Right and Wrong Yokes

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1

Good morning! Today we continue our series on 2 Corinthians by looking at what may be the most well-known passage from the entire book. Unfortunately, I also believe this passage has been misused, used to mean something than other what was intended, more than perhaps any passage in this book as well. So today I want to look at it carefully and discern the context and the correct Biblical meaning of this passage, and then we will talk about how it applies to our lives. So here is the first part of the passage, the portion that is so frequently quoted:

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? – 2 Corinthians 6:14-16a

Who is Paul talking to? He is talking to Christian believers; the book of 2 Corinthians begins with Paul saying after introducing himself and Timothy, “To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He is speaking to believers.

What does he say? “Believers, don’t be yoked together with unbelievers.” He then goes on to show that there is huge difference between believers and unbelievers. He makes the comparison between righteousness and wickedness; these are indeed opposites. He doesn’t use righteousness and “pretty-goodness,” or “pretty-goodness” and wickedness; he uses righteousness and wickedness, the two extremes. Then he uses light and darkness; not light and gray, or gray and dark, but light and darkness.

Then he uses Christ and Belial. Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. Recall what anointing was all about in the Old Testament; a prophet would anoint the next person to be king. It was symbolic of the fact that God Himself had chosen this person for this royal purpose. The anointed person in the Old Testament was someone for whom you could say God had most favored, most blessed. This is someone highly valued by God, selected for a most special purpose. And of course Jesus was the ultimate Anointed One; no one was ever more highly valued – being God Himself, being God’s one and only Son, whom He loved, Jesus was the Anointed One of anointed ones, the Christ beyond all other christs.

But what about Belial? Who is Belial? The Greek word Belial comes from Hebrew, and it means Satan. The etymology of the word is not clear, but every possibility adds deeper meaning to the word; it would appear that the word is in fact a form of pun, a play on words. This is something very common in the Old Testament; over and over, the names of people and places have meaning that reveal something about their nature.

The Hebrew Beli Yail means worthless, and so the comparison here is between the infinitely valued Anointed One and the worthless one. Now, you have probably been taught that it is not proper to call people names, but I think we can make an exception for Satan. I cannot think of a better put-down for him than the worthless one, Belial.

The Hebrew Beli Al or Beli Yaal means one who does not rise, and there is certainly in that a clear distinction between the risen Christ and the one who wishes to pretend to be Him, the one who wishes to be worshiped like Him, but who has not risen for anyone, who has not sacrificed himself for anyone. He tries to appear as an angel of light, but he is the great pretender, the great fake, he is the one who does not, and will not, rise.

And if all this weren’t enough, the Hebrew Beli Ol (different spelling in Hebrew) means, of all things, the yokeless one. He is the one who is wild, unyoked, untrained, unusable, of no value in planting or harvesting. He won’t pull a plow. What a comparison to Christ, who speaks of His yoke, in Matthew, saying in Matthew 11:29-30, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." The yoke is a sign of being a servant. Jesus was the ultimate servant, serving even with His life; Satan, in contrast, is servant to no one; he only wants people to serve him.

So what harmony is there between Christ and Belial? None!

And then the passage, clearly continuing in the same pattern, compares believers and unbelievers. What do they have in common? The passage expects the reader to answer, “None!”

We will talk more about this in a little while. Right now I am just going through the passage, helping us to see the big picture.

The final comparison is between the Temple of God and idols. Do idols have any place in the Temple of God? Of course not! To worship anything other than God is idolatry. And so, all of this is to expand upon the opening thought: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.

Now, before we go deeper into understanding what this passage really means, how it applies to us, and so on, I should point out that Paul’s phrasing would have immediately brought an Old Testament verse to mind among those Corinthians who had a Jewish background. The Greek for yoked together is heterozugeo. Notice the prefix, hetero. What does this mean? It means different. The opposite is homo, which means same. So heterozugeo means differently zugeo’d, that is, differently yoked, as in trying to put two different kinds of animals together on a yoke designed for two animals to pull a plow. And so to the Jewish believer, this would immediately bring to mind a verse from Deuteronomy,

Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. – Deuteronomy 22:10

Now, as I looked around for pictures to illustrate our verses this week, I had a bit of struggle trying to come up with something that illustrated this particular verse.

I found this first picture, and yes, the animals are different colors, but unequally yoked? Not really.


Then I found this next picture, but it was hard to see. Is that a donkey on the left? I can’t quite tell. Does it have horns? I wasn’t too impressed with this.


Then I came up with this next picture. Now that’s definitely a donkey on the right, and that’s some kind of cow or oxen on the left. Not bad.


But I decided to keep going, and came up with the next picture. Clever, isn’t it? Do you get it? It’s like comparing apples and oranges! Very clever! I like it.


But I kept looking, and came up with the next picture. Do you get it? The eggs are unequally yolked! OK, we seem to be moving off of topic.


The final illustration is probably my favorite. I like this picture because it illustrates that there is a problem when things are unequally yoked. It doesn’t work out well. Donkeys and oxen don’t get along well. It looks like a fight is about to break out. And that is a good picture for our verse in 2 Corinthians. This is the kind of picture we should have.

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? – 2 Corinthians 6:14-16a

Are righteousness and wickedness going to get along together? Will they agree to do the same task? What about light and darkness (speaking symbolically here)? What about Christ and Belial, Jesus and Satan – will they work together? No! They can’t work together, because they are totally different, just like our ox and donkey in the illustration.

But what does it mean? Do not be yoked together with unbelievers – what does that mean exactly? What are supposed to do? What are we not supposed to do? This is pretty important, isn’t it? With all these comparisons it is obvious that this is a big deal. We don’t want to be guilty of ignoring this verse. But at the same time, we don’t want to misinterpret it. We don’t want to read something into this text that isn’t there. We don’t want to go off the deep end, misusing this verse to achieve our (or someone else’s) secret agenda. What does it mean?

Well, one possible meaning is that this verse means to have no dealings, no interactions at all, with unbelievers. Do you want to buy a home? You need to use a Christian real estate agent. And when you move, you better first make sure that you have Christian neighbors. What if one moves out and an unbeliever moves in? Well, you’ll have to call your Christian real estate agent again and move.

Do you want to buy a car? You need a Christian car dealer. Groceries? A Christian checker. Insurance? A Christian insurance agent. You want to go to college? If you go to a non-Christian college, you better make sure that you only take classes from Christian teachers. Even if you go to a Christian college, you better ask just each teacher just to be safe. Banking? Investing for retirement? Well, good luck with those. Mutual funds are definitely out. Probably the only thing that will do is to stuff your mattress (bought at a Christian furniture store, of course).

We laugh at this, but historically this was the kind of thinking that led to monasticism, becoming monks. It’s impossible to avoid all dealings with unbelievers, so the only alternative is to retreat into a community, ideally a self-sustaining community, that only contains like-minded believers like you. Then at last you can be sure not to be yoked together with unbelievers.

The only problem with this approach is that it totally negates the Great Commission! What happened to going out and sharing the gospel with everyone? Now, to see that this interpretation cannot be right, let’s look at context. The most natural place to look is elsewhere in 1 and 2 Corinthians. Both of these letters were written to the same people, and they received the second letter after they received the first, so to them, the greatest context they had was what Paul wrote in I Corinthians.

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. – 1 Corinthians 9:19-22

Hopefully this is pretty clear. Are these the words of someone who thinks you should avoid all contact with unbelievers? Of course not! Paul doesn’t just have contact, he becomes like them. He totally enters their world so as to reach out to them. Now here is another verse:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people… - 1 Corinthians 5:9

Aha, you say? See, don’t even associate with them! Well, aha back! Look at the rest of the verse:

I have written 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. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. – 1 Corinthians 5:9-11

You see, he was only talking about people who call themselves believers but don’t show any signs of repentance. In fact, based on the context elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, Paul is talking about people who call themselves believers but actually boast in their wickedness.

So my point here is that we cannot say that 2 Corinthians 6:14 means that we are to never associate or do any business with unbelievers. You don’t need to use a Christian realtor. You don’t need a Christian insurance agent. You don’t need a Christian grocer and a Christian furniture store for your mattress. You don’t have to move if your neighbors aren’t Christian.

Now, I’m not saying you cannot seek out Christians for any of your business dealings. For some things, such as who your checker is at the grocery store, I am sure it doesn’t matter. But for financial advice, insurance, etc., you do want to find someone who thinks like you do, who shares your values, and whom you can trust. If you already know someone like this, and they are a believer, great! My point here is that this is not what this passage is about. Paul is not commanding you, God is not commanding you, to avoid all business with unbelievers.

So what is this passage about? Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. A second thought, a common thought, is that this passage is talking about marriage. In this case, it would mean that if you were already married when you became a Christian, you then should divorce your wife or husband and find a nice Christian spouse. Is that what this passage is saying?

Again, we need to look at context. Again, we can find it right in I Corinthians.

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. – 1 Corinthians 7:12-13

A passage cannot get much clearer than that. Now I realize that some are saying that the “I, not the Lord,” means that this is just Paul’s opinion. When I first heard a teaching on this, this was how it was explained to me. But I don’t think this anymore. I think all Paul is saying is that these are his words, as opposed to earlier words, where he is directly quoting Christ. But Paul’s word is Scripture, it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Are we really going to argue that we have the freedom to ignore all of the words of Paul that are not direct quotes of Christ? If this is the case, why are we spending months studying 2 Corinthians? No, I Timothy 3:16-17 says: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Yes, this verse is primarily referring to the Old Testament scriptures, but 2 Peter 3:16 refers to Paul’s writings as Scripture, and we have plenty of written evidence that throughout church history that the New Testament books have been believed to be fully and completely inspired and God-breathed.

Coming back to our 1 Corinthians 7 passage, there is no reason that when Paul says, “I, not the Lord,” that he means anything more by it than what he says. He never says that this is just an opinion; that is us reading into the text. The natural way to understand this is quite literally; he is simply separating what he says from words he has quoted from Christ. And again, the point: no, we aren’t being commanded to leave a spouse when we become believers and we have an unbelieving spouse.

So our 2 Corithians 6 passage does not mean we are not to have any dealings with unbelievers, and it does not mean that we are supposed to divorce our spouses when we become believers. What does it then mean?

Again, the answer is found in context. What were the Corinthians like? Do you remember from our previous messages in this series? They were confused. They had come to doubt Paul. They were mixing up the gospel. They were infiltrated by false teachers. Some of these teachers were getting them to go back to relying on the law for salvation or sanctification. Some of these teachers said immorality was fine. Some of these teachers were mixing in pagan practices and beliefs with the Christian faith.

At the core, what was the Corinthians’ problem? Was their problem outward or inward? It was inward. Their core beliefs were shaky. They were forgetting what they had first believed. They were finding it difficult to separate truth from falsehood. And why was this happening? Because they were listening to spiritual ideas and spiritual thoughts from just anyone, including false teachers, including those who were not believers, and trying, in their own strength, by their own reasoning, their own force of will, to put it all together.

Understand that if they had not done this, if instead they had held fast to the teachings Paul had brought them and built into them when he lived with them for that year-and-a-half he was with them, this wouldn’t have happened. How could it have happened if they didn’t entertain all these false, competing ideas? The churches in those other cities where the people did not do this did not suffer all of the problems that the Corinthians suffered.

Listen again to the passage:

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? – 2 Corinthians. 6:14-16a

What does it mean to be yoked with unbelievers? It means to let their beliefs on spiritual matters begin to sway you. It means to allow the world to become the primary voice, or even just a strong secondary voice, into your life. It means to spend more time and energy letting the world speak spiritual things to you, through movies and books and TV and the internet and conversations with friends, than Scripture. To be yoked together with them means to go where they are going, evolve where they are evolving, learn from where they are learning, be filled from what they are being filled from.

I’m not saying you can’t have unbelieving friends, even good friends. I’m not saying you can’t watch TV or the internet. I’m saying that you need to guard yourself against becoming yoked. They are all going somewhere. Satan, Belial, the worthless one, the one who does not rise, the one who will not be yoked with Christ (remember, he was yoked with God, once, but cast off that yoke to go where he wanted to go), Satan is the prince of this world, and he is leading this world. To be yoked with unbelievers is to be yoked with him. The unbelievers, most of them, have no idea where they are going. They think they are unyoked, that they are free. But they are wrong. If we yoke ourselves with him, we will become like the Corinthians, confused, and wandering, vulnerable, and lost.

And I am sad to say that this is true for so many people in this country who call themselves Christians. They don’t have a Christian worldview. Poll after poll shows the stark reality of this. They have allowed themselves to become yoked with unbelievers. Their worldview is a mix of things; they are just like the Corinthians. This is our world, our culture. We need to understand this.

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 6:16b-18

"For we are the temple of the living God." I am going to share on this thought in detail next week. But understand – when we yoke ourselves with unbelievers, when we go where they go, spiritually, it is tragic. It is a tragedy. Why? Because we have forgotten who we are! We have forgotten whose we are. We have forgotten what Christ has done to redeem us. Yes, we have the promise of eternal salvation, but God intends for us to experience a victorious spiritual life in Christ now. We are the temple of the living God! He dwells in us; His Spirit; His glory; His majesty. We shouldn’t be under the heavy yoke of the unbelieving world but the light, easy, joyous yoke of Christ. Paul combines a number of Old Testament passages together to tell us what to do – come out from under that yoke! Be separate! This is not physical isolation, but spiritual separation. Let the world speak into your heart less, and let the Word speak into your heart more.

Enter or re-enter into relationship with Him. He is your Father, your perfect, loving, warm, relational Father. If He doesn’t seem like that to you, it is not because He is distant from you, but because you are distant from Him. It is because you have been under the wrong yoke, a yoke that is leading you further and further away from Him. Cast off that yoke, and come to Him.

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. – 2 Corinthians 7:1

Purify. I love that word! In Greek it is katharizo, to make clean, to cleanse. We get the word cauterize from it. To cauterize a wound is to apply great heat at a point of bleeding so as to stop the bleeding. The heat also kills germs and prevents infection. How do we cauterize ourselves from things that contaminate us? We burn them; we cut them off; we stop the bleeding.

Don’t be thrown into a works mentality by that part about perfecting holiness. It doesn’t say to perfect holiness by being strong or by doing it with strong self-effort. It says it happens out of reverence, love, desire, even a holy fear, an awe, of God. We need to cauterize ourselves from those things that put us in that yoke that walks away from Christ, but we need to do it for the right reasons – not to be holy for holy’s sake, but because we desire to feed our love for God, because we desire to know the Father’s love, because we want to be overwhelmed by it, by Him.

Spend some time now listening to the Lord. Ask the Lord – are there things, things against which there is no law, but nevertheless are like yokes, drawing your heart away from Him? Is it something you do in the morning instead of spending time with Him? Reading a newspaper, or watching TV, or getting on the Internet? What is drawing your heart and your mind away from Him? If the Lord is leading you now, commit to Him that you will cauterize yourself from it this coming week. If there is nothing specific, ask the Lord to show you this week what is drawing you away from Him. "I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Let Him in.