You are not constrained in us, but you are constrained in your own affections.
Read Chapter 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Ye are not straitened in us. You dwell fully and spaciously in my heart as in your home. My love builds for you a spacious house.
Ye are straitened in your own bowels. The love of your hearts for me is so small that it contracts them, and barely gives me place there. Your love and good-will do not equal mine. The Corinthians would seem to have been alienated from Paul by the calumnies of the false apostles; Hebrews , therefore, declares the greatness of his love for them, that he may kindle theirs in return.
Moreover, Paul seemed to have in his First Epistle straitened the Corinthians by prohibiting them from idolatry, from going to law before unbelieving Judges , from their love-feasts and sumptuous banquets; and in ver14he is about to straiten them by forbidding a believer to marry with an unbeliever. He here paves the way by urging them to receive, with the large-hearted love of Christ, his apparently straitening precepts, which are not his but Christ"s.
The heart of one who loves is wide open. He walks with great freedom. It is when love is lacking that restrictions appear. Paul did not want to accuse them openly of lack of love. He merely points to the behavioral result and encourages them to perceive the cause for themselves.
