The Corinthians had a tendency to respond to Paul's teachings by first resisting them and then going overboard in applying them inappropriately. They had done this in dealing with the incestuous man (1 Cor. 5). Consequently Paul immediately explained what he did not mean by his appeal so his readers would not become dangerously openhearted to all people as well as to himself. This section of text summarizes 1 Corinthians 10:1-22 where Paul had previously warned the Corinthians about idolatry.
"Paul is quite capable of digressing, and it may be argued that while he is pleading for mutual openheartedness he reflects that the reason for the restraint which he deprecates on his readers' part is their uneasy awareness that they have not made the complete break with idolatrous associations which he had earlier urged upon them (1 C. 10.14ff.); hence this exhortation."203
6:14-16a Some of the Corinthians were not openhearted toward Paul because they were doing things that they knew he disapproved of. This evidently included maintaining inappropriate relationships with unbelievers.204
Paul was not saying that Christians should break off all association with unbelievers (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9-10; 10:27). He had previously encouraged the saved partner in a mixed marriage to maintain the marriage relationship as long as possible (1 Cor. 7:12-16). He had also urged his fellow Christians as ambassadors of Christ to evengelize the lost (5:20). Rather Paul commanded that Christians form no binding interpersonal relationships with non-Christians that resulted in their spiritual defilement. This is an extension to human beings of the principle underlying the prohibition against breeding or yoking an ox and a donkey together in Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:10. Such alliances can prevent the Christian from living a consistently obedient Christian life. The fulfillment of God's will must be primary for a believer. Obviously some relationships with pagans do not pose a threat to our faithfulness to God. Where they do the Christian must maintain his or her relationship with Christ even it if means forfeiting relationship with unbelievers.205
Paul set forth the folly of such behavior by pointing out five contrasts. Each one expects a negative answer. All of them point out the incompatibility and incongruity of Christian discipleship and heathenism. Paul supported the last of these with quotations from the Old Testament (vv. 16b-18).
Christians should follow God's will that results in righteous behavior, but pagans have no regard for God's laws. Christians are children of the light, but unbelievers are children of darkness (cf. Col. 1:13). Beliel (v. 15) is the personification of evil (cf. Deut. 13:13; 2 Sam. 22:5-6), and he is the antithesis of Christ. Beliel was a recognized name for Satan in Paul's day.206Believers have little in common with unbelievers when it comes to things that are peculiar to unbelievers. Obviously we share many things, such as food, clothing, houses, sun, air, and rain. Christians who are temples of the living God are quite different from the heathen who worship idols in temples made with hands.207
6:16b The main reason for Paul's prohibition is that Christians belong to Christ. We already have a binding relationship with Him, and we must not be unfaithful to Him by going after another.
Paul quoted several Old Testament passages to support his contention. The first is a gracious promise that God gave the Israelites in the wilderness with the consequence that they were to be holy (Lev. 26:11-12; cf. Exod. 25:8; 29:45). Paul had taught the Corinthians that they were the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). Therefore it was only appropriate that they be set apart to God too since He inhabited them.
The second quotation is from Exodus 6:7 and Leviticus 26:12 (cf. Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27). The essential relationship between God and the people that He has chosen for special blessing requires that those so blessed remain faithful to Him.
"In our present passage Paul's language indicates the corporate figure, but the responsibility of the individual to keep himself pure is both implicit and later emphasized (7:1)."208
6:17 Third, Paul quoted from Isaiah 52:11 where God called His people to separate (depart) from Babylon and its idolatry. He applied this to the Corinthian situation in which unbelievers practiced idolatry. Note that the contexts both in Isaiah and here have nothing to do with separation because of doctrinal differences between Christians. Both passages are speaking about pagan idolatry. The promise of fellowship with Himself for separation (Ezek. 20:34, 41) should motivate us to be obedient.
"There was a grave danger that, through carelessness and compromise, the Corinthian believers would be carried away, as it were, into a Babylonian captivity of the soul."209
6:18 This final mosaic of quotations (2 Sam. 7:14, 27; Isa. 43:6) advances the revelation concerning the Christian's relationship to God. He is not only our God (v. 16) who is holy (v. 17), but He is our Father. God has a right to demand loyal allegiance from His children. Since He is the Almighty, we must remember that to disregard His word means to incur divine discipline. Paul compared the church here first to a temple (v. 17) and then to a family (v. 18).
7:1 Having the promises of intimate fellowship with God for obedience Christians should avoid certain probable sources of spiritual contamination. These sources of contamination may be external or internal, in relation to other people or in relation to God. "Flesh (or body, Gr. sarx) and spirit"here is a figure (merism) for the whole person (cf. 5:9; 1 Cor. 7:34). Instead we should press on in our continual struggle against sin fearing God (cf. 5:11).
"Paul is probably implying that the Corinthians had become defiled, perhaps by occasionally sharing meals at idol-shrines or by continuing to attend festivals or ceremonies in pagan temples (cf. 1 Cor. 8:10; 10:14-22), or even by maintaining their membership in some local pagan cult. If they made a clean break (cf. katharisomen, aorist) with pagan life in any and every form, they would be bringing their holiness nearer completion by this proof of their reverence for God."210
"This passage [6:14-7:1] is a specific call for separation from the temple cults of Corinth, in direct continuity with the holiness-separation theme of 1 Corinthians, and is located here as the climax of the apologia for Paul's apostolate."211
