The Incompatibility Between Believers and Unbelievers Part 3

2Co 6:14  Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?
2Co 6:15  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
2Co 6:16  Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? 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.
2Co 6:17  "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.
2Co 6:18  "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

John MacArthur notes (excerpts) from his commentary on 2 Corinthians 6:

This question sums up the first three, reinforcing the obvious truth that a believer has no common spiritual ground with an unbeliever. Faith has nothing in common with unbelief; the faithful and the faithless are committed to mutually exclusive ideologies and energized by opposing powers. As God asked in His maxim to wayward Israel, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3 NKJV).

All false religion is in the final analysis “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1; cf. Deut. 32:17; Rev. 9:20) and is virulently hostile to the true God. There can be no agreement between the temple of God and idols. Christianity is incompatible with every form of false religion.

The Old Testament graphically depicts the disastrous consequences of attempting to mingle idolatry with the worship of the true God. It is instructive to read 2 Kings 21:1–9, which describes the reign of Manasseh, the most wicked of Judah’s kings...

The phrase “abominations of the nations” refers to the idolatry Manasseh brought back into Judah. Specifically, “he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.” Even worse, Manasseh “built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ‘In Jerusalem I will put My name.'..... That blasphemous insult to God provoked His devastating judgment on the nation...

The message was clear: The true God tolerates no rivals. He will not share billing with false gods...

Such a situation was intolerable to God, who declared in verse 6, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary?” Rather than share His own sanctuary with pagan idols, God chose to abandon it....

Today believers, both individually (1 Cor. 6:19) and collectively (1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:22), are the temple of the living God. The phrase the living God, appearing more than two dozen times in Scripture (e.g., 2 Cor. 3:3; Rom. 9:26; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:15; 4:10), contrasts Him with the dead idols of false religion....As the temple of God, the people of His covenant, His precious possession, and His dwelling place, believers cannot join forces with false religion. To be so unequally yoked for the purpose of serving God has always been unacceptable and blasphemous.

To be bound together with unbelievers is not only foolish and irreverent, but it also disobeys God’s explicit command, expressed in the two imperative verbs translated come out and be separate. Therefore links the command in this verse with the principle expressed in verse 16. As those personally indwelt by the living God, believers are to avoid any joint spiritual effort with unbelievers. As the temple of the living God, they must not be linked for the cause of the advancement of divine truth with any form of false religion.

The thought in this verse hearkens back to Isaiah 52, where God commanded His people, “Depart, depart, go out from there, touch nothing unclean; go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord” (v. 11; cf. Rev 18:4). Christians, like Israel at the time of her salvation (vv. Isa. 52:7–10), must make a clean break with all false religion to avoid its contaminating influence (cf. 2 Tim. 2:16–17). Paul repeated this principle in Ephesians 5:5–11...

The “children of Light” must “not be partakers” with the “sons of disobedience.” They must be concerned with “pleasing … the Lord,” not sinful men. To that end, they must “not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” The church’s goal is not to make unbelievers feel comfortable and nonthreatened. On the contrary, it is to make them feel uncomfortable with their sins and threatened by God’s judgment and the terrors of hell that they face.

It has always been God’s will for His people to be distinct from unbelievers. In Leviticus 20:24, 26 God said to Israel, “I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.… Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” In the New Testament Peter reiterated that principle, exhorting believers,  “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ ” (1 Peter 1:14–16).

Strengthening the point that failing to separate from unbelievers is disobedience is the third command in this verse, Do not touch what is unclean. Touch is from haptō and refers to a harmful touch, as in 1 John 5:18. Believers are not to be involved with unclean, false teaching. They are to “save [those trapped in false religions], snatching them out of the fire … hating even the garment polluted by the flesh” (Jude 23). But the church cannot worship, evangelize, or minister with those who pervert or reject the truth of the Word of God....

The devastating result of Solomon’s compromise with unbelievers was the division of his kingdom....Any alliance with the unsaved is disobedience that defiles and therefore interrupts believers’ communion with their Father, forfeiting His blessing.

End quote.

MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (p. 256). Chicago: Moody Publishers.

Part 1 and Part 2.