), his heart and prayers would be with them and for them.

Great is my boldness of speech.—The context shows that he is not apologizing for bold and plain speaking, but uses the word as implying confidence (1 Timothy 3:13; Philemon 1:8). He can speak without reticence now, because he is going to express his comfort and joy at what had been reported to him.

I am exceeding joyful.—Literally, I exceedingly abound (or, overflow) in joy. The verb is the same as in Romans 5:20, and answers to the pressed above measure which he had used in 2 Corinthians 1:8, in speaking of his troubles.

For, when we were come into Macedonia . . .—His feeling has led him back to the narrative from which he had digressed in 2 Corinthians 2:13. He had come from Troas full of anxiety and agitation. He arrived in Macedonia. Much remained the same. His body was still suffering from lack of rest, even though his spirit had found relief in the thought that the coming of Titus could not now be far off. (Compare “our flesh” here, with “I had no rest for my spirit” in 2 Corinthians 2:13.)

Without were fightings, within were fears.—We have no knowledge to what the first clause refers. It is natural to think either of dangers and persecutions from pagans, or, probably, of conflicts with the party of the circumcision, or, as he calls them in Philippians 3:2, of “the concision,” at Philippi. The “fears” clearly refer to his alarm and anxiety about the effect produced by his first Epistle.