Separating from Unbelievers
2 Corinthians 6:14
This morning in our ongoing study of 2 Corinthians, we come to one of the most basic and one of the most foundational doctrines of the Bible. Indeed what we're going to learn in the text this morning is a cornerstone in all Christian understanding and all Christian conduct. We're going to be identifying a principle today that is expounded by the Apostle Paul that has far-reaching and crucial implications for our usefulness, for our blessing.
I want you to open your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time introducing the message, I want to get right into the principle here because it is so very, very important. Second Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14, let me read the paragraph that follows from verse 14, "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 Satan, 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."
Probably this is the most familiar portion of Scripture found in 2 Corinthians. The statement that begins verse 14 may be one of the most oft quoted portions of this marvelous epistle. It says, "Do not be bound together, or unequally yoked with unbelievers." And that is the principle which is so foundational, so much a cornerstone of Christian living that we have to give our attention to it very, very carefully.
Now just at first reading it is clear from this passage that the Apostle Paul identifies two opposing worlds, two opposing realms or spheres or kingdoms or dimensions of life. One is described and characterized by righteousness, light, Christ, believers and the presence of God. The other is characterized, or described as lawless, dark, satanic, occupied by unbelievers and the presence of idols. Two societies, two realms, two spheres utterly different, utterly distinct, completely incongruous and incompatible. And the Apostle says there is no possibility for people in these two kingdoms to be bound together in common work, no partnership, no fellowship, no harmony, no commonality and no agreement does or can really exist.
Years ago there was a ballad titled, "Two Different Worlds," and the first line simply said, "We live in two different worlds." And that is precisely the case here. Two different worlds that have utterly nothing in common. No one really lives in both. Some people try unsuccessfully but they are two distinct. One is old, the other is new. One is earthly, the other is heavenly. One is deadly, the other is life giving. One is material, the other is spiritual. One is filled with lies, the other is all truth. One relates to the unclean and the other to the pure. And Paul's message in this text is intended to make it very clear to all Christians that there is no possibility of living in both or shuttling back and forth.
You say, "Why does he address that here?" Answer, because the Corinthians were endeavoring to live in both or at least to shuttle back and forth. They had come to Christ. In chapter 5 and verse 17 the Apostle Paul had stated that if any man is in Christ he is a new creature. The old things passed away, behold new things have come. Salvation is called newness of life. And the Corinthians had entered into that newness. They had come to the new and the heavenly and the life giving and the spiritual and the true. They had come into the kingdom that is characterized by righteousness, light, Christ and the presence of God. And there was no possibility of having a relationship of any intimacy with what was old and earthly and deadly and material and filled with lies, what was lawless and dark and satanic and idolatrous. They had been made pure and they could have no further fellowship with what was impure.
That's Paul's message and the Corinthians needed to hear it. Why? Because they were moving back and forth between the two incompatible, incongruous realms. Like the Thessalonians of whom Paul says, "You turned to God from idols," 1 Thessalonians 1:9, they had done that. The Corinthians had turned to God from idols but because of the influences of the pagan culture they were in they kept going back to the old idolatry. And there was really no possibility of any agreement, any harmony, any partnership, any fellowship with that old kingdom. They were allowing themselves because of the influence of their culture to get sucked back into the forms of their old idolatry.
And to make matters worse, into their midst had come false teachers who brought a syncretistic eclectic kind of religion that took Christianity, Judaism and the most popular forms of pagan idolatry and melted it all together to form a false and satanic and damnable heresy which had had a great influence in the Corinthian church to the degree that some of the Corinthians had even turned against Paul in favor of these false apostles and lying teachers who had come with their doctrine of demons, their satanic concoction and now they were trying to link Christianity with this new stuff and link Paul with these false apostles and such was an absolute and utter impossibility. And more than just being impossible, it was frighteningly damaging, as we shall see.
So Paul has to address himself to this problem in Corinth. It was there when he wrote the first letter, 1 Corinthians, to them. It was there before 1 Corinthians when he wrote his initial letter which doesn't appear in the Scripture. It is still there and it has been exacerbated now because of the arrival of the false teachers who have brought in another form of pagan religion mingled with perhaps Judaism and somehow Christianity to make it more palatable and so here are these erstwhile Corinthians, flopping back and forth from Christ to their pagan religion of the past, sometimes unwittingly. And so Paul makes a direct statement in verse 14 that is the command, the mandate, the standard and the principle which is elucidated in the rest of the text. It is this, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers."
That is a classic statement. As I said, probably the most familiar statement out of this entire letter. It is a classic call by the Apostle to separation from unbelievers. And, in fact, that is the greatest challenge that you as a Christian have, and me too. Not to be bound together with unbelievers is our greatest challenge, to live a separated life is a tremendous challenge, particularly in a culture which is bombarding us with all of the elements of paganism.
It is not only our greatest challenge, it is our greatest source of joy and usefulness when we obey that command. The pure and the polluted share nothing in common ultimately. And the people of God cannot form intimate relationships with those who don't belong to God. All relationships like that are superficial. You cannot make a meaningful relationship with an enemy of the gospel. They live in a different world with a different and completely hostile and antagonistic leader.
Now what does that mean? What are the implications of that? Well first of all, the term "bound together" is usually translated "unequally yoked" because it comes from a Greek term that can have that implication. In fact, the Greek term, the Greek verb that is sometimes translated "unequally yoked," heterozugeo, can be used of yoking up in a common effort. Paul draws this analogy, however, not from the usage of the Greek term but from a concept back in Deuteronomy 22:10. When God was laying out prescriptions for the conduct of His people, He gave them a lot of prescriptions that on the surface are not particularly spiritual, they had to do with the uniqueness of Israel's life. But some of them were very practical and wise and one of the things that He instructed them, recorded in Deuteronomy 22:10 is that they were not to plow with an ox and an ass yoked together. And the reasons for that are obvious. Those two animals have two different natures. They don't have the same gait, they don't have the same disposition, they don't have the same strength. They don't have the same kind of instincts, completely different natures. You can't yoke them up and expect a straight furrow. And Paul is borrowing off of that analogy and using a Greek term that was used in that same kind of way, speaking of unequal yokes or equal yokes. In fact, in Paul's time that very verb was used to refer to teachers linked up in a common religion or common philosophy or a common school who did not agree and they were said to be unequally yoked.
And so, Paul is borrowing from the Hebrew analogy of the Old Testament, and as well borrowing from some of the Greek usage of that very term because it does mean to be yoked...to be involved in a common enterprise linked together. And to have to do the same thing in perfect harmony is an utter impossibility if we are talking about a believer and an unbeliever. Do not allow yourself to be bound together in a yoke with an unbeliever.
Now that opens up all kinds of possibilities. What in the world does Paul mean when he says, "Don't be bound together with unbelievers? How are we to understand that because the implications of that have all kinds of significance for our lives?"
Now somebody is going to come along and say, "Well look, in the purest and truest sense it's really calling you to the monastic life style. Well what it's calling you to is that you should do like those monks of centuries ago, put on some dirty clothes and find a cave and stay there till you die. And you know, just stay up there and get dirtier and dirtier and read the Scripture and contemplate your navel and don't let anybody influence you. Just isolate yourself."
That's really...it was the misinterpretation of this that was behind the monastic mentality. And some of us in a more modern environment might say, "Well what it really means is you better be sure that you buy your home from a Christian real estate agent. And you buy your car from a Christian car dealer. And that you make sure you've got Christian neighbors. And you make sure that you have your kids in a Christian school. And you make sure you buy your insurance from a Christian agent. And you make sure you find a Christian butcher," and on and on and on, ad infinitum. "And we just cannot get into any kind of thing and make sure, boy, you don't want to be in a mutual fund, boy, then you're really linked up with unbelievers. You better be careful who's putting money in your bank." I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Where do we draw this line here? How far does this go? What about dating? What about marriage? What about a partnership? What about being on a team? What about working together with someone? What about recreating together with them? What about a mutual fund? What about a common business? What about a partnership? What about a limited partnership? What about...what about? Where do we draw the line here? What are we talking about? Are we supposed to go out of the world?
Well that's kind of hard because the great commission says go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature, right? So we're not supposed to go out of the world. In fact, look what Paul said to the Corinthians. They would understand that statement in the context of what he had already said to them. So let's go back to 1 Corinthians and see how Paul defines what he means by that. And he sets some very clear parameters so that we don't have to be confused.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, and we're going to kind of look at a few scriptures in 1 Corinthians. I hadn't intended to really develop this this way but that's the way it turned out in the first service so that's the way it will turn out here. In fact, I told the people that...that I spent hours and hours and days and days preparing all of this and covered what I wrote in five minutes. And that's the adventure of preaching. I'm interested to hear what I'm going to say, and if I can remember what I said to them, I'll say it to you.
First Corinthians chapter 9 verse 20, now Paul...verse 19 really sets it up, "Although I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win them more." Now Paul is saying, "Look, I'm free from all men, in one sense, I have been catapulted into the kingdom of light, there's no encumbrances in this world, but I have made myself consciously and purposely a slave to them all for evangelistic purposes." So Paul didn't want to pull out of the word...world, he was anything but a monastic. I mean, he was in the middle of everything. He was in the middle of every crowd there was. He was like Jesus, he created crowds. He went where the sinners were for the purpose of evangelism. And he says, verse 20, "To the Jews I became as Jew that I might win Jews, to those who were under the law as under the law, though not being myself under the law that I might win those who are under the law." He became a Jew and to those fastidious law-keeping Pharisees, he even followed their path, if need be, to win them.
And to those who are without law, Gentiles, verse 21, he "...became as without law though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men that I may by all means save some and I do all things for the sake of the gospel that I may become a fellow partaker of it," another way of saying that I might have partners in this deal, I want to win people to Christ.
So, look, Paul didn't leave the world. He didn't run from it. He got right in the middle of it for the purpose of leading people to the knowledge of Christ. He is not calling for isolation. There's no place for isolation from unbelievers. If God wanted us isolated from unbelievers, He would have saved us and instantly catapulted us into heaven. He is not calling for isolation. In fact, we are mandated to intersect with the unsaved all the time.
Now let's follow this and see where Paul really sets his limits. Let's begin by going back to 1 Corinthians chapter 5, 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Somebody is going to say, "Well, I'll tell you right now, I...I'm going to limit my association with worldly people, I'm just not going to associate with...with really the riff-raff, I'm not going to associate with the bad ones. I just want to stay away from that. Is that where I draw the line?" Well, 1 Corinthians 5:9, "I wrote to you in my letter, previous to 1 Corinthians he had written them a letter, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people."
And somebody is going to say, "That's it, there it is, that's the proof, I'm not associating with them." But, verse 10, "I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world." I'm not talking about unregenerate immoral people, or covetous or swindlers, or idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. And the implication would be to do that would be...what?...sinful, wrong, shirking your responsibility. I don't want you to go up in a cave. Paul says, "No, no, I'm not talking about not associating with immoral people in the world," verse 11, "I'm talking about associating with so-called brothers who are immoral, covetous, idolaters, revilers, drunkards, swindlers." I'm not talking about immoral people in the world, I'm talking about immoral people...where?...in the church. You've got to deal with those people. They'll pollute the fellowship. They're like leaven, you've got to put them out, you've got to turn them over to Satan, you've got to deal with them, don't eat with them. If they're heretics, admonish them a few times then dismiss them.
Verse 12, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside God judges." What I'm concerned about, Paul is, those who are outside...Paul says...are going to fall into the judgment of God and I need to reach them with the gospel. So whatever it means not to be joined together or unequally yoked with unbelievers, it doesn't mean that we are to cut ourselves off from sinful unbelievers. Then we would have to go out of the world and going out of the world would defeat the very purpose for which God has left us in the world and that is to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And what was the highest level of accusation ever rendered against Jesus from the religious establishment? They said he is the friend of...what?...sinners, he hangs around drunkards and wine bibbers and prostitutes and etc., etc. Sure, cause that's why he came. He didn't come for the righteous, but he came for sinners.
So whatever it means not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, it doesn't mean that we are to cut off all association from them, otherwise we would have to go out of the world and that would be defying the very purpose for which the Lord saved us and left us and that is to go into the world. We need to be where they are.
Well somebody else is going to say, "I know what it means. I know what it means. It means that if...that if you're married to an unbeliever, you get to get a divorce. You've got to get rid of them because, I mean, if you can't have any kind of fellowship at the most intimate level, how can light have any fellowship with darkness? I mean you can't...how you going to have a marriage? So dumped that unsaved partner, find yourself a nice Christian guy, nice Christian lady." Is that what it means?
Turn to 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 7 verse 12, "Paul says to the rest, I say not the Lord," please understand what that means, it doesn't...it's not a divine disclaimer, all he's saying here is I'm not quoting Jesus anymore, he is inspired by the Holy Spirit to say what he said, it's the truth of God, but he is no longer drawing from the teaching of Jesus. So he says, "If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, let him not...is the technical word for divorce." If you have an unsaved wife and she wants to stay married to you, then she's to stay. God hates divorce, any kind.
And the same is true in verse 13, "A woman who has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, let her not send her husband away." Because it might have been a natural implication of the gospel and all things being new and entering into the kingdom and into the light from the darkness and having a new master, namely Christ, and realizing that you no longer could have the kind of intimate relationship that makes life rich and meaningful and makes marriage what God designed it to be, because you are now married to an unsaved person and you are absolutely living in two completely different worlds at the most profound level of your being and so the right thing to do would be to dump that person and find a Christian so you could really fulfill life. And the Bible says no, absolutely not.
So what does it mean? It doesn't mean dump your unsaved partner. It doesn't mean cut yourself off from all the bad people in your society. What does it mean? Where are the limitations to be drawn.
Let's take another text, 1 Corinthians chapter 8. And again, remember now, the Corinthians would have this letter and they had an understanding of this letter with which to create a context to understand Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 6:14. In 1 Corinthians chapter 8 Paul is talking about some limits here. Now...now let me just follow this. You say, "Well, look, we're supposed to go in to the world and we're supposed to reach the unbelievers. Okay, I'm willing to do that."
And, you know, all those unbelievers are gathering all the time at the pagan festivals. You know, life in the ancient world revolved, particularly in Corinth, around the paganism of the time, around the worship of the god Aesculapius and all of the rest of the stuff that went with it. And all these pagan things were going on, ceremonies and festivals, the whole of life surrounded that idolatry. And if you wanted to go where the unbelievers were, you would go there and that would be a great place to meet a bunch of pagan people. They all assembled there. And so, perhaps some of the believers would go there. And you have absolute and unmitigated and complete freedom to go there and say, "Look, I'm free in Christ, I'll go and I'll kind of watch. In my heart and soul I won't participate, I'll do those things that are not consequent...have no consequence morally, but it will keep me there, it will kind of keep the connection going there. And that will be fine and I'll be able to reach these people."
You've got a little problem here in verse 10, "If someone sees you there who has knowledge." What does that mean? I think saving knowledge, someone who is a believer and sees you dining in an idol's temple. "Will not his conscious if he's weak be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?" Here's a new Christian, baby Christian, who is called the weaker brother also in Romans 14 and 15, same kind of discussion, and he looks at this strong Christian and the strong Christian is over at the Bacchus festival. And he's in there and the sexual stuff is going on, the temple prostitutes are doing their thing, the drunkenness is going on, they're feasting and gorging themselves and they're having this wild time. And he's going over there, ostensibly, to witness. And he sits down and he eats the meal, I mean, he just eats the meal...the meal is there and it's part of the deal and he eats and an idol is nothing, 1 Corinthians 8 early in the chapter, what's an idol? An idol is a nothing. Something offered to an idol is nothing, it doesn't mean anything, it's pointless because the idol is nothing. So he just eats the food.
But there's a Christian who is a new Christian, weak. He's just been saved out of idolatry. He sees his mature brother doing this. He says, "Oh boy, I'm free to go there, wow...I'm free to eat that stuff...whoa...this is wonderful." He goes, he's too weak, he gets sucked right back in to his old paganism. He doesn't have the spiritual strength to cope with that liberty.
What has happened is, the stronger brother has used his freedom to cause the weaker brother to stumble, right? So he's got to guard his life. He can go into the world and he can reach the world but he's got to be all the time very, very aware that somebody may be watching him and watching him legitimizing whatever kind of behavior he is conducting and seeing that that behavior is okay for him, plunges into that same behavior without the spiritual strength to cope with what's coming around at all the trappings. Pretty soon, he's sucked right back into the vortex, right back into the hurricane.
And here's this well-intentioned stronger brother wanting to win some idolater to Christ and in so doing he's overstepped the line and caused his brother to stumble who is weaker. And he says he becomes strengthened in verse 10 to eat things sacrificed to idols because he sees you do it, but through your knowledge, he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died, and thus by sinning against the brother and wounding their conscience when it is weak you sin against Christ. In verse 13, "Don't do anything to cause your brother to stumble."
Now here we have some limits, then. We're going to reach into the world but there's some limits and the first limit we see in this particular text is the limit of what might be a liberty expressed that would cause a weaker brother to stumble. So we have to guard the conduct. Yes, we want to reach out to the world. Yes, we want to touch the world. Yes, we want to lead them to Christ. But we have to stop short of a full identification with that life style which could cause a weaker Christian thinking he's free to do that to step into that and plunge into some kind of spiritual disaster.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and let's find a similar kind of limitation on our freedom. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 we have a scenario that is given to us and it's a very simple scenario. Verse 27, one of the unbelievers invite you...boy, that's a great thing, isn't it? When an unbeliever invites you to dinner? We wish we didn't always have to do the inviting. Here's a scenario where an unbeliever invites you to his home and you wish to go. It works out, you're going to go. "Eat anything that is set before you." Is that not good? You don't want to offend the guy, right? So he comes and he brings you this meat. Don't ask questions, eat it...without asking questions for conscience' sake.
If something in your conscience says, "You know, this...this...this might have been meat offered to idols because the best place to buy meat in every idolatrous city was at the temple butcher shop...because the prices were low. Why were the prices low? Basically because they didn't have to buy it on a wholesale market. Worshipers came to the temple and presented a sacrifice. A portion of it was burned, some of it was consumed by the priests who operated the place, but obviously you've got the whole population bringing sacrifices at a fairly rapid rate. They can't consume all that so they just took it out the back, opened up a butcher shop and sold it to people. I mean, with the elimination of the wholesale market, the elimination of the middle man, you get the best buy...people buy their meat there.
Now you're going to say, "This is meat offered to idols." "Don't ask any questions for conscience' sake, just sit there and eat the meat."
"But...verse 28...if anyone should say to you," let's say you've got....the scene is obviously there's several believers there and one of those believers says to you, "Look, this is meat sacrificed to idols."
"I know...I know where he got this." Oh brother, now you've a problem. You're going to offend somebody. If you eat you'll offend your brot