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2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial?1 Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
7:1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body2 and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Hey, everybody. Hey. Hey. It's good to see you all. Oh, thanks.
Jeffrey Heine:I appreciate that. So tonight, we're going to continue our study in 2nd Corinthians. And so if you would just go ahead and start turning to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6. We'll wrap up chapter 6 and, and then finish in, chapter 7 verse 1. 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 starting with verse 14.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's listen carefully for this is God's word. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?
Jeffrey Heine:What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? We are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jeffrey Heine:Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then 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. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Let's pray. God, whether we know it or not, or are willing to confess it or not, we need you.
Jeffrey Heine:We need you in this very hour, in this very moment. Lord, we want to meet with you. And so we ask for your presence by your spirit. We thank you for your word that we just read, and how you're present there. We ask that in this time you would meet with us, you would confront us, you would comfort us with your truth, that we might look more like your son, our savior, that we might trust him and love him more, that we would be obedient to him.
Jeffrey Heine:So we ask your blessing over this time, your time here in this place where you dwell with us, where you abide with us. We ask you to bless this time for your name, for your kingdom, for your glory, and for our great joy. Amen. How we read the Bible matters. How we open up God's word and read what it says and think about it, how we do that matters.
Jeffrey Heine:There are times I can think of in my life where, either through guilt or circumstance, something like, you know, I've got I'm supposed to read my bible guilt, something like that. I would open up my bible and I'd start flipping. And as I'd be flipping, I would be thinking to myself, that doesn't have anything to do with me. That doesn't have anything to do with me. And I would finally find one of those places that I could sit down and read because I could see this one to one connection to what was going on in my life.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe you've experienced that before where you have that time. You've got your Bible and you're trying to do the right thing by reading it, and you just start flipping trying to find that place where you can connect. How we read the bible matters, and it it's especially important in something like this that the text that we are in tonight is historically very controversial and difficult. Sometimes it's just because of distractions. Like maybe when we started reading it, it's just a few moments ago.
Jeffrey Heine:You're like, all right, so here comes the sermon on why you should not date someone who's not a Christian. Who's, who's ready for that sermon? You were you thought about it. Alright. Any youth groupers in here, like, went through that, like, you know, like, that's the go to.
Jeffrey Heine:That's the sermon you preach. Don't be unequally yoked. Alright? So cool it with the yoke and like whatever that I'm not sure what it means, but it has to do with you can't date that girl, you can't date that guy, and all your friends are going to circle up and pray for you because you better watch that yoking. And then it's something that's way more serious and like a grave error is that verse 14 has been used for centuries for why people of different races should not date or marry.
Jeffrey Heine:Like people were arrested and beaten. People were fined because they started relationships with people that were of a different race and people pointed to Paul's words and condemned them. It matters how we read the bible. It's really important, and it's a question that we should ask frequently as a community. We should ask it of ourselves, we should ask it of one another.
Jeffrey Heine:How am I regarding? How am I reading the word of God? Because it really matters. And tonight, as we as we look at what what Paul has to say, I kind of like to it's going to overlap for sure, but what I'd like to do is suspend our first half really walking through what Paul is talking about. What is the context?
Jeffrey Heine:What's he really saying here when he gets to unequally yoked? What does he mean by that? And then after we walk through this, in this context, I want us to then think about what does God have to say for us today in his word? Okay. So beginning, what does Paul mean by this?
Jeffrey Heine:Well, for the last 6 chapters, he has been laying out his argument against these false apostles, these false leaders and teachers. He's been laying this argument out. He's been talking about his own ministry. He's been defending his ministry. He's been defending his new covenant ministry.
Jeffrey Heine:And then this really serves as the apex of that. He's been building up to this point. All of this where he's been defending who he is and why he's suffering and what the gospel is as he's been defending why he has this authoritative voice in their lives. He's been he's been going after that for 6 chapters and let me tell you this, when he gets to verse 14, it's not to talk about dating. He didn't build all of this up and talk about his suffering and talk about his beatings and why he suffers for the gospel and what this ministry of reconciliation is.
Jeffrey Heine:Now it has implications into dating and in our lives in those ways, but that's not what he's getting to here. It's much bigger than that. It's really pointed to the Corinthian Christians. So right here he, and it's really important. I want us to kind of filter it through this as well because we need this reminder, I think, because we get this far into our second Corinthians study and that is this.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me remind you that Paul loves the Corinthians. He loves them. Now sometimes we say hard things to people that we love. And really it's because of that context of love that that hard thing can be heard and received appropriately. You know, a difficulty that Joel and I have talked about as we've been doing this study because we really need to walk into, wade into Paul's voice.
Jeffrey Heine:We have to enter into his voice and Paul has been pretty mad And so it it's a challenge now when we come into this place to come together around the good news of Jesus, it can be difficult in going through a study like this because he is so intense. Paul has an objective here. He's writing for a reason. He's writing out of passion and concern, but let's not miss the fact that he's writing out of love. That's why he is saying these hard things to these Corinthian Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:So look at verse 14. He says this, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Now what does he mean by unequally yoked with unbelievers? There are 3 kind of sections there. There's you, there's the audience, there's the reader, there's the Corinthian who's hearing this.
Jeffrey Heine:So he's saying Corinthian, Christian, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. And then he gives these 5 rhetorical questions. And in those questions, he kind of mirrors this this format. And so from that we can gain these synonyms to help us to understand what he's saying. So for the you, for the Corinthian, he calls them righteous.
Jeffrey Heine:He calls them light. He calls them Christ. He calls them believer. He calls them the temple of God, But then for unequally yoked, he he he breaks it down like this. Partnership, fellowship, accord, sharing, agreement.
Jeffrey Heine:And then for the unbeliever, he uses the synonyms of lawlessness, darkness, bailio, which is a very rare use for, Satan, devils, unbelievers, and idols. He sets up this argument, and he says he says to them, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and what I mean by that is you cannot have these agreements. You cannot have these partnerships. You cannot have in common these things with those who are rejecting the gospel. And he has, he has a real point to this because he's had this reoccurring problem.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul has had a reoccurring problem with the Corinthians because the Corinthians have had this reoccurring problem of going back to the pagan temples. They believe in Jesus, they trust in him, but they keep going back to this lifestyle of pagan temple cultic worship. And really, the specific act that keeps coming up and that he talks about with them in 1st Corinthians is this issue of food that's sacrificed to idols. Now there are 3 different ways that the Corinthians would have encountered sacrifices that were made to idols. This this food has been sacrificed in this manner.
Jeffrey Heine:Three different ways that would kind of come up. 1 would be in the market where someone would offer these sacrifices in the cultic temple, and then they would take their sacrifice out of the temple and sell it in the marketplace. And Paul has said to them, that food in the market, eat it. That's fine. It's fine.
Jeffrey Heine:It was God's before it was sacrificed. It's God's afterwards. That animal has always been the Lord's. You can eat that. The next place where they would have had that interaction, where they would have been confronted with the issue of food sacrificed to idols would have been in the home of an unbeliever.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul says, yes, you can go there, you can sit down, whatever they put in front of you, you can eat it. Some of you have recalled that when you've gone on some foreign mission trip and and you're like, okay, whatever they put in front of me, I probably need to eat it even if it's terrifying. And so he's saying that yes, you can have that fellowship. Go into their homes, be a light of the gospel in those places. That's, that's fine.
Jeffrey Heine:But then a third way comes up and that is food that's sacrificed to idols in the context of worship, worship in the temple. And these Corinthian Christians were going to worship services in the pagan temples and participating in the worship of these idols. And he says, no, you can't do that. You can't do that because it when you do that, you are sitting at a table with devils. You are dining with the devils at that point.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't you can't do that. And so as he's walking them through this and he's trying to instruct them, there are people who are leading them astray. There are leaders who have been leading them astray and into error. And through 6 chapters, he's been defending his ministry to get to the point to say, you cannot have these relationships with these false leaders. You can't keep doing that.
Jeffrey Heine:Because as you will be yoked, as you would be 2 animals who are strapped in, you will not pull in the same direction or with the same strength, and and they will lead you astray, and they have been. And he's writing to them to say, you have to stop. You have to separate yourself. Now this can get confusing because some people would kinda twist this to say, don't have fellowship with an unbeliever. And in some ways, he is saying that to an extent, but it has a specific context.
Jeffrey Heine:It's these unbelievers who are rejecting Paul, who are saying that he suffers. Surely that's not from God. And if it is, it's probably God's judgment on him. You can't listen to this guy. And now Paul is stepping up.
Jeffrey Heine:He's defending himself. He's defending the ministry of the gospel, the ministry of reconciliation. He's saying, no, You can't keep following these false leaders. You can't have this relationship with him. You can't go into these places.
Jeffrey Heine:He issues this very stern prohibition, and he issues it out there, and then he follows up that prohibition with a promise. Look with me, verse 16. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? And then he moves into this promise, for we are the temple of the living God. The reason for this prohibition, the basis for it is this promise that we are the temple of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Now now keep in mind the Corinthians here. Keep in mind, as they're hearing this, they've been going into pagan temples. They've been going and sitting in these worship services for pagan idols, And he's saying, you can't go into those temples, you are the temple of God. You you can't go and sit down in a temple worship service for a foreign God, when you are the temple. There's huge significance here that he would dare to bring up that the people of God are the temple of God.
Jeffrey Heine:This was not a common thought throughout the old testament. At no point was it really issued out that you are the temple of God because that was a place, that was a fixed thing. There was a temple, and there were rules for how you would get into the presence of God. And presence and face are kind of interchangeable at different points in in the Hebrew language, that they would seek the face of God, that they would seek the presence of God. And the presence of God is the fullness of joy as they would meet with him.
Jeffrey Heine:And the high priest is the only one who would go into that holy of holies where the presence of God was resting. And when he did, he had to carry that one time a year, He had to carry blood in there. AW Tozer stated it like this. He kinda got the voice of the priest coming in with this basin of blood where he says this, oh presence, oh Shekinah glory, I ought to die. Oh, god, I ought to die.
Jeffrey Heine:But I bring this blood as evidence that although I ought to die, another has died for me. That that was that was how access was granted. And now, Paul is saying, we are the temple. And that that happens through only one way, that is the, the author of Hebrews says, the rending, the tearing, The tearing of that curtain that separated men and women from the presence of God, men and women from the dwelling of God. That was Jesus's flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:Ripped, rent. Jesus' very flesh ripped that we might have that access. And so he says, not lightly at all. You can't go into those foreign God temples, those temples to idols, because you are, we are the temple of the living God, And he moves and continues the promise. Look with me, he says, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them.
Jeffrey Heine:That's from Leviticus 26. He's gonna keep weaving all these old testament references in here. So look for them. I will make my dwelling among them. I will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jeffrey Heine:That's Ezekiel 37. They shall be my people. Then he moves on to prohibition again. He says, therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord and touch no unclean thing. That's Isaiah 52.
Jeffrey Heine:He's calling them away. He's calling them to holiness and he's likening that to how they have to leave this idol culture behind. And then he continues. I will welcome you. I will be a father to you.
Jeffrey Heine:You shall be sons and daughters to me. Verse 18, I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me might be familiar. That's that's covenant language to David in 2nd Samuel. Now, when that was originally spoken, it didn't say daughters. And I'd like to make just a little caveat prompt, a little clarifying statement here.
Jeffrey Heine:I I once was at a wedding reception and it's always awkward when when, it kind of comes up what I do. Like, oh, what do you do? Especially depending on what the conversation before that question came up. And then they say, so what do you do? And I say, well, I'm in I'm in ministry.
Jeffrey Heine:And I had one person at a wedding reception say, yeah, I really like the bible. I don't read Paul though. I said, why is that? I said because he hated women. So here's something I'd like to say to that.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul wants to clarify. This is a promise, a covenant promise that went to David, a man, a single man where he's, where God is saying, I will be a father to you. You will be a son to me. He's talking about adoption there and Paul is extending that promise because God has extended that promise. He is being clear that that promise goes to sons and daughters, and he doesn't want anyone confused about that.
Jeffrey Heine:And there are times where we kind of wonder, should it be translated this or that, when it's kind of inclusive language. It says he, but it's meaning him and her, and all that. And so we're being clear here, sons and daughters, says the lord almighty. This what he's pulling from, and Paul is very particular here. He's pulling from all of these references on purpose.
Jeffrey Heine:These are covenant promises that are finding their place because of Jesus. Because of the cross and the resurrection, these things are opened up to us, and he is going back, and he is saying these covenant promises of who God is and who we are called to be in light of who God is. These promises change how we live. Alright. It's hard, but we're gonna try to con continue to stay right here in this context with Paul and the Corinthians for a little bit longer.
Jeffrey Heine:Because he now moves, chapter 7 verse 1. He continues with this. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness completion in the fear, in the awe of God. Now as Joel talked about, when he was talking about the reconciliation with God, that when he was talking about that God extends this friendship to us. It it's important for us to continue and say that further that this friendship is one that's based in awe.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no friendship like this friendship. That's what, that's what Joel was saying was that when God as judge, that he acts as justifier as he calls you out of that judgment and then invites you as friend. He doesn't stop being judge, but he does start being father. He does start being friend. But that awe, that fear is never lost.
Jeffrey Heine:That fear, that awe is necessary because Paul is basing this call, this prohibition that they would separate themselves. He's basing that on the promises of God and the reality of the fear of God, fearing him, being in awe of his holiness and his glory. So then, what does this have to do with us? This is where the neat segue into dating happens. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:What does this have to do with us? What I'd like for us to look at, to pull out of this are these three promises that Paul is highlighting because this is paradigmatic. These are principles. This is a way that we should think about how we live. Now we don't have these pagan idols, and I would be really careful not to make 1 to 1 connections here and to say, what are the pagan idols in your life?
Jeffrey Heine:I don't think that we need to do that. I think that we need to think through how is Paul encouraging these men and women to hope in Jesus? How how is he calling them to be obedient to Jesus? And ultimately, what is this reconciled life? What does that look like?
Jeffrey Heine:What does it mean to live a life reconciled with God? I think that it has these three promises at play. And we'll look at them now. 1st, that God is with us. God is with us.
Jeffrey Heine:Secondly, that he is ours. And 3rd, that we are his. Let me say them again. God is with us, he is ours, and we are his. So first, God is with us.
Jeffrey Heine:He says this in 2 ways, I will dwell among them and I will walk with them. Later he says that in, I will welcome them. That God is with us. And Paul thinks that that God being with us should change how we live. If we believe that God is with us, if we believe that we are not alone, that God dwells with us, not in some static location in the temple, but in the temple of his people that God dwells with us.
Jeffrey Heine:That it should change the way that we live. And there should be awe. Now, I am, I'm really bad at remembering lyrics. That's one of the reasons why I phased out of the worship leader world. I'm really bad at it.
Jeffrey Heine:I there's some things where I have a really good memory, there are other things where it's just really terrible. And the way it's most pronounced now in my life is that June never knows the right lyrics to anything. She's my 3 year old daughter, and she will sing the wrong lyrics because I sing the wrong lyrics. I've talked about it before. Like, it's pretty sad.
Jeffrey Heine:But this one was not at my own, And and she's singing through it, and she keeps singing, I am a happy family. Now, two problems. 1, I never get lyrics right. Another one is I really love philosophy, and I sat there mesmerized at the reality and complexity of what she was saying. I am a happy family.
Jeffrey Heine:And I thought, you are. You're also not at all, but you are. I am a happy family. I I thought about family is this plural reality, but you experience it as an individual. Like, we are something, but I only experience it as me.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, I only experience these things as an individual. I only know what it's like to be a part of this from my own experience and perspective, but it's a plural reality. It's a bigger reality than just me. And in fact, if I'm separated from it, that reality stops. I'm not a part of that.
Jeffrey Heine:I can't just be in that on my own. And that's how the temple is. When he says, we are the temple, that is something that you experience as an individual, but it is a plural reality. It is a collective corporate communal reality. You aren't just a temple.
Jeffrey Heine:We aren't a lot of temples. Lower k lowercase temples. We are the temple of the living God. He dwells with us. We aren't just these islands.
Jeffrey Heine:We aren't just these temples. Now, it's a lot easier to, kind of, create this simple ethic of, hey, you know why you shouldn't blank? You're a temple. And Paul does talk like that at one point in in first Corinthians where he does issue these these commands, but he's doing that. He's always saying you in the plural.
Jeffrey Heine:He's saying you all are the temple, And we can't just go on living however we want. It matters because God dwells with us and in us. And first, he dwelled among us in flesh and blood as Jesus walked this earth. And then he sent his spirit to dwell in our midst. And I have a question for you.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you think God is here? Or do you think that we're just here? Or do you think that you're just here? Is there a further reality that God is here with us? Because I think that if it's true, it changes everything.
Jeffrey Heine:First, that God is with us. Secondly, he is ours, our what? He says, I will be their god, and I will be a father to you. Sometimes we think about, when when I will be your God. When we think about God being our God, sometimes we think that we just kinda sat in this seat of decision.
Jeffrey Heine:We surveyed the gods of the world, the world religions, we surveyed them, and then we picked out the one that we thought was best. And we say he will be our God, but he is paralleling this with adoption. He's paralleling this with being a father to sons and daughters where he is binding himself. He's making a commitment to the child. He's saying, I will adopt you.
Jeffrey Heine:He's saying, I will be father to you, son. I will be father to you, daughter. He's making this obligation. And so when he says, I will be your God, he's obligating himself to us, that he would be our God, that he would be our father. And then the third one, we are his.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, you will be my people. You shall be sons and daughters. Believing that we are the very people of God. We are the children of God, not on our own merit, not on our own worth, but by the grace and mercy and love of God the father, that he would set his love on you. God is with us.
Jeffrey Heine:He is ours, and we are his. And this relationship, this reconciled life is a life with God. He is with us. We are his, and he is ours. And that leads me to another question.
Jeffrey Heine:Because just like Paul, God's commands to holiness are rooted in his love. Just as Paul had developed this argument and gotten to this point because he wanted to issue this command out of love for the Corinthian Christians. God's calls to us to holiness, to obedience are rooted, are based in his love. So here's the question. Do you believe that God loves you more than you love you?
Jeffrey Heine:Let me say it again. Do you believe that God loves you more than you love you? Because if so, if you do, then whatever he asks of you, whatever he wants for you is better than what you want for you. Whatever he commands, whatever whatever he says to obey, whatever he calls you out of, whatever he calls you to, it will be better than what you want for you. I think how we answer those questions really matters.
Jeffrey Heine:When he calls us to holiness, it is out of love, it is for our good, and it's better. Now the Corinthians had a hard time believing that. They had a culture. They had they had a way of life that they were living. They had been told, cover your bases, go to these idols, do these things.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul is saying, you've gotta walk away from that. And that can be a hard thing to do. Can be a very hard thing to to do. And some of the some of the hardest struggles that you have in your life might be rooted in that problem. It might be rooted in not wanting to walk away from the things that we're supposed to walk away from in obedience to Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe that's anger or pride, selfishness. That individualism that impacts the way that we read the bible when we say, I am the center of all things. That we would be called away from those things to be separate from them because of the love of God. And that in his presence, as we draw near to him, as he is here with us as the temple of a living God, that in his presence, we would find the fullness of joy, that we too would love him and obey him out of that love in pure delight. So let's go to him in prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:God help us to often ask how we are reading your word, That we would do so carefully and thoughtfully, faithfully, and humbly. Lord, I pray that as we think on these things that you are with us, you to dwell in, for our deep joy, for your glory, and for us to think on the choices that we're making, how we're living our lives, and do those choices reflect this reality that you are here with us. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you for your spirit, and I pray spirit that that you would open our eyes to your truth. You would open our ears to your word, and that we would hope, and you are God, father, son, and holy spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to know the meaning of this reconciled life. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.