Reading… and Thinking

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

— 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (NIV)

In the law, there was a commandment that an ox and a donkey must not be yoked together. Why in the world would God care about such a thing?

In this passage Paul provides an exposition of that law. It was to teach the lesson that believers must not be yoked to unbelievers. No fellowship, no harmony, no commonality, no agreement is possible.

This passage is often cited in making the point that believers must not marry outside the faith. Almost certainly that was Paul’s primary point, and marriage is definitely the most serious kind of “yoking” of two people. Do you want to enter a marriage in which there can never be fellowship, harmony, commonality, agreement? It would lead to one of four outcomes: lifelong misery, divorce, the believer falling away and joining the unbeliever, or the unbeliever coming to repentance. The fourth possibility happens occasionally, and believers who are absolutely set upon marrying an unbeliever are always certain that that’s what will happen. Unfortunately the other three outcomes happen more often.

But the passage is not limited only to yoking in marriage. Any bond between a believer and an unbeliever would apply. Business partnerships, certainly. Even close friendships. To the extent that you share things in common with people who are in darkness, you cease to be the light yourself.

Paul, quoting from Isaiah 52:11, says “come out from among them, and be separate”. Is he encouraging us to be hermits? Should we go live in monasteries? Some have taken his words that way. The rest of his writings make it clear that he doesn’t encourage that kind of thing at all. We must live our lives “in the world”. The separation is in our thoughts, our actions, the way we talk, our way of life. The word “holy” means separate, set apart for special use. We have been set apart by God for His own use. We must maintain that holiness, that separation. Not by running away, but by making sure our bodies, our mouths, and our minds are dedicated to righteousness, to light, to Christ.

Paul brings in two other testimonies as the rationale for the separateness. First, from Leviticus 26:11-12, God is among us. Right here, right now. What you do, you do in His presence, right in His face as it were. The second isn’t a direct quote of anything, and appears to be a mashup of several sources. Certainly it is a prominent teaching of both Paul and John: We are God’s own children. He has adopted us as His own sons and daughters, and we are His. Out of gratitude to Him, and out of simple obedience to Him as our Father, we must be separate from darkness and wickedness. What business does a child of God have dabbling with darkness?

So we need to think about what we are yoking ourselves to, in all of our commitments, large and small. If it’s a mismatch for a child of God, then we need to pass.