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? 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 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.
2
Corinthians 6:14-7:1
The critical and recurring problem
across the testaments is the fact that God’s chosen people often flirt with the
world. In this passage Paul cited from
many different Old Testament verses to make a point. He wanted to point out the desire of the true
God in taking up Israel as His own and as His alone, and the fact that actually
God’s chosen people belongs to God as children of God that is holy (separate)
from the world. Verse 16 “I will make my dwelling among them and
walk among them” is cited from Leviticus 26:12 and Exodus 29:45. The next clause “and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people” is cited from Exodus 6:7, Jeremiah 31:33, and Ezekiel
11:20. Verse 17 “go out
from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no
unclean thing; then I will welcome you” is cited from Isaiah 52:11. Verse 18 “and I will be a father to you, and
you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” is cited
from Exodus 4:22, 2 Samuel 7:8 & 14, Isaiah 43:6, Jeremiah 31:9, and Hosea
1:10. This point Paul made aimed at the
principle conduct they ought to do as God’s people, in which God’s people ought
to separate themselves qualitatively from the world. This means that God’s people can’t and
mustn’t adopt the way of the world.
Consequently, there should not be compromises made in order to make ways
for the lifestyle of the world to be inserted into the church. By implication, those who continue to embrace
worldly life with joy and gladness have no place in the presence of God. And Christians should not embrace them as
brothers and sisters.
Old habits die hard. People tend to repeat the old habits almost
unconsciously. The old ways of life are
hard to kill. They linger on. It’s too sweet for the flesh. It’s too hard to let go. The memory of the sweetness of the sin of the
flesh tempts the mind to desire to return.
Disciplining oneself to abide by the life of the Kingdom of God
meets its biggest challenge when the body we still live in is still affected by
the sting of sin and is still prone to give in under the power and pressure of
sin. This is a true test. One fails the test if he gives in and thus
commits sin. One also fails if she
negotiates with sin and finds a compromise, and so she resists some but does
some. One also fails if he chooses the
lesser sin as the situation only permits the sinful choices. The only way one may not fail is when one
completely resists sin and thus restrains the self in the mind and body in such
a way so that sin is dead to her. This
is extremely difficult. And living in
this body of sin in the sinful world makes it impossible for us to completely
resist sin. But thanks be to God that
the righteousness of Christ that is imputed in us is what God the Father
counts. Thus we are perfect in His eyes
through Christ Jesus the perfect Son of God.
However, our duty then is to strive for that perfection. Since truly we are dead to sin ever since we
are redeemed in Christ we are to do, within our limitation and according to the
grace of God, the proper self-control.
The realization of our being dead to sin takes time. It is because of our constitution as a
creature of habit. For first we ought to
unlearn the old habits. And this is the
hardest part. The universal truth that
Jesus is illustrating in Luke 5:39 is worth reflecting: “39 And no one after drinking old wine
desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.” When the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt, they quickly complained to God by
referring to their “better” life in Egypt. The old habits are much sweeter. They provide familiar territory. They give feeling of security and safety
because they have adjusted to it. The
old habits are often people’s comfort zone.
And the habits took a long time to acquire. The brain memory, the muscle memory, even the
mental disposition has been so attached to the self that they can’t easily be
erased, ignored, or put on idle mode.
The reflexes we have always point toward the old things we have
acquired. It is our default system. Stepping out of our comfort zone would mean
losing our sense of safety and security.
Such action requires faith – big one.
Commonly our fear prevents us from stepping out of our comfort
zone. It is the fear of the
unknown. As Israel
was brought into the desert that they knew nothing about, since all they knew
was life as slaves in Egypt,
they resisted God’s leadership. They
preferred to go back to the slavery in Egypt. That’s how deep their fear of the unknown was
that they would rather suffer under slavery than living freely in the
unknown. Their mode of life was not one
of faith. Faith was foreign in their
life. Between knowledge and faith, they
chose knowledge. Old habits truly die
hard.
But exactly this old habit of sin is
what we ought to leave. We are not to
associate with those who continue in the practice of sin. Our being separated by God from the sinful
world can only mean that we ought not to defile ourselves again with sins. Moreover, we should never enjoy association
with sin. Being sanctified by God gives
us precedence that our natural life as God’s redeemed can’t accommodate sin
anymore. The tragedy in the Corinthian
church was that the church was mingling with the world. Not that we then live ascetic life on a
mountain or desert somewhere away from the world. That’s not what God has in mind. Instead, as John 17 and Matthew 28 declare,
we are to enter into the world in order to proclaim the gospel and to disciple
all nations into the Kingdom of our God.
But what the Corinthian church was doing was not proclaiming the gospel
or making disciples of all nations into God’s kingdom. What they were doing instead was adopting the
world’s way of life into the church. And
so they modified the law of God to fit with the world. The fivefold rhetorical questions Paul asked
the Corinthians are to emphasize the fact that God’s church can’t be together
with the world. Paul does not just list
one rhetorical question, even though one is supposed to enough. Not two either. Two would be more than enough. Not three either. Three would be clear, both the meaning of the
statement and Paul’s intention are clear.
Not four either surprisingly.
Four would be crystal clear, no doubt whatsoever. But Paul puts fivefold rhetorical questions
in a row. This means that there is no
way, be it on earth or in heaven or in any other possible world, that God’s
church can be mixed with the sinful world.
God’s heaven can’t be mixed with hell.
This argument by Paul is one of the strongest he ever writes. Paul does not give any chance for the
Corinthians to twist or to find any loophole in his argument. He closes by saying that by nature we are
different. That we are the temple of the living God. In this temple God dwells. And God doesn’t dwell in the heart of
unbelievers. God doesn’t dwell in the
temple of the world. Satan dwells in the
temple of the world. There is no way we
can find God making a truce with Satan.
There is no way God shakes hand peacefully with the devil. His followers, therefore can’t mix with
Satan’s followers either. The followers
of Christ can’t adopt the way of life of the followers of Satan. They are completely the opposite. The followers of Christ glorify God. The followers of Satan mock God.
The tragedy like in the Corinthian
church can be found throughout the history of the church. And we can see it even more in this 21st
century. We witness today churches
adopting the way of the world. We see
with our own eyes today how the so called God’s church practices the world’s
teachings. So God’s church becomes more
and more like the world. Many churches
today utilize market analysis in order to “sell” the appropriate “product” to
the “customers.” Even in seminary
candidate pastors are now being taught how to do the sociological behavior of
the masses. Churches are now more and
more treated as a business company. It
is run as a business. It is true that
there are important knowledge and skills we can take from the business world
and apply it in the way we manage the church organizationally, but essentially
the church of God is not a business company. The basic foundation is different. The church is very different than a business
company. A business company focuses only
on profit, that’s its sole aim. But
God’s church cares for the life of the lost, of the sheep of God, of the
worship of God, of the praise and the glory of the Holy God of heaven and
earth. Therefore the way church is to be
governed is different than the way Apple Inc. is governed for example. No matter how expert a business director or
manager, he/she can’t treat God’s church the same way he/she treats his/her
company. It is a grave mistake to gear
up all the church’s departments according to the departments in a business. In God’s church our “profit” is not
money. It is not even how many members
“subscribe” into the church. It is not
the number of attendance for each service and each event. The “profit” of God’s church is when the lost
is called back home, when all nations are being made disciples of Christ, when
God is worshiped wholeheartedly, when the way of life of the Kingdom of God
influences the world, when God is praised and honored. And how can all those “profit” be
measured? It is much easier to measure
money, number of attendance, or membership subscription. And so many churches reduce the value of
God’s church into the pursuit of money or attendance or membership. The way the manifest their success is through
building a monument. They allocate big
chunk of their budget on the church physical building. The more luxurious, the bigger, the more high
tech, the more refined the building is, the more success they ascribe to
themselves. And once they become the
“successful” church, they neglect God’s way altogether. Anything is then done for the sake of keeping
the worldly success. What once was God’s
church, built in the name of the Triune God, now has become a social club,
built in the name of the market demand and world trend.
The fivefold rhetorical questions are
strong. Paul did not mince words. He did not calmly ask these as if there is no
urgency. No, he asked these questions
with the utmost passion:
1. what partnership has righteousness with
lawlessness?
2. Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
3. What accord has Christ with Belial?
4. Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
5. What agreement has the temple of God
with idols?
To all those
questions the answer is a resounding: No!
Righteousness and lawlessness have no partnership. Light and darkness have no fellowship. Christ and Belial have no accord. Believers and unbelievers have no portion to
share. The temple of God
and the temple of idols have no agreement.
Therefore God’s church cannot and must not be equally yoked together
with those who do not believe in Christ.
The illustration and image of “yoke” was understood vividly by people of
that era. In the agrarian culture the
concept of yoke is taken from the farming method of yoking two animals of the
same kind, built, height, strength, speed, in order to till the land. In order to prepare the land for planting, it
must be tilled properly in order to level the soil surface, to get rid of weeds
as much as possible, to give proper nutrition to the soil that is needed by the
crop to grow, to get rid as much as possible insects, to reduce erosion, and so
on. No one would yoke a cow and a dog
together. No one would yoke a horse and
a donkey together. A cow and a dog are
not equal, a horse and a donkey are also not equal, and so they should not be
equally yoked. To force yoking them
together would spell disaster. Because
one animal is stronger, bigger, faster, than the other. The stronger will drag the weaker. The weaker will slow down the stronger. The tilling work would be jeopardized. In the same way, light can’t be yoked equally
together with darkness. It would be
absurd to force the yoking. For when
light comes, darkness runs away. The two
cannot share the same yoke. Christ and
the devil cannot be equally yoked together.
It is the most absolute absurdity to do so. Christ obeys God the Father because He loves
the Father, the devil rebels against God because he hates God, how can the two
embrace one another. Righteousness is
the opposite of lawlessness, there is no way the two can be combined
together. Obviously those who believe
that God exists cannot and will never agree with those who do not believe in
the existence of God regarding whether God exists or not. To equally yoke them would then be absurd. God’s temple is the place where the true God
dwells, but the temple of idols is devoid of the presence of God. How can the two be put together in the same
spot?
Yet there are churches that compromise
the teaching of God with the teaching of the unbelieving world. Some people would just mix the belief that
God exists with the belief that God doesn’t exist in one fancy and complicated
argument that would just confuse every sane mind. Another would mix God’s holiness with
unethical conducts of the cunning world and then call themselves smart and
wise. Yet another would exploit the name
of God to enslave others especially those who dedicate their life for serving
the Lord. Still another would drive
God’s church into becoming an atheistic church following the gradual degradation
of the world. Not to mention those who
would dare to pick and choose which Bible verses fit the current trend and
throw away those verses that the world frown upon. There are very many that now would just
modify the word of God to fit the demands of the world. Heaven and hell are mixed. Many “Christians” now desire to live in
heaven, but continue to nurture the practice of the life of hell. The spirit of postmodernism dominates the
mind of a lot of churches today. When an
argument is ambiguous they call it deep.
They cheer when a theologian argues that God created the world and that
the world must exist through random happening in a mindless system. The ambiguity does not bother them
anymore. They do not have any problem
with saying ice is cold and hot at the same time. The world never wishes to compromise their
way of life. But since many Christians
are so afraid to be divorced from the world, they rush into compromising their
belief. Because they want to appear
acceptable to the world. Gradually they
become more acceptable to the world.
Until one point they have reached a condition which they are one of the
world. The yoke is then equal in that
they have changed their essence from believing into unbelieving. And this is a tragedy. Because God’s church is given a command to
find the lost, to disciple them into becoming believers, and so they would join
the rank of those who believe, but instead of doing that they act as if they
are lost, and so they learn the way of the world in order to be found and
acknowledged by the world, so that they would join the rank of the unbelievers.
Today hell is unleashed in the
church. The church that is supposed to
be a place where people can foretaste the life of heaven is now becoming a
place where even the most evil deed can be found. The saddest moment is when Christians do not
think that such practice is bad. It is
worse when they think that such arrangement is Godly. Jesus has foreseen it and so He warns His disciples:
2 They will put you out of the
synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is
offering service to God. (John 16:2)
Many of the
churches today have been taken over by the world. No longer are they a place of worshiping the
One True God, but they now are a place of worshiping the idols of the
world. The compromise is massive. The coup
d’état is happening. Look around us
and we will find that too many churches have shifted allegiance from God to the
world.
One practical example of how the way
of the world has infiltrated the life of the church is on how church council
makes decision. God’s church ought to
make decisions based on God’s word.
That’s the proper way. But nowadays
the most popular way of making decision in church council is through
voting. Democracy and its politics dominate
God’s church. The word of God is no
longer consulted. God is ignored. The rule of the game in many churches today
is majority rules. It doesn’t matter whether the decision is
against the word of God or not, what matters is that majority wins the decision. This alone has unleashed all hell in church
life and practice. Some people with
strong political aptitude would coax others in order to secure their votes. Persuasive arguments are being offered in
secret meetings, in dark places, in negotiation of benefits and what’s in it
for me. Coming to the council meeting
the one with agenda has known that he will win the decision based on the votes
he got in the secret meetings. The word
of God has become a relic from the past.
It is abandoned in the dirty corner of the church. The treasure of heaven is forced to retire
while the junk of the world run amok in the church, in council’s decision, in
pastoral ministry, in the pulpit, and so on.
And we have not even touched how the sermon is being preached. Instead of preaching the eternal word of God,
too many pastors have thrown away the Scripture under the bed and preach
psychology, sociology, science, and all the knowledge of the world so as to
keep the worldly people interested. The
demand of the market is to be met as dictated by the business world. Sure it is the way in the business world and
so companies transform itself periodically in order to suit the desire of the
world. And that’s the norm in the
business world, and there is nothing wrong with it. But not in the church. God’s church may utilize the things in the
world, but should never transform itself according to the world’s values and
way of life. Because the church belongs
to God. She does not belong to the
world. She does not belong to the
politicians in the church. God alone
builds His church. And He builds her
according to His design and plan. No one
else may redesign it. No one else may
change her blueprint. Any attempt to do
so is unauthorized. The church belongs
to God, and Him alone.
God’s church is different in
nature. Yes she is called from the
world, but she is not of the world. She
is sent back into the world in order to be salt and light of the world. The operational standard of God’s church
follows the footsteps of Christ, the Head of the church. Against all the values of the world, God’s
church stands. God’s church ought not to
worry about attendance even though statistically the Sunday worship service
attendance keeps declining. She won’t
resort to any marketing strategy in order to gain back the “sale” from the
crowds. But she keeps preaching the word
of God faithfully, counseling people with the wisdom of God’s word, shepherding
them with the pastoral discipline and grace modeled by Christ Jesus, and reaching
out to the lost by proclaiming God’s justice and love on the cross of
Christ. God’s church does not change the
proclamation of God’s word into entertainment in order to satisfy the craving
of the entertainment hungry seekers.
God’s church does not modify the worship of God with Broadway opera or Hollywood movie or Rock concert or Magic. God’s church does not even consider every
thought and incorporate them into her theology no matter what. But God’s church takes every thought captive
in order to subdue them to be obedient to Christ. Any thought that rebels against Christ must
never be entertained. All truth is
indeed God’s truth, but not all knowledge corresponds with the truth. Wisdom is needed to separate between
knowledge that corresponds with the truth and the one that does not. And the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (cf.
Proverbs 1:7). The knowledge of the
world is being screened by the word of God.
If they do not fit God’s word they are thrown away. This is what should be done. Unlike what many churches have done today,
that is when new knowledge comes, they modify the word of God in order to fit
the knowledge of the world.
The failure of the Israelites to
worship the One True God started with the Israelites mingling with the people
of the land. God told Moses specifically
to completely annihilate the people of Canaan.
16 But in the cities of these peoples
that the Lord your God is giving you
for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote
them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and
the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to
all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you
sin against the Lord your God.
(Deuteronomy 20:17)
But they
disobeyed God’s order. Judges 2:1-3
witnesses:
1Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And
he said, “I brought you up from Egypt
and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I
will never break my covenant with you, 2 and
you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break
down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have
done? 3 So now I
say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your
sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”
What Israel did
then, many Churches do today. The point
is not the physical interaction, but it is the learning of the world’s way of
life. The mingling has blurred the
vision of many Churches. Very quickly Israel lost
their faithfulness to the Lord. In one generation,
soon after Joshua and all elders in the time of Joshua died, Israel no
longer worshiped the Lord.
8 And Joshua
the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord,
died at the age of 110 years. 9 And
they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in
the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
10 And all that
generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another
generation after them who did not know the Lord
or the work that he had done for Israel. 11 And
the people of Israel
did what was evil in the sight of the Lord
and served the Baals. 12 And
they abandoned the Lord, the God
of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around
them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They
abandoned the Lord and served the
Baals and the Ashtaroth. (Judges 2:8-13)
Today we
witness something similar. The worship
of God is abandoned. God is no longer
honored. The heart of these churches
belongs to the gods of this world. And
in the name of the Lord they worship idols.
And in the name of the Lord they lead people astray. In the name of the Lord they mix heaven and
hell. And whoever stands in their way
would be persecuted in the name of the Lord.
Until they are no different than any secular organization in the
world. Then their light is snuffed out
and their salt is no longer salty. On
earth they have great power, wealth, and influence. But soon they will regret whatever they have
done. But when they do it would be too
late. Because it happens when God comes
back to judge the whole world. May this
be a reminder to God’s church today not to mix heaven and hell.
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