Do Not Be Yoked With Unbelievers
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
17"Therefore come out from them
and be separate, says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you."
18"I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
2 Corinthians 7
1Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
Dig Deeper
In the days leading up to the Civil War, the Southern countries began to secede from the United States. At the same time, they went about amassing an army because they anticipated that the North would not recognize their perceived right to withdraw from the Union. This put many men in an awkward situation. They were already officers in the military of the United States of America but now their home state was no longer a part of the country they were serving. The lines were clearly drawn, however, and no one would accept an officer who decided to be loyal to both sides. It couldn’t be done. The officers had to either remain loyal to the United States and denounce their home state, or they had to be loyal to their home state and resign their position from their country. Either way, a choice had to be made.
This is precisely what Paul is now telling the Corinthians. His opponents have drawn distinct lines in claiming that Paul’s ministry could not be from God. A choice will have to be made. When you have two groups making mutually exclusive claims, you must accept one and reject the other. Sitting on the fence and trying to appease both sides simply cannot be done. Paul makes this clear as he says do not be yoked together with unbelievers. This passage is usually discussed as though it is referring to marriage or friendships with the world. There are certainly other biblical passages that deal with those situations, but those things are not directly in sight here. If they were, it would be a strange departure from the surrounding context. No, Paul is making clear what it means for those who would try to embrace or stay even marginally loyal to his detractors.
In describing his opponents, Paul does not mince words. He refers to these men as unbelievers, a word he usually reserves for those who have completely rejected God. The Corinthians are people of the new Exodus, they are people who have entered into the Messiah. They can have no place with those who have rejected the true gospel. (Of course this is the immediate context, but that does make it pretty clear that Christians should not be yoked in marriage or any other way to non-believers). In using “yoke,” Paul brings up images of Psalm 2:3, in which the kings of the world throw off the yoke (translated “chains” in the NIV) of God and his Messiah. Yoke was also commonly used in Paul’s day to refer to religious teachings. Thus, Paul is telling them not to become allied with unbelievers because it would have negative effects on their status as the people of the Messiah. Doing so would actually align them with Belial, an uncommon word for Satan, which was often used in contexts which stressed Satan’s active participation in activities against God.
What Paul is telling them is that they need to separate, on an immediate level, from those who would oppose Paul’s ministry, and they must separate, on a grander scale, from those who would oppose God in general. Paul, here, gives two primary reasons. The first is their identify in the Messiah. The second is the history of the people of God and where they stand in that history. They simply cannot be the people of the Messiah and be allied with the things of the world in any way, whether they come from outside of the church or inside it. This is a point that Paul has stressed time and again to his spiritual children in Corinth. They were yet to understand the incredible implications of dying to themselves and entering into the life of the Messiah. Paul feels so strongly that this is their new identification that at times can even refer to the body of Christ and Christ himself synonymously or at least as virtually indistinguishable from one another (1 Corinthians 1:16; 12:12; Galatians 3:16).
Paul begins a short section in the latter part of verse 16, in which he strings together a list of loose quotations from the Old Testament. All of these quotes combine together to describe the new status of God’s Covenant people using the history and language of God’s Old Covenant promises. He begins with a combination of Leviticus 26:11-12 (“I will put my dwelling place among you”) and Ezekiel 37:27 (“My dwelling place will be among them”). The obvious point for Paul is that God has now made his dwelling place within them. They both have entered into the life of Christ and house His Holy Spirit. Both of the passages Paul cites here contain a version of the Covenant formula, “I will be their God and they will be my people.” Paul’s point is that they are now the Temple or dwelling place of God and they need to act like it.
Paul then turns, in verse 17, to a reference to Isaiah 52:11, which he presents as a consequence to their status as the dwelling place of God. Because God is dwelling among them, therefore they must be separate. Understanding the context of Isaiah 52 is rather instructive at this point. In Isaiah 52, we have a promise from God to the exiles to redeem them in a second exodus that would far outdo the first (Isa. 52:3, 9, 12). Paul is telling them that they are the people of that second exodus, and as such, need to live out their new reality. They must be separate from the world. Paul is not telling them to withdraw into a Christian island that never comes in contact with the rest of the world, he wants them though, to be more of a Christian colony; one that is a culture in the middle of another culture, but never being influenced by or compromising with that culture.
This continues to be a challenge for Christians today. Finding the line between living within our world so as to bring the ministry of reconciliation to it and yet not being influenced by it is a challenging one, to say the least. And the fact is, there is no easy answer or simple formula of how to go about that. We would all probably prefer clear and simple guidelines to distinguish the line between being in the world but not of the world, but the reality is that line can get blurry sometimes. But that is the whole point of Spirit-guided maturity. If we simply had a bunch of rules to follow so that we didn’t become like the world, there would be precious little room for spiritual growth and maturity, not to mention little need for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we are challenged to listen carefully to the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit as he leads us, and as he guides us through God’s word and the godly influence of other believers. This demands thought, effort, and discernment on our part and prepares us to be the people of God that he wants us to be.
Finally, Paul uses a mixture of quotations from Ezekiel 20:34, 2 Samuel 7:14, and Isaiah 43:6. Ezekiel 20 is a passage concerning the second exodus, 2 Samuel speaks of God being father to the Messiah and His people and pouring His Spirit out on them, and Isaiah explicitly expands the new Covenant to God’s sons and daughters. Putting all of these passages together, Paul is saying that God, through the Messiah, has done what He promised. He has brought His people out of their exile of sin and death and has once again taken up residence with His people. The responsibility was now on them to realize that and live like it. And as the Messiah’s people in the present day, we have the same heritage, the same privilege, and the same responsibility passed to us.
Devotional Thought
As God’s new exodus people, we have received an incredible string of privileges that we don’t deserve (not unlike the prodigal son). Have you taken full advantage of these privileges or have you wasted them far too often? What have you made of the responsibilities that God has given you as an ambassador of the ministry of reconciliation?
No comments:
Post a Comment