Title: 13
Author: Joe G
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: GDC

© 2005 Joe Griffin		05-06-19-B.CC02-460 /

Paul’s Parenetic Warnings against Being Unequally Yoked, 2 Cor 6:14-17; the Indwelling of the Believer by the Trinity; the Zeitgeist of Corinth in 1 a.d.

13)	Parenetic refers to warnings and disapproval given as friendly earnest advice against perceived error and in this case these units show conflicts of interests in spiritually mixed marriages:
2 Corinthians 6:14 -	Stop becoming unequally bound together [ ˜terozugšw, heterozugeō ] with unbelievers [ ¥pistoj, apistos: faithless ]; for what partnership has righteousness  with lawlessness [ ¢nom…a, anomia: lawless; no knowledge of divine policy ], or what fellowship has light with darkness [ skÒtoj, skotos: spiritually dead ]?
1.	The word for unequally bound together is the compound of heteros which means “another of a different kind” with zugos, “to be bound together.”
2.	This is the word used in the Septuagint for the Hebrew word ub^r* rava‘ found in Leviticus 19:19a, “You shall not breed together two kinds of cattle.”
3.	The concept here is that although both are Homo sapiens, a believer is not to procreate with an unbeliever.  Since marriage is the biblically approved environment for sex then the implication here is that a believer should not become bound to an unbeliever in marriage.
4.	Examples follow that show obvious contrasts between believers and unbelievers which amplify reasons these two should certainly not marry one another and in some cases the believer is advised to even separate socially from such people.
5.	The examples given in verse 14 are (1) the righteous believer should not become united with the lawless unbeliever, and (2) the light, the believer who is in fellowship with God (1 John 1:7) must not become united with darkness, the unbeliever who is in status quo spiritual death (John 3:19).
2 Corinthians 6:15 -	And what harmony has Christ with Beliar [ beli£r, Beliar: Lucifer ], or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever [ ¥pistoj, apistos: faithless ]?
1.	The word harmony is sumfènhsij, sumphōnēsis which refers to the two parties being in agreement with each other.  The idea of harmony comes from a derivative sumfwn…a, sumphōnia which refers to the harmony of sounds of concert instruments.  Sumphōnēsis refers to harmony of thought between two people who agree.
2.	Paul’s next rhetorical question asks if there is harmony of thought between Christ and Beliar.  Beliar is capitalized—Beli£r—as if it were a person but it is really taken from the Hebrew word for worthlessness: lu^Y^l!B= beliyya‛al.
3-	The word is not treated as a proper name by the Septuagint translators of the Old Testament, but it does appear in its Greek form as a name for the devil in the Dead Seas Scrolls and that is Paul’s use here.
4.	The worthless mind produces worthless acts.  The thinking of Christ is not in harmony with the thinking of Lucifer.  The Lord’s thoughts are righteous while those of Lucifer are founded on the lie. 
5.	We are to develop an inventory of ideas based on the righteous standards of the thinking of Christ whereas the unbeliever is deceived into believing the lies promoted by the Dark Side.
6.	Therefore what does the believer have in common with the unbeliever?  Nothing!  The destiny of the believer is eternal life in resurrection body while the destiny of the unbeliever is the lake of fire and eternal punishment.
7.	If Jesus Christ has no harmony with His chief adversary you won’t have any harmony with one of Lucifer’s minions either.
8.	In addition, the believer’s human body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) whereas for the unbeliever, the body without the spirit is dead (James 2:26).  Therefore …
2 Corinthians 6:16 -	What agreement has the temple of God with idols [ e‡dwlon, eidōlon: idols located in the heathen temples of Corinth ]?  For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
1.	One of the mystery doctrines of the Church Age is the permanent indwelling of the Godhead.  Each Member of the Trinity indwells the believer at the moment of salvation.
2.	The Holy Spirit indwells the body of the believer in order to make it into a temple for the indwelling of God the Father and God the Son.
1 Corinthians 3:16 -	Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 6:19 -	Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
3.	In the dispensation of Israel the Lord’s abode on earth was first in the Tabernacle and then the Temple.
4.	In the Church Age the believer’s body is made into a temple for the residence of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory.
5.	The indwelling of Jesus Christ in the temple of the believer’s body is said to be one of the mystery doctrines of the Church Age in:
Colossians 1:26 -		The mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints,
v. 27 -	to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
6.	In addition to 2 Corinthians 6:16b the indwelling of God the Father is noted in:
Ephesians 4:6 -	There is one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
7.	Therefore, the believer’s body is a temple which hosts the indwelling of the three Persons of the Trinity.  It is not in agreement with the literal temples of unbelievers which host idols as was the case in Corinth.
8.	And to expand on this, the unbeliever hosts the idolatrous ideas contained in the doctrines of demons within his soul and in some cases the bodies of unbelievers are inhabited by the very demons themselves. 
9.	From this series of parenetic rhetorical questions of contrast Paul issues the following commands of prohibition:
2 Corinthians 6:17 -	“Therefore, once and for all come out from [ aorist active imperative of ™xšrcomai plus šk, exerchomai ek  ] among them [ apistos, anomia, skotos, Beliar, apistos, eidōlon ] and once and for all be separate” [ aorist middle imperative of ¢for…zw, aphorizō ], says the Lord, “and do not touch [ ¤ptw, haptō ] what is unclean; and I will strongly embrace you.”
		10.	Paul concludes his warnings by issuing two final commands.  The first is found in verse 14: “Stop becoming unequally bound together with unbelievers” who are defined in the following five rhetorical questions, each demanding a negative answer.
		11.	After reminding these believers that their bodies are a temple that is indwelt by all three members of the Trinity, he concludes with two final mandates: (1) to come out from among the unbelievers which means to stop taking their bodily temples into the unbelievers’ pagan temples and (2) to separate themselves from these people who are “evil associates” who have corrupted their “good norms and standards.”
		12.	These was Paul’s instructions to a group of believers who were involved in a city that sadly reminds us of the lifestyle of Solomon some 900 years before and forecasts the Zeitgeist that is fast developing in the United States.  Details are provided by:
Youngblood, Ronald F. (gen. ed.).  Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary.  (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1986), 297-99:
Corinth—ancient Greece’s most important trade city.  At Corinth the apostle Paul established a flourishing church, made up of a cross section of the worldly minded people who had flocked to Corinth to participate in the gambling, legalized temple prostitution, business adventures, and amusements available in a first-century navy town.  (p. 297)
In 146 b.c. invading Roman armies destroyed Corinth, killing the men and enslaving the women and children.  Only a token settlement remained until 44 b.c., when Julius Caesar ordered the city rebuilt.  Not only did he restore it as the capital city of the Roman Province of Achaia \a‑kā' ya\ ; he also repopulated it with freed Italians and slaves from every nation.  Soon the merchants flocked back to Corinth, too.  (pp. 297-98)
The city soon became a melting pot for the approximately 500,000 people who lived there at the time of Paul’s arrival.  Merchants and sailors, anxious to work the docks, migrated to Corinth.  Professional gamblers and athletes, betting on the Isthmian games, took up residence.  Slaves, sometimes freed but with no place to go, roamed the streets day and night.  And prostitutes (both male and female) were abundant.  People from Rome, the rest of Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor—indeed, all of the Mediterranean world—relished the lack of standards and freedom of thought that prevailed in the city.
These were the people who eventually made up the Corinthian church.  They had to learn to live together in harmony, although their national, social, economic, and religious backgrounds were very different.
The pulse of Corinth was the city itself, enclosed by walls six miles in circumference.  Most of the daily business was conducted in the marble-paved agora, or marketplace, in the central part of the city.  (p. 298)
South of the marketplace were the butcher stalls (m£kellon, makellon: food or “meat market”) that Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10:25.  Corinthians purchased their meat from these stalls.  The meat was often dedicated to pagan idols before being sold.  This presented a cultural problem for the Christians in Corinth (1 Corinthians 8).
Rising 1,500 feet above the city itself and to the south is the Acrocorinth (the city’s high point).  The infamous Temple of Aphrodite (or Venus) was located on top of this fortified hill.  This pagan temple and its 1,000 “religious” prostitutes poisoned the city’s culture and morals.  For this reason, the apostle Paul sometimes had to deal harshly with the converts in the Corinthian church.  Most of the Corinthians had lived in this godless society all their lives, and the idea of tolerating even incest had not seemed so terrible to them (1 Corinthians 5).  (p. 299)

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