Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
Parallel Translations
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Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
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and beare not a straugers yoke wyth the vnbelevers. For what fellishippe hath rightewesnes with vnrightewesnes? What company hath light with darcknes?
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Be not vnequally yoked with the infidels: for what fellowship hath righteousnesse with vnrighteousnesse? and what communion hath light with darkenesse?
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Contradictions (2)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (42)
Passages linked to 2 Corinthians 6:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 15:33 Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:21 You can’t both drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can’t both partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.
- James 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- Ephesians 5:6-14 Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. Therefore don’t be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well pleasing to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light. Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- Leviticus 19:19 “ ‘You shall keep my statutes. “ ‘You shall not cross-breed different kinds of animals. “ ‘You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; “ ‘Don’t wear a garment made of two kinds of material.
- 1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. In the past, you were not a people, but now are God’s people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
- Psalms 26:4-5 I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.
- Deuteronomy 22:9-11 You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest all the fruit be defiled, the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.
- Psalms 139:21-22 Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies.
- Ephesians 4:17-20 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts. They, having become callous, gave themselves up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you didn’t learn Christ that way,
- 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8 But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief. You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness, so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep in the night; and those who are drunk are drunk in the night. But since we belong to the day, let’s be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
- 1 Corinthians 5:9 I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
- Psalms 106:35 but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works.
- Deuteronomy 7:2-3 and when Yahweh your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son.
- 1 Kings 18:21 Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.
- Proverbs 22:24 Don’t befriend a hot-tempered man, and don’t associate with one who harbors anger:
- Proverbs 29:27 A dishonest man detests the righteous, and the upright in their ways detest the wicked.
- Malachi 2:11 Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Yahweh which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.
- John 15:18-19 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
- Philippians 2:15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world,
- Romans 13:12-14 The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light. Let’s walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.
- Ezra 9:11-12 which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land, to which you go to possess it, is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness. Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons. Don’t take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’
- John 7:7 The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
- 1 John 1:5-7 This is the message which we have heard from him and announce 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 the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell 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.
- Psalms 119:63 I am a friend of all those who fear you, of those who observe your precepts.
- Malachi 2:15 Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
- 1 Peter 4:2-4 that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming.
- 1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord.
- Exodus 34:16 and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.
- Psalms 44:20-21 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a strange god, won’t God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart.
- Psalms 101:3-5 I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I hate the deeds of faithless men. They will not cling to me. A perverse heart will be far from me. I will have nothing to do with evil. I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won’t tolerate one who is arrogant and conceited.
- Psalms 26:9-10 Don’t gather my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men; in whose hands is wickedness, their right hand is full of bribes.
- 2 Chronicles 19:2 Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate Yahweh? Because of this, wrath is on you from before Yahweh.
- Ezra 9:1-2 Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy offspring have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”
- Ezra 10:19 They gave their hand that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their guilt.
- Nehemiah 13:1-3 On that day they read in the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and it was found written in it that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever, because they didn’t meet the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, to curse them; however our God turned the curse into a blessing. It came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel.
- Psalms 16:3 As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
- Proverbs 8:18-19 With me are riches, honor, enduring wealth, and prosperity. My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, my yield than choice silver.
- 1 Samuel 5:2-3 The Philistines took God’s ark, and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again.
- 1 John 3:12-14 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death.
- Nehemiah 13:23-26 In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab; and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves. Didn’t Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin.
- Acts 4:23 Being let go, they came to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
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Explain this verse (26 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 14. Be not yoked As if regaining his authority,…
14. Be not yoked As if regaining his authority, he now reproves them more freely, because they associated with unbelievers, as partakers with them in outward idolatry. For he has exhorted them to show themselves docile to him as to a father: he now, in accordance with the rights that belong to him, reproves the fault into which they had fallen. Now we mentioned in the former epistle what this fault was; for, as they imagined that there was nothing that was unlawful for them in outward things, they defiled themselves with wicked superstitions without any reserve. For in frequenting the banquets of unbelievers, they participated along with them in profane and impure rites, and while they sinned grievously, they nevertheless thought themselves innocent. On this account Paul inveighs here against outward idolatry, and exhorts Christians to stand aloof from it, and have no connection with it. He begins, however, with a general statement, with the view of coming down from that to a particular instance, for to be yoked with unbelievers means nothing less than to
have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, (Ephesians 5:11,)
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and to hold out the hand to them in token of agreement.
Many are of opinion that he speaks of marriage, but the context clearly shows that they are mistaken. The word that Paul makes use of means — to be connected together in drawing the same yoke. It is a metaphor taken from oxen or horses, which require to walk at the same pace, and to act together in the same work, when fastened under one yoke. When, therefore, he prohibits us from having partnership with unbelievers in drawing the same yoke, he means simply this, that we should have no fellowship with them in their pollutions. For one sun shines upon us, we eat of the same bread, we breathe the same air, and we cannot altogether refrain from intercourse with them; but Paul speaks of the yoke of impiety, that is, of participation in works, in which Christians cannot lawfully have fellowship. On this principle marriage will also be prohibited, inasmuch as it is a snare, by which both men and women are entangled into an agreement with impiety; but what I mean is simply this, that Paul’s doctrine is of too general a nature to be restricted to marriage exclusively, for he is discoursing here as to the shunning of idolatry, on which account, also, we are prohibited from contracting marriages with the wicked.
For what fellowship He confirms his exhortation on the ground of its being an absurd, and, as it were, monstrous connecting together of things in themselves much at variance; for these things can no more coalesce than fire and water. In short it comes to this, that unless they would have everything thrown into confusion, they must refrain from the pollutions of the wicked. Hence, too, we infer, that even those that do not in their hearts approve of superstitions are, nevertheless, polluted by dissimulation if they do not openly and ingenuously stand aloof from them.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Now he rebuked them boldly, for that they became…
Now he rebuked them boldly, for that they became fellows with infidels in outward idolatry, as though it were a thing indifferent. And this is the fourth part of this Epistle, the conclusion whereof is, that such as the Lord has vouchsafed the name of his children, must keep themselves pure, not only in mind, but also in body, that they may wholly be holy unto the Lord.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:…
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
Ver. 14. Be not unequally yoked] Dare not saith Mr Ward, to yoke thyself with any untamed heifer that bears not Christ’s yoke. Quam male inaequales veniunt ad aratra iuvenci? (Ovid. Epist.) An ox and an ass might not be coupled together in the law; and hereunto the apostle seems to allude. The doctors of Douay upon Lev 19:19: Here all participation, say they, with heretics and schismatics is forbidden. Philip king of Spain said, He had rather have no subjects than subjects of various religions. And out of a bloody zeal, suffered his eldest son Charles to be murdered by the bloody Inquisition, because he seemed to favour our profession.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: they…
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: they too much restrain the sense of this general precept, who either limit it to religious communion with idolaters, or to civil communion in marriages. The precept is delivered in a term of more general significancy, than to be limited by either of these, though both of them, questionless, be comprehended in it: μη γινεσθε ετεροζυγουντες, do not become such as in the same yoke draw another way. It is a metaphor drawn from horses or oxen; which should draw together, being in the same yoke, neither standing still, nor yet holding back. It is a general precept, prohibitive of all unnecessary communion and intimate fellowship with such, as either in matters of faith or worship, or in their lives and conversations, declare themselves to be unbelievers; for why we should expound απιστοις of infidels merely, I cannot tell, especially considering that the apostle, 1Co 5:9-11, seems to allow a further communion with a heathen, than with a notoriously scandalous Christian. So as this precept may reasonably be interpreted by those in the former Epistle, of marrying with such, eating with them at idol feasts, or at the Lord’s table, {as 2Co 5:1-21} maintaining intimate communion with them, &c.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? The reason he giveth, is, because they could have no comfortable communion with such; they were righteousness, those persons were unrighteousness; they were light, such persons were darkness, that is, full of the darkness of sin and ignorance. In the mean time, this precept ought not to be extended to a total avoiding of commerce with, or being in the company of, either heathens, or scandalous persons; for as to that, the same apostle had before determined it lawful, 1Co 5:11. Whatever communion with such persons is either necessary from the law of God or nature, or for the support and upholding of human life and society, is lawful even with such persons; but all other is unlawful.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain The holy apostle closes this chapter with an exhortation…
The holy apostle closes this chapter with an exhortation to avoid all intimacy with idolators, either in civil affairs, in marriages, or in religious worship, lest they be brought into communion with their idolatry; there being no more agreement between a believer and an idolater, than betwixt light and darkness, betwixt Christ and Satan.
And, as we must not join with idolaters in spiritual communion or religious worship, so should we have no communion with them in marriages; that having proved a dangerous snare to the souls of many, our divines have justly pronounced such marriages sinful.
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Nay, it is both wise and safe to have as little civil communion with idolaters as we can; and when we are necessitated to have civil communion with them, we must utterly avoid all sinful communion with them, that is, all communion with them in their sins.
Learn, That to associate with idolaters, or join in affinity with them, but especially to communicate with them in their idolatrous worship, is a God-provoking and a wrath-procuring sin: Be ye not unequally and unsuitiably yoked with unbelievers.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And what concord hath Christ with Belial?.... The word…
And what concord hath Christ with Belial?.... The word "Belial" is an Hebrew word, and is only used in this place in the New Testament, but often in the Old; this word is differently read and pronounced, some copies read it "Beliar", and accordingly in the Ethiopic version it is "Belhor", and by Jerom read (i) Belvir"; but he observes, that it is more rightly called Belial": in some copies it is "Belias", and so Tertullian (k) read it; and Jerom (l) says, that most corruptly read it "Belias", for "Belial": some derive it from "Beli", and "Alah", and signifies "without ascent"; one in a very low condition, of low life, that never rises up, and comes to any thing; to which Kimchi's etymology of the word seems to agree, who says (m), that Belial is a wicked man, , "who does not succeed, and does not prosper": others say it signifies (n) one that is , "Beli Ol, without a yoke", without the yoke of the law; so Jarchi explains children of Belial, in Deu 13:13 without yoke, who break off the yoke of God; and so say (o) the Talmudists,
"children of Belial, are children that break off , "the yoke of heaven" (i.e. the law) from their necks;''
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lawless persons, who are under no subjection to God or man: others (p) derive it from "Jaal", and "Beli", and so it signifies one that is unprofitable, does no good, and is good for nothing; and it is applied in Scripture to any wicked person, or thing; it is commonly rendered by the Chaldee paraphrast, a "wicked man"; and by Aquila and Suidas it is interpreted, "an apostate", and so it is rendered here in the Arabic version; sometimes the corruption of nature is called "Belial" by the Jews (q), than which nothing can be more contrary to Christ; it is also a name of the devil; by Hesychius, "Beliar" is interpreted "a dragon", by which name the devil is sometimes called; and here the Syriac version is, "what concord hath Christ with Satan?" most interpreters by Belial understand the devil, who has cast off the yoke of obedience to God, and is unprofitable, yea, noxious and hurtful to men; between whom and Christ there is no concord, but a perpetual enmity; and as there is no concord between Christ personal, and Belial the devil, so what can there be between Christ mystical the church, which goes by the name of Christ, Co1 12:12 and wicked men, the sons of Belial; who have cast away the law of the Lord, are not subject to the law of God, nor can they be, and are become unprofitable to themselves, and others?
or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? such have no part, and shall have no part or portion in one and the same thing; the believer's part and portion are God, Christ, and an eternal inheritance; the unbeliever's part and portion will be in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone; and therefore what part, society, or communion, can they have with one another?
(i) De Nominibus Hebraicis, fol. 106. K. (k) De Corona, c. 10. (l) Comment. in Ephes. iv. 27. (m) Sepher Shorashim, rad. (n) Hieronym Quaestasive Trad. Heb. in Lib. Reg. fol. 74. I. Tom. 3. & in Ephes. iv. 27. R. Abraham Seba in Tzeror Hammor, fol. 141. 4. & 142. 2. (o) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 111. 2. (p) Philip Aquinas, Schindler, Cocceius, &c. (q) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 148. 3. & 149. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers - Christians with…
Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers - Christians with Jews or heathens. The apostle particularly speaks of marriage. But the reasons he urges equally hold against any needless intimacy with them. Of the five questions that follow, the three former contain the argument; the two latter, the conclusion.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with…
Verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers] This is a military term: keep in your own ranks; do not leave the Christian community to join in that of the heathens. The verb ετεροζυγειν signifies to leave one's own rank, place, or order, and go into another; and here it must signify not only that they should not associate with the Gentiles in their idolatrous feasts, but that they should not apostatize from Christianity; and the questions which follow show that there was a sort of fellowship that some of the Christians had formed with the heathens which was both wicked and absurd, and if not speedily checked would infallibly lead to final apostasy.
Some apply this exhortation to pious persons marrying with those who are not decidedly religious, and converted to God. That the exhortation may be thus applied I grant; but it is certainly not the meaning of the apostle in this place. Nevertheless, common sense and true piety show the absurdity of two such persons pretending to walk together in a way in which they are not agreed. A very wise and very holy man has given his judgment on this point: "A man who is truly pious, marrying with an unconverted woman, will either draw back to perdition, or have a cross during life." The same may be said of a pious woman marrying an unconverted man. Such persons cannot say this petition of the Lord's prayer, Lead us not into temptation. They plunge into it of their own accord.
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For what fellowship, c.] As righteousness cannot have communion with unrighteousness, and light cannot dwell with darkness so Christ can have no concord with Belial, nor can he that believeth have any with an infidel. All these points were self-evident; how then could they keep up the profession of Christianity, or pretend to be under its influence, while they associated with the unrighteous, had communion with darkness, concord with Belial, and partook with infidels?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Co 6:14-16. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers —…
2Co 6:14-16. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers — Christians with Jews or heathen, godly persons with the ungodly, spiritual with such as are carnal. The apostle particularly speaks of marriage; but the reasons he urges equally hold against any needless intimacy or society with them. Of the five questions that follow, the three former contain the argument, the two latter the conclusion. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness — The righteous can have no profitable, agreeable, or comfortable society or converse with the unrighteous. What communion hath light — That is, the state of light and knowledge, into which you are brought by divine mercy; with darkness — That deplorable state of ignorance and folly, vice and misery, in which they continue to be lost? And what concord hath Christ — Whom you serve; with Belial — To whom they belong, and who reigns in all the children of disobedience? Or what part — In time or in eternity; hath he that believeth — In Christ and his gospel, and who is a true, genuine disciple of Christ; with an infidel —
Or an infidel with a believer? The union is surely, at the first view of it, too unnatural to be either agreeable, safe, or lasting. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols — Which would by this means be, as it were, erected in it? If God would not endure idols in any part of the land where he dwelt, how much less under his own roof? He does not say, with the temple of idols; for idols do not dwell in their worshippers. This is a proper question, and a just view in which to place the matter; for ye — As a church, and as individuals; are the temple of the living God. See on Rom 8:9. As God hath said — To his ancient Church, and in them to all his Israel, in all ages; I will dwell in them — The force of the original expression cannot easily be equalled in any translation; ενοικησω εν αυτοις. The words, I will inhabit in them, or I will take up my indwelling in them, would nearly, though inelegantly, express the sense: and walk in them — The former expression signifies his perpetual presence; this latter, his operation. And I will be their God — In the fullest sense; manifesting my favour to them, communicating my Spirit, stamping them with mine image, and vouchsafing them communion with myself, in time and in eternity. And they shall be my people — Whom I will direct and govern, protect and save, here and hereafter. The sum this of the whole gospel covenant.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers -…
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers - This is closely connected in sense with the previous verse. The apostle is there stating the nature of the remuneration or recompence which he asks for all the love which he had shown to them. He here says, that one mode of remuneration would be to yield obedience to his commands, and to separate themselves from all improper alliance with unbelievers. “Make me this return for my love. Love me as a proof of your affection, be not improperly united with unbelievers. Listen to me as a father addressing his children, and secure your own happiness and piety by not being unequally yoked with those who are not Christians.” The word which is used here (ἑτεροζυγέω heterozugeō) means properly, to bear a different yoke, to be yoked heterogeneously - Robinson (Lexicon). It is applied to the custom of yoking animals of different kinds together (Passow); and as used here means not to mingle together, or be united with unbelievers.
It is implied in the use of the word that there is a dissimilarity between believers and unbelievers so great that it is as improper for them to mingle together as it is to yoke animals of different kinds and species. The ground of the injunction is, that there is a difference between Christians and those who are not, so great as to render such unions improper and injurious. The direction here refers doubtless to all kinds of improper connections with those who were unbelievers. It has been usually supposed by commentators to refer particularly to marriage. But there is no reason for confining it to marriage. It doubtless includes that, but it may as well refer to any other intimate connection, or to intimate friendships, or to participation in their amusements and employments, as to marriage. The radical idea is, that they were to abstain from all connections with unbelievers - with infidels, and pagans, and those who were not Christians, which would identify them with them; or they were to have no connection with them in anything as unbelievers, pagans, or infidels; they were to partake with them in nothing that was special to them as such.
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They were to have no part with them in their paganism unbelief, and idolatry, and infidelity; they were not to be united with them in any way or sense where it would necessarily be understood that they were partakers with them in those things. This is evidently the principle here laid down, and this principle is as applicable now as it was then. In the remainder of this verse and the following verses 2Co 6:15-16, he states reasons why they should have no such contact. There is no principle of Christianity that is more important than that which is here stated by the apostle; and none in which Christians are more in danger of erring, or in which they have more difficulty in determining the exact rule which they are to follow. The questions which arise are very important. Are we to have no contact with the people of the world? Are we cut loose from all our friends who are not Christians? Are we to become monks, and live a recluse and unsocial life? Are we never to mingle with the people of the world in business, in innocent recreation, or in the duties of citizens, and as neighbors and friends? It is important, therefore, in the highest degree, to endeavor to ascertain what are the principles on which the New Testament requires us to act in this matter. And in order to a correct understanding of this, the following principles may be suggested:
I. There is a large field of action, pursuit, principle, and thought, over which infidelity, sin, paganism, and the world as such, have the entire control. It is wholly without the range of Christian law, and stands opposed to Christian law. It pertains to a different kingdom; is conducted by different principles, and tends to destroy and annihilate the kingdom of Christ. It cannot be reconciled with Christian principle, and cannot be conformed to but in entire violation of the influence of religion. Here the prohibition of the New Testament is absolute and entire. Christians are not to mingle with the people of the world in these things; and are not to partake of them. This prohibition, it is supposed, extends to the following, among other things:
(1) To idolatry. This was plain. On no account or pretence were the early Christians to partake of that, or to countenance it. In primitive times, during the Roman persecutions, all that was asked was that they should cast a little incense on the altar of a pagan god. They refused to do it, and because they refused to do it, thousands perished as martyrs. They judged rightly; and the world has approved their cause.
(2) Sin, vice, licentiousness. This is also plain. Christians are in no way to patronise them, or to lend their influence to them, or to promote them by their name, their presence, or their property. “Neither be partakers of other people’s sins;” 1Ti 5:22; 2Jo 1:11.
(3) Arts and acts of dishonesty, deception, and fraud in traffic and trade. Here the prohibition also must be absolute. No Christian can have a right to enter into partnership with another where the business is to be conducted on dishonest and unchristian principles, or where it shall lead to the violation of any of the laws of God. If it involves deception and fraud in the principles on which it is conducted; if it spreads ruin and poverty - as the distilling and vending of ardent spirits does; if it leads to the necessary violation of the Christian Sabbath, then the case is plain. A Christian is to have no “fellowship with such unfruitful works of darkness, but is rather to reprove them;” Eph 5:11.
(4) The amusements and pleasures that are entirely worldly, and sinful in their nature; that are wholly under worldly influence, and which cannot be brought under Christian principles. Nearly all amusements are of this description. The true principle here seems to be, that if a Christian in such a place is expected to lay aside his Christian principles, and if it would be deemed indecorous and improper for him to introduce the subject of religion, or if religion would be regarded is entirely inconsistent with the nature of the amusement then he is not to be found there. The world reigns there, and if the principles of his Lord and Master would be excluded, he should not be there. This applies of course to the theater, the circus, the ballroom, and to large and splendid parties of pleasure. We are not to associate with idolaters in their idolatry; nor with the licentious in their licentiousness; nor with the infidel in his infidelity; nor with the proud in their pride; nor with the frivolous in their gaiety; nor with the friends of the theater, or the ballroom, or the circus in their attachment to these places and pursuits. And whatever other connection we are to have with them as neighbors, citizens, or members of our families, we are not to participate with them in these things. Thus far all seems to be clear; and the rule is a plain one whether it applies to marriage, or to business, or to religion, or to pleasure; compare note, 1Co 5:10.
II. There is a large field of action, thought, and plan which may be said to be common with the Christian and the world; that is, where the Christian is not expected to abandon his own principles, and where there will be, or need be, no compromise of the sternest views of truth, or the most upright, serious, and holy conduct. He may carry his principles with him; may always manifest them if necessary; and may even commend them to others. A few of these may be referred to.
(1) Commercial transactions and professional engagements that are conducted on honest and upright principles, even when those with whom we act are not Christians.
(2) Literary and scientific pursuits, which never, when pursued with a right spirit, interfere with the principles of Christianity, and never are contrary to it.
(3) The love and affection which are due to relatives and friends. Nothing in the Bible assuredly will prohibit a pious son from uniting with one who is not pious in supporting an aged and infirm parent, or a much loved and affectionate sister. The same remark is true also respecting the duty which a wife owes to a husband, a husband to a wife, or a parent to a child, though one of them should not be a Christian. And the same observation is true also of neighbors, who are not to be prohibited from uniting as neighbors in social contact, and in acts of common kindness and charity, though all not Christians.
(4) As citizens. We owe duties to our country, and a Christian need not refuse to act with others in the elective franchise, or in making or administering the laws. Here, however, it is clear that he is not at liberty to violate the laws and the principles of the Bible. He cannot be at liberty to unite with them in political schemes that are contrary to the Law of God, or in elevating to office people whom he cannot vote for with a good conscience as qualified for the station.
(5) In plans of public improvement, in schemes that go to the advancement of the public welfare, when the schemes do not violate the laws of God. But if they involve the necessity of violating the Sabbath, or any of the laws of God, assuredly he cannot consistently participate in them.
(6) In doing good to others. So the Saviour was with sinners; so he ate, and drank, and conversed with them. So we may mingle with them, without partaking of their wicked feelings and plans, so far as we can do them good, and exert over them a holy and saving influence. In all the situations here referred to, and in all the duties growing out of them, the Christian may maintain his principles, and may preserve a good conscience. Indeed the Saviour evidently contemplated that his people would have such contact with the world, and that in it they would do good. But in none of these is there to be any compromise of principle; in none to be any yielding to the opinions and practices that are contrary to the laws of God.
III. There is a large field of action, conduct, and plan, where Christians only will act together. These relate to the special duties of religion - to prayer, Christian fellowship, the ordinances of the gospel, and most of the plans of Christian beneficence. Here the world will not intrude; and here assuredly there will be no necessity of any compromise of Christian principle.
For what fellowship - Paul proceeds here to state reasons why there should be no such improper connection with the world. The main reason, though under various forms, is that there can be no fellowship, no communion, nothing in common between them; and that therefore they should be separate. The word “fellowship” (μέτοχὴ metochē) means partnership, participation. What is there in common; or how can the one partake with the other? The interrogative form here is designed to be emphatic, and to declare in the strongest terms that there can be no such partnership.
Righteousness - Such as you Christians are required to practice; implying that all were to be governed by the stern and uncompromising principles of honesty and justice.
With unrighteousness - Dishonesty, injustice, sin; implying that the world is governed by such principles.
And what communion - (κοινωνία koinōnia). Participation; communion; that which is in common. What is there in common between light and darkness? What common principle is there of which they both partake? There is none. There is a total and eternal separation.
Light - The emblem of truth, virtue, holiness; see the Mat 4:16; Mat 5:16 notes; Joh 1:4 note; Rom 2:19 note; 2Co 4:4, 2Co 4:6 notes. It is implied here that Christians are enlightened, and walk in the light. Their principles are pure and holy - principles of which light is the proper emblem.
Darkness - The emblem of sin, corruption, ignorance; implying that the world to which Paul refers was governed and influenced by these. The idea is, that as there is an entire separation between light and darkness in their nature; as they have nothing in common, so it is and should be, between Christians and sinners. There should be a separation. There can be nothing in common between holiness and sin; and Christians should have nothing to do “with the unfruitful works of darkness:” Eph 5:11.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Bear not the yoke together with unbelievers. He does…
Bear not the yoke together with unbelievers. He does not mean, that they must wholly avoid their company, which could not be done, but not to have too intimate a friendship with them, not to marry with them, to avoid their vices. Be ye separate....touch not the unclean thing. He does not speak of meats, clean and unclean, according to the law of Moses, nor of legal uncleannesses, but what is sinful under the new law of Christ, and would defile the soul, as idolatry, fornication, &c. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Be not--Greek, "Become not."
Be not--Greek, "Become not."
unequally yoked--"yoked with one alien in spirit." The image is from the symbolical precept of the law (Lev 19:19), "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind"; or the precept (Deu 22:10), "Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together." Compare Deu 7:3, forbidding marriages with the heathen; also Co1 7:39. The believer and unbeliever are utterly heterogeneous. Too close intercourse with unbelievers in other relations also is included (Co2 6:16; Co1 8:10; Co1 10:14).
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fellowship--literally, "share," or "participation."
righteousness--the state of the believer, justified by faith.
unrighteousness--rather, as always translated elsewhere, "iniquity"; the state of the unbeliever, the fruit of unbelief.
light--of which believers are the children (Th1 5:5).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 14. St. Paul trusts now, by warming the affections…
14. St. Paul trusts now, by warming the affections of his Corinthians, first to draw them into separation from sin, 2Co_6:14 to 2Co_7:1, and to bring them to an acceptance of himself, 2Co_7:2.
Be ye not— The richer your Christian affections the easier your separation from a wicked world. As Christ, his gospel, his Church, his apostles, and holy happiness, fill your hearts with abounding satisfaction, withdrawal from earthly idols becomes spontaneous.
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Unequally yoked—An allusion, doubtless, to Deu_22:10, where an ox and an ass are forbidden to be yoked together. To be unequally yoked is, therefore, to be connected with an unfitting associate. There will be pulling different ways, and danger for a Christian to be pulled into danger and ruin. This unequal yoking, this binding of the Christian with the loose thinker and free liver, is a source of myriads of apostasies and destructions. Marriage is not specially indicated, but it is eminently included as the most striking instance of yoking in life. A false marriage of Christian with unbeliever is often a disaster for eternity.
Righteousness with unrighteousness—This antithesis is truly, if seen with a true eye, the greatest possible contrast in the universe. There are many opposites known or conceivable, but the greatest possible of all oppositions is that between absolute right and absolute wrong. But as the eye of the ethical man is apt to be dim and dull, Paul immediately addresses another contrast, the most powerful conceivable, to the bodily eye—light with darkness. This image is known among all religions which in any degree inculcate the idea of holiness.
In a series of intense questions, five in number, St. Paul arrays before the minds of the Corinthians a series of images to impress them with a vivid sense of the absolute contrariety between a pure Christianity and a world of wickedness. The images are drawn from ethics, from nature, from the antithesis of Christ and Belial, from faith, and from the sanctity of God’s temple. it is, doubtless, by a summary rehearsal of those lessons of holiness with which his preaching had often impressed these converts from heathenism, that he is here recalling them to first principles.
In the five words used to designate the denied connexion between the contracted objects, namely, fellowship, communion, concord, part, agreement, Meyer sees proof of Paul’s command of copious Greek. But Stanley remarks that there is no special fitness of each to its own place; they might be interchanged.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers]…
14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers] Dean Stanley observes on the “remarkable dislocation of the argument here.” But the connection of thought is not difficult to trace. The only reward (see last verse) St Paul sought from the Corinthians was conduct in accordance with the Gospel of Christ. This was the best form their sympathy with him could take. Therefore he touches on some of the points on which they were in the habit of doing most violence to their Christian profession. They did not keep sufficiently aloof from unbelievers, but even went so far as to ‘sit at meat’ with them ‘in the idol-temple’ (see 1 Corinthians 8, 10, and notes) and thus become partakers with them in their idolatry, whereby they were the cause of infinite mischief to the souls of their brethren. The reference in the words ‘unequally yoked together’ is to the precept in Deu_22:10, a precept, like many similar ones in the same chapter (2Co_6:9; 2Co_6:11-12) and elsewhere in the Mosaic laws, manifestly figurative in its character. The Apostle’s words must not be confined to intermarriages with the heathen, though of course it includes them in the prohibition. It refers to all kinds of close and intimate relations. “They are yoked together with unbelievers, who enter into close companionship with them.” Estius.
what fellowship] The word thus rendered here is not the same as that rendered communion below, a word which (see notes on 1Co_1:9; 1Co_10:16) is itself rendered indifferently by communion and fellowship in the N. T., but is derived from the word signifying to partake (partynge, Wiclif), e.g. in 1Co_10:17. See Eph_5:7; also 1Ma_1:13-15 and 2Jn_1:11.
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unrighteousness] Literally, lawlessness, the normal condition of the heathen man, Rom_6:19, while the Christian is endowed with ‘God’s righteousness,’ ch. 2Co_5:21.
light with darkness] Cf. Joh_1:5; Joh_3:19, the one signifying the condition of man in Christ, the other his condition without Christ. See also Eph_5:8; 1Th_5:5; and ch. 2Co_4:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (14) Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.—We…
(14) Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.—We seem at first to enter, by an abrupt transition, upon a new line of exhortation. The under-current of thought is, however, not difficult to trace. There was a false latitude as well as a true. The baser party at Corinth might think it a matter of indifference whether they married a heathen or a Christian, whether they chose their intimate friends among the worshippers of Aphrodite or of Christ. Against that “enlargement” the Apostle feels bound to protest. The Greek word for “unequally yoked together” is not found elsewhere, and was probably coined by St. Paul to give expression to his thoughts. Its meaning is, however, determined by the use of the cognate noun in Lev_19:19 (“Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind”). Cattle were unequally yoked together when ox and ass were drawing the same plough (Deu_22:10). Men and women are so when they have no common bond of faith in God. Another explanation refers the image to the yoke of a balance, or pair of scales, and so sees in the precept a warning against partiality in judgment; but this rests on very slender ground, or rather, no ground at all.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Ewald,…
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Ewald, followed by Dean Stanley, Holsten, and others, thinks that here there is a sudden dislocation of the argument, and some have even supposed that the section, 2Co_6:14-18; 2Co_7:1, is either an after thought written by the apostle on the margin of the Epistle after it was finished; or even an interpolation. The latter view has arisen from the unusual expressions of the section, and the use of the word "Belial," and the command of Greek shown by the varied expressions. There is no adequate ground for these conjectures. Every writer is conscious of moods in which words come to him more fluently than at other times, and all writers of deep feeling, like St. Paul, abound in sudden transitions which correspond to the lightning-like rapidity of their thoughts. It is doubtful whether the readers would not have seen at once the sequence of thought, which depends on circumstances which we can only conjecture. Probably the alienation from St. Paul had its root in some tampering with unbelievers. Such might at any rate have been the case among the Gentile members of the Church, some of whom were even willing to go to sacrificial feasts in heathen temples. (1Co 8-10) "Unequally yoked" is a metaphor derived from Lev_19:19 and Deu_22:10, and is the opposite of true yoke fellow". (Php_4:3) What fellowship; literally, participation . (Eph_5:6-11) Unrighteousness; literally, lawlessness. (1Jn_3:4) It was a special mark of heathen life. (Rom_7:19) Light with darkness. This antithesis is specially prominent in Eph_5:9 Col_1:12, Col_1:13, and in the writings of St. John. (Joh_1:5 Joh_3:19 1John, passim)
Vers. 14-18.
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Unequally yoked.
"Be ye not unequally yoked," etc. Observe here three things.
I THERE IS AN ESSENTIAL SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE WHO ARE TRULY CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY AND THOSE WHO ARE NOT. The line of demarcation is broad and conspicuous. The difference is the difference:
1. Between "righteousness and unrighteousness.
2. Between "light and darkness.
3. Between Christ and Satan. "What concord hath Christ with Belial?
4. Between faith and infidelity. "What part hath he that believeth with aninfidel?
5. Between the "temple of God" and the "temple of idols.
II NOTWITHSTANDING THE SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCE, THE CONVERTED ARE IN DANGER OF BEING ASSOCIATED WITH THE UNCONVERTED. Hence the command, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Also the command, "Come out from among them." Alas! we find such association in almost every department of life in the matrimonial, the commercial, the political, etc.
III FROM SUCH AN ASSOCIATION IT IS THE DUTY OF THE CONVERTED TO EXTRICATE THEMSELVES. "Wherefore come out from among them," etc. Observe two things.
1. The nature of the separation. "Come out from among them." It must be:
(1) Voluntary. Not to be driven out, but you must break away from all the ties that bind you. Agonize to enter the "strait gate.
(2) Entire. "Touch not the unclean thing." Sin is an unclean thing unclean in its essence, its phases, and its influences.
2. The encouragement to the separation. "I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." As a Father, what does God do for his children?
(1) He loves them. His love is the fountain of all the love in the universe. All the love that human parents have for their children is but one drop from the boundless ocean.
(2) He educates them. Who teaches like God? He teaches the best lesson, in the best way, for the best end. He educates the whole soul, not for temporal purposes, but for ends spiritual and everlasting.
(3) He guards them, Human parents can only guard the bodies of their children. This Father guards the soul the conscience from guilt, the heart from impurity, the intellect from error, etc.
(4) He provides for them. The best of human parents can only provide for their children a few supplies for their bodies, and that for a time only. This great Father provides for the soul, and provides forever. "He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.
Vers. 14-18.
Unequal yoking.
Intimate associations ought not to be formed by the people of God with the ungodly. The reference is, no doubt, to Deu_22:10.
I HOW THIS MAY BE DONE.
1. In religious fellowship. The apostle had occasion to warn the Corinthians against fellowship with idolaters. We may he attracted by a religious community in which the truth is not found or in which it is greatly obscured or distorted.
2. In marriage. With believers the religious question should be a prime question. Alas! it is often no question at all. Religious inequality is most frequently esteemed as the dust of the balance, and less than that. Consent is asked of the earthly father, but the heavenly Father is too commonly forgotten altogether. Marriages too often are not made in heaven, and that is why they have so little heaven about them, The ill-assorted union does not lead so much to Paradise as to misery and the divorce court.
3. In friendships. There is often much unequal yoking here. A wise man chooses his friends with care, but a fool takes them haphazard or on mere "liking." The power of a friendship is great, for good or for evil. Believers should choose friends who will help, not hinder, and friends who wilt be friends forever, and not severed at the grave.
4. In business. Partnership in commerce is a yoke which brings men very close together. They must have very much in common; their lives must run in very much the same channel; their actions must largely agree. Or, if not, their union will be disunion, and the issue, quarrels first, and perhaps bankruptcy or worse next. How often a child of God has lived to rue the day when he entered into partnership with a child of the devil!
II WHY THIS SHOULD NOT BE DONE.
1. Unreasonable in itself. Consider what believers and unbelievers are.
(1) The one, "righteousnes" (Ver. 14) lovers of holiness striving for its fuller possesion. The other, "iniquity the heart alienated From God, loving sin and walking in it, though possibly exterior gloss may obscure inward defilement.
(2) The one, "light" (ver. 14) illumined by the Holy Ghost, shone upon by the "Light of the world possessing a knowledge of the truth, children of the day. The other, "darkness the true light rejected or ignored, subjects of error, preparing themselves for "the outer darkness.
(3) The one, in Christ (ver. 15) members of his body, his disciples, his ransomed people. The other, followers of Belial, the children of the wicked one, serving him daily.
(4) The one, the temple of God (ver. 16), consecrated to God, God dwelling in them. The other, the temple of idols of the idols of sin, made into gods. God in the one, the devil in the other. How can such opposites as these be united? Why should righteousness seek alliance with iniquity? Can light and darkness walk together? Can Christ and Belial be on terms of concord? How can temples of God and temples of vilest idols be brought to agreement?
1. Extremely perilous. How many have found this! In marriage, for example. What misery, loss of peace, loss of holiness, loss of everything most prized once, have followed upon an unequal alliance! The life has been utterly ruined and lost. Some marry in order to convert; but we should always convert people before we marry them. The peril applies to all cases of unequal yoking. The evil generally triumphs because the good has robbed itself of power by taking a false step.
2. Expressly forbidden by God. The Divine Word is emphatic: "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing" (ver. 17). This is a Divine command which we dare not set aside. This is Divine wisdom; our wisdom may not accord with it, but if so, our wisdom is assuredly folly. This is Divine love, purposing to save us from misery and loss.
3. A most gracious promise for the obedient. The resolve not to be unequally yoked may sometimes seem to entail large sacrifice. If we lose something, this is what we gain. God says:
(1) "I will receive you" (ver. 17). We shall be with God. We shall have God. Though we may lose the creature, we shall gain the Creator. God will be gracious to us if others are ungracious. If the stream fail, we may resort to the Fountain. Here is the warrant for doing so.
(2) "And will be to you a Father" (ver. 18). We may lose the earthly father, who may have singular views respecting our "prospects;" we shall have a Father above. If we are obedient, God wilt reveal himself in the tenderest and most loving guise. If God be our Father it must be well with us whatever betide.
(3) "And ye shall be to me sons and daughters" (ver. 18). Note, "daughters" are specially mentioned. These have frequently to endure much when "unequal yoking" is resisted. We shall be "children of God." Then we shall be "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Sweet, indeed, are the fruits of obedience. We may lose much; let us never imperil this. H.
Vers. 14-18
Separation.
St. Paul wished to see the Corinthian brethren enlarged, enlivened, and encouraged. But this was not to be by the easy and uuprincipled method of ignoring all distinctions and binding together incongruous materials and moral opposites. The exhortation, "Be ye enlarged," must be taken with this, "Be ye separate;" and charity must go hand in hand with purity. The contrasts expressed in this passage were very apparent in ancient Corinth, where the Christians, as saints, were openly separated from the heathen worship and heathen vices around them. A similar state of things may be seen now at mission stations in populous heathen cities. The Christians turn away from the temples, disown the priests and soothsayers, disregard the festivals, and have nothing any more to do with idols, They may still maintain family and social intercourse with the heathen, because conversion, as St. Paul explains, does not break family ties, or change the station in which one is when "called," or drive Christ"s followers "out of the world." But they may not be unequally yoked with non-Christians or profane persons in Church fellowship. The distinction cannot be made so palpable where all society has accepted the Christian name as when and where the Church is in sharp contrast with a powerful heathenism. Yet in principle the distinction insisted on by St. Paul must be maintained, else the strength of the Church as a spiritual institution is sapped, and a compromising spirit enters which destroys the glory of Christ. To carry out the principle in actual Church discipline is confessedly difficult; but the Church has a right to expect that her overseers will prevent the admission of scandalous persons; and individual professors of the Christian faith should not claim Church fellowship without examining themselves as to the side on which they stand with reference to the five points of contrast indicated in this text.
1. Between righteousness and iniquity. This takes us at once into the region of conscience and moral conduct. The Christian should be a righteous man. He may not lie, or cheat, or overreach, or take unfair advantage of another, because to do so would not be right or righteous. The rogue and the worker of iniquity are as heathen men, and not fit for Christian fellowship.
2. Between light and darkness. This points to the mental and moral environment as affecting thought, feeling, and action. It is a mode of expression common with St. Paul, as may be seen in other Epistles. The Christian is a child of the light and of the day. Darkness, on the contrary, is the covering of the heathen world; and its works are unfruitful and shameful.
3. Between Christ and Belial. Abstractions are left, and the leaders of two conflicting hosts are set in opposition. A Christian is "of Christ," as the Lord whom he obeys and the pattern which he follows. On the other side is a man of Belial, or the follower of a worthless and profligate spirit. So this contrast has reference to disposition, and excludes every false and wicked person from Christian fellowship.
4. Between the believer and the unbeliever. This takes us to the question of religious persuasion and conviction. A Christian is a believer on the Son of God. In this lies the secret of his life, strength, holiness, and patience. A man without faith is no more fit for fellowship in the Church than a heathen. To him the trials and triumphs of the life of faith are alike unknown.
5. Between the temple of God and idols. The Church is the living temple of the living God, the holy temple of the holy God. The individual Christians are stones in that temple, and must be in harmony with its sacred character and use. What agreement has it with idols? If the Jew would have thought it a horrible profanation to set up a graven image in the temple at Jerusalem, much more should Christian minds abhor the setting up of idols of selfishness, covetousness, or sensuality in that better temple which is now the habitation of God in the Spirit. So much of incompatibilities and contrasts. Then the apostle, who did not address himself to the heathen, bidding them stand off, but wrote to the Christians, urging them to avoid entanglement with the heathen, gave them a charge from the Lord, and enforced it by a gracious promise.
(1) The charge. "Wherefore come out from among them." The Christians were not to leave Corinth, but to hold their positions and preserve their callings in that city, while scrupulously avoiding the contamination of idolatry and vice. So should we continue in the world, yet not be conformed to it or love it; should do our part in our generation, yet separate ourselves from all that is unjust or unholy. "Touch not the unclean," under which category comes, not mere licentiousness, but all that is unhallowed, and so out of harmony with the purity of God.
(2) The promise. "I will receive you," etc. (vers. 17, 18). Such was the promise made to King David in regard to his posterity; (2Sa_7:14) and it is extended to all the household of faith. From the sure belief of this promise we may derive strength and resolution to keep the rule of separation. Are we to be openly acknowledged as the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty? What, then, have we to do with iniquity, with darkness, with Belial, with unbelief, with idols? The best-known Christians are not always the best. They may have some striking quality or rare endowment, or may have reached by favour some conspicuous post. But the best are those men and women who most fully and consistently obey the holy calling. How sweet is fellowship with such Christians, and how stimulating! It is good to be yoked together with them under Christ"s yoke which is easy, and his burden which is light. It is good to be builded together with them in the temple of the living God. It is good to be joined as brothers and sisters in the same family, and call the Lord Almighty our Father. The friendship of the world, the alliance of the sons of Belial, the communion of the unclean, what are these to the dignity of the people of God and the family affection of his children? F.
Christian friendships.
The Bible would not be a complete book, adequately representing all phases of human life and experience and associations, if it contained no instance of close, personal, sacrificing friendship. But we have the very beautiful illustrative case of David and Jonathan. Christianity would not meet us at every point of our need if it had not something to say about the choices the changes, and the claims of friendship.
I ON THE CHOICES OF FRIENDSHIP. Our friendships are not always gained by choice; they are sometimes determined by outward circumstances; sometimes by felt affinities; and sometimes they are started by some impressive or generous deed. But friendship ought always to be put to the decision of our will, seeing that it bears so directly on our character and on our life. It sounds chilling to the freshness and warmth of our love to say that we must decide who is to be our friend, and put into careful consideration the qualities and habits and probable influence upon us of the person towards whom we are drawn. Yet, surely, as we would not trust our property to a man whom we did not know, or our child to an education that we had not carefully selected for him, so we would not give our hearts to one whom we were not sure that we might fully trust. Moreover, as Christians, we guard against the approach of evil in every form, and nothing will more directly affect our Christian spirit than the influence of an unworthy friend. He may be a scoffer. He may be one whose sneer at all we love and seek may hurt and wound us far more than the scoffer"s open speech. He may be an indulgent pleasure-seeker, whose disposition will be sure to nourish the worldliness and self-loving of our spirit. And, on the other hand, few things will help us more than a well-chosen Christian friendship. Many a doubt is scattered by the contact of a friend"s faith, and many a sliding step is steadied by the influence of a friend"s firmness. Two things lie at the basis of a worthy and lasting friendship, viz. a certain felt sympathy and a certain recognized equality.
II ON THE CHANGES OF FRIENDSHIP. Sometimes friendships are broken through changeableness of disposition. Others are broken by the wrong doing or unfaithfulness of one of the friends. And at other times friendships are broken by the rude, rough hand of death.
III ON THE CLAIMS OF FRIENDSHIP. All associations of men together bring claims and responsibilities. If we have the privilege of a loving friendship, it claims from us two things.
1. Unfailing confidence in our friend. And this involves openness one withthe other. Close natures, that can keep secrets, seldom know the full joy of friendship.
2. Mutual self-sacrifice, readiness to spend our best for our friend, and toput forth our best efforts in his behalf. Foote well says, "Be thankful if God has given you a sympathizing friend, one who can share with you your deepest griefs, who is one with you in all your interests for time and for eternity, whose heart answers to your heart. This is one of God"s best gifts; be thankful for it and use it right, for he may deprive you of it, and leave you grieving, Would I had prized it more! It is a most sweet and blessed fellowship; use it use it for the high ends of mutual, spiritual good, and the Divine glory. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
2Co_6:14-16
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
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Unequally yoked
This peculiar word has a cognate form in the law which forbids the breeding of hybrid animals (Lev_19:19). God has established a good physical order in the world, and it is not to be confounded and disfigured by the mixing of the species. It is that law, or perhaps another form of it, which forbids the yoking together of an ox and an ass (Deu_22:10), that is applied in an ethical sense in this passage. There is a wholesome moral order in the world also, and it is not to be confused by the association of its different kinds. The common application of this text to the marriage of Christians with non-Christians is legitimate but too narrow. The text prohibits every kind of union in which the separate character and interest of the Christian lose anything of their distinctiveness and integrity. This is brought out more strongly in the free quotation from Isa_52:11 in verse 17. These words were originally addressed to the priests, who, on the redemption of Israel from Babylon, were to carry the sacred temple vessels back to Jerusalem. But we must remember that though they are Old Testament words they are quoted by a New Testament writer, who inevitably puts his own meaning into them. The unclean thing which no Christian is to touch covers, and doubtless was intended to cover, all that it suggests to the simple Christian mind now. We are to have no compromising connection with anything in the world which is alien to God. Let us be as loving and conciliatory as we please, but as long as the world is what it is the Christian life can only maintain itself in it in an attitude of unbroken protest. There always will be things and people to whom the Christian has to say No! But the moral demand is put in a more positive form in 2Co_7:1. (J. Denney, B. D.)
Unequally yoked
I. There is an essential spiritual difference between those who are converted and those who are not. The line of demarcation is broad and conspicuous. It is between--
1. Righteousness and unrighteousness.
2. Light and darkness.
3. Christ and Satan.
4. Faith and infidelity.
5. The temple of God and the temple of idols.
II. Notwithstanding this difference the converted are in danger of being associated with the unconverted. Alas, we find such association in almost every department of life.
III. From such an association it is the duty of the converted to extricate themselves.
1. The nature of the separation. Come out from among them. It must be--
(1) Voluntary. Not to be driven out, but you must break away from all ties that bind you.
(2) Entire. Touch not the unclean thing. Sin is an unclean thing, unclean in its essence, its phases and its influences.
2. The encouragement to the separation. I will receive you, etc. As a Father, what does God do for His children?
(1) He loves them.
(2) He educates them. He educates the whole soul, not for temporal purposes, but for ends spiritual and everlasting.
(3) He guards them.
(4) He provides for them. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Amusements and companies of the world
I. There seem to be two capital reasons why Christians should not by choice associate with those of a worldly or idolatrous spirit.
1. There is really no congeniality between the two spirits. As there is the want of a common taste, so there is the want of common topics. For a man to delight in the conversation of an irreligious party, bears on it the evidence of his own irreligion. And, if it be the symptom of having passed from death unto life that we love the brethren and their society, then may the love of another society, at utter antipodes, administer the suspicion of a still unregenerated heart, of a still unsubdued worldliness.
2. So to consort with the ungodly not only proves the existence of a kindred leaven in our spirit, but tends to ferment it--not only argues the ungodliness which yet is in the constitution, but tends to strengthen it the more. And who can doubt of the blight and the barrenness that are brought upon the spirit by its converse with the world?
II. Both these considerations are directly applicable touchstones by which to try, we will not say the lawfulness, but at least the expediency, of--
1. The theatre and all public entertainments. Think of the degree of congeniality which there is between the temperament of sacredness and the temperament of any of these assemblages. The matter next to be determined is, will the dance, the music, the merriment, the representation, and the whole tumult of that vanity attune the consent of the spirit to the feelings and exercises of sacredness? If there be risk of being exposed to the language of profaneness or impurity, this were reason enough why a Christian should maintain himself at the most determined distance from them both. There may be a difficulty in replying to the interrogation--What is the crime of music? yet would you feel yourself entitled to rebuke the scholar whose love for music dissipated his mind away from all the preparations indispensable to his professional excellence.
2. And, as it is with this worlds amusements, so may it be with this worlds companies. There may be none of the excesses of intemperance, of the execrations of profanity, of the sneers of infidelity. All may have been pure and dignified and intellectual, affectionate and kind. And then the question is put--where is the mighty and mysterious harm of all this? The answer is that, with all the attractive qualities which each member of the company referred to may personally realise, it is quite a possible thing that there be not one trait of godliness on the character of any one of them. They may all be living without God in the world, and by a tacit but faithful compact during the whole process of this conviviality, all thought and talk of the ever-present Deity may for the season be abandoned. And thus is it a very possible thing that, in simply prosecuting your round of invitations among this worlds amiable friends and hospitable families, you may be cradling the soul into utter insensibility against the portentous realities of another world--a spiritual lethargy may grow and gather every year till it settles down into the irrevocable sleep of death. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Unequally yoked
When travelling in America, as we neared Montreal the Ottawa river joined that of the St. Lawrence, upon which we were sailing. The former is remarkable for its muddiness, the latter for its cleanness. For a while they flowed side by side, so that they could easily be distinguished the one from the other. Eventually, however, they coalesced, and the one stream was dirty, not clean. So is it too often, alas! I thought, with those who wed unbelievers. For a time they run together smoothly, but at last one is changed by the other, and it is generally the unbeliever that gains the day. Not without abundant cause was the apostolic injunction given, Be not unequally yoked.
What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?--
Religious Separation
I. Its grounds.
1. Immorality. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? Let a man amass enormous wealth, and he will find at his board the noblest in the land. It matters not that he became rich in some questionable way--no one asks about that. Again, talent breaks down the rigid line of demarcation. The accomplished man or woman who, though notoriously profligate, is tolerated--nay, courted--even in the Christian drawing-room. Now I do not say that the breaking down of conventional barriers is undesirable. If goodness did it--if a man, low in birth, were admired for his virtues--it would be well for this land of ours! But where wealth and talent, irrespective of goodness, alone possess the key to unlock our English exclusiveness, there plainly the apostolic injunction holds, because the reason of it holds: What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
2. Irreligion. What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? There is much danger, however, in applying this law. It is perilous work when men begin to decide who are believers and who are not, if they decide by party badges. Nevertheless, there is an irreligion which he who runs may read. For the atheist is not merely he who professes unbelief, but, strictly speaking, every one who lives without God in the world. And the heretic is not merely he who has mistaken some Christian doctrine, but rather he who causes divisions among the brethren. And the idolater is not merely he who worships images, but he who gives his heart to something which is less than God. Now there are innumerable doubtful cases where charity is bound to hope the best; but there is also an abundance of plain eases: for where a mans god is money, or position in society, or rank, there the rule holds, Come ye apart.
II. The mode of this separation. It is not to be attained by the affectation of outward separateness. Beneath the Quakers sober, unworldly garb, there may be the canker of the love of gain; and beneath the guise of peace there may be the combative spirit, which is worse than war. Nor can you get rid of worldliness by placing a ban on particular places of entertainment and particular societies. The world is a spirit rather than a form; and just as it is true that wherever two or three are met together in His name, God is in the midst of them, so, if your heart be at one with His Spirit, you may, in the midst of worldly amusements--yet not without great danger, for you will have multiplied temptations--keep yourself unspotted from the world. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?--
The nature, sources, and results of infidelity
I. Its nature. An infidel is one who does not believe, and who avowedly rejects the testimony of Divine revelation.
1. Infidelity has existed in all ages. It was displayed when our first parents listened to the tempter in paradise. It appeared in the unhallowed building of Babel. It rancoured in the heart of the Jew who rejected and crucified the Messiah. It directed the judgment of the Greek who pronounced the gospel foolishness, and laughed at the resurrection from the dead.
2. In more modern times, how numerous and varied have been its different systems! We may, however, arrange them in two classes.
(1) The Deists who believe in the Divine existence and a future state of being, but who refuse the authority of the Bible.
(2) The atheists, who deny the Divine existence; who proclaim that the world was formed by chance, or that it is eternal; who assign to man nothing but a refined material organisation, and who pronounce that death is the end of all being.
II. Its sources. The great source is the depravity.of the human heart. No doubt some have embraced infidel opinions after inquiry into the evidences of the Christian revelation; but have they carried an unbiassed judgment to such inquiries? I hold that the evidences of the Christian religion are so full, so plain, and so powerful, that they cannot be weighed with a proper judgment without at once receiving the homage of the heart. There are two dispositions, however, in the heart of man, to which infidelity may be more particularly assigned.
1. Pride. This is the principle which prominently prevailed in the first act of infidelity. And so it was when the lawgiver was denied and the Redeemer was rejected. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. If you will examine the doctrines and principles of Christianity, you will see much that is humiliating.
2. Sensuality. The whole system of the gospel is intended to put down the sensuality of depraved human nature. On the other hand, infidelity never yet promulgated one principle which could present a barrier against the gratification of lust. If it spoke of moral principle, of what force could that moral principle be when it suggested no motive for promoting it, no sanction for its exercise? Did not the Epicureans recognise that the chief good was pleasure? Did not Herbert teach that the indulgence of lust and anger were as innocent as the gratification of hunger and thirst? Did not Bolingbroke teach that lust was lawful if it could be indulged with safety? Did not Hume teach that adultery was only a crime when it was known? Did not Voltaire admit that the sensual appetites were to have a full and unrestrained gratification? When you consider the sentiments of its chief advocates, do you not perceive that it opens wide the flood-gates of licentiousness that it may rush upon the world?
III. Its results.
1. On the life that now is.
(1) As they affect individuals. The true dignity of man is destroyed by the dogmas which infidelity embraces. And where is comfort to be found in connection with infidelity? The infidel has gone away from his Fathers house, and what can he expect but to be fed on the husks which the swine do eat? He is gone away from the haven of peace, and what can he expect but to be tossed by the storm? He may join in the festive dance, but it is the emblem of raving madness; when he sinks in sickness, he is oppressed with the weight of sorrow; and when he falls in death, he is precipitated to the regions of despair.
(2) As they affect communities. Infidel opinions are hostile to that which constitutes a nations prosperity and grandeur. The withering effects of infidelity have been exemplified in France. Her efforts for freedom might have been brilliant and successful; she might have led the way of the empires of the earth in the march of true emancipation; but her impious dethronement of God and her nameless abominations have taught the lesson that if infidelity dwell in the bosom of the empire, it can only be as the most malignant destroyer.
2. On the life that is to come. While men continue in the avowed rejection of Christianity, it is impossible for them to be saved. (J. Parsons.)
What communion hath light with darkness?--
Communion with God
We need not refer to the special cases which may have been contemplated by St. Paul when giving utterance to these emphatic questions. They may be taken in the most general sense, as indicating the impossibility of there being any agreement or fellowship between God and man unless a great moral change pass over the latter. We need not tell you, that in regard of the associations of life, there must be something of a similarity of disposition and desire. Unless there be congeniality of character, there may indeed be outward alliance; but there cannot be that intimate communion that the alliance itself is supposed to imply. And further than this--a sameness of tendency or pursuit appears evidently to form an immediate link between parties who would otherwise have very little in common. You observe, for instance, how men c,f science seem attracted to each other, though strangers by birth, and even by country. But this is not communion or fellowship in the sense or to the extent intended by St. Paul. This is only agreement on one particular ground. Take the parties away from that ground, and they will probably be inclined to move in quite opposite directions. We shall first glance at what is mentioned--fellowship or communion with God; and we shall then be in a position to press home the energetic questions of the apostle--What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? Now, you can require no proof that God and the wicked man cannot be said to have fellowship or communion, though God be about that wicked mans path, and about his bed, and spieth out all his ways. There is no proposing of the same object or end, for God proposes His own glory, whereas the wicked man proposes the gratification of his own sinful propensities. You see at once the contradiction between the assertions that a man is in fellowship with God and yet loves the present world. In short, it must be clear to you that the phraseology of our text implies a state of concord, or friendship--a state, in fact, on mans part, of what we commonly understand by religion--the human will having become harmonious with the Divine, and the creature proposing the same object as the Creator. And therefore we conclude that the questions before us imply that there can be nothing of religious communication between man and his Maker unless there have been some process of reconciliation. You are to remember that man is by nature in a state of enmity to God, born in sin, shapen in corruption, and far gone from original righteousness. Take away the work of the Mediator Christ, that work through which alone the alienation of our nature, its unrighteousness, its darkness, can be corrected, and the Creator and the creature can never meet in friendship. Now you will readily understand that up to this point we have confined ourselves to the urging the necessity for a great change on mans part from unrighteousness to righteousness, from darkness to light, in order to his having fellowship with God. We would examine how God and man may be at peace, now that reconciliation has been made. You are to remember that whatever the provisions made by Christ for our pardon and acceptance, we retain whilst yet sojourning on earth a deprived nature, fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, sinful propensities which may indeed be arrested but not eradicated. And can a being such as this have communion with that God who is a consuming fire against every form and degree of iniquity? Is this fellowship possible even though certain causes of separation have been removed--because the debt has been paid, or because punishment has been vicariously endured? You are to take heed that you do not narrow the results of Christs work of mediation. There was a vast deal more effected by this work than the mere removal of certain impediments to the outgoing of the Divine love towards man. The process of agreement, as undertaken and completed by Christ, had a respect to continuance as well as to commencement. God and man are brought into fellowship if man accept Christ as his Surety, for then the death and obedience of Christ are placed to his account, and accordingly he appears as one on whom justice has no claim, and on whom love may therefore smile. But how are they to continue in fellowship, seeing that man as a fallen creature is sure to do much that will be offensive to God, and that God in virtue of His holiness is pledged to hostility with evil? Indeed the communion could not last if it were not that the Mediator ever lives as an Intercessor. It could not last if it were not that the work of the Son procured for us the influence of the Spirit. But combine these two facts and you may see that Christ made not only provision for uniting God and man, but for keeping them united. The question as to what fellowship, what communion there can be between things in their own nature directly opposed, is of course to be considered as only a forcible mode of expressing an impossibility. There cannot be fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, there cannot be communion between darkness and light. Now we wish you to consider this impossibility with reference to a future state: we cannot conceal from ourselves that there is a great deal of vague hope of heaven which takes little or no account of what must necessarily be the character of the inhabitants of heaven. But the great thing to be here impressed upon men, who in spite of their musings on heaven give evident tokens of being still worldly-minded--it is, that they are altogether mistaken as to the worth, the attractiveness of heaven. They are not indeed mistaken as to heaven being a scene of overwhelming splendour and unimagined blessedness, but they are utterly mistaken in supposing that it would be so to themselves. They forget that in order to anything of happiness there must be a correspondence between the dispositions of the inhabitants of a world and the enjoyments of that world; otherwise in vain will the Creator have hung a scene with majesty and scattered over its surface the indications of His goodness. It is nothing, then, that we have a relish for descriptions of heaven. The question is whether we have any conformity to the inhabitants of heaven. Eternally to be in communion with God, eternally to have fellowship with God--why this suggests the most terrible of thoughts--thoughts of being for ever out of my element, unless God and myself are to be of one mind--if I am to remain unrighteous while He is righteous, if I am to be darkness while He is light. We have no right to think that this friendship between God and man is effected unless at least commenced on this side of the grave. Go not away with the thought that you may indeed have nothing here of the character which is necessary to the happiness of heaven, but that such character will be imparted to you hereafter. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 18
Chapter 18
NEW TESTAMENT PURITANISM.- 2Co_6:14-18; 2Co_7:1 (R.V)
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THIS is one of the most peculiar passages in the New Testament. Even a careless reader must feel that there is something abrupt and unexpected in it; it jolts the mind as a stone on the road does a carriage-wheel. Paul has been begging the Corinthians to treat him with the same love and confidence which he has always shown to them, and he urges this claim upon them up to 2Co_6:13. Then comes this passage about the relation of Christians to the world. Then again, at 2Co_7:2 -"Open your hearts to us; we wronged no man, we corrupted no man, we took advantage of no man"-he returns to the old subject without the least mark of transition. If everything were omitted from 2Co_6:14 2Co_7:1 inclusive, the continuity both of thought and feeling would be much more striking. This consideration alone has induced many scholars to believe that these verses do not occupy their original place. The ingenious suggestion has been made that they are a fragment of the letter to which the Apostle refers in the First Epistle: {2Co_5:9} the sentiment, and to some extent even the words, favor this conjecture. But as there is no external authority for any conjecture whatever, and no variation in the text, such suggestions can never become conclusive. It is always possible that, on reading over his letter, the Apostle himself may have inserted a paragraph breaking to some extent the closeness of the original connection. If there is nothing in the contents of the section inconsistent with his mind, the breach of continuity is not enough to discredit it.
Some, however, have gone further than this. They have pointed to the strange formulae of quotation-"as God said," "saith the Lord," "saith the Lord Almighty"-as unlike Paul. Even the main idea of the passage-"touch not any unclean thing"-is asserted to be at variance with his principles. A narrow Jewish Christian might, it is said, have expressed this shrinking from what is unclean, in the sense of being associated with idolatry, but not the great Apostle of liberty. At all events he would have taken care, in giving such an advice under special circumstances, to safeguard the principle of freedom. And, finally, an argument is drawn from language. The only point at which it is even plausible is that which touches upon the use of the terms "flesh" and "spirit" in 2Co_7:1. Schmiedel, who has an admirable excursus on the whole question, decides that this, and this only, is certainly un-Pauline. It is certainly unusual in Paul, but I do not think we can say more. The "rigor and vigor" with which Pauls use of these terms is investigated seems to me largely misplaced. They did undoubtedly tend to become technical in his mind, but words so universally and so vaguely used could never become simply technical. If any contemporary of Paul could have written, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit," then Paul himself could have written it. Language offers the same latitudes and liberties to everybody, and one could not imagine a subject which tempted less to technicality than the one urged in these verses. Whatever the explanation of their apparently irrelevant insertion here, I can see nothing in them alien to Paul. Puritanism is certainly more akin to the Old Testament than to the New, and that may explain the instinctiveness with which the writer seems to turn to the law and the prophets, and the abundance of his quotations; but though "all things are lawful" to the Christian, Puritanism has a place in the New Testament too. There is no conception of "holiness" into which the idea of "separation" does not enter; and though the balance of elements may vary in the New Testament as compared with the Old, none can be wanting. From this point of view we can best examine the meaning and application of the passage. If a connection is craved, the best, I think, is that furnished by a combination of Calvin and Meyer. Quasi recuperata auctoritate, says Calvin, liberius jam eos objurgat: this supplies a link of feeling between vv. 13 and 14 {2Co_6:13-14}. A link of thought is supplied if we consider with Meyer that inattention to the rule of life here laid down was a notable cause of receiving the grace of God in vain (2Co_7:1). Let us notice
(1) the moral demand of the passage;
(2) the assumption on which it rests;
(3) the Divine promise which inspires its observance.
(1) The moral demand is first put in the negative form: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." The peculiar word ετεροζυγουντες ("unequally yoked") has a cognate form in Lev_19:19, in the law which forbids the breeding of hybrid animals. God has established a good physical order in the world, and it is not to be confounded and disfigured by the mixing of species. It is that law (or perhaps another form of it in Deu_22:10, forbidding an Israelite to plough with an ox and an ass under the same yoke) that is applied in an ethical sense in this passage. There is a wholesome moral order in the world also, and it is not to be confused by the association of its different kinds. The common application of this text to the marriage of Christians and non-Christians is legitimate, but too narrow. The text prohibits every kind of union in which the separate character and interest of the Christian lose anything of their distinctiveness and integrity. This is brought out more strongly in the free quotation from Isa_52:2 in 2Co_6:17 : "Come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not anything unclean." These words were originally addressed to the priests who, on the redemption of Israel from Babylon, were to carry the sacred temple vessels back to Jerusalem. But we must remember that, though they are Old Testament words, they are quoted by a New Testament writer, who inevitably puts his own meaning into them. "The unclean thing" which no Christian is to touch is not to be taken in a precise Levitical sense; it covers, and I have no doubt was intended by the writer to cover, all that it suggests to any simple Christian mind now. We are to have no compromising connection with anything in the world which is alien to God. Let us be as loving and conciliatory as we please, but as long as the world is what it is, the Christian life can only maintain itself in it in an attitude of protest. There always will be things and people to whom the Christian has to say No!
But the moral demand of the passage is put in a more positive form in the last verse: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." That is the ideal of the Christian life. There is something to be overcome and put away; there is something to be wrought out and completed; there is a spiritual element or atmosphere-the fear of God-in which alone these tasks can be accomplished. The fear of God is an Old Testament name for true religion, and even under the New Testament it holds its place. The Seraphim still veil their faces while they cry "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts," and still we must feel that great awe descend upon our hearts if we would be partakers of His holiness. It is this which withers up sin to the root, and enables us to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. St. Paul includes himself in his exhortation here: it is one duty, one ideal, which is set before all. The prompt decisive side of it is represented in καθαρισωμεν ("let US cleanse": observe the aorist); its patient laborious side in επιτελουντες αγιωσυνην ("carrying holiness to completion.") Almost everybody in a Christian Church makes a beginning with this task: we cleanse ourselves from obvious and superficial defilements; but how few carry the work on into the spirit, how few carry it on ceaselessly towards perfection. As year after year rolls by, as the various experiences of life come to us with their lessons and their discipline from God, as we see the lives of others, here sinking ever deeper and deeper into the corruptions of the world, there rising daily nearer and nearer to the perfect holiness which is their goal, does not this demand assert its power over us? Is it not a great thing, a worthy thing, that we should set ourselves to purge away from our whole nature, outward and inward, whatever cannot abide the holy eye of God; and that we should regard Christian holiness, not as a subject for casual thoughts once a week, but as the task to be taken up anew, with unwearying diligence, every day we live? Let us be in earnest with this, for surely God is in earnest.
(2) Observe now the assumption on which the demand not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers is based. It is that there are two ethical or spiritual interests in the world, and that these are fundamentally inconsistent with each other. This implies that in choosing the one, the other has to be rejected. But it implies more: it implies that at bottom there are only two kinds of people in the world-those who identify themselves with the one of these interests, and those who identify themselves with the other.
Now, as long as this is kept in the abstract form, people do not quarrel with it. They have no objection to admit that good and evil are the only spiritual forces in the world, and that they are mutually exclusive. But many will not admit that there are only two kinds of persons in the world, answering to these two forces. They would rather say there is only one kind of persons, in whom these forces are with infinite varieties and modifications combined. This seems more tolerant, more humane, more capable of explaining the amazing mixtures and inconsistencies we see in human lives. But it is not more true. It is a more penetrating insight which judges that every man-despite his range of neutrality-would in the last resort choose his side; would, in short, in a crisis of the proper kind, prove finally that he was not good and bad, but good or bad. We cannot pretend to judge others, but sometimes men judge themselves, and always God can judge. And there is an instinct in those who are perfecting holiness in the fear of God which tells them, without in the least making them Pharisaical, not only what things, but what persons-not only what ideas and practices, but what individual characters-are not to be made friends of. It is no pride, or scorn, or censoriousness, which speaks thus, but the voice of all Christian experience. It is recognized at once where the young are concerned: people are careful of the friends their children make, and a schoolmaster will dismiss inexorably, not only a bad habit, but a bad boy, from the school. It ought to be recognized just as easily in maturity as in childhood: there are men and women, as well as boys and girls, who distinctly represent evil, and whose society is to be declined. To protest against them, to repel them, to resent their life and conduct as morally offensive, is a Christian duty; it is the first step towards evangelizing them.
It is worth noticing in the passage before us how the Apostle, starting from abstract ideas, descends, as he becomes more urgent, into personal relations. What fellowship have righteousness and lawlessness? None. What communion has light with darkness? None. What concord has Christ with Belial? Here the persons come in who are the heads, or representatives, of the opposing moral interests, and it is only now that we feel the completeness of the antagonism. The interest of holiness is gathered up in Christ; the interest of evil in the great adversary; and they have nothing in common. And so with the believer and the unbeliever. Of course there is ground on which they can meet: the same sun shines on them, the same soil supports them, they breathe the same air. But in all that is indicated by those two names-believer and unbeliever-they stand quite apart; and the distinction thus indicated reaches deeper than any bond of union. It is not denied that the unbeliever may have much that is admirable about him: and for the believer the one supremely important thing in the world is that which the unbeliever denies, and therefore the more he is in earnest the less can he afford the unbelievers friendship. We need all the help we can get to fight the good fight of faith, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God; and a friend whose silence numbs faith, or whose words trouble it, is a friend no earnest Christian dare keep. Words like these would not seem so hard if the common faith of Christians were felt to be a real bond of union among them, and if the recoil from the unbelieving world were seen to be the action of the whole Christian society, the instinct of self-preservation in the new Christian life. But, at whatever risk of seeming harsh, it must be repeated that there has never been a state of affairs in the world in which the commandment had no meaning. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate"; nor an obedience to this commandment which did not involve separation from persons as well as from principles.
(3) But what bulks most largely in the passage is the series of divine promises which are to inspire and sustain obedience. The separations which an earnest Christian life requires are not without their compensation; to leave the world is to be welcomed by God. It is probable that the pernicious association which the writer had immediately in view was association with the heathen in their worship, or at least in their sacrificial feasts. At all events it is the inconsistency of this with the worship of the true God that forms the climax of his expostulation-What agreement hath a temple of God with idols? and it is to this, again, that the encouraging promises are attached. "We," says the Apostle, "are a temple of the living God." This carries with it all that he has claimed: for a temple means a house in which God dwells, and God can only dwell in a holy place. Pagans and Jews alike recognized the sanctity of their temples: nothing was guarded more jealously; nothing, if violated, was more promptly and terribly avenged. Paul had seen the day when he gave his vote to shed the blood of a man who had spoken disrespectfully of the Temple at Jerusalem, and the day was coming when he himself was to run the risk of his life on the mere suspicion that he had taken a pagan into the holy place. He expects Christians to be as much in earnest as Jews who keep the sanctity of Gods house inviolate; and now, he says, that house are we: it is ourselves we have to keep unspotted from the world.
We are Gods temple in accordance with the central promise of the old covenant: as God said, "I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." The original of this is Lev_26:2; Lev_26:12. The Apostle, as has been observed already, takes the Old Testament words in a New Testament sense: as they stand here in Second Corinthians they mean something much more intimate and profound than in their old place in Leviticus. But even there, he tells us, they are a promise to us. What God speaks, He speaks to His people, and speaks once for all. And if the divine presence in the camp of Israel-a presence represented by the Ark and its tent-was to consecrate that nation to Jehovah, and inspire them with zeal to keep the camp clean, that nothing might offend the eyes of His glory, how much more ought those whom God has visited in His Son, those in whom He dwells through His Spirit, to cleanse themselves from every defilement, and make their souls fit for His habitation? After repeating the charge to come out and be separate, the writer heaps up new promises, in which the letter and the spirit of various Old Testament passages are freely combined. The principal one seems to be 2Sa_7:1-29, which contains the promises originally made to Solomon. At 2Sa_7:14 of that chapter we have the idea of the paternal and filial relation, and at 2Sa_7:8 the speaker is described in the LXX, as here, as the Lord Almighty. But passages like Jer_31:1; Jer_31:9, also doubtless floated through the writers mind, and it is the substance, not the form, which is the main thing. The very freedom with which they are reproduced shows us how thoroughly the writer is at home, and how confident he is that he is making the right and natural application of these ancient promises.
Separate yourselves, for you are Gods temple: separate yourselves and you will be sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, and He will be your Father. Haec una ratio instar mille esse debet. The friendship of the world, as James reminds us, is enmity with God; it is the consoling side of the same truth that separation from the world means friendship with God. It does not mean solitude, but a more blessed society; not renunciation of love, but admission to the only love which satisfies the soul, because that for which the soul was made. The Puritanism of the New Testament is no harsh, repellent thing, which eradicates the affections, and makes life bleak and barren; it is the condition under which the heart is opened to the love of God, and filled with all comfort and joy in obedience. With Him on our side-with the promise of His indwelling Spirit to sanctify us, of His fatherly kindness to enrich and protect us-shall we not obey the exhortation to come out and be separate, to cleanse ourselves from all that defiles, to perfect holiness in His fear?
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 14–18. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. The figure…
14–18. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. The figure is drawn from the prohibition of Deut. 22:10 and Lev. 19:19. The meaning is that Christians are not to pair off with unbelievers. All intimate associations are forbidden. The primary reference is to intermarriage and to association in heathen festivals. All close fellowship with unbelievers is included. Saints should choose Christian alliances and associations.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_6:14 to 2Co_7:1
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_6:14 to 2Co_7:1
The paragraph may be gathered up round the central figure—
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The Temple of the Living God.—The Church collectively, then, is:—
I. The scene of special Divine manifestation.—
1. His manifestation makes “holy ground.” The flame which played harmless around the Bush in Horeb made a spot where, for the nonce, every man must tread with bare feet. [I.e. he is no better than the poorest or than a slave when he stands there in the presence of God; seen from God’s elevation all disparities of rank are merged in one common lowliness.] So whilst God is manifest in all His works,—in Nature to those who have eyes opened to see Him; in mankind,—for there is no need to deny, no honour done to God or the Church in denying, that God by the redemptive Gift of the Spirit, is amongst all men, of every race and religion and age; yet He is most conspicuously manifest in His choicest Work, His Church. So also a Church has no holiness unless He be in its midst, in its means of grace, in its success, in its members: all, in all. Solomon built his Palace for Jehovah, as Moses’ workmen had, long before, made the Tent; but, until God entered, and in both “dwelt amongst them,” the one was a Palace only, and not a Temple, and the other was only a tent, larger and of more costly materials than the others round it, but not the Tabernacle. [Cf. even the theory of classical heathenism (Smith, Dictionary of Antiq.): “It was necessary then for a temple to be sanctioned by the gods, whose will was ascertained by the augurs, and to be consecrated or dedicated by the will of man (pontiffs). When the sanction of the gods had not been obtained, and where the mere act of man had consecrated a place to the gods, such a place was only a sacrum, sacrarium, or sacellum.”] So, also, let there be an organisation of the most thorough and perfect, part and part closely articulated, wisely related, admirably adapted to its high purpose; let wealth, numbers, influence, all fill the Church roll; yet if there be no presence of God, there is no Church. If He be not amongst them, they are not His people. “Your house—not My—is left unto you,” was said when the material fabric was at its culmination of beauty and glory, the treasury never better filled, the ritual never better observed, the show of religiosity never greater in all the history of Israel. But no Shekinah, though a Holy of Holies was there still; no Presence, to be hid by as splendid a Veil as had ever been wrought. Pompey was amazed to find the inmost shrine empty. The world sometimes makes proof of the Church; the inquirer penetrates within, and within again; is it only to find a Most Holy without a God? Then that “Church” is no Temple of God; or is one no longer. The inquirer finds in even a half-organised Church like that of Corinth: “God is among you of a truth” (1Co_14:25).
2. This is the glory of the Church.—When Solomon substituted Temple for Tabernacle, everything was new, with one exception; everything but that was more costly and on a larger scale. The same ark was brought into the new Sanctuary from the old. Looked, perhaps, small, unsuitable, unworthy, “mean”; its art very far beneath that of the grand new shrine of Solomon’s “advanced” days. But he dared not change that. The throne of Jehovah, His mercy-seat [=“throne of grace,” with the elements of the name reversed], the testimony of His Law,—all these must be the same. The same God must own, hallow, inhabit, the new Who had in that way made the old a dwelling-place of God on earth. [As, then, the continuous connection with the same personality year after year is no small note of the identity of the body; so also, that the organisation should, age after age, be the dwelling-place (or, to change the figure, the ὄργανον) of the same God, is one of the notes of the One Church, in all the Churches, ages, creeds, lands.]
II. Separated that it may be this.—
1. Here again the Jewish idea coincided with the heathen; it was universal. In classical heathenism, e.g., the separateness was of the essential of a temple. In strictness the templum, like the Greek τέμενος, was the separated area, within which usually rose the special building that came to appropriate the name of Temple. It was, literally, marked off, as well as hallowed by rite and sacrifice, from the outside area beyond. Tabernacle and Temple in Israel had their surrounding court and open space, as well as the true shrine [the ναός of this passage] which stood in its midst. [Cf. the “bounds” set round the base of Sinai.] If God is to dwell in the midst of a people, peculiarly His own (Tit_2:14), His own purchased possession, they must “come out and be separate.”
2. Separateness is inevitable, whether we start from the requirement of the nature of God, or from the innate difference between the “sons and daughters” and the “enemies” of God (Jas_4:4). “What communion? What fellowship? What part?” It lies in the ἐκ-of ecclesia. The congregation called together, is first of all called out from the world. Singularity is not necessarily the true separateness; oddity is not certainly or invariably holiness, or a mark of it. No virtue in mere disconformity. But given the holiness, given the real heart separateness, then outward distinction, of perhaps a very marked type, is inevitable. None know it, or expect it, with a more sure instinct than do the excluded “world.” If the figure be pushed so far, as it may, and—to correspond with the facts—must often be; if, in the very Temple of the Church there be, as in the literal Temple of sacred antiquity, an outer court of inferior holiness, and an inner court, and again an inmost building, with its shrine; yet even the outer court must have its wall. It cannot be left the mere open ground, undistinguishable from the space beyond. Certainly the Church is not co-extensive with the redeemed Race. “Come out from among them.”
3. The customary code of distinctions between Christians and non-Christians, between Church and world,—not only formulated in registered membership, or in attendance at the Lord’s Table, but in amusements, books, friendships, and the like,—is no gratuitous limitation of liberty or pleasure,—which are naturally as desirable to Christians as to anybody else; it is only the orderly statement of the issue of repeated, numerous, varied experiments, and these often made by those who would not unwillingly have discovered, if it had been possible, a modus vivendi under which Church and world need not have stood so sharply apart. The things “tabooed” are only so put under ban, because often verified experiment has shown, either that they are the expressions of a heart-alienation from God, or that they minister to it; a heart which cannot be that of “sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.”
4. Particular case of this, often drawn out from 2Co_6:14 : Mixed marriages. [Obviously there are many other cases, analogous in the principle which governs them.] It is a false start in “building the house” (Psa_127:1), when a young couple stand side by side before God, to “plight their wedding troth either to other,” perfectly fitted for each other, physically, in education, in character, in social status,—perfectly, in all but the one thing. For years, perhaps, to have every taste, every interest, in common, their two wills working together in perfect harmony, the “twain one,”—until they come to the deepest interest of all; then, deeply sundered! Not a secret between them, except here. They can talk about everything else together, with the most open-hearted confidence, but on the Dearest Friendship, upon the deepest joys and sorrows, the closest interests of all, the lips of one are closed. It is a poor fulfilment of the ideal of marriage, when, as the two travel side by side on life’s journey, there is between them the deep and far-reaching cleavage which parts between the new creation and the old nature. A poor finish to the married life, when, after fifty, sixty years, during which husband and wife have lovingly lived one life, the wife, perhaps, goes forward to her part in the “inheritance incorruptible,” etc., and he, to find that he has been “treasuring up wrath against the Day of wrath.” Peter (1Pe_3:7) has a fine expression: “Heirs together of the Grace of Life,” i.e. heirs of the “Life which is life indeed” (1Ti_2:15, best reading), and which is a “grace” of God. An ideal marriage is suggested there. Husband and wife marrying with “great expectations” indeed! Jointly heirs of Life; both with Life eternal as a holy, glorious reversion. Fellow-travellers, helpers of each other’s weary footsteps. Held together by the profound common understanding which “spiritual” have with “spiritual.” An “unequally yoked” marriage usually either means “a cross” for life for the Christian—a cross of his own making, never designed for him by God—or that Christian turning back again into the world.
Some Christian business men will take no partner but a Christian, on the very intelligible ground that, since religion is to come into business, as into all else in their life, it may occur—in fact, it does—that they should on principle be divided as to the acceptance or non-acceptance of a business proposal, or as to the following up, or the turning aside from, a promising opening. In all such matters, the Christian man is accustomed to do nothing without reference to a great Adviser, Whose “advice,” once obtained, he is bound to follow. But if his partner can be told nothing of this Divine Counsellor? If all such motives and reasons seem to him amiable but unpractical “ideals,” with which he has scant patience? “What communion?” etc. Take the best specimen of the man of the world in business, and take a poor specimen of Christian,—it may be possible to show the “worldling” more admirable. But take one of the many fine samples of Christian men of business, one whose religion permeates and pervades, and has a real hold upon, every transaction with the outside world, and upon all his dealings with his employés; “yoke” him—not by any means with the worst specimen of worldly man, but—with a man of fair, or very good, business character who, however, makes no claim or attempt to “mix up religion with business”; it is inevitable, either that the Christian man must sooner or later adjust himself to the standard of his yoke-fellow, or that their relations will be strained till they both discover, “What part hath he that believeth?” etc. “Unequally yoked” in pleasure-taking will follow similar lines. More decidedly than in other cases must the word often be used in regard to this, “the unclean thing.” Novels whose motif is some irregular relation between man and woman; “irregular” being euphemistic for adultery or fornication, at least such as is condemned in the Court of the Great Judge of hearts (Mat_5:27-28). Plays whose code of morality will not bear being laid by the side of the rule of even the surface reading of the Ten Commandments, to say nothing of their deeper, searching significance, touching motive and secret thought. Places whose atmosphere and associations are notoriously unfriendly to the spiritual life; where the non-Christian does not expect to find a Christian man. Say to him: “What are you doing, reading that book,—you, a Christian?” Or, “What affinity can bring you here,—you, a Christian?” “What possible liking can you have for the atmosphere of this place?” Of no practical service to discuss or defend what “might be”; to discuss ideals of books, pleasures, places, friendships, which are simply visionary, and “in the air.” Of very much of the actual, concrete recreation (in the widest sense) of the non-Christian community, one must say to the Christian, “Come out, … be separate.” The healthy, vigorous, spiritual life will secure, will create, a definite, far-reaching separateness, befitting the “temple of God.” On no other conditions can God dwell amongst His people. The Temple must be kept for Him, and for Him alone.
III. The obligation lies on every Christian man to keep the Temple separate from sin.—There are no merely official guardians of the holiness of the Temple of God. Christ made Himself a pattern of the duty of every Christian to vindicate the holiness of Jehovah’s sanctuary. He had no official authority, to purify the Temple courts as He did. At most, it was the extraordinary, self-vindicating prerogative of a Zealot or a Prophet. But every man who is a member of the new Israel of God must regard himself as a guardian of the sanctity of Jehovah’s dwelling-place. The Temple is nothing, as distinct from its component “sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.” It has indeed a corporate holiness which each one of them must guard; but their personal holiness underlies the corporate. Unholy Christians cannot make a holy Church. Hence the illustration of the Temple passes over into that of a holy Family, whose every “son and daughter” is to be jealous for the family honour; and this again passes over in 2Co_7:1 to that of a personal “cleansing from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” The Temple in this paragraph is the actual Temple-building only. But it is noteworthy how Christ would have even the Outer Court hallowed. What He cleansed was the great marble-paved Court of the Gentiles. “Would suffer no man to carry any vessel through it” (Mar_11:16). The life of the Church, like the life of the individual Christian, has its outer court, as well as its inner and its inmost shrine. All lies within the holy precinct; all is part of the Temple; and even the outer-court life—the business-meeting, the finance, the organisation, and much more the philanthropy and social work—must be kept holy. “Separateness” is the law throughout; “no touching of the unclean” thing must be tolerated, even in these. The Church must, e.g., have clean hands when she touches money, and must handle none which would defile her. The Church, the Christian Temple, has its outer court of personal attachments. There is a Church within the Congregation. See in Act_21:28-29 a vivid illustration of a zeal which should find its higher, its highest, embodiment in the Christians to whom our paragraph appeals. They thought Paul had brought the Gentile Trophimus, not only into the Court of the Gentiles, but beyond, into the inner court reserved for Israelites. M. Clermont Ganneau some years ago found built into a door-jamb in Jerusalem one of the marble tablets which were inserted into the boundary-wall of the Court of Israel in the Temple of Herod: “LET NO MAN OF OTHER RACE ENTER HERE ON PAIN OF DEATH.” Whatever welcome into its outer court the Church may give to all who care to come thus far from the outside into a holy precinct of approach to God, she must have an inner Court of Israel. If the “unequally yoked” man may bring his partners in the yoke so far as into the outer court, they may come no farther. No heathen alliance must find lodging within the holy Temple itself (Neh_13:4-9). Every man will be a Christian Zealot for the honour and the purity of the Temple; every son of God Almighty will regard himself as charged with the care of the honour of the family for holiness; he will “cleanse himself,” lest he be the occasion of defilement or dishonour to the Temple in which he has a place. Note, that all this is put by way of exhortation, and not of obligation only. Paul reasons; God calls; He allures to separateness and holiness by gracious promises. Every man of God’s Church shall be a Solomon, to whom Jehovah will be “a Father.” [Further material on this Temple topic may be found under 1Co_3:16-17; 1Co_6:19.]
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 14. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”…
ALLIANCES WITH THE WICKED FORBIDDEN
14. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” This not only covers the ground of matrimonial alliances with the wicked, so prominently forbidden in the Word of God, and so recreantly and recklessly violated by the professors of religion at the present day, even the preachers winking at it, but it also interdicts all sorts of business complications and partnerships with the ungodly. “For what participation to righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship to light unto darkness?” The answer to these questions is a positive and uncompromising negative.
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15. “And what sympathy of Christ unto Belial? Or what part to a faithful man with an infidel?” Precisely as there is no conceivable reconcilement and co-operation of Christ and Belial, it is equally true that there is no possible harmony between a believer and an infidel. Hence it is foolish and wicked on the part of God’s people to enter into alliance of any sort with infidels. We should have nothing to do with them, except to make an honest effort for their salvation.
16. “What agreement unto the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God said, That I will dwell among them and will walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” This verse is a scathing and uncompromising abnegation to all idolatry in every form and phase. This is very pertinent with them, because the most of them had been converted out of Gentile idolatry, and the Jews among them needed this admonition, as they had so largely retrogressed into — not the paganistic, but yet practice — idolatry. Oh! how exceedingly these strictures are needed in the churches of the present day, already largely filled with idols and daily multiplying them with an alarming rapidity! The Apostolic churches owned no houses, but worshipped wherever it suited their convenience. We find them in Troas using a room in a third story. What a pity the church didn’t remain in this itinerant, belligerent attitude, free and unencumbered to go to the ends of the earth, waging everywhere an exterminating war against the devil! While needless ornamentation was justifiable in Solomon’s temple, the wilderness tabernacle and the high-priest’s regalia, as they lived in the symbolic dispensation, and all of those valuables taught important lessons appertaining to the gracious economy, we must remember that the types and shadows have all been verified in the great Antitype, and have no longer any pertinency in the Church of God; but now, as they are utterly useless, and even forbidden, they become idols and rivals of the glorious Antitype, who should to us be all things and in all. Here we are assured that God dwells among us in the sanctuaries we erect in His name and that He walks among us. Consequently there should be no idols in the form of needless expenditure of the Lord’s money, nor gratifications of human pride and vanity, as even church pride is an abomination unto God. We should have nothing in our houses of worship calculated to divert the attention of the awful presence of the Almighty, who can not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. How sad it is to see a modern church running after a vast diversity of idols, worshipping water-gods, day-gods, creed-gods, festival-gods, money-gods and gods of wood and stone in the form of fine church edifices!
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers [a figure drawn…
Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers [a figure drawn from the law-- Deu_22:9-11 ]: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain righteousness (See Scofield "Rom 10:10").
righteousness (See Scofield "Rom 10:10").
unrighteousness Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 8. The Apostle’s Exhortations and Rejoicings.
8. The Apostle’s Exhortations and Rejoicings.
CHAPTER 6:14-7
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1. His Exhortations. (2Co 6:14-18; 2Co 7:1.)
2. His Rejoicing and Confidence. (2Co 7:2-16.)
The first exhortation is to separation from evil, without which no true fellowship with God can be enjoyed. It is one of the most important exhortations in the Pauline epistles, and greatly needed in our days of laxity and worldliness among Christians. God calls His people to holiness. “But as He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” He has separated us from the world which lieth in the wicked one and separated us in Christ to Himself. Believers are not of the world as He is not of the world (Joh 17:14). The cross of Christ makes us dead to the world and the world dead unto us (Gal 6:14). Furthermore God’s Word tells us not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world (1Jn 2:15), and “that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas 4:4). And the world is that great system over which Satan domineers, built up and developed by him, to give the natural man a sphere of enjoyment. True faith not only joins the believer to the Lord, but also separates him in heart and practice from the world which crucified the Lord and still rejects Him.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” is often quoted as a prohibition of a mixed marriage. This is no doubt included, but the exhortation means more and includes every form of alliance with the world and ungodly principles. It also includes the so-called “religious world” with its unscriptural practices and denials of the truth. The apostle shows that the believer going along with unbelievers and the world, is indeed in an unequal, a strange, yoke. What fellowship can there be between righteousness and unrighteousness? What fellowship hath light with darkness? Each has a different head; Christ is over His people, they belong to Him; Belial is the head of those who believe not. What could there be for a believer to enjoy with an unbeliever? And believers are the temple of God. How then is association with idols possible? “For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Blessed statement! But God’s presence demands holiness, separation from evil. Fellowship with evil shuts out God in His gracious manifestations. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing.”
“God must have His own holy, for He is holy; and this not only in an inward way, without which all would be hypocrisy, but in outward ways also to His own glory, unless He would be a partner with us to His own dishonor. He will have us clear from associations which are worldly and defiling; He will exercise our souls in order to free, them from all that denies or despises His will. He commands those that believe to come out from those that believe not, and to be separated. Indeed the union of the two is so monstrous that it never could be defended for a moment by a true heart. It is only when selfish interests or strong prejudices work, that men gradually accustom and harden themselves to disobedience so flagrant and in every way disastrous. For as the man of the world cannot rise to the level of Christ to be together with His own, the Christian must descend to the level of the world. God is thus and ever more and more put to shame in what claims to be His house, with a loudness proportioned to its departure from His Word” (William Kelly).
And in connection with this exhortation to separation from unbelievers the Lord declares His relationship to us. Interesting is the use of the name Lord Almighty in 2Co 6:18. “And I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” In the Greek the definite article before “Lord” is missing. It is simply “Kyrios,” Lord. It is the same as “Jehovah.” By that name He revealed Himself to Israel. To Abraham he spoke as the El Shaddai, the Almighty. The Lord who revealed Himself to Abraham, called Him to separation, “Get thee out from thy country.” To Israel God spoke as Jehovah and they became His people, separated by Him and to Him. And the same Jehovah-Shaddai declares now a new relationship, He will be a Father and we His sons and daughters. In Christ we know God as our Father; “we are all the sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ.” But to enjoy this relationship practically is only possible if the believer walks in separation. Real communion with God as Father without separating from evil is an impossibility.
“God will not have worldlings in relation with Himself as sons and daughters; they have not entered into this position with regard to Him. Nor will He recognize those who remain identified with the world, as having this position; for the world has rejected His Son, and the friendship of the world is enmity against God, and he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. It is not being His child in a practical sense. God says, therefore, “Come out from among them, and be separate, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters” (Synopsis).
May we heed these important truths. God cannot compromise His own holy and righteous character. His demands upon His people are the demands of separation. And, as we are obedient, we enjoy in faith the blessed relationship into which His grace has brought us.
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” (Joh 13:10), our calling is equally to purify ourselves as He is pure. The defilements of the flesh are the things mentioned in Col 3:5, Gal 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 2Co 10:5. Every thought must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
The words which follow tell us again of the affectionate concern which the apostle had for the Corinthians! How he loved them and how considerate he was. His whole soul yearned for them. He had wronged no one, nor had he corrupted any, nor did he make personal gain through them. He was filled with comfort. He had fightings without and fears within, but now all was changed. He had met Titus in Macedonia, and through his report and the encouraging news he brought from Corinth, God had comforted him. He knew his former letter (the first epistle) had grieved them, but it had worked for them the godly sorrow which was the aim of the messages sent to them through his inspired pen. “Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance, for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that in nothing ye might be injured by us.” But he also states that for a moment at least he regretted that he had written his first epistle of rebuke (2Co 6:8). But was not that letter inspired? The power behind his pen was the Holy Spirit, yet he regretted for a time that he had written. How is this to be understood? It shows the difference between the individuality of the apostle and divine inspiration.
His heart was filled with so much love, that it obscured his spiritual discernment and he forgot for a moment the character of his epistle, that not he was responsible for what he had written, but that the Spirit of God was the author. The regret was an evidence of weakness at the time when no tidings reached him from Corinth and when his loving heart was so burdened for the Corinthians. (The same weakness is manifested in his journey to Jerusalem. He loved Jerusalem and Israel in such a way that he went there even against the solemn warnings given by the Holy Spirit.) And what he writes now is a loving apology and great joy over what the epistle had wrought, an earnestness to clear themselves of the reproach, indignation on account of sin permitted, yea, zeal for God, and what revenge (or vengeance--righteous wrath)! And so he rejoiced therefore that his confidence had been restored in them in all things.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
In verse 16, Paul paraphrases portions from several Old Testament prophets: Moses, Zechariah, Amos, and possibly others.
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Do not be tied together with unbelievers
This can be stated in positive terms. AT: "Only be tied together with believers" (See: Double Negatives)
be tied together with
Paul speaks of working together toward a common purpose as if it were two animals tied together to pull a plow or cart. AT: "team up with" or "have a close relationship with" (See: Metaphor)
For what association does righteousness have with lawlessness?
This is a rhetorical question that anticipates a negative answer. AT: "For righteousness can have no association with lawlessness" (See: Rhetorical Question)
For what fellowship does light have with darkness?
Paul asks this question to emphasize that light and darkness cannot coexist since light dispels darkness. The words "light" and "darkness" refer to the moral and spiritual qualities of believers and unbelievers. AT: "Light can have no fellowship with darkness" (See: Rhetorical Question and Metaphor)
What agreement can Christ have with Beliar?
This is a rhetorical question that anticipates a negative answer. AT: "There is no agreement between Christ and Beliar" (See: Rhetorical Question)
Beliar
This is another name for the devil. (See: How to Translate Names)
Or what share does a believer have together with an unbeliever?
This is a rhetorical question that anticipates a negative answer. AT: "A believer shares nothing in common with an unbeliever" (See: Rhetorical Question)
And what agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
This is a rhetorical question that anticipates a negative answer. AT: "There is no agreement between the temple of God and idols" (See: Rhetorical Question)
we are the temple of the living God
Paul refers to all Christians as forming a temple for God to dwell in. AT: "we are like a temple where the living God dwells" (See: Metaphor and Inclusive "We")
I will dwell among them and walk among them.
This is an Old Testament quotation speaks of God being with the people in two different ways. The words "dwell among" speak of living where others live, while the words "walk among" speak of being with them as they go about their lives. AT: "I will be with them and help them" (See: Parallelism and Metaphor)
translationWords
believe
righteous
lawful
fellowship
light
darkness
Christ
believe
temple
false god
people of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 6:14–7:1 The connection between 6:13 and 7:2 has led…
6:14–7:1 The connection between 6:13 and 7:2 has led many scholars to conclude that 6:14–7:1 is an inserted fragment from another letter (perhaps the one mentioned in 1 Cor 5:9). However, this section might just as well be a digression in Paul’s writing, a suitable challenge to the Corinthians to forsake their opposition to Paul and his message. Paul was anxious to see relationships restored; here, Paul draws a picture of believers in Christ forming a holy temple. Believers’ identity as the temple of God motivates the need for harmony among them as well as separation from the impurity of unbelieving attitudes and behaviors. Paul therefore draws the contrast between Christian and pagan morality with quotations from the Old Testament.
6:14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers: This instruction alludes to the Jewish prohibition of certain mixtures (Lev 19:19; Deut 22:10). Paul was probably referring to how the Corinthians had been involving themselves in idolatrous practices (see 1 Cor 8–10; cp. 1 Cor 10:14-22).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.