2 Corinthians 6:11

0 ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you. My mouth is open, it longs to say more to you, and to express all my affection for you, and it cannot. No matter what and how much I may say, it is less than my affection. The Apostle says this to show that what he had said of his patience, tribulations, and virtues was not from self-love, but from friendship, trust, and love towards the Corinthians. Friends are in the habit of interchanging their secret joys and sorrows, and thus showing their love for each other. When this is great they more and more try to express it, but find themselves unable to do justice to their feelings. This is what Paul does here.

The two ideas of "straitening" and "enlarging" are frequently contrasted by the Hebrews, to denote on the one hand sadness, timidity, suspicion, and avarice, and on the other joyfulness and generosity of heart. As sadness and avarice contract the heart, the brow, and the hands, so joy, cheerfulness, and charity expand them. Cf. Psalms 119:32, and 1 Kings 4:29. Ver. 12. Ye are not straitened in us. You dwell fully and spaciously in my heart as in your home. My love builds for you a spacious house.

Ye are straitened in your own bowels. The love of your hearts for me is so small that it contracts them, and barely gives me place there. Your love and good-will do not equal mine. The Corinthians would seem to have been alienated from Paul by the calumnies of the false apostles; he, therefore, declares the greatness of his love for them, that he may kindle theirs in return.

Moreover, Paul seemed to have in his First Epistle straitened the Corinthians by prohibiting them from idolatry, from going to law before unbelieving judges, from their love-feasts and sumptuous banquets; and in ver. 14 he is about to straiten them by forbidding a believer to marry with an unbeliever. He here paves the way by urging them to receive, with the large-hearted love of Christ, his apparently straitening precepts, which are not his but Christ's. Ver. 13. Now for a recompence in the same... be ye also enlarged. S. Paul is speaking of a return of love, and not, as some think, of the heavenly reward. These latter take the meaning to be, that since the Corinthians were to have the same reward in heaven, they should enlarge their love for S. Paul. But the sense clearly is that they should repay S. Paul's for them with an equal measure of love on their part.

Ver. 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Do not have so close fellowship with them in matters of religion as to be gradually led away to share in their unbelief, as, e.g., in marriage. Separate yourselves from the unbelievers' assemblies, temples, sacrifices, feasts; do not intermarry with them, for all commerce with them is either wicked and unrighteous in itself, or is dangerous to those who hold it, and a cause of offence to others. Do not imitate the Jews, whose laxity is recorded in PS. cvi. 35 (Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact). S. Jerome (contra Jovin. lib. i.) understands S. Paul to warn against intermarriage with unbelievers. There seems to be an allusion to Ps. cvi. 28, "They joined themselves unto Baal-peor," which refers to the fornication committed by the Israelites in honour of Baal-peor. So, whoever marries with an unbeliever may be said to join himself to Baal-peor, i.e., the devil, the ruler of unbelievers. Anselm again supposes that by "unbelievers" is meant the Judaising false apostles, who were attempting to eviscerate the faith of Christ by making the ceremonies of the law of Moses binding on Christians. Such men are more dangerous to Christians, and more to be shunned than unbelieving Gentiles, and therefore S. Paul warns his readers against them. This sense is good but defective, for the Apostle wishes the fellowship of all unbelievers whatsoever to be avoided

The Apostle is here passing on, as is usual in letters, to discuss another point of importance just then to the Corinthians, viz., the duty of avoiding unbelievers. It is in vain, therefore, for any one to seek for connecting links with what has gone before.

Erasmus observes that the Latin version is happy in its translation here; it renders the passage: "Do not be joined in the same yoke with unbelievers." For if a Christian marry a heathen wife, or a Christian magistrate have a Gentile as colleague, he is called έτεροζυγω̃ν. Marriages of this kind S. Jerome calls unequal.

Observe upon this that έτερος signifies sometimes one of two, sometimes an object that is diverse, whether from some one other or from several others. Thus the word occurs in a compound word, to denote one who lacks an eye, and again to denote one who is of a different opinion (έτεροφθάλμος and έτερόδοξος). And hence it is uncertain whether S. Paul here means one who bears one-half of a yoke, or one who bears a yoke in company with one of a different condition.

Budæus takes the former of these two, and understands S. Paul to exhort the Corinthians not to bear one part of a yoke with unbelievers, just as in Campania two oxen bear the same yoke, one on each side.

Others more properly take the latter meaning, and understand the warning to be against such an alliance as that of an ox and an ass would be in the same yoke (Deut. xxii. 10). This interpretation is rendered more probable from the words that follow "what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?"

Theophylact again thinks that the warning is against accommodating one's principles to those of our partner in wedlock. He says that the allusion here is not to a yoke but to the beam of a balance, and one especially that is unequally weighted, so that one side is lower than the other. We are not to be like such a balance, and lean towards an unrighteous or unbelieving partner.

For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous? The just with the unjust, believers with unbelievers.

It was hard for the Corinthians, while Christians were so few, to be forbidden to have commerce and intermarriage with unbelievers. Many amongst them would find a difficulty in obtaining partners of equal rank, or wealth, or position; and hence they would either be obliged to abstain from marriage, or else marry an inferior. Moreover, by natural and Divine law there was nothing simply and absolutely to prohibit them from allying themselves with unbelievers; still such alliance would be unbecoming and full of danger, and hence it is forbidden by the Apostle. But to reconcile them to so severe a precept he puts before them five contrasts drawn from the inherent opposition between Christianity and heathenism.

(1.) Unequal wedlock is a heavy yoke, burdensome to both parties, even as it would be if a horse and an ox were yoked together. (2.) Light and darkness cannot cohere in the same subject or be in the same place at once; therefore one of the faithful, who has the light of faith, cannot well enter into the same yoke with one who is full of the darkness of unbelief. (3.) There is no concord between Christ and Belial: believers belong to Christ, unbelievers to Belial; therefore they cannot agree. (4.) The believer has no part or communion with the unbeliever, but differs from him as widely as belief from unbelief, heaven from hell; therefore they cannot be joined together. (5.) The temple of God cannot be associated with the idols and temples of devils; neither, therefore, can a believer with an unbeliever. For each of the faithful is a temple of God, and the unbeliever is a temple and image of the devil. Ver. 15. What concord hath Christ with Belial? What harmony can there be between Him who is the Author of all knowledge, obedience, and righteousness and the devil with his followers?

The Hebrew Belial denotes (1.) disobedience, rebellion, ungodliness; (2.) those who have these qualities; and (3.) the devil, as the first apostate, the first to shake of the yoke of obedience to God and His law. Hence apostates are called "sons of Belial," i.e., children of the devil, or children of disobedience, rebellion ungodliness

What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What is there common to both, to be shared by both? So, in 1 Kings 12:16, we find: "What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse." This antithesis explains the three preceding ones. It is not right for a believer to be joined with an unbeliever, even as it is not possible for righteousness to be joined to unrighteousness, light to darkness, Christ to Belial, the temple of God with idols.