Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers; for what participation [is there] between righteousness and lawlessness? or what fellowship of light with darkness?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and what consent of Christ with Beliar, or what part for a believer along with an unbeliever?
Paul asks a run of blunt questions in this passage, and verse 15 names two leaders, Christ and Belial, with the two groups who follow them. What could those two sides ever share?
The verse sits inside a chain of contrasts. One writer traces how the argument builds:
In detail, what could be stronger than the decisive force of every clause? First the apostle points to the radical difference of principles, low or high. He sets righteousness against lawlessness, light against darkness. Next he points to their characteristic heads, Christ and Belial. Then he contrasts the partisans or followers, believers and unbelievers. Lastly he closes with their joint place as God's temple, contrasted with idols. So this covers everything that makes up life, outward and inward. It shuts out alliance with the world and claims the saints wholly for Christ, apart from the world.
"Belial" is not a familiar name. Commentators explain where it comes from:
Secondly, believers and unbelievers are under very different leadership. Christ controls the believer; the prince of this world directs the unbeliever. He is Belial — a name that implies a worthless, or lawless, person, and so used as a proper name for Satan. What concord can there be between Christ and Belial?
Both names carry meaning, and set two futures side by side:
Both these contrasted names have meaning in them; which will Paul's brothers in the faith accept? The one speaks of that anointing which is truth, and which lasts in everlasting honour. The other speaks of that perishable emptiness which deceives its victims for a time, and is then swallowed up forever in the second death.
The second half of the verse turns on one word. Its meaning is narrower than a modern ear expects:
The Greek word is apistos, 'not believing,' and so an 'unbeliever.' So the Bible's use of the word does not imply denying that Christianity is true, which is how people commonly take it now.
The second question follows from the first:
Thirdly, if there is no concord between Christ and Belial, there can be no part between their followers — believers and unbelievers.
The yoke image behind the whole passage comes from an old law about farm animals:
The paragraph opens with a figure taken from the law that forbade yoking together animals of different kinds, such as the ox and the donkey in ploughing (Deut. 22:10). It is no longer the Jew separated from the Gentile, but the Christian separate from the world in every shape and degree. Principles, motives, interests, ways are not only different but opposed; what common ground is possible?
The pull in such a partnership runs one way, and there is a reason:
The believer, born of God, has a nature the unbeliever does not have. At the same time he still has within him the flesh, the old nature, which the unbeliever has too. So if the believer accepts the mismatched yoke, he is almost certain to be pulled toward the world, and to adopt some, if not many, of its ways.
Some limit this to the home. Commentators say the wording will not allow that narrowing:
Now, "the unequal yoke" can be viewed in four distinct forms: the domestic, the commercial, the religious, and the philanthropic. Some may be inclined to confine 2 Corinthians 6:14 to the first of these; but the apostle does not confine it so. The words are "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." He does not specify the kind or the purpose of the yoke. So we are warranted in giving the passage its widest application.
This is not a call to avoid people. The line is drawn at the yoke, not at the doorstep:
This makes it all plain, when people ask whether we are to do nothing for the world. If there is sorrow and want, am I not to help sufferers? Surely, if there is a special duty to the household of faith, I am also bound to do good to all men. But there is no yoking together with others outside Christ in this, and no communion.
Indeed, the separation is what gives the message its force:
This in no way bars doing good to all, or especially seeking the salvation of any. On the contrary, the truer the separateness to Christ, the more forcefully grace can be preached to the world as a lost thing, and Christ as the only Saviour.
- Two heads. Christ leads one side; Belial — a word meaning worthless or lawless, used as a name for Satan — leads the other.
- Two followings. Because the heads share nothing, those who follow them can share no common harness either.
- One image. An ox and a donkey under one plough: not just different, but opposed.
- One direction of damage. The believer still carries the old nature, so in a mismatched yoke he is the one pulled toward the world.
- One wide application, one clear limit. The yoke covers home, business, religion and shared causes. Yet doing good to all remains, and the clearer the separation, the more forcefully Christ can be preached.
and what agreement of God's temple with idols? for *ye* are [the] living God's temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be to me a people.
God's dwelling place is the last and heaviest contrast in this chapter. It turns a warning about mismatched partnerships into a statement about who the Corinthians are. If God Himself lives among His people, the company they keep is no longer a matter of taste.
The verse closes a chain of opposites, each striking the same target from a different angle.
In detail, what can be stronger than the decisive blows of every clause? First the apostle points to the deep difference of principles, low or high. Righteousness stands against lawlessness, light against darkness. Next he points to their characteristic heads, Christ and Belial. Then he contrasts the partisans or followers, believers and unbelievers. Lastly he closes with their joint place as God's temple, contrasted with idols. This in no way rules out doing good to all, or, above all, seeking the salvation of any. Just the opposite: the truer our separation to Christ, the more powerfully we can preach grace to a lost world, and Christ as the only Saviour.
The question about the temple and idols has only one answer, and it leaves no middle ground.
No agreement whatever! Morally, an endless gulf separates God's temple from the whole system of idolatry. You cannot even name the two together or put them in the same class. The point here is not about seeking blessing for the poor idolater — that should be done with all our heart. The point is the call to allow not the very least compromise between them. Bring the smallest principle of idolatry into God's temple, and to that extent you destroy it.
This point covers the whole church, and it defines an idol far more widely than a carved image.
The assembly, the body of Christ, is the temple of God. It is the place where the glory of God is seen, where God dwells and walks. If Christians on their own are to form no yoke with unbelievers or with unrighteousness, this is just as vital for them together: the assembly is to allow no such yoke. Idolatry is whatever pushes God out of the first place that is rightfully and wholly His, as when Israel made the golden calf.
The verse calls Him the living God. That word sets Him apart from gods with no life.
That speaks of one, and only one, Divine Being. There are not two living Gods. Israel's fathers had understood what this title meant. It marked out their God, the Lord Jehovah, as completely different from the idols of the nations. Those idols had no life. "They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat" (Psalm 115:5-7). So the psalm heaps scorn on the idols, on their makers, and on their worshippers.
Paul's quoted words were first spoken to Israel about a tent in the middle of their camp.
In Leviticus 26:11-12 we read of God's promise to Israel, "I will make my dwelling among you… And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people." 2 Corinthians 6:16 applies that promise to Christians. The promise depended on Israel staying faithful. Yet we hear Moses tell Israel, "Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that He may not see anything indecent among you" (Deut. 23:14).
An older translation of Leviticus reads, "I will set my tabernacle among you." What has changed is who is meant and how God is present.
It is not said here that the body of the saint is the temple of God, as we see in 1 Corinthians 6. It says that the saints are His temple… This was an Old Testament promise and privilege (Ex. 29; Lev. 26; Ezek. 37:7). It is better enjoyed now. God gives His presence not in a mere visible sign, as He did then, but in the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven since Pentecost. Redemption, whether in picture or in reality, laid the ground for God's dwelling in this way, as many have noted.
Each verb in the promise, dwelling and walking, carries a demand.
Where God dwells, He must be God. Where God walks, those who walk must be in harmony with Him. So joining with the world ruins Christianity. Christ and the world are opposites at the root. As the Lord said long before, we cannot serve two masters in this way.
- Contrast. The verse ends a run of opposites: righteousness and lawlessness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, believer and unbeliever. Last comes the temple set against idols.
- Identity. Paul argues from what Christians already are, not from what they should try to become. Together they are God's temple.
- Living. The title distinguishes God from idols that have mouths, eyes and hands yet cannot speak, see or feel.
- Indwelling. Words once promised to Israel about a tent in their camp now come true through the Spirit sent from heaven. Redemption is the ground of it.
- Consequence. Where God dwells, He must be God. Idolatry is anything that pushes Him out of first place, so even the smallest compromise is unsafe.