19 Separating from Unbelievers

(2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1)

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (6:14–7:1)

Saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ produces a radical transformation of every aspect of a person’s being. Christians are “new creature[s],” for whom “the old things [have] passed away; behold, new things have come” (5:17). They have been “born again” (John 3:3, 7; 1 Peter 1:3, 23); “rescued … from the domain of darkness, and transferred … to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13); and have turned “from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18).

Believers and unbelievers inhabit two opposing worlds. Christians are in Christ’s kingdom, which is characterized by righteousness, light, and eternal life. Unbelievers are in Satan’s kingdom, characterized by lawlessness, darkness, and spiritual death. The saved and the unsaved have different affections, beliefs, principles, motives, goals, attitudes, and hopes. In short, they view life from opposing perspectives.

Consequently, relationships between believers and unbelievers are at best limited to the temporal and external. They may enjoy family ties, work at the same job, share in business relationships, live in the same community, experience the same hobbies and pastimes, and even agree on certain political and social issues. But on the spiritual level, believers and unbelievers live in two completely different worlds.

It should be obvious that believers cannot live in both worlds. The apostle John clearly indicated that when he wrote, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15–16). James expressed in forceful language that same reality: “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4), while Paul exhorted believers, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2).

The Corinthians had struggled greatly to make a clean break from the idolatrous and immoral lifestyle of their past. Despite having professed faith in Christ and become part of the church, some in the congregation were still clinging to elements of their pagan religion. And though they, like the Thessalonians, had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9), still they failed to make a clean break with their idolatrous past. The lure of their former paganism, which permeated every aspect of life in Corinth, had proven hard to shake, as Paul’s first epistle to them makes evident.

Making matters worse, the false teachers who had come to the church brought with them a quasi-Christian syncretism of gospel truth, Jewish legalism, and pagan mysticism. They were eager to stay connected to the Corinthians’ former behavior, to make themselves more popular and, thereby, more prosperous. Thus Paul gave this mandate to separate.

The familiar command to separate in this passage is frequently both misunderstood and violated. The separation demanded here does not refer to refusing association with those who do not follow a certain set of rules for living the Christian life, as many legalistic Christians have advocated. It does not mean refusing to cooperate with those who teach the truth but do not agree with all the distinctives of one’s own theology or ministry style. Nor does separation mean retreating completely from the world into monasticism. And separating from unbelievers does not, as some at Corinth imagined, mean divorcing an unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:12–13). Biblical separation certainly does not cancel the church’s responsibility to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).

The Corinthians would have understood Paul’s call for separation in the context of what he had already written to them. In 1 Corinthians 9:19–21 he wrote,

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.

Nor was the apostle’s command “not to associate with immoral people” (1 Cor. 5:9) a charge to avoid unbelievers; as he explained, “I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world” (v. 10). To do that would be to shirk the responsibility Jesus gave the church in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20) and to ignore the example He set by being “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34; cf. Matt. 9:10–11). “Actually,” Paul explained, “I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one” (v. 11). He did not want them to socially separate from non-Christians, but from unrepentant professing Christians in the church. Since there was no way to separate the religious from the secular in pagan cultures, believers would inevitably be in some places and at some events that contained elements of idolatry.

In 1 Corinthians Paul wrote two passages that define the limits of Christian freedom in such cases (1 Cor. 8; 10:23–33). Both passages are important for this discussion because they assume that believers will be involved with unbelievers in pagan religious settings. In 1 Corinthians 8:10 Paul cautioned the mature believers, “If someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?” Knowing an idol was nothing anyway (v. 4), some of the stronger believers saw no harm in eating a social meal on the grounds of an idol temple with no thought of worshiping the idol. The apostle did not forbid such socializing with unbelievers. Instead, he warned those who did so against causing weaker brothers newly delivered from idolatry (who might be tempted to follow their example) to be exposed to the old ways and plunge back into sin.

Controversy also raged in Corinth about eating meat that had been offered to idols. The temple priests could not eat all of the meat brought for sacrifice, and so they sold the excess in the meat market. Since the gods represented by the idols did not really exist (1 Cor. 8:4), there was no harm in believers eating meat offered to them. Once again, however, Paul cautioned the strong believers against causing the weak ones just emerging from idol worship to be offended by such liberty:

If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake. But if anyone says to you, “This is meat sacrificed to idols,” do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for conscience’ sake. (1 Cor. 10:27–28)

As did his earlier discussion of eating a meal at an idol temple, this passage assumes that Christians would socialize with their pagan friends and families. Paul did not restrict such contact but encouraged those who did it to prevent weaker believers from being led into sin or violating their consciences, which are so necessary to holiness.

So what did the Holy Spirit intend by His command not to be bound together with unbelievers? Bound together translates a participial form of the verb heterozuge?, which means, “to be unequally yoked.” Paul drew his analogy from Deuteronomy 22:10, where the Mosaic Law commanded the Israelites, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” Those two animals do not have the same nature, gait, or strength. Therefore it would be impossible for such a mismatched pair to plow together effectively. Nothing in the context would lead to the idea that he is referring to earthly issues of human endeavors. In Paul’s analogy, believers and unbelievers are two different breeds and cannot work together in the spiritual realm. He called for separation in matters of the work of God, since such cooperation for spiritual benefit is impossible. The false teachers were eager to blend the people of God with the pagan worshipers, because that hinders the gospel. That is what this text forbids.

To infiltrate churches under the guise of tolerance and cooperation is one of Satan’s most cunning ploys. He does not want to fight the church as much as join it. When he comes against the church, it grows stronger; when he joins with the church, it grows weaker. Undiscerning believers who join in a common spiritual cause with unbiblical forms of Christianity or other false religions open the door wide to satanic infiltration and forfeit the blessing of God. Further, embracing those heretical systems falsely reassures their followers that all is well between them and God, when actually they are headed for eternal damnation.

To compromise by alliances with false religion was a constant and severe temptation for the struggling church in Corinth. Their city was an especially wicked one, even by the loose moral standards of that day. In fact, Corinth was so infamous for its debauchery that the Greek verb “to Corinthianize” came to mean “to go to bed with a prostitute.” Idolatry permeated every aspect of the city’s culture and social life, leading Paul to warn the Corinthian believers, “Do not be idolaters. … Flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:7, 14). Because “the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God,” Paul wrote, “I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:20–21).

An important element of the idol worship at Corinth involved ritual prostitution. The temple of Aphrodite, located on Corinth’s acropolis, was home to one thousand priestesses, who were little more than “religious” prostitutes. Every evening they would descend into the city to ply their trade. Paul’s stern warning against sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 6:15 may also have had them in mind: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!” Just as he had in regard to idolatry (1 Cor. 10:7, 14), Paul commanded the Corinthians to “flee immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18; cf. 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 Peter 2:11).

Having given the command not to be bound together with unbelievers in any religious event, enterprise, or activity, Paul supported it by giving five reasons for following that mandate. To be bound together with unbelievers in any spiritual effort is irrational, sacrilegious, disobedient, unprofitable, and ungrateful.

IRRATIONAL

for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (6:14b–15)

For believers to join with unbelievers in a common spiritual effort makes no sense. To demonstrate that reality, Paul makes four rhetorical common-sense contrasts, each in the form of a question that assumes a negative answer.

QUESTION 1

What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? (6:14b)

Metochē (partnership) appears only here in the New Testament and is a synonym for the word koinonia (fellowship), which appears in the next question. A related word is used to speak of Peter’s partners in the fishing business (Luke 5:7), of believers’ sharing in a heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1), and of their union with Christ (Heb. 3:14). It thus describes being involved in a relationship of common life and effort.

Obviously, righteousness and lawlessness are opposites. Righteousness is obedience to the law of God; lawlessness is rebellion against His holy law. Righteousness characterizes believers (Rom. 4:7; Eph. 2:10; Titus 2:14; Heb. 8:12; 10:17), because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to them (2 Cor. 5:21; cf. Rom. 5:19; 1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9) and because they are born of God and therefore possess a new nature, which is made righteous (Rom. 6:19). Unbelievers, on the other hand, are characterized by lawlessness, since that is the nature of unredeemed sinners. The apostle John made the difference unmistakably clear:

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:4–10)

Anomia (lawlessness) characterizes all the unregenerate, since all rebel against God’s law, though not always visibly, and some are more lawless than others. Jesus strongly rebuked the scribes and Pharisees, who were noted for their external righteousness and observance of the Law: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:27–28).

Ultimately, those who are lawless face eternal punishment in hell. In one of the most sobering passages in Scripture, Jesus warned of what His judgmental response to such people will be: “Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:23). In Matthew 13:41–42 He again described the terrifying fate that awaits those who refuse to repent of their lawlessness: “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Because they refuse to believe in Jesus as “God and Savior” (Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1), they will “die in [their] sins” (John 8:24).

The righteous and the rebellious cannot partner in any common spiritual enterprise because of this absolute contrast between them. They are as separated as sin is from virtue.

QUESTION 2

What fellowship has light with darkness? (6:14c)

It is self-evident that light and darkness are mutually exclusive; thus, this contrast is a common biblical metaphor (cf. Isa. 5:20; John 1:5; 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46; Acts 26:18; Rom. 13:12; Eph. 5:8, 11; Col. 1:12–14; 1 Thess. 5:5; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 1:5; 2:8–9). Intellectually, light refers to truth, darkness to error; morally light refers to holiness, darkness to evil. Those who are righteous in Christ walk in the light (John 8:12; 12:35; Eph. 5:8; 1 John 1:7); those who are unrighteous are part of Satan’s kingdom of darkness (Luke 22:53; Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:13). The ultimate destination of the righteous is the eternal light of heaven (Col. 1:12; 1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 22:5), that of the unrighteous the eternal darkness of hell (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; 2 Peter 2:17). To expect the children of light to work together with the children of darkness is as foolish as to expect it to be both light and dark in the same place at the same time.

QUESTION 3

What harmony has Christ with Belial? (6:15a)

The first two rhetorical questions focused on the radically different natures possessed by believers (righteousness, light), and unbelievers (lawlessness, darkness). Paul’s third rhetorical question showing mutual exclusivity deals with the leaders of the respective kingdoms. Obviously, there is a fundamental and eternal antagonism between Christ, the ruler of the kingdom of light and righteousness, and Belial (an ancient name for Satan), the ruler of the kingdom of darkness and lawlessness. Belial (Beliar in the Greek text) is used only here in the New Testament. The Hebrew phrase “sons of Belial” (the NKJV translates this phrase “corrupt” or perverted” men, while it is translated “worthless men” in the NASB; e.g., Deut. 13:13 [13:14 in the Hebrew text]; Judg. 19:22; 1 Sam. 2:12; 2 Chron. 13:7) appears more than a dozen times in the Old Testament. The term “Belial” is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in reference to Satan. The title is a fitting one for him, because he is the utterly and supremely worthless one. To assume that Christ and Satan could cooperate in any common spiritual effort is utterly absurd.

Since harmony (sumphōnēsis [“to agree with”], from which the English word symphony derives) between Christ and Satan is impossible, so also is cooperation in spiritual matters between his children and God’s. Believers, who “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31), cannot join forces with the sons of disobedience, who walk “according to the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). The children of God have nothing in common with the children of the devil (John 8:44; 1 John 3:10).

QUESTION 4

What has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (6:15b)

This question sums up the first three, reinforcing the obvious truth that a believer has no common spiritual ground with an unbeliever. Faith has nothing in common with unbelief; the faithful and the faithless are committed to mutually exclusive ideologies and energized by opposing powers. As God asked in His maxim to wayward Israel, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3 NKJV).

SACRILEGIOUS

Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (6:16)

Paul’s fifth rhetorical question introduces a second reason for believers not to be bound together with unbelievers. All false religion is in the final analysis “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1; cf. Deut. 32:17; Rev. 9:20) and is virulently hostile to the true God. There can be no agreement between the temple of God and idols. Christianity is incompatible with every form of false religion.

The Old Testament graphically depicts the disastrous consequences of attempting to mingle idolatry with the worship of the true God. It is instructive to read 2 Kings 21:1–9, which describes the reign of Manasseh, the most wicked of Judah’s kings:

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My name.” For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. He made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and used divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord provoking Him to anger. Then he set the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever. And I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” But they did not listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do evil more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.

The phrase “abominations of the nations” refers to the idolatry Manasseh brought back into Judah. Specifically, “he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.” Even worse, Manasseh “built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ‘In Jerusalem I will put My name.’ For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.” And if that were not bad enough, he put an idol in the temple itself: “Then he set the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.’” That blasphemous insult to God provoked His devastating judgment on the nation:

Now the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets, saying, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, having done wickedly more than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols; therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become as plunder and spoil to all their enemies; because they have done evil in My sight, and have been provoking Me to anger since the day their fathers came from Egypt, even to this day.’” (vv. 10–15)

First Samuel 4 and 5 record another incident that illustrates the incompatibility of the true God with idols. Israel was at war with the Philistines and lost four thousand men in one skirmish (4:1–2). Dismayed by the Lord’s failure to help them in battle (which was due to their sin and apostasy), the Israelites sent to Shiloh for the ark of the covenant, the visible representation of God’s presence (4:3–5). Thinking themselves now to be invincible, they fought the Philistines again—this time losing 30,000 men and the ark: “So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated, and every man fled to his tent; and the slaughter was very great, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died” (4:10–11).

The triumphant Philistines brought the ark to the temple of their god Dagon in Ashdod (5:1–2). The next morning, much to their surprise, they discovered that the idol of Dagon had prostrated itself before the ark (5:3). They put the idol back in its place, only to have the same thing happen the next day—this time with Dagon’s head and hands cut off. The message was clear: The true God tolerates no rivals. He will not share billing with false gods.

Ezekiel chapter 8 further illustrates that reality. In verse 3 the Lord took Ezekiel (who was actually in Babylon) by means of a vision to the temple in Jerusalem, “to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located,” alongside “the glory of the God of Israel” (v. 4). Such a situation was intolerable to God, who declared in verse 6, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary?” Rather than share His own sanctuary with pagan idols, God chose to abandon it.

But that idol was not the only thing provoking God to abandon His temple. At the end of verse 6 He told Ezekiel, “You will see still greater abominations,” which verses 7–10 describe:

Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. He said to me, “Son of man, now dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.” So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around.

Shockingly, the apostate Israelites had carved idolatrous graffiti on the walls of the temple. And in what they supposed was a secret place, seventy elders of Israel were conducting idolatrous worship in front of that graffiti (vv. 11–12).

Even that appalling scene did not fully express the depths to which apostate Israel had plunged. In his vision, the Lord “brought [Ezekiel] to the entrance of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz” (v. 14). Committing blasphemy in the temple along with the women, “at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun” (v. 16). Like the women weeping for the false god Tammuz, these men were engaged in idolatrous worship in the very temple of the true God. God’s reaction, recorded in verse 18, was to promise judgment: “Therefore, I indeed shall deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I shall not listen to them.” In 586 B.C. the Babylonians made their third and last invasion, destroying Jerusalem and taking captives. With that judgment, God did just as He had promised, using the Babylonians as a divine weapon to destroy the corrupted, profaned temple.

Today believers, both individually (1 Cor. 6:19) and collectively (1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:22), are the temple of the living God. The phrase the living God, appearing more than two dozen times in Scripture (e.g., 2 Cor. 3:3; Rom. 9:26; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:15; 4:10), contrasts Him with the dead idols of false religion. The authoritative phrase just as God said introduces a statement confirming that believers are God’s temple. In that statement, a mosaic of several Old Testament passages (cf. Lev. 26:11–12; Jer. 24:7; Ezek. 37:27), God promised, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” As the temple of God, the people of His covenant, His precious possession, and His dwelling place, believers cannot join forces with false religion. To be so unequally yoked for the purpose of serving God has always been unacceptable and blasphemous.

DISOBEDIENT

“Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean;” (6:17a)

To be bound together with unbelievers is not only foolish and irreverent, but it also disobeys God’s explicit command, expressed in the two imperative verbs translated come out and be separate. Therefore links the command in this verse with the principle expressed in verse 16. As those personally indwelt by the living God, believers are to avoid any joint spiritual effort with unbelievers. As the temple of the living God, they must not be linked for the cause of the advancement of divine truth with any form of false religion.

The thought in this verse hearkens back to Isaiah 52, where God commanded His people, “Depart, depart, go out from there, touch nothing unclean; go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord” (v. 11; cf. Rev 18:4). Christians, like Israel at the time of her salvation (vv. Isa. 52:7–10), must make a clean break with all false religion to avoid its contaminating influence (cf. 2 Tim. 2:16–17). Paul repeated this principle in Ephesians 5:5–11:

For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.

The “children of Light” must “not be partakers” with the “sons of disobedience.” They must be concerned with “pleasing … the Lord,” not sinful men. To that end, they must “not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” The church’s goal is not to make unbelievers feel comfortable and nonthreatened. On the contrary, it is to make them feel uncomfortable with their sins and threatened by God’s judgment and the terrors of hell that they face.

It has always been God’s will for His people to be distinct from unbelievers. In Leviticus 20:24, 26 God said to Israel, “I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. … Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” In the New Testament Peter reiterated that principle, exhorting believers, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:14–16).

Strengthening the point that failing to separate from unbelievers is disobedience is the third command in this verse, Do not touch what is unclean. Touch is from hapt? and refers to a harmful touch, as in 1 John 5:18. Believers are not to be involved with unclean, false teaching. They are to “save [those trapped in false religions], snatching them out of the fire … hating even the garment polluted by the flesh” (Jude 23). But the church cannot worship, evangelize, or minister with those who pervert or reject the truth of the Word of God.

UNPROFITABLE

“and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. (6:17b–18)

Failing to separate from unbelievers is foolish, because such disobedience cuts believers off from the blessings of an intimate relationship with God. He promises those who heed His command to separate from unbelievers (v. 17) that He will welcome them. Eisdechomai (welcome), used only here in the New Testament, means “to receive,” or “to admit into one’s favor.” In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) rendering of Ezekiel 20:34, eisdechomai is used to speak of God’s gathering Israel to Himself out of the nations. The idea is that those who separate from unbelievers will find God’s arms open wide to receive them.

They will also enjoy the full range of blessings bestowed by their heavenly father on His sons and daughters. Paul probably had in mind 2 Samuel 7:14, where God promised David that he would bless his son Solomon: “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me.” God blesses His obedient children, as He did Solomon. But in the last part of the verse God warned, “When he [Solomon] commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men.” The writer of Hebrews also affirmed God’s discipline of His children: “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). As always, obedience brings blessing; disobedience brings chastening.

Sadly, Solomon forfeited the promised blessing by making compromising alliances with unbelievers. First Kings 11:1–11 tells the tragic story of his downfall. Solomon

loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.” (vv. 1–2)

Just as the Lord had predicted, “when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods” (v. 4). As a result, “his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (v. 4). Despite Solomon’s wisdom and understanding of the truth, his compromising alliances with unbelievers proved his undoing. The allurement of idolatry proved too much, and he

went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. (vv. 5–8)

Because of his disobedience,

the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded. So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.” (vv. 9–11)

The devastating result of Solomon’s compromise with unbelievers was the division of his kingdom.

Any alliance with the unsaved is disobedience that defiles and therefore interrupts believers’ communion with their Father, forfeiting His blessing.

UNGRATEFUL

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (7:1)

Having God’s promises provides powerful motivation for believers to separate from unbelievers. Paul’s use of the word therefore is a call for action based on what he has previously written (cf. Rom. 12:1–2; 2 Peter 1:3–8). The apostle moves beyond the commands of 2 Co rinthians 6:14, 17 and appeals to God’s promises enumerated in 6:16–18. Those promises should elicit love, gratitude, and thankfulness for His overwhelming generosity. In fact, one of the things that characterizes unrepentant sinners is ingratitude (Luke 6:35; Rom. 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:2)

The endearing term beloved (cf. 2 Cor. 12:19; Rom. 1:7; 12:19; 1 Cor. 10:14; Col. 3:12; 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13) defines who God’s promises apply to. Only His beloved children, accepted by Him because of their union with His beloved Son (Eph. 1:6; Col. 1:13), receive God’s promises.

Paul defined the appropriate act of gratitude in both negative and positive terms. Negatively, believers must cleanse themselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit (cf. Isa. 1:16; James 1:21). The reflexive pronoun heatous (ourselves) indicates that though the cleansing work is God’s (cf. Acts 15:9; Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5), it does not happen apart from believers’ effort (cf. Phil. 2:12–13). Molusmos (defilement) appears only here in the New Testament. In all three of its uses in the Septuagint, however, it refers to religious defilement. Paul calls believers not only to cleanse themselves from sin and immorality but especially, in this context, from all associations with false religion. That complete cleansing is to be both of flesh and spirit; that is, both inward and outward. False teaching defiles the whole person by pandering to sinful human appetites and corrupting the mind. Therefore, believers must avoid both the fleshly sins and the pollution of the mind that false religion brings.

Positively, cleansing oneself from false religion involves perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Perfecting is from epitele?, which means, “to finish,” “to complete,” or “to fulfill.” Believers are to pursue the goal of holiness (Lev. 20:26; Matt. 5:48; 1 Peter 1:16) by separating from all the lies and deceptions that would defile them, encouraged by the hope that the goal will someday be achieved (Phil. 1:6; 1 Peter 5:10; 1 John 3:2). Motivating believers’ pursuit of holiness is the reverential fear of God, which is foundational to godly living (Job 28:28; Pss. 19:9; 34:11; 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 8:13; 9:10; 15:33; 16:6; 23:17; Acts 9:31).