Bound Together
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 · Vern Peterman · Jul 4, 2010
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 53
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492628445043

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

You have on your handout, and we're looking at this passage 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 18, finishing up chapter 6 of 2 Corinthians. You have on the top half of your handout on the first page the poetic pattern for this passage and as I went through it I was rather amazed at how Paul would write these poetic patterns. What's interesting is that there's no evidence that he wrote this in the pattern that we're showing and yet the evidence is clear that he intended to speak this way.

This very first line in the passage says, do not be bound together with unbelievers The King James has, very appropriately, unequally yoked. That's actually the more literal reading of what is translated bound together in the New American Standard. And so when you say unequally yoked, you may be wondering, what does that mean? Well, it's not this kind of yoked.

OK? All right. And by the way, that's Abby's contribution. She came in and saw this, and she says, you've got to have an eye in there. OK. So, no, instead we're talking about unequally yoked, this kind of a yoke, like you would use typically for a pair of oxen, okay? That's not ox-eye, right? Okay, anyway. Yeah, this is what Paul was saying. The difficulty would be this.

If I had two different animals, sometimes of a different height, often of a different gait and manner of walking. I've never, let's see, I've ridden on a donkey, I've ridden on a horse, I have ridden on a cow. The cow didn't know what I was doing, but I have ridden on a cow.

And one thing I'll tell you is that they do have a different gait, they have a different manner of walking. And so there would be constant conflict between these two animals. It would make it difficult because there would be one animal, at least, irritated with the other. If not, both of them irritated by the uneven gait, by the uneven height of the yoke, and perhaps other differences as well. I'm pulling with a different species here, right?

So this is the picture that Paul has of the believer and the unbeliever being unequally yoked, and so that's his caution here. As we look down this poetic pattern, what we see next is he starts a portion of it that begins with 4 on the beginning line and then ends with 4, F-O-R. and then has four lines all in a question format, or what? So it goes like this, 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? One of the questions that might immediately come to mind is who's Belial, right? Belial was in the Old Testament reference, it was a reference of someone who was empty-headed and foolish. By New Testament times it had taken on a meaning as an alternative term for Satan himself. So, Christ with Satan would be another way to put it. Paul uses this term Belial, which had come to mean Satan, basically.

And he says there, for we are, and this is after asking all the questions, here's the statement that clarifies, for we are the temple of the living God. 1 Corinthians 3.16 is a passage in the prior letter that he wrote to them fairly early, chapter 3, fairly early that made the statement, we are a temple. Now it's interesting, 1 Corinthians has two statements that we're a temple. This first one is that we together as the body of Christ are a temple of the living God.

Why would he say that? God dwells in us and among us. And then in chapter 6 he makes the statement that each individual believer is a temple of the living God. Therefore, how each individual believer lives is relevant. His point here is obviously the plural. We as a church body are the temple of the living God. That's his point here and it repeats the truth that he taught them in his prior letter.

1 Corinthians 3.16 reads like this, Do you not know that you, and the you is plural in the original language, the Greek, are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Now one of the points we should make is that there are two primary words in the New Testament for temple, and the outer temple area that included all the courtyards and all the peripheral buildings, the outer temple area was one word, And the word he uses here is for the inner temple.

And so that's the word that he uses here in both places, both 1 Corinthians 3.16 and, boy, he's consistent, right? And in this passage in 2 Corinthians 6.

So here is this inner temple, the naos, and that's a view looking into the inner temple. It was the front area that you see of that temple that qualified Jews were allowed to go into, male and female, were allowed to go into that. There were entrances on three sides, each of which had warning signs, and one and a half of those warning signs have been found, each of which had warning signs that Gentiles should not go past here upon penalty of death. Then into the area behind that, the larger building that we see raising in the second half, that was a building that contained the Holy of Holies. This is the Naas, this is the temple that you are.

God, as the Jews viewed it, lived inside this temple. You, as believers, Paul says, are this place where God dwells together corporately all together then we have this next pattern here in the poetic pattern that Paul's continuing with what's interesting is three times in this last section he has God speaking just as God said and then right in the middle says the Lord and at the final part says the Lord Almighty God speaks three times beginning middle and end of that section between those between those he has a place that says I will twice and interestingly this first time God speaks of the Jews that because that's what he's talking about God speaks of the Jews as them but the next time he has also two I wills and this time he speaks to them directly in the middle part is the only part that they have something to do. The rest of it, God says he will do. It's God's doing, it's God's action that's underscored there.

Their response is to come out of their midst and be separate and do not touch what is unclean. That's their response. Okay, so there's the passage laid out. Let's look about this being separate. God's people at all times have been called to be separate. Always. In the day of Noah, you know how you're separate? You get in the ark. That's how you get separated. Because the ones who don't get in the ark, they get separated too, but it's not so good.

On into the time of the Jews, the exact nature of the separation has varied from one group to another. The call to be separate has not varied. Though God has dealt differently with Noah, and with the Jews, and with us, and as he will with believers in the future, God has dealt differently, but the call to be separate is not different. The call to be separate is always there. It appears different with each group. Separation is not about being isolated, however. So the call to be separate does not mean that you're supposed to get up on top of Mount Evans and stay there. The call to be separate has to do not with isolation, but distinction. Distinction.

How are believers to be different? That's the question. Preserving that critical distinction, the distinction that we're called to make, is in part not from binding ourselves in ways that blur the distinction. In looking at the very first line of this passage, not binding ourselves in ways that cause us to compromise, not binding ourselves to unbelievers in ways that blur or confuse that distinction, either for ourselves or for others.

Israel's separation was apart from the Gentiles. How did God make them a distinct people? He didn't say, don't go anywhere near a Gentile and don't do anything with them and stay a hundred yards away from any Gentile. That's not what He said. What He said was, here's the law of Moses. That will make you distinct. And to the extent to which they didn't pay attention to the law of Moses, they lost distinction. The Church's separation, however, is not just from the Gentiles, but from the world. Why and how did that happen? It happened on the cross.

Not only did Christ die for our sins, but we were identified with Him there on the cross. And aside from Him dying for our sins, our identification with Him did three things. It separated us from the sin nature. The sin nature doesn't go away, but it separated us from the sin nature. It separated us from the law. That's one of the things I was speaking just before the service to someone about. What did Christ die on the cross for? Yes, He died for our sins, but He also died on the cross. Why would He go through that? Why would He go through that awful experience? To separate you from the law. That's why he died on the cross.

He said, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Hebrews 12, 2. What joy? Part of that is to separate us from the law and to separate us, and the final point is from the world. That is the third separation. be separated from the world. How? Because we're identified with Christ on the cross. That's one of the reasons, a critical reason, a repeatedly referenced reason why Christ went to the cross and why we're identified with him. To separate us from the world.

Here's Galatians 6.14, May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Does the world go away? No, absolutely not. You're quite mistaken if you think so. The world isn't going away because of that. It doesn't make us go away either, but we are dead in relationship to it. our allegiance to it and its command over us has ended. We have died in relationship to the world. Colossians 2 20 and 21 repeats the same truth. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world and the if there means and it is assumed to be true. Then he goes on why as if you were living in the world you submit yourself to decrees do not handle do not touch You've died to the sin nature, you've died to the law, you've died to the world.

That's the separation that we have. Not that we become isolated, but it makes us distinct. Intentionally distinct. That's why Christ went to the cross. Not just to pay for our sins, as important, as essential as that is. And I hope that you have believed that he died for your sins. But as critical as that is, as absolutely essential as it is, it is also important for us to understand that Christ went to the cross so that we would die in relationship to the world and the world to us.

The people of Israel were all baptized into Moses. We saw that when we studied 1 Corinthians chapter 10. They were baptized into Moses and placed under the law of Moses. That was true of Israel and the law of Moses was to make them separate and distinct. we in the church were baptized into Christ. Romans 6, Galatians also teaches that truth, and are all under God's grace. The Jews under the law, us under God's grace. Absolutely, not mixtures of law and grace, all under God's grace. One of the questions you might have, because remember we've been talking up through this last week about open hearts. That's what Paul's been talking about.

Why did he suddenly shift from the need, the appeal for the believers in Corinth to have an open heart to him and to those who are ministering with him? Why did he shift from that to this issue of separation? Is there a connection or is Paul just jumping from one subject to another? I think there is a connection. He would talk about open hearts and then talk about being separate.

Why? Their closed hearts were due to their unequal yokes. He didn't just appeal, have an open heart. He got to the root of the problem and he says, you have unequal yokes. You have connections to the unbelievers that are keeping you, that are holding you back from having an open heart with me. Oh, and by the way, from having an open heart with the Lord. The connections that these believers were having were preventing them from responding. He had to deal with this core issue. He says, you need to have an open heart. Let's talk about how that's going to happen. It's going to happen because you recognize you've been bound up with these unbelievers. You've been handcuffed to them. And that is causing your heart to be closed rather than open.

When believers fail to see the critical spiritual distinction between themselves and the unsaved world, when they fail to see that Christ died on the cross so that they were dead to the world, their capacity for intimacy with Christ and with one another is diminished.

Intimacy with Christ, do you know what that is? I hope you've discovered it, but as long as we haven't understood this distinction, this separation, we won't discover what intimacy is, the intimacy God intends. The intimacy that God intends us to have with one another will be held back to the extent that we fail to recognize. that we fail to recognize that Christ died to separate us from the world, so that we are dead to the world and the world to us. Even in marriages, do you know how a marriage has the intimacy of Christ within it, and why there is intimacy with one another? Because they first discovered intimacy with Christ and then intimacy in the marriage.

And what will get in the way of that is worldliness. Worldliness will interrupt what God intends for the marriage relationship, for our relationship with one another. All the intimacies that God intends can be disrupted by a failure to recognize that Christ died on the cross to make us separate. Now in verses 14 through 16 we see some sharp contrast.

We have a listing of words that are characteristic of the yoke that we as believers are to have. He has words like partnership, fellowship, harmony, in common, and agreement. Those are words that are supposed to describe relationships between believers. And so he lists, for the saved, that they have righteousness and light and Christ, they are believers and that they are the temple of God. Those things are true of us who are believers.

So he asks the question again and again, what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? You are light, he tells repeatedly the saints in the churches. What harmony has Christ with Belial? A synonym for Satan. What is in common between the believer and the unbeliever? What is the agreement between the temple of God and idols?

You know, when the problem with unequal yokes in pulling the plow, the problem with unequal yokes is different species. And one of the things we've got to recognize, and it's not going to be apparent on the outside, is that you are a different species than the unbeliever.

He's been telling them that. He says, you are a new creation, right? What does he mean by that? You're a different species. You're not the same kind of being at all. See that? I hate to tell you, but folks were different We're different. We're a different species. Ephesians 5, 6-11 is Paul's similar appeal to the church at Ephesus.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, the unsaved. Therefore, do not be partakers with them, don't be partners with them, don't join with them, don't look in ways of fellowship, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate, don't be partners with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them. The perspective in this being unequally yoked is sometimes we just look at, I've got a believer and an unbeliever. That's true, but you're going to move on to what you do. What that unbeliever is doing, he's going to expect you to join in with him.

Now we all recognize that there are things in life that are hazardous. Things that are rather risky behaviors. We realize that there are things that you could do that are probably not a good idea. Very risky behaviors. You just have to realize that there are various things of that sort, you know. There's things like using the hairdryer while you're taking a shower, you know, that kind of stuff. You don't want to do that, okay? There are activities that are hazardous, okay?

But we Christians are called here, as long as we walk this planet, we're called to hazardous duty. We are called to duty that has us in contact with the world. We are called to a duty that every day puts us in interaction with the world, but yet in the midst of that, called to be distinct, to recognize that we're a different species. We're not called to isolation. We're not called to that.

But there are multiple hazards in our engagements with the world, and here are some of them. The first one, we might overlook that we are radically different creatures, okay? Trying to act like something we're not, okay? Trying to act like something we're not. That's the hazard, okay? And the difficulty comes where this cat tries to, you know, lay eggs in the Arctic, right? So we have to recognize that we're radically different creatures, okay? We have to recognize that we're of a different species. We must see that.

Secondly, we might form alignments and make commitments with unbelievers that are inconsistent with who we are, lacking the recognition that we're a different species. We might make commitments that get us stuck in that mode. so that not only do we make the commitments, but that we end up living out and acting things that are only fitting for a different species, but not the species that we are. See, the problem isn't just the commitments. It's what the commitments cause us to do or not do. That's the problem. Thirdly, we might either act or not act as believers who are in Christ. We might not act as we ought because we're in Christ.

Now, I would guess it's been a long time, for example, since you have seen a crocodile jumping from branch to branch, chirping and picking up little bugs from the air and bugs from the trees and going down to the ground and then going back up into a tree.

Crocodiles just don't act that way. Well, that's not characteristic. That's not the nature of crocodiles, right? Well, guess what? We have a nature, too. We have a new nature. And so just like the crocodile ought not to be hopping from branch to branch and coming down to the ground and eating worms and then jumping back up and making a nest and chirping. We ought not to act or not act as the world does.

We ought to have a distinction. So, as you would find people asking down at the hardware store, you buy something, what's the right way to apply this stuff? You buy a can of something, what's the right way to apply this stuff? Well, we want to look at how do we apply this passage? How does this look?

We'll notice that the Apostle Paul doesn't specify which of the unequal yokes that he wants them to not have. so that they'll be free to have open hearts with the Lord and with Paul himself. He doesn't really go into detail about that. He does talk about partnership and fellowship and what's in common.

And I think there's a reason for that. It's best to understand the principle. If we jump to a list of rules, then we don't understand the principle. And the principle is what he wants to get across. We could easily just make a list of, hey, don't do this and don't do that, and pretty soon we're back to the law.

Christ died to separate us from that, right? Marriage and business are two, certainly, areas of concern. That's where we make commitment. That is where we bind ourselves or yoke ourselves with an unbeliever into things that make those confusions that we talked about, those three areas of confusion that we looked at on the previous slide. Those are two biggies. But really, if you look at it, any kind of relationship that we have that fails to make a distinction between the believer and the unbeliever recognizing the different species that we have been made, anything that fails to do that, anything that causes us to forget that, you ever sometimes forgotten who you are in Christ. Anything that draws us to forget that, to lose sight of it, to get disoriented and confused, could be a problem.

And the answer is not to go around making a list of rules. But the answer is to understand the principle. Because it's principles that we live by, not rules. What is a principle? A principle is a fundamental truth or a basic way of doing things. We are to understand those and operate. And why do we do that and not list the rules? Don't do this and don't do that and don't do this and don't do that. Why? Because grace is the reigning principle. A list of rules won't get there.

So, Paul quotes from verses that are written to Israel. Why does he do that? Why are we not just like Israel if he's quoting from a verse that's for Israel? Paul quoted from verses and drew from verses out of the Old Testament that were written to the people of Israel. So he's applying it to the church. Why aren't we just like Israel? Why aren't we under the same rules as Israel? Well, Israel was called to come out and be separate and do not touch under the law of Moses.

In Deuteronomy 28, you can read it recreationally if you like, but Deuteronomy 28, that is the chapter that spells out first, oh, about 14, 15 verses spell out, if you obey me, this will happen. The rest of the chapter, down beyond verse 60, spells out, if you don't obey me, here's all the bad things that are going to happen to you.

The law is a, you are blessed if. You must behave and then that will determine if you're blessed. Otherwise, you're cursed. We in the church are called to act or not act, not on the basis that We have to do this so we'll be forgiven. We have to do this so God will be merciful to us. We have to do it in order to be blessed. That's not the case.

But because we're already blessed, because we're already forgiven, that's a huge distinction between law and grace. Grace isn't somehow, God just isn't as uptight as he used to be. Grace is not just, well, we don't have as many laws as we used to. That's not what grace is. Grace is a different motivation altogether. I don't do it in order to be blessed. I'm already blessed.

Here's Ephesians 1.3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. From there he goes on to say, Therefore laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, to his neighbor. Does that sound like they weren't telling the truth? That sounds like they were breaking the Ten Commandments, right?

Why should you do it? In order that you not get stoned to death? No. Because of who you are. We are members of one another. It's who you are that is the motivation for the behavior. Not in order to be blessed. Not in order to avoid curses. He who steals must steal no longer.

There's one of the Ten Commandments again. Here is verse 32, forgiving each other just as God in Christ, what? Has forgiven you. You are forgiven already. That's not at issue. But your having been forgiven is the motivation for your forgiving someone else. Not in order to be forgiven. That's not in question. You're already forgiven. But as a motivation, You are forgiven, therefore forgive others.

One of the other things that comes out in this passage is that God is speaking. He's speaking in the last part of this, in the beginning, in the middle and the end of that last half, as we pointed out earlier with the arrows and the green lettering. God says four times, I will, but what's interesting is He doesn't say I will and then pronounce some kind of an action.

I'm going to do this or not do this. He describes more of a state of being. What do I mean by that? It's not about God's doing something particularly. What we find is when God says, I will, it's a matter of who He is and having a family relationship with the people. Did you notice that in the verses? He says, I will have a family relationship with those people. I will be with them. It's closeness, it's intimacy, it's connection, it's relationship, it's fellowship that he was talking about there. The other point that we want to bring out here is as we recognize that the world, the world is the problem. Our distinction from the world is the problem.

This Greek word that's translated conformed is used regarding believers in two ways. One, we who believe are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. That's Romans 8, 28, and 29. But only a few chapters later, we're warned not to be conformed to this world. Don't let this world put you into its mold and squeeze you into the worldly shape that it longs for. There is the possibility, though we are ultimately predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, that we allow a distortion in that conforming process to take place. It is possible we could allow ourselves, by being unequally yoked, to be conformed to the world along the way, disrupting the process that God ultimately will succeed in. But it is not His intent that we be conformed to this world.

So what do we have? We have partnership. as believers. We have fellowship. We have harmony. We have things in common. We have a basis for agreement as believers. We are righteous. Why? Christ's righteousness, not ours. We are light because we've been made to be. We are in Christ. We are the ones who believe. We are the temple of God. That's what we have. We have, in fact, a yoke for working together. That's God's intent. We have it by His grace. We have a partnership. We have a fellowship. We have harmony. We have things in common and in agreement. We are all together as a church body, a temple.

In the same way that Paul was concerned that the believers in Corinth were not having open hearts with him or with the Lord, Paul was concerned about their yokes with unbelievers. So why would he be so very concerned about that? Because having an open heart is necessary for us to have intimacy with Christ and with one another. And intimacy with Christ and intimacy with one another is exactly what God has in mind.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, as we look at the things that you have revealed for us here, We pray that we would have the discernment, the distinction in sight that you want us to have. And we pray that we would have the end result of what Paul is aiming for here, and that is open hearts with one another and with you, that we would indeed have intimacy with you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.