2 Corinthians 6:16-18, Separate

16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Ben Witherington writes, “The Corinthians, or at least some of the more well-to-do Gentile males, had still not understood or accepted the full social implications of being in Christ.” What does being in Christ mean or look like? It means the transformation of the different social and ethnic/cultural value systems into a unified and new social order found in Christ. One’s religious affiliation must be a single-minded commitment. Paganism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. Now Paul will define what the temple of God is. The word Paul uses for “temple” is not the same term he uses for Christ’s body of believers in 1 Cor 6:19, but he uses the term for the temple sanctuary where God would dwell in the Holy of Holies. We are that temple because Christ dwells in us by his Spirit.

In verses 17 and 18, a string of quotations from Isaiah 52, Ezekiel 20, and 2 Samuel 7 exhorts the Corinthians to sever ties with pagans and to come out of pagan associations that spiritually endanger their salvation. They are to be separate and set apart, which means “holy.” Also of note, Paul, the feminist, changes the 2 Samuel quote to read “sons and daughters” where in the original Hebrew it only referred to “sons.”

Reflection:

While faith is with me, I am blest;

It turns my darkest night to day;

But, while I clasp it to my breast,

I often feel it slide away.

What shall I do if all my love,

My hopes, my toil, are cast away?

And if there be no God above

To hear and bless me when I pray?

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone

Canst my distracted soul relieve.

Forsake it no: it is thine own,

Though weak, yet longing to believe.

– Anne Brontë, 1820-1849