LINES OF LOYALTY

We Christians dare not compromise our faith by making unholy alliances with the idols of our culture. Idolatry tests loyalty. Paul writes, "Wherefore, come out from the middle of them and be separate, says the Lord. And don't touch what is unclean and I will welcome you" (2 Cor. 6:17). There are three commands followed by a promise. The commands are 1) come out, 2) be separate, and 3) don't touch. The promise is a warm reception from God when we obey his demands for loyalty. 

Paul cites the LXX version of Isaiah 52:11 to make his point. The final line comes from Ezekiel 20:34/41 where God promises to gather His people to Him when they leave the pagan world of idolatry (Archer and Chirichigno, OT Quotations in the NT, 118-119). Paul draws a parallel between Christians in his day and Israel during the days of Isaiah and Ezekiel. The prophets picture a time when God restores His people after their years of living under the idolatrous systems of Assyria and Babylon. God proclaims the good news of God's salvation. "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news ... and says "Your God reigns" (Isaiah 52:7). In that day, they were to get out of the pagan world of idolatry without touching anything unclean because they were the carriers of God's holy vessels.

The Corinthian Christians lived under the Roman patronage system which pressured ambitious believers to build alliances with influential idolaters in order to climb the social ladder of success (Chow, "Patronage in Roman Corinth," in Paul and Empire, edited by Horsley, 104-125). A businessman would align himself with a wealthy patron who controlled the contracts in his world. The wealthy patron was in turn aligned with a patron god and the temple devoted to that god. Maintaining membership in that temple cult was the key to success in the political and economic world of Corinth - the way to power and prestige. A businessman showed his loyalty by attending ceremonies related to birth, death, and marriage in the temple of the patron god of his business.

"Temples were the restaurants of antiquity" (Witherington, Conflict & Community in Corinth, 188). The temples had dining rooms where the wealthy and powerful held their major social events. There were two stages to these feasts. The first stage was the "symposium" which combined a banquet with political speeches. Party loyalty was combined with pagan idolatry. The second stage was the "convivia," essentially a Roman drinking party (Witherington, 191ff). Participation in such events opened the door to success in Corinth, and many Christians were compromising their faith by pledging loyalty to the patron gods of politics and money in order to achieve affluence and influence.

Come out and be separated from such unholy alliances even if it costs your career! The verb "be separate" (ἀφορίσθητε) means to exclude or excommunicate one's self, but in the passive (as here) it can be translated "be separate" (BDAG, 127). We are not even to touch (ἅπτεσθε) anything unclean. The verb can mean to eat anything unclean (BDAG, 102) which fits the context of a feast. The word "unclean" (ἀκαθάρτου) refers to anything connected to idolatry because the idols pollute whatever they touch (BDAG, 29). As Christians, we must not enter into any relationship which endangers our loyalty to Christ. The relationships may seem benign at first but later create a dependency that draws us away from our Lord.

God promises to welcome us when we avoid such alliances. The "and" (κἀγὼ) can be translated "and I in turn" or "and I for my part" (BDAG, 386). Our part is to obey Him. His part is to welcome us. The verb is future tense (εἰσδέξομαι) and means to take in, receive or welcome as a guest (BDAG, 232). We must draw sharp lines of loyalty between the world's idols and our Lord. It may cost us to be true to Christ. We may face, financial, social, and political repercussions, but we must avoid any dependency on a party or person that supersedes Christ. When we maintain clear lines of loyalty to Christ, we will enjoy His warm welcome in life.

LIVING GOD OR DEAD IDOLS?

Idolatry in the church compromises the witness of Christians because idolatry pollutes our worship. The surest way to kill our witness is to allow idols to cloud our worship. Paul wrote, "Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? Because we ourselves are the temple of the living God" (2 Cor. 6:16).

We think of idols as those little statues that people made and put in their homes or in their sacred places. Those graven images were icons of something in the heart. The goddess of fertility was an icon for the desire to have children. Another idol was the god of wine and sex, an icon of the desire for pleasure apart from God. The god of power represented the power people wanted for themselves.

Americans are polytheists too. We build our spectacular temples to the icons of money, pleasure, and power.

An idol is someone, something or some desire that becomes more important than God.

The reason that idolatry must not be allowed to infiltrate the church is that we are the temple of the Living God. The better textual evidence reads "we are" (ἐσμεν) instead of "you are" (ἐστε) the temple. The "we" (ἡμεῖς) is emphatic because the pronoun doubles the verb and because it is first in the clause. The "living" (ζῶντος) God stresses the difference between the Christian God and the idols in the pagan temple which the Corinthians frequented for social, economic and business reasons. The idols of the world are dead. The God we worship is alive.

Temple (ναὸς) originally meant a dwelling place or home. However, it came to refer specifically to the dwelling place of a god in the ancient world. More specifically, the word was used for the inner sanctuary of the temple as opposed to the temple complex (τὸ ἱερόν) referring to the collection of buildings that made up the temple at Jerusalem (NIDNTT, 3:781).  When Paul writes that we are the temple of the Living God, he is talking about the sanctuary where God resides. He cites Leviticus 26:12 and Ezekiel 37:27 in support. "I will live (ἐνοικήσω), and I will walk about (ἐμπεριπατήσω) among them" (cf. Jer. 31:31; Hughes, 2 Corinthians, 253-254). God does not dwell in a house made of brick and stone. We are the home of God on earth. 

When Paul writes that we are the temple of God, is he speaking corporately or individually? Is the temple of God the physical body of an individual believer (1 Cor. 6:19) or the church as a whole (1 Cor. 3:16)? Paul is primarily thinking about the corporate body of Christ, the church as opposed to individual Christians in this verse (Martin, 2 Corinthians, 202; Hughes, 2 Corinthians, 252) for the following reasons. 1) The context is corporate. Paul is writing to the body as a whole - the church - not individual Christians in this chapter. 2) The pronouns are all plural pronouns. Paul writes that "we" (ἡμεῖς) are the temple. God lives and walks among "them" (αὐτοῖς). God will be "their" (αὐτῶν) God and "they" (αὐτοὶ) will be His people. 3) The imagery pictures God living and walking among the people who make up the corporate church. The pronoun can certainly be translated "among" (ἐν) which fits the sense of the passage.

Qumran, in Paul's day, had separated from the temple complex in Jerusalem to establish a spiritual community that worshiped God in purity and in truth. They believed the priesthood had corrupted the temple worship. The community of Qumran was now the true sanctuary of God. Paul reflects this corporate sense when he thinks about the believing community among whom God resides. He lodges in our gathered assembly and walks among the believers who worship Him. We are His sanctuary much like Qumran viewed their community as the sanctuary of God (NIDNTT, 3:783-784). Therefore, we must be separated from the idols of this world if we are to truly be the sanctuary of God in our worship. His presence among us in worship drives away all idols that might compete for our devotion instead of God.

The Old Testament Psalms picture the temple of God not so much as a place of ritual sacrifice and priestly functions but as a place where the presence of God fills the lives of those gathered (NIDNTT, 3:782-783). Believers long for the presence of God in the house of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). Believers cry out to God for help (Ps. 28:2) and worship God in His holy temple (Ps. 138:2). A temple is a place of spiritual comfort (Ps. 65:4) where God responds to our deepest needs (Ps. 18:6) and demonstrates His power to strengthen us (Ps. 29:9). So it is in our corporate worship as the temple of God on earth.

Western Christianity tends to be individualistic and miss the power of corporate worship. Corporate worship is the visible expression of the presence of God on earth. The sanctuary of God is not the building but the people. True worship is infectious as people see the presence of God in our gathered assembly. Our witness is most powerful when it rises out of our corporate worship. Our worship as a community drives our witness for Christ.

The presence of the Living God lodges within us and walks about among us in our gathered worship since we, the church, are the living, breathing house of God.