2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 6
Admonition to Flee the Fellowship of Unbelievers. 2 Cor. 6, 11-18.
V.14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? V.15. And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? V.16. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
That his admonition is intended only with reference to himself and to his work and does not apply to the undue tolerance which would permit the worship of false gods, the apostle now brings out in a passage replete with brilliancy: Be not united incongruously with unbelievers.
That is the thesis, the topic, of the entire passage. If they should be yoked together with unbelievers, it would be an unequal yoking together. The apostle has in mind the provision of the Jewish ceremonial law according to which the yoking together of clean and unclean animals was prohibited, Deut. 22, 10. If the believers, the members of the Christian community, should in any way join with the heathen in their idol worship, if they should associate with them in such a way as to erase the essential difference between Christian and heathen, then this union would be absurd and wicked, with the peril of leading to denial attached, and should therefore not be practiced by the Christians.
The apostle enforces his thought by illustrating the incongruity between Christianity and heathendom in five contrasts. He asks: For what communion, what fellowship, is there to righteousness and lawlessness? What have they in common? On the one hand, there is the active disposition to live in accordance with the divine will; on the other hand, there is no knowledge of the divine, sanctifying will, and therefore nothing but unrighteousness. Obviously, then, there can be no participation between the two; they are contrasts. Or what communion has light with darkness? On the one side is light and salvation, with God; on the other is darkness and destruction, with Satan; the two can never unite without destroying their substance.
A third question, contrasting the Son of God with the adversary of Himself and of all mankind: But what is Christ’s concord toward Belial? How can there ever be an agreement between Christ, the Champion of that which is right and good, which is intended for man’s salvation, and the chief of Christ’s adversaries? The personification of righteousness and perfection against the personification of unrighteousness and lawlessness - that abyss can never be bridged.
The last two questions concern the contrast between those that are saved and those that are destroyed: Or what portion is to the believer with the unbeliever? But what agreement is to the temple of God with idols?
The Christian, the one that has faith in Christ, can have no part with such as are heathen, as have no faith. Their character, their possessions, their interests, differ so totally and utterly that a combination of the two contrasted parties cannot be imagined.
And equally absurd is the idea that the temple of God should have anything in common with idols. One might just as soon think of setting up idols in the sanctuary of God as to have those that have been consecrated to the Lord join with the heathen in any part of their false worship.