What does "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" mean (2 Corinthians 7:1)?

Verse 1 is plainly connected with chapter 6. Because the saints of God have these promises, and because they are dearly beloved, they are exhorted to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. "Flesh and spirit" are not used here in the same way as in Romans 8 and Galatians 5, where the flesh is the corrupted nature of man, and the spirit is the new nature, incapable of sin. Here the flesh speaks rather of our bodily, human condition; and the spirit, of man's human spirit. Fornication is sin against one's own body, and therefore filthiness of the flesh (1 Cor. 6:18). Idolatry, or association with "doctrines of demons," that is, religious corruption, is "filthiness of the spirit," the human spirit of course. Both are contrary to our precious association with our God and Father revealed in His beloved Son. "Perfecting holiness" is the full development of the nature and quality of holiness in response to the very character of our God and Father; and this is to be in reverential fear.

"Having therefore these promises," etc. (1.) This verse would find a more natural place at the end of the preceding chapter, since it forms the close of the apostle's exhortation, with a change, after his usual manner, from the second person to the first: "Let us cleanse ourselves," (katharisomen heautous) etc. We may first notice how the divine promise in Christ is here used by the Spirit of grace, according to the standing principle laid down in an earlier chapter (2 Cor. 1:20), as a stimulant to practical godliness in the saints. This marks broadly and decisively the difference between law and grace, as already stated with such fulness in chapter 3; the former proposing as an object of natural attainment, what the latter declares as an accomplished fact in the person of the Saviour, and confers absolutely, in Him, on the sincere believer. God can promise nothing to His children which He has not already secured to them in Christ, on the ground of His merit, who alone is worthy. He will give nothing, except in answer to a faith that lives upon His word.

The believer is already clean every whit, as viewed of God in his Redeemer; but for that very reason his calling is to purify himself. And of all who have in them the true hope of the gospel, it is written that they do purify themselves, as He is pure; for such hope is in its very nature assimilative; we are changed as we behold (ante, 2 Cor. 3:18). But the self-purification to which we are here exhorted relates rather to the positive regulation of our walk, than to the secret culture of the soul, although these things are in reality morally inseparable. As, under the law, of Moses, the leper who had been already divinely healed must aid in the work of his own cleansing (Lev. 14); so the believer, who, as a once-purged worshipper, has access by faith into the holiest, and is in Christ presented acceptably to the Father, is called to pass the uncertain but appointed measure of his sojourn upon earth in giving diligence, that he may be found of Him without blame at His appearing (James 4:14; 2 Peter 3:14). The Spirit, who is the seal of their adoption, is their guide and teacher in the ways of God; and He who stablishes their souls in Christ is their light also, and their strength, for the fulfilling of their course as followers of Him. There are duties as well as privileges of true grace, and that "he that says he abides in Him ought himself so to walk, even as He walked" (1 John 2:6; Col. 2:6; 1 Peter 2:21), will be accepted by every right-hearted believer as a just and reasonable estimate of Christian life and conversation.

The terms of his injunction are very comprehensive: all filthiness is to be removed, and holiness is to be perfected in the fear of God. With respect to the two kinds of filthiness here specified, the first comprises all that operates instrumentally through the members, and is equivalent to "the deeds of the body," which we are elsewhere called to mortify. The chief varieties of this defilement are catalogued for our warning and avoidance, in their fitting place (Col. 3:5; Gal. 5:19, sq.). The filthiness of the spirit represents, on the other hand, the license of the natural mind, the whole interior world of thought and will, when unregulated by the truth and fear of God. Every kind of doctrinal aberration, therefore, as well as all "perverse disputings," fall within this latter category, besides the more obviously vicious imaginings of a corrupted mind. And the remedy for both these evils is the same. Truth is the only light by which our natural filthiness is disclosed to our consciousness; and faith, which draws nigh to God (Heb. 11:6), the only power which cleanses, and keeps clean, the bosom of a saint.

But holiness is to be pursued, as well as evil shunned; and in calling for its perfection the disciple does but repeat the Master's earlier claim (Matt. 5:48; Eph. 5:1). God's children can have no lower standard of conformity proposed to them than God Himself, as we learn Him in the gospel of His Son. To be transformed to this pattern, by the renewing of our minds, is the manner and measure of that "godliness" which should be added to our saving faith (Rom. 12:2; 2 Peter 1:6). Nor should we lightly regard the last words of this verse; it is in the fear of God that holiness is to have its perfect work. That which, as an element of character, is declared to be totally wanting to the natural man, is here mentioned emphatically as a ruling principle of action in the saint. The presence or absence of this quality constitutes, in fact, the essential distinction between a true believer and a merely hypocritical or self-deceived professor. A mental conception of grace, unaccompanied by the fear of God, produces antinomianism, and is the last and most deadly form of spiritual corruption (Jude 4). The grace of God is never separable from His fear. His goodness leads those who believingly appreciate it to repentance; while reverence and godly fear distinguish always the behaviour of those whose worship and service He accepts (Heb. 12:28). Those who hate God dread and would flee from Him, when they think of Him at all: His fear is the treasure of His children. Jesus feared, and they who have the mind of Christ fear also. This sentiment is not to be confounded with that which is proper to a conscience under legal bondage. That fear has been cast out of the believer's heart, ever since he knew the grace of God in truth, by the power of His perfect love (1 John 4:17-18; Col. 1:6). He will have boldness in the day when unrepentant sinners are afraid. The fear of which Paul here speaks is the one essential form which love to Godward must ever take, in the case of any creature. And the higher the elevation to which grace raises its objects, and the nearer the relationship in which they stand to God, the more perfect and intense must be that venerative sentiment which has its origin in the true knowledge of Him who is its object (Ps. 89:7). When the apostle noticed that there were some at Corinth who, by disputing the doctrine of the resurrection, showed an entire absence of this fear, he taxes them with ignorance of God. For none who know God underrate His power, or trifle with His words. Among Christians this soul-preserving sentiment will be deep or shallow, according to their measure of self-knowledge and of grace.

In this chapter, he applies the promises to the Corinthians themselves: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." First, rescue them out from the mass, and then purify them fit for God. The point here is, their being set apart to a holy God, and then in detail purify everything. We also find in Leviticus, "Be ye holy, for I am holy: sanctify yourselves, for I am Jehovah that has sanctified you: for Jehovah your God is holy," and such like words. That is, when they have been brought out of Egypt.

The second exhortation is closely linked with this. "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Holiness in our walk is God's demand. God looks for practical holiness in His people. If we walk thus, habitually cleansing ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, we perfect holiness, a practical, daily separation, in the fear of God. While we are, as born again, "clean every whit" (John 13:10), our calling is equally to purify ourselves as He is pure. The defilements of the flesh are the things mentioned in Colossians 3:5, Galatians 5:19, and elsewhere. What are the defilements of the spirit? It means the license of the natural mind, the whole sphere of thought and will, when unregulated by the truth and fear of God. Read Chapter 10:5. Every thought must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

If practical sanctification be in question it is another matter. That is progressive, and there should be increase in it to the end. We are to be "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7:1), and Paul prayed for the Thessalonians to the end that they might be sanctified "to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Holiness is not, of course, apart from faith, but to speak of holiness by faith, as though faith alone produced it, is to shut out elements of Christian living which ought by no means to be excluded.

"Perfecting holiness in the fear of God" is not a leaping at once into a positive gift attained by faith, like justification. It does not become our author to talk of "intellectual tricks," but to compare his own statements more carefully with scripture before he sets about to teach others by "professing" his own attainments and to make his own experience the rule for others. When in Romans 6, of which I will speak more fully, the apostle speaks of being dead, he refers to living in sin, he speaks of walking in newness of life. He says: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof; for sin shall not have dominion over you." That is, he speaks of the law or power of sin, not of its absence, of having fruit unto holiness. He speaks in a totally different manner from the writer.

WE HAVE THEN these striking promises from the lips of God. If we are separate from the world, and face whatever loss that may involve, we shall find God acting as Father toward us, and we shall enter consciously into the good and sweetness of the relationship in which we are set. Now having such promises we are exhorted (as we open chapter 7) to purify ourselves, and thus perfect holiness in the fear of God. Notice that it says, "from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." This is a very important word, and very sweeping. Our attention has just been directed to the necessity of a purification from all fellowship with the world in outward things. Yet if we merely practised separation in outward things, confining ourselves to that, we should just become Pharisees; a most undesirable thing. The separation we are to practice goes much deeper. All filthiness or pollution of the flesh is to be avoided, and all filthiness of the spirit too.

Clearly too the possession of these promises is the great incentive to personal purification in practice. Nor is anything more hateful than the position of separateness from the world along with indifference to holiness. There are those who inculcate what is personal only and apologise for ecclesiastical evil as if it did not compromise them in the Lord's dishonour; there are others whose zeal is solely for ecclesiastical purity and whose personal ways are light and loose and far below those of many a saint in humanly formed and ordered societies. Both classes are condemned by the solemn words before us: the first by 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, the second by 2 Corinthians 7:1. May we, as having proved the truth and blessing of the former, have grace to find the constant value of the latter also, and to cultivate purity outward and inward, perfecting holiness in God's fear! We have thus a double relationship in His grace. God dwells and walks in us as His temple, plainly a collective blessing; and besides, He is to us for Father, as we are to Him for sons and daughters, which is no less surely individual. But both are founded on coming out in separateness to God from among the worldly, with responsibility to touch no unclean thing. The apologist for ecclesiastical antinomianism argues that the apostle is actually speaking of heathen impurity. Granted: it was the unclean thing there and then; but he was led by the Spirit to write with such breadth and depth as to cover everything that defiles. Is it meant that uncleanness is now consecrated or ignored? Is it denied that evil is most of all evil when coupled with the name of the Lord Jesus? Is not such an association the deceit, power, and triumph of the wicked one? To cleanse ourselves from every pollution is our clear and habitual duty as God's temple and family.

It is true that when justification and sanctification come together in scripture, sanctification comes first, because the Spirit of God sets a man apart to enjoy the efficacy of Christ's precious blood, and this is important because evangelical teaching sets justification as a kind of imperfect work, and that we were made meet afterwards for something higher. This is not scriptural, as the thief was fit to go and be with Christ. There is progress, or ought to be; little children, young men, fathers, growing up to Him who is the Head in all things, changed into the same image from glory to glory, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God. But as to acceptance, "As he is, so are we in this world." By faith in Christ I am quickened, and that life is in itself a perfectly holy thing, and believing in Him and His work I am perfectly justified. The actual state I am in then comes in question, but as to my person I am set apart to God. As to an assembly meeting, it is when those who compose it meet as such in Christ's name. What Paul's heart was upon was first to possess Christ; that I may win Christ, then that he might have part in the first resurrection. He was running for these. Philippians, though based on it, never treats of a finished salvation, but of the race we run towards the glory, towards being like Christ.

300 But in the result of this there is progress (Rom. 7:20-22). I am to grow up to Christ the Head by the growing knowledge of Him. Christ as life is a holy life; but as a child grows up to be a man, so the Christian by grace (Eph. 4:15; Phil. 1:10-11; Col. 1:9-11.) Compare Colossians 3:17. We are not under law then. The Christian who knows his position in Christ is delivered from the power of, and being a debtor to, the flesh, though he may carelessly yield to it, but he grows up to Christ the Head. The nature of the flesh never changes; but he is not in it but in Christ, and Christ is in him power to walk in godliness, and God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. In these things are the exercises of daily Christian life. He, if walking Christianly, cleanses himself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Having the hope of being like Christ when He appears, he purifies himself as He is pure.