2 Corinthians 6 Study Notes

6:11 Paul’s life and teaching were an open book. He had no hidden agenda.

6:12-13 Paul perceived the relationship problem to lie with the Corinthians. The false teachers had strangled the Corinthians’ love for Paul. He yearned for them to be as open and loving toward him as he had been with them—like a father toward wayward children.

6:14 Partners with those who do not believe refers to the false apostles, whom Paul considered to be Satan’s servants. The original language pictures two different kinds of animals plowing a field under a single yoke (Dt 22:10). Under such circumstances the objective cannot be reached. Paul emphasized spiritual incompatibility by noting the impossibility of literal light and darkness equally existing, and, in v. 15, the impossibility of Christ and Satan being friends.

6:15 Belial is a Hebrew term found elsewhere in an OT phrase, literally “sons of Belial,” translated “wicked men” in the CSB (see Dt 13:13).

6:16a The “we” in we are the temple points to the corporate entity of the local congregation (or the body of Christ as a whole) rather than to the individual (for which, see 1Co 6:19). Paul had believers in mind, not literal buildings (1Pt 2:5).

6:16b-18 These verses assemble a number of OT texts. Verse 16b is stated first in Lv 26:12 and repeated in Jr 31:33; 32:38. This was God’s promise of his presence to his covenant people, now fulfilled in the new covenant instituted by Christ (Heb 8:7-13). Verse 17 cites Is 52:11, referring to Israel’s future holiness when they will be restored to the Lord’s favor. Verse 18 is found first in 2Sm 7:14 in God’s covenant promise to David, but it is echoed in Is 43:6; 49:22; 60:4; Hs 1:10. In these passages the Lord promised a family relationship between himself and his people.