Cleansing Ourselves from Every Defilement

2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV

“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

What promises? This is referring back to the previous chapter which teaches us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What does that mean? It has to do with us being in a partnership or in fellowship with the ungodly of this world, which includes ungodly professers of faith in Jesus Christ, too. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? For those who walk in darkness (sin, wickedness) are going in the opposite direction from those of us who are walking in the light, who are walking in holiness, righteousness, and obedience to our Lord.

For, as God’s holy people, we are to live lives which are separate (unlike, different) from the world because we are being conformed to the likeness of Christ by God, via our cooperation with him in his work of grace in our lives. So, if this is how we are living, we should have nothing spiritually in common with those who are living ungodly lives, who are still making sin their practice. But this doesn’t mean that we have nothing at all to do with the ungodly, for how else can we show them love? How else can we share the gospel with them? How else can we minister to them? 

So it isn’t that we separate ourselves from the ungodly to where we have nothing to do with them at all, but that we are not to be in union and in agreement with them and in a partnership or a fellowship relationship to where they could possibly pull us in the wrong direction and could lead us away from our pure devotion to Jesus Christ. They can’t be our best friends and closest companions, in other words. We should not partner with them in business, and we should not knowingly marry someone we know is not a follower of Christ. For, as husband and wife, we are to become one flesh.

“Therefore go out from their midst,

    and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

    then I will welcome you,

and I will be a father to you,

    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,

says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 ESV

So, these are the promises of God spoken of in verse 1 of chapter 7, and like all of God’s promises, they have conditions; they have stipulations. We must not be in close fellowship and/or partnership with those who are living ungodly lives, but we are to come out from that fellowship or that partnership. But what about a marriage? What if you married someone who professed faith in Jesus Christ and then later you realized this person was living an ungodly life? Are you to divorce that person? If you think that you are, where in the teachings on marriage in the NT does it teach that?

And the reason I ask that is that the Scriptures teach that we are not to divorce. It doesn’t even teach us that we are to divorce a marital partner who has been unfaithful, who has committed adultery against us. We would be free to do that, mind you, but it doesn’t say that we must do that. And it also talks about someone who has become a believer in Christ, that if his wife is not a believer but she wants to remain with him that he should remain with her and not divorce her. So, I don’t see that this is teaching us that we must divorce a marital partner who is living an ungodly life.

Yet, I do believe that we are called to come out from the world and to be separate (unlike, different) from the world and that we should not choose to partner with nor to be in fellowship with those who are ungodly. And I believe that includes church fellowships where they are not teaching the truth of the gospel and where they are giving people permission to keep on in deliberate and habitual sin and where they are not exercising church discipline over those who are deliberately sinning against the Lord and against their spouses and/or the church, as a whole.

And then the Lord will welcome us, and he will be a father to us, and we will be his sons and daughters. For we can’t be in close fellowship with the ungodly and be in close fellowship with our Lord, too. For if we are truly in close fellowship with the ungodly, it means that we are doing the kinds of things that they do which are ungodly. For to partner with someone means to be united with that person in mind, heart, and in behaviors, too. It means to be in agreement with them. And if we are truly united with the Lord, the ungodly will not really want to be with us, anyway.

Now, back to verse 1.. therefore, since we have these (conditional) promises from God, we are to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. So, you see here that this isn’t saying that we can’t have any kind of relationships with the ungodly at all, but that we are not to join in with them in their debauchery. We are not to unite with them in mind and in purpose and in actions. We are not to become like them but we are to become like God. We are not to live like they do but we are to live holy and godly and obedient lives to Christ.

My Sheep  

An Original Work / June 24, 2012  

Based off John 10:1-18 NIV

My sheep hear me. They know me.

They listen to my voice and obey.

I call them and lead them.

They know my voice, so they follow me.

They will never follow strangers.

They will run away from them.

The voice of a stranger they know not;

They do not follow him.

So, I tell you the truth that

I am the gate, so you enter in.

Whoever does enter

Will find forgiveness and will be saved.

Nonetheless whoever enters

Not by the gate; other way,

He is the thief and a robber.

Listen not, the sheep to him.

Oh, I am the Good Shepherd,

Who laid his own life down for the sheep.

I know them. They know me.

They will live with me eternally.

The thief only comes to steal and

Kill and to destroy the church.

I have come to give you life that

You may have it to the full… 

They know my voice, so they follow me.

https://vimeo.com/114938263