Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
Comforted by the Coming of Titus
2 Corinthians 7:1-7
1 Having therefore these promises, beloved, let’s cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. · WEB
Three denials answer the charge that mattered most, and the comfort that arrives comes through a man walking into a room.
Having therefore these promises, beloved, let's cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. The promises are the ones just quoted, and the pronoun is ourselves — Paul puts himself under the instruction he is giving.
Then the request from before the digression is repeated: open your hearts to us 2 Corinthians 6:13. And three denials follow, each of three words: we wronged no one. We corrupted no one. We took advantage of no one.
The third is the live one. The verb means to get the better of someone financially, and the collection was in Paul's hands. He will spend a chapter arranging for other men to carry it precisely so the charge cannot be made 2 Corinthians 8:20.
Verse 3 immediately softens the denials so they do not read as an attack: I say this not to condemn you. And then the strongest thing he says about them anywhere: you are in our hearts to die together and live together.
Verse 4 stacks four short clauses — boldness, boasting, filled with comfort, I overflow with joy — and attaches the last two to circumstances that do not fit them: in all our affliction.
What that affliction was is then described, and the description is not brave. Our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted on every side. Then five words that measure the whole situation: fightings were outside. Fear was inside. Trouble in the province, and fear in him. He does not claim the outside pressure left the inside untouched.
And the relief, when it comes, is not a vision or a rescue. He who comforts the lowly, God, comforted us by the coming of Titus. The title is the one from the letter's opening 2 Corinthians 1:3, and the means is a colleague arriving with news.
Verse 7 traces the comfort back one step further: it came by the comfort with which he was comforted in you. Titus was consoled in Corinth and carried it to Macedonia. The circuit described in the first chapter — comfort received in order to be passed on 2 Corinthians 1:4 — is here running in the direction Paul did not arrange, from the congregation to the apostle.
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