II Corinthians 7:1:
7:1Therefore having these promises, loved-people1, let us clean ourselves from all soiling of flesh, and with spirit fully-completing holiness in (the) love1 of God.
Continuing from the end of chapter 6, Paul addresses all the holy-people of the church of God being in Corinth together with all the holy-people being in the whole of Achaia – as loved-people1 (this word comes from the Greek word agape which is God's kind of love). He loved them with God's love and was manifesting it towards them as he was writing this letter (refer to II Corinthians 2:4). He also includes himself and those with him in the “us” – all of them had believed what God says regarding Himself and His son, the Lord Jesus Christ (refer to Romans 10:8-13), and had received God's gift of holy spirit by means of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of them had become God's children.
Paul writes: logically following-on from what I have just written, since it is true that we are having these promises (we are holding God's proclamations, the declarations of the message of His own intentions, see II Corinthians 6:16-18), loved-people…
‘The cleaning of ourselves from all soiling of flesh’ and ‘the fully-completing holiness with spirit in the love1 of God’ should not be separated from each other in our thinking as we live our everyday lives awaiting Christ's presence to gather us all together with him.
If someone were to separate them thinking that one built upon the other, then that person would be striving to "clean himself up" in the flesh category in order to make himself "good enough" to walk with the holy spirit which is within him! That can never happen because flesh is flesh and it cannot inherit the kingdom of God because it can never become "good enough" to be acceptable to God. In fact, Jesus Christ has already done the work of God's plan of redemption and salvation and he has received his new spiritual body from God when God raised him up from among the dead-people. The resurrected Christ is the second man, the last man. The Lord Jesus Christ’s accomplishments are what allowed the gift of holy spirit to be made available to mankind, and this is what makes all who receive it acceptable to God spiritually. In the future we too will receive our new spiritual bodies like the one Christ received from God (not the same flesh as the first man Adam had after his fall and which passed to all mankind from that time).
Now today we have God's promises, we are loved-people1, therefore let us clean ourselves from all soiling of flesh, and with spirit we are fully-completing holiness in the love1 of God. We ought to live our lives in accordance with our holy spirit-life evidencing God's love.
[Note: in the phrase “holiness in the love1 of God”, some Greek texts have word "fear" instead of the word translated "love." Refer to Romans 1:4, and 8:37-39; I Corinthians chapter 13; Galatians 5:16 and 17; I Thessalonians 3:13.]
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We can walk in line with the spirit
