Study in 2 Corinthians

1. Study in 2 Corinthians Presentation 10

2. Holy Separateness Chap 6v13-7v6 Presentation 10

3. Introduction As children many of you will have sung, ‘Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone’. The chorus echoes the call of God to his people throughout history. It is a call to be different. It is a call to live lives of ‘holy separateness’, of being ‘in the world but not of it’. This is the call which Paul makes in 6v14-7v1. To understand the thrust of Paul’s exhortation, we need to retrace our steps a little. In Chap. 5 Paul stressed that the gospel which had been entrusted to him was one of reconciliation. It brought men and women who were estranged from God back into a healthy, living relationship with him. Presentation 10

4. Introduction Having unfolded the glory of his message, Paul warns his hearers against receiving God’s grace in vain 6v1. He was concerned with the growing resistance in Corinth to his message of the cross which found expression in his rejection as God’s messenger. Some in Corinth were poised to abandon the doctrines of grace that had brought them to Christ and exchange them for non apostolic, non biblical doctrines [11v4]. Whenever believers indicate that they do dot want to be all that different from the world around them, they are frustrating God’s grace, seeking to tie its hands. And so Paul called them to action in 6v2 saying, today is a day of grace. It is time to let grace do its work in your life. Presentation 10

5. Introduction Paul holds up his own life as an example of what God’s grace can do in v3-11. When a man is committed to following Christ, and allows the cross to so its separating work within his heart, and is receptive to the grace of God, then the fruit of that will be seen in a life of endurance, integrity and contentment. The Corinthians were denying themselves the opportunity of this kind of growth and wilting because their commitment to Christ was suspect. They were not allowing the cross to cut deeply into their lives. Distancing of themselves from Paul [v12] was a symptom of a far deeper tragedy; they were distancing themselves from God. Hence Paul’s summons to a life of holy separation. Presentation 10

6. Separation The picture Paul uses to argue for the need of holy separation is that of the unequal yoke. Cf. Deut. 22v10 a passage forbidding the Israelites to plough a field with an ox and a donkey harnessed together. Mosaic legislation warns against certain mixtures; two different crops were not to be grown in the same field, two different fibres were not to be woven into the same piece of cloth. Warnings designed to impress upon the minds of God’s people, the need for purity. If they weren’t to be contaminated by pagan societies around them they needed to develop a horror of mixtures. Paul applies the truth of this ceremonial legislation. It is no longer a question of yoking and ox and a donkey together but of yoking the church and the world together. Three important arguments are used against such a union. Presentation 10

7. Separation First, it is incompatible mix. He asks, ‘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? v14-15. The Christian and the non Christian belong to totally different realms. Note the extremes of language, good-evil, light-darkness, Christ-devil. You can’t harmonise these contrasts because they belong to different worlds. The Christian doesn’t belong to the same realm as the non-Christian even although he finds himself living in the same physical world. Therefore, some sort of middle ground is impossible. When you mix black paint with white you get grey. But oil and water won’t mix they’re incompatible. In the same way the Christian cannot negotiate some kind of compromise with the world. Presentation 10

8. Separation Secondly, it is a sacrilegious mix. In v16 we read, ‘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.’ Paul reminds the Corinthians of the nature of the Church. It’s not like a cricket club or some other human institution. It is a supernatural institution indwelt by Gods Spirit. It is a sanctuary not made of bricks and mortar but of living stones- the people of God. Therefore if the church was to try and entangle itself in the pagan world, it would be an action of extreme sacrilege and contempt for God’s sanctuary. Presentation 10

9. Separation I once heard a person describe the burglary of their house. The thing which alarmed her most was not the fact that her belongings had been stolen but that a complete stranger had been in her home, and had rummaged through all her clothes and personal effects. The expression she used was, ‘I feel violated’. How much more does God feel violated, when the church tries to unite itself to a world that is opposed to him and invites it to make itself at home in her midst. Presentation 10

10. Separation Thirdly, it is disobedient. In v17 Paul strings together a number of O.T. quotes, “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” [Isaiah 52v11; Ezek. 20v34,41]. These words were originally addressed to God’s exiled people in Babylon. They were to keep themselves undefiled from their pagan environment. And a remnant, like Daniel and his friends, took this command seriously and were blessed for their obedience. Paul says, ‘the same Biblical command applies to the church. We are living as exiles. This world isn’t our home. We’re a holy people forced by circumstances over which we have no control to live in a profane culture’.God’s standing orders to his people in every age is not to be corrupted by the society of which we are a part. Presentation 10

11. The Application Of Separateness But how does this work out in practice. Cf.1 Cor. 5:9-10, ‘I have written to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people not at all meaning the people of this world who are Immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world’ Paul is not advocating a form of monastic separation from the world. We must mix with unbelieving men and women otherwise how would they be evangelised? What is meant by separateness? Return to the picture of the yoke. To be yoked to somebody means loosing the freedom to act independently. You can’t disassociate yourself from what your partner is doing. You are involved in their actions. Christians should never be so tied to unbelievers that they lose their ability to stand out when necessary. Presentation 10

12. The Application Of Separateness Of course the believer and unbeliever may share a lot in common; eat the same food, breathe the same air, travel on the same train, work in the same office, go to the same barber, share the same hobbies. But the words ‘believer’ and ‘unbeliever’ indicate that they belong to different realms. This distinction cuts deeper than any bond of union. What is of supreme importance for the believer, God himself, is the very thing the unbeliever denies. The more the Christian is in earnest about developing his relationship with God, then the less he can afford intimate relationships with the unbeliever. James Denny writes, ‘the friend whose silence numbs faith, or whose words trouble it is a friend no earnest Christian dare keep.’ Presentation 10

13. The Application Of Separateness One area where holy separation often stumbles is in the choice of a marriage partner. For a Christian to marry a non-Christian is an unequal yoke. Christian women will say; they did not want to be left on the shelf, Christian men were not interested in them. God didn’t provide them with a Christian partner and so they marry a non-Christian. They tell themselves they will bring about their partner’s conversion. Talk about defective theology! As the years pass and their partner remains unconverted they regret their decision. Its sore when the husband takes the children off on fishing trips or to football matches on Sundays, instead of letting them go with her to church. Her freedom to act independently is restricted for she is yoked, and so involved in her partner’s actions. Presentation 10

14. The Application Of Separateness Paul’s teaching has a wider application than mixed marriages. Indeed, mixed marriages may not be the main thing in Paul’s mind in this passage, though such application is clearly pertinent. For mixed marriages are merely symptomatic and illustrative of the failure of the church to take seriously the business of holy separateness. However, we need to remind ourselves of the wider context of this passage. Paul’s apostleship, ministry style and gospel content had been under attack by those who had a quite different and clearly compromised gospel. Presentation 10

15. The Application Of Separateness Paul’s opponents did not preach a gospel of holy separateness but taught that it was legitimate to be like the world imitating it’s methods in order to win the world. In order to be different Paul’s readers would need to reject this ‘rival gospel’. Paul is saying, “These new teachers are attempting to pour the world into the gospel.” They were attempting to mix oil and water. And so Paul rebukes a worldliness that wants to dress Christianity up in the clothes of the world in order to make it less offensive, less exclusive, less unpopular, less different. Paul is saying we need to act differently from the world because we are by nature different from the world. Presentation 10

16. The Application Of Separateness Christianity does not endorse secular culture, it challenges it. We are not called upon to be masters of disguise, chameleons, who blend in making ourselves indistinguishable from our cultural environment. We should stick out like sore thumbs on the cultural landscape as God’s misfits in a world that has rejected him and his standards. Jesus said, ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you? [Lk.6.26]Why? because of our failure to challenge the world and so fulfil our calling to be different. “Let us be as loving and conciliatory as we please, but as long as the world is what it is, the Christian life can only maintain itself in an attitude of protest. Is ours a life of protest?” James Denny Presentation 10

17. The Application Of Separateness This teaching encourages us towards a biblical Puritanism, not a Pharisaic separateness but something which is strong and healthy and essential for our spiritual well-being. “I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth. Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, not clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to consent”. C. S. Lewis to Malcolm Presentation 10

18. The Application Of Separateness You see it is not contact with the world but complicity with it that Paul warns against. This is something we need to grapple with. Sometimes a Christian might think,‘I need a new job because there are no other Christians in my office.’ But that in itself is never a valid reason for looking for another job and when Christian s behave in this way not only do they ensure that the cause of the gospel loses credibility in the eyes of the world but that opportunity for on-going Christian witness is removed from a needy environment. It is not contact but complicity with the world we need to be on our guard against. Presentation 10

19. Conclusion Incentive for living a life of holy seperateness is found in v16band v18. “I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people... .I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” The promise in v16 was originally made to Israel after her deliverance from Egypt. It was held out as the reward for a life of obedience and holy separateness. Verse 18is based on God’s promise to David’s descendants in 2 Sam.7v14. The context is the blessings of obedience. Sadly, Solomon failed to live a life of separateness and his pagan wives were responsible for introducing idolatrous worship to Israel. Solomon forfeited the blessing that he would otherwise have enjoyed. Presentation 10

20. Conclusion The church is the spiritual heir to the promises made to Israel and David. When we live holy lives then God will be increasingly at home within us. God can feel relaxed and comfortable. Paul describes the wonderful degree of intimate fellowship that the Father has with those who have made him welcome. God in turn is able to give himself unreservedly to them. What an incentive to live lives of holy separateness. We either make the world at home in our hearts or we make God at home. We are either yoked to Christ or to the world. ‘Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.’ Presentation 10