The Focus Verse 2 Corinthians 7:1

The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church. This is his second letter to them, and in this letter, he proclaims, or summarizes through the Holy Spirit, the most important work for a Christian, the most important work for a believer, and the most important work for the body of Christ, the Church.

That is what we read in 2 Corinthians 7:1.

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

The scripture does not have the verbiage that this is the most important work, so why would I add that? It is because of the promises that are mentioned in this verse.

When we understand the promises, we will understand that this is the most important work for a believer.

Because, according to the Apostle, the reason we have to do this is because of the promise that was given to us.

The command is given to US, as you can see “Let Us”. So, it is applicable individually to you and to me. And it is also applicable corporately as a body of Christ, the Church.

All of us have the same work in Christ. It does not matter if you are a newborn believer or if you have been walking with Christ for fifty years.

It does not matter if you are a Pastor, Teacher, Minister, Prophet, or Apostle; it is the same work for all of us.

And we must do this individually. When we are all working on the same thing individually, corporately we are doing the same thing, and we, the body of Christ, are focused on just one Work.

And it is not just this Church. Every church across Vegas, across the US, and across the world is working on the same work which is mentioned here. And when we all work on the same thing—the church, wherever it is, whichever part of the world it is in—we are all united because of this incredible work which is being done by us.

The unity becomes visible. We are indeed brothers and sisters in Christ because we are all working on the same thing.

Your priority is no different than mine. Your work is no different than mine. We are all working on the same thing.

And what is the work?

CLEANSING OURSELVES (2 Corinthians 7:1)

And what should cleanse ourselves from? We should cleanse ourselves from all FILTHINESS of both the flesh and the Spirit.

And why should we cleanse ourselves? So that we can PERFECT HOLINESS

And how do we do the cleansing and perfecting holiness? We do it through the FEAR OF THE LORD.

The Promises of the Lord

Now, before we expand on this, let us understand why I would call this the most important Work. I mentioned that this is the most important work because of the promises we have received, as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 7:1.

The phrase “have received” can also be translated as “possess”. Scripturally, promises given by the Lord are as good as already having them, because the Lord cannot break His promise. So, if the Lord has promised it, it is as if we already possess it. That is the context of this verse. This is not just a promise as we think of a promise; this is a covenant that the Lord gave and has now fulfilled.

Since the promise is already given, you have already received the promise. So now, since you have received the promise, you need to do this. Do what? Cleanse yourself of all filth, perfecting holiness, in the fear of the Lord.

So what are these promises? We read that in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 16, 17, and 18.

We have already read the verse, so let me summarize them.

Promise 1 – verse 16: The good Lord will dwell in us.

Promise 2 – verse 16: The good Lord will walk with us.

Promise 3 – verse 16: The Lord Himself will be our God, and we will be His people.

Promise 4 – verse 18: the Lord will be our Father.

Promise 5 – verse 18: We will be His children.

This is the reason why I said this is the most important work of all. The promise God has given us is that He will dwell in us, He will walk with us, He will be our God, we will be His people, He will be our Father, and we will be His children.

To say this, the Apostle is quoting from multiple Old Testament Scriptures, summarizing them, and giving them to us by saying that we have received this promise.

And the context of why this is now past tense is because Jesus Christ said that He has already accomplished the work that needs to be done for us to receive this promise. 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 contains the promises which the apostle is summarizing here.

The Fulfillment of the Promise

How did God fulfill the promise?

He fulfilled the promise not by giving something to you, but rather by giving Himself to you.

The promise was fulfilled because God Himself became the fulfillment of the promise.

The biggest blessing is not what we have received; the biggest blessing is God Himself.

Every promise here was fulfilled by the one act on the Cross of Calvary.

When Christ died, He took our sin, justified us, cleansed us, and gave us His Holy Spirit.

Now, Christ Himself dwells in us through His Spirit.

Since His Spirit dwells in us, we are His children, God is our Father, we never walk alone, for He is with us, and now He dwells amongst us and in us.

The Cleansing Work

None of these promises are given just in the New Testament. Understand that the Apostle is quoting multiple Old Testament passages.

In the Old Testament, this was the command the good Lord gave to the Israelites, so that He can be their Father, so that they could be His children, and so that He could dwell and walk amongst them.

We read that 2 Corinthians 6:17.

2 Corinthians 6:17 | Therefore

“Come out from among them

And be separate, says the Lord.

Do not touch what is unclean,

And I will receive you.”

The good Lord says, “therefore.” Why is the “therefore” there? It is there because of the promises which God gave the Israelites. God said, since I have given you these promises, now you come out, separate yourself, and be clean.

In the New Testament, the promise has already been fulfilled.

When God saved us, He cleansed us – we read that here.

That is exactly what the Apostle is reminding us in 2 Corinthians 7:1: be clean, cleanse yourself from all filthiness. We read that fulfillment of promise in 1 Corinthians 6. Let us read that verse, for it is very important.

1 Corinthians 6:11 | And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

You were washed – you were cleansed. The command in the Old Testament to cleanse yourself is now complete – you have been cleansed by the Lord Himself.

You were Sanctified – You were made Holy.

You were Justified – You were made righteous before God by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was all done: cleansed, holy, justified. The Lord completed His Work, and the work is now done.

That is the truth of 1 Corinthians 6:11. And since that is already done, the good Lord Himself is your Father, dwells in you, walks with you, and you are His children.

Since the promise has been fulfilled, the only ongoing work is to be perfected, to be made complete. In 2 Corinthians 7:1, the Apostle reminds us, and commands us through the Holy Spirit, that this now should be the most important work of the Christian: that you and I should continue to be washed and cleansed, so that we are constantly perfected, remaining holy in Christ.

The Cleansing in the Old Testament.

The work now commanded is to continue to be cleansed so that we are perfected.

Turn to Exodus 19. This is the first time the good Lord commands the children of Israel to cleanse themselves. We have already read this passage as our first Bible reading, so I will give you a summary.

The good Lord is about to come down amongst His people, so the Lord says, you need to cleanse yourself.

Exodus 19:10, the good Lord says that you need to consecrate yourself and wash your clothes.

The word consecrate is the same as “holy”, so the Lord says that you need to consecrate them, make them holy, and they need to wash their clothes.

And then we will read in Exodus 19:14 – that Moses sanctified them and then asked them to wash the clothes.

The way Moses sanctified them was through the Word of God. He proclaimed to them what God had told him, which would keeping away from unclean things.

Later on, we will read that the work of sanctification included not just physical washing, but also blood sacrifices, which were supposed to be a covering of sins, foreshadowing the perfect sacrifice on the cross of Calvary

For without the shedding of blood, sin cannot be forgiven, and this was fulfilled on the cross.

What about the understanding in the New Testament? How do you cleanse yourself? For in 2 Corinthians 7, Scripture says that you need to cleanse yourself?

The Cleansing in the New Testament.

• Only Christ can cleanse. In the gospels, we see the sick coming to the Lord and asking Him to clean and cleanse them. The Lord does not say, “Go and cleanse yourself.” Rather, the Lord cleanses them. But He asks them a question: “Do you believe that I can cleanse you?” If the answer is, “Yes Lord,” then according to your faith, let it be done.
• So it is the Lord who does the cleansing.
• After the Lord resurrected, we read in Acts 11, when the good Lord comes to Peter, that He says He has cleansed everything by His blood.
• So the command to Peter was to go and proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles, for the blood of Christ has cleansed everyone when they receive the message of the gospel.
• So we who have believed in the gospel message receive this cleansing blood which was poured out on the cross.
• And hence the promise of 1 Corinthians 6:11, that He has cleansed us, made us holy, and justified us, remains true when we receive the Lord, even after 2,000 years since His death.
• And just as Moses cleansed the Israelites by proclaiming the Word of God, today the good Lord continues to cleanse us through His Word.
• In Ephesians 5:26, we read that we are washed by His Word.
• As we are washed, we need to be cleansed in both ways.
• We are cleansed spiritually—which is our inner man. And we are cleansed externally—which is our physical man.

The good Lord looked at the Pharisees and called them hypocrites, because they cleansed the exterior but never cleansed the interior.

They did not do the things which others did, so they did cleanse themselves physically, but spiritually the Lord said that they were not clean within.

And hence the good Lord commands us in 2 Corinthians 7:1 that we need to be cleansed both externally and internally.

We may not cuss, we may not watch dirty things, we may not extort money, we may do good to the poor, we may be part of a church, and we may even teach Scripture, but that is all external cleanliness.

The good Lord says that you need to be cleansed both externally and internally.

And both are done through the Word of God.

This is how we cleanse ourselves

1 John 1, scripture walks us through the cleansing for a believer. Let us read 1 John 1:6-9.

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

A believer who is walking with the Lord, Scripture proclaims, is walking in the light. And in the light there cannot be any darkness; there cannot be any sin.

But we do have sin—so the good Lord proclaims, confess your sin so that He can continue to cleanse you.

As you walk in the light, and you do that through the Word of God, as you study the Word through the Spirit of Christ, seeking Christ so that you may know Him more, the good Lord will show Himself—for Scripture says that whatever you ask in faith, believing, He will do.

So as you seek Him, He will shine His light upon you, and as He shines His light upon you, you will be able to see your sin.

Now it is not only your outer flesh that is being cleansed, but your inner man is also being cleansed.

When Isaiah, the prophet of God, looked upon the holiness of God, he fell down and said, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” He probably never knew that until he saw the Lord.

Until the Lord shines the light, and until the Lord exposes the darkness in our heart, we will never know our sin.

So the more we walk with the Lord, the more He opens our darkness for us to see. Remember, the Lord knows all our weakness, but it is in His mercy that He does not cast us out, but rather walks with us, teaching us and showing us our sin.

And what is the expectation from the Lord? That when we see our sin, we repent of the sin. We go to the Lord and ask for forgiveness, and Scripture promises us that He will forgive us.

Godly Sorrow Leads to Repentance

And that is what the good Lord teaches us in 2 Corinthians 7. If you go down to 7:10, the Apostle writes, “I wrote to you not so that you would be made sorry, but rather that your sorrow would lead you to repentance.”

When the Lord exposes our imperfections as we walk with Him, our heart is made sorrowful. The Lord is not convicting us to condemn us, but rather convicting us so that we may repent. Rather, the Lord is asking us to come to Him and place the burden on Him, so that He can continue to cleanse us and lead us further.

The life of a Christian is a life of humility, walking with the Lord—a life of repentance, constantly being transformed into the image of God.

We will never reach a stage in our life where we can say, “That is it, I am done.” But the more we walk with the Lord, the more He transforms us through repentance into that perfect person we will one day be when we are with Him.

Perfecting Holiness and the Fear of the Lord

As I close, remember the only and most important work which the Lord has called us to do. He has called us to walk with Him, perfecting holiness through the fear of the Lord.

Every other work will be done through the Spirit of God as we humbly walk with the Lord. Remember Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

We cannot perfect holiness; God will do it. We cannot fear the Lord unless we desire and ask for the anointing of the Spirit, so that through Him we may fear the Lord.

The fear of the Lord will keep you from sin, and this is an anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Ask for the fear of the Lord so that we may receive it.

And as we walk humbly with the Lord, repenting of our sins as He leads and convicts us, the Lord Himself will perfect His holiness in us.

In 1 Kings 8, King Solomon, at the end of the prayer, says that as your heart is loyal to God, and as you walk with your God, keeping His commandments, the world will know that He is God and none other.

That is your evangelization. That is how the world will know that He is God—when you walk with the Lord, when you are cleansed, when you are holy, and when you are being perfected.

Closing

My dear beloved brothers and sisters, the Lord has not called us to many works, but to one work:

to walk with Him in humility,
cleansing ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

He has given us His promises, fulfilled them through Christ, and cleansed us by His blood.

And as we walk with Him, He will convict us and transform us.

When He reveals our heart, let us not justify ourselves, let us not run away, let us not hide, but let us come to Him—in confession, repenting, and receiving His cleansing blood.

This is the life of a believer, as we are transformed into His image.