What does it mean to come out from among them (2 Corinthians 6:17)?

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" is often quoted as a prohibition of a mixed marriage. This is no doubt included, but the exhortation means more and includes every form of alliance with the world and ungodly principles. It also includes the so-called "religious world" with its unscriptural practices and denials of the truth. The apostle shows that the believer going along with unbelievers and the world, is indeed in an unequal, a strange, yoke. What fellowship can there be between righteousness and unrighteousness? What fellowship hath light with darkness? Each has a different head; Christ is over His people, they belong to Him; Belial is the head of those who believe not. What could there be for a believer to enjoy with an unbeliever? And believers are the temple of God . How then is association with idols possible? "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Blessed statement! But God's presence demands holiness, separation from evil. Fellowship with evil shuts out God in His gracious manifestations. "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing."

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." We come into contact with all sorts of men in our daily business or employment. Had we to be separate in that sense, then we "needs go out of the world" (1 Cor. 5:10). We are not, however, to be unequally yoked with them. It is the "yoke" we have to beware of, for it is well-nigh impossible to be equally yoked with an unbeliever.

Bad as it is for a believer to marry an unbeliever, God does not even then say, Come out from the relationship; leave your wife; part from your husband. Apply it to its legitimate object (that is, fellowship with unbelievers in the things of God), and then you have a maxim of deep and urgent importance. I am not to unite with the world in any one thing that concerns the service and worship of God. This is the true meaning of being unequally yoked. "Come out and be separate" is then the special word that applies to any such unholy alliance.

Examine the passage for a moment and see how this is so. We are not to be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers." The word "unequally" might more accurately be translated "diversely." It is an allusion to Deuteronomy 22:10 where it is forbidden to plough with such animals together as an ox and an ass. They are diverse in nature and hence thoroughly different in habits and gait. It would be an utter misfit and entail misery for both animals. Now there is a fundamental diversity of nature between the believer and the unbeliever, which forbids anything like a yoke between them. Of course we move amongst unbelievers and have much contact with them in our daily callings, and oftentimes even in the home. We are called upon to behave with the utmost grace and to let our light shine before them. But we are not to be yoked with them.

The question may be asked — What exactly constitutes a yoke? The following verses, containing a series of questions, help to answer this. "What fellowship … what communion … what concord … what part … what agreement?" These five words show what kind of thing is forbidden. Moreover they are followed by the positive instruction to "come out … be separate … touch not the unclean." — three other words which reinforce the five questions. We are not to involve ourselves in any fellowships or partnerships which would yoke us to unbelievers and commit us to the unclean things with which their world is filled. Without any question marriage is a yoke of that kind, and business partnership is another; and other things too come under the scope of this word. Again and again we have to ask ourselves when commitments are proposed to us — Will this thing involve me in an unequal yoke?

Neither the warnings nor the motives confine themselves to worship, nor even have they any particular application that I can see. Chapter 6:1 is as large as can be. The principles of verses 14-17 are as general and absolute as possible. Christ has no accord with Belial anywhere, nor the temple of God with idols. God does not walk in our midst only in worship. I am not to touch unclean things everywhere, not in worship merely: I am not to touch it anywhere, because we form the temple of the living God. Being yoked is not worship: it is everything that brings us to community of thought and moral judgment. It is a question of receiving - being owned as - sons and daughters, not of worship. I do not see a trace of any application to worship in the passage, but of everything which puts two to pull together where moral principles are concerned. "Perfecting holiness in the fear of God" is the conclusion.

The exhortation then is that we come out from among the unbelievers and be separate, not even touching what is unclean. The believer cannot be too careful to avoid every kind of connection and complicity with what is evil; and that because of what he is in his individual character as a child of light, and also what he is collectively with other believers as the temple of the living God. Being the living God, He not only dwells in the midst of His people but He walks in their midst, observing all their ways. And holiness becomes his house for ever.

(V. 16.) Fourthly, the saints of God viewed collectively, as the temple of God, cannot be in agreement with those who pursue any idolatrous object that ignores God. The Scriptures clearly show that even under law it was God's intention to dwell among His people (Ex. 29:45: Lev. 26:12). In a much deeper and more spiritual sense is this true when the Holy Spirit has come, for the Apostle can say, "Ye are the temple of God."

(V. 17.) Seeing then that believers are marked by righteousness and light, under the leadership of Christ, and from the temple of God, there is the imperative obligation to come out from the world and to be separate from evil. The Apostle presses his exhortation by alluding to Isaiah 52:11, where we read, "Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD."

"Wherefore come out from the midst of them and be separated, saith [the] Lord, and touch not an unclean thing; and I will receive you and will be to you for Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith [the] Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God's fear." (Vers. 17, 18; 2 Cor. 7:1.)

If privilege abide and be deepened since redemption, more obviously moral truth is seen with increasing clearness and force. The conscience is purged by blood, the heart by faith. God must have His own holy, for He is holy; and this not only in an inward way, without which all would be hypocrisy, but in outward ways also to His own glory, unless He would be a partner with us to His own dishonour. He will have us clear from associations which are worldly and defiling; He will exercise our souls in order to freedom from all that denies or despises His will. He would not force others, nay He refuses not things only but persons also that are of the world; He commands those that believe to come out from those that believe not, and to be separated. Indeed the union of the two is so monstrous that it never could be defended for a moment by a true heart; it is only when selfish interests or strong prejudices work that men gradually accustom and harden themselves to disobedience so flagrant and in every way disastrous. For as the man of the world cannot rise to the level of Christ to be together with His own, the Christian must descend to the level of fallen Adam and the world. God is thus and ever more and more put to shame in what claims to be His house, with a loudness proportioned to its departure from His word.

Jehovah's presence could not be associated with anything unclean in Israel. "Command the children of Israel," He said to Moses, "that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that has an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead; both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them, that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell" (Num. 5:2-3). The Church also is "holy" for the same reason, being "builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22). On this ground, therefore, separation from evil is enjoined on Christians — "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? and what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an infidel? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing" (2 Cor. 6:14-17). Here, no doubt the immediate subject under review is the separation of Christians from all connection with idolatry, but the principle laid down is general. That principle is, that believers are to be separate from all association with evil, because the Church is the dwelling-place of God. Are not sects evil? Are those parties and schisms concerning which the Spirit exclaims, "Is Christ divided?" — those parties and schisms which the body was tempered together expressly to exclude — are these things fit for the dwelling place of God through the Spirit? Light is the Word of God; that which man's will has introduced in opposition to the Word is darkness; and if believers would walk according to the light, walk as those among whom God dwells, they must separate from that which He judges and condemns.

And now, as to the principle in general: God is working in the midst of evil to produce a unity of which He is the centre and the spring, and which owns dependently His authority. He does not do it yet by the judicial clearing away of the wicked; He cannot unite with the wicked or have a union which serves them. How can it be then this union? He separates the called from the evil. "Come out from among them and be ye separate, and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. As it is written, I will walk in them and dwell in them," etc. Now here we have it distinctly set forth. This was God's way of gathering. It was by saying, Come out from among them. He could not have gathered true unity around Him otherwise. Since evil exists - yea, is our natural condition - there cannot be union of which the Holy God is the centre and power but by separation from it. Separation is the first element of unity and union.