SEPARATION
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17–18). If there are two streams of water, one clean and the other polluted, and they both come together and make a large stream, which one will “win”? Will the clean stream clean up the dirty stream? No. They will both become polluted, and you will not be able to drink from either. So says the biblical teaching on separation: “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6). The context of this verse was that of a man living an immoral life who was in the church of the Corinthians. Today we say, “One bad apple will spoil the whole bunch.”
Separation is taught for both moral and doctrinal reasons. Scripture commands separation from false doctrine: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17; see also 2 John 9–11; 1 Corinthians 15:33; see FALSE TEACHING). “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1). And it commands separation from immoral people: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11; see also v. 7; 1 Peter 4:2–4).
However, this separation does not mean we are no longer obligated to honor our lost parents or to stop talking to our neighbors or people on the street: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5:9–13; the “wicked person” was the immoral man in the church of Corinth; see v. 1).
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17–18). If there are two streams of water, one clean and the other polluted, and they both come together and make a large stream, which one will “win”? Will the clean stream clean up the dirty stream? No. They will both become polluted, and you will not be able to drink from either. So says the biblical teaching on separation: “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6). The context of this verse was that of a man living an immoral life who was in the church of the Corinthians. Today we say, “One bad apple will spoil the whole bunch.”
Separation is taught for both moral and doctrinal reasons. Scripture commands separation from false doctrine: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17; see also 2 John 9–11; 1 Corinthians 15:33; see FALSE TEACHING). “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1). And it commands separation from immoral people: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11; see also v. 7; 1 Peter 4:2–4).
However, this separation does not mean we are no longer obligated to honor our lost parents or to stop talking to our neighbors or people on the street: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5:9–13; the “wicked person” was the immoral man in the church of Corinth; see v. 1).
