What Partnership has Righteousness with Lawlessness?

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 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.

Therefore go out from their midst,

    and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

    then I will welcome you,

and I will be a father to you,

    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,

says the Lord Almighty.’” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ESV)

Who is an unbeliever, according to the Scriptures? It is all who do not obey the Lord and his commands, in practice, who are still walking in deliberate and habitual sin, and who are not walking in holiness and in righteousness in the power of God, by the grace of God. For belief in Jesus Christ is not measured by what we profess with our lips but by what we do with Jesus and with what he did for us in dying on that cross to free us from our slavery to sin so that we can now become slaves of God and of his righteousness.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

So, we are not to be in a binding or contractual or obligatory relationship or partnership (fellowship) with anyone who calls himself a Christian but who is still walking according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit, who is still walking in deliberate and habitual sin, and not in holiness and in righteousness and in obedience to our Lord Jesus. And the same applies to all who make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ. We are not to be partners with them to where we end up participating with them in sin.

Now, this is not saying that we can’t have any kind of relationship with the ungodly, for how would we then be able to love the people of the world? How would we be able to share Jesus Christ with them? This is specifically talking about not being in partnership and in fellowship (agreement, cooperation) with the ungodly, whether or not they profess Jesus as Savior and Lord. And this applies to gatherings of what are called “churches” which are given over to the ways of the world and which are diluting the gospel of Christ, too.

But now if you are married to someone who is ungodly, either because you married the person when you were not a believer yourself, or when you thought the other person was a believer in Christ, but later you learned he/she was not, this is not teaching that you should divorce your spouse. In fact, I believe that Paul taught if your unbelieving spouse wants to remain with you that you should remain with him/her, because you can potentially lead him/her to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by your godly example.

But you should not be in agreement with what is ungodly, and you should not partner with what is ungodly, and you should not participate in what is evil and sinful and against the commands of God just because your partner in marriage may participate in those things. For we are all to be holy unto God, living lives which are separate (unlike, different) from the world, because we are being made to be like Jesus in character, as we cooperate fully with God’s work of grace in our lives.

Now, Paul was speaking to the church collectively. And they were/are the temple of God. We who believe in Jesus Christ with God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ, who have died with Christ to sin, and who are living to God and to his righteousness, are his temple, his body, his church, his people. So as his church we are not to partner with the ungodly, which is what much (or most) of the church has done today here in America by incorporating themselves under the state and by marketing themselves to the world.

We are not to operate as human-based businesses, which is what so many (or most) of them are doing today. We are not to conform to the world in order to attract the world to our gatherings, but we are to gather together as the body to encourage and urge and exhort one another to live godly and holy and morally pure and obedient lives to Christ, in union with Christ, and to maturity in Christ, speaking the truth in love to one another, and as each body part does its work.

[Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; Jn 4:31-38; Jn 13:13-17; Jn 14:12; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:14-18; Acts 26:18; Rom 10:14-15; Rom 12:1-8; Rom 15:14; 1 Co 12:1-31; 1 Co 14:1-5; Eph 4:1-16; Eph 5:11-27; Php 2:1-8; Col 3:16; Heb 3:13; Heb 10:23-25; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 Jn 2:6]  

And so if we are in a partnership with the ungodly – which includes the market-driven “churches” of today which have compromised with the world in order to attract the world to their gatherings – the call of God here is for us to come out from their midst, and to be separate (unlike, different) from them, and that we are not to participate in anything that is unholy and that is contrary to the will of God and to the teachings of the Scriptures. But we are to be followers of Christ who walk in obedience to our Lord.

And when we come out from these partnerships (fellowships) which are unholy, and not of God, then God says that he will welcome us, and he will be a father to us, and we will be his sons and daughters. For it is not enough to just make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, but we need to be walking in obedience to his commands and doing what his word teaches us we must do, and not doing what the Scriptures teach we must not do. For if sin and disobedience to God are what we practice, we do not have eternal life.

VOICE OF TRUTH 

By Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman

II Corinthians 12:7-10/I Corinthians 1:20-24

Oh what I would do to have

The kind of faith it takes to climb out of this boat I’m in

Onto the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone

Into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is

And He’s holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me

Reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed

The waves they keep on telling me

Time and time again, “Boy, you’ll never win!”

“You’ll never win!”

But the voice of truth tells me a different story

The voice of truth says, “Do not be afraid!”

And the voice of truth says, “This is for My glory”

Out of all the voices calling out to me

I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CsiBjc0UIA

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