Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 8:14

"but by equality: your abundance [being a supply] at this present time for their want, that their abundance also may become [a supply] for your want; that there may be equality:" — 2 Corinthians 8:14 (ASV)

But by an equality.—The meaning of the word is obvious. The Church of Jerusalem was at this time suffering from poverty, and therefore, Saint Paul exhorts the Corinthians to come to its assistance. A time might come when their relative positions would be reversed, and then he would plead with equal earnestness that Jerusalem should assist Corinth.

It is reading too much between the lines to see in these words the thought that the Apostle expresses elsewhere (Romans 15:27), that the equality of which he speaks consisted in the Corinthians giving money and receiving spiritual privileges. But for the fact that controversial ingenuity is “capable of anything,” it might have been thought impossible to see in them the doctrine that people are to give to the poor so that, in their time of need, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, they might receive from them a transfer of their superfluous merits. And yet this has actually been done by Roman Catholic commentators—even by such as Estius.