“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'” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ESV).
Satan, Lucifer, and Beelzebub are all names that are associated with the devil in the pages of the Scriptures- and this passage presents us with another designation for this malevolent spiritual entity. That name is Belial, a word that is identified with a wicked individual or someone who is worthless. Since the devil typifies those regrettable qualities, its easy to see how he acquired such a name.
Now before we continue, we should keep in mind that the context of this passage involves the propriety of a voluntary business or personal relationship between someone who is a Christian and someone who is not. So why would any member of God’s family seek to exclude an otherwise hardworking, honest, and respectable person from a dating or business relationship simply because he or she doesn’t share the same spiritual beliefs? Well, the answer is that the individuals in those relationships are traveling down very different life paths.
While there may be many people who exhibit the positive characteristics that one might look for in a potential marriage or business partner, its important to remember that a Christian’s first responsibility involves following Christ. A partner who rejects, ignores, or is apathetic towards Jesus is someone who is following the enemy along a different road that ultimately leads to destruction, even if he or she is unwilling to accept it. This serves to explain the Apostle Paul’s question: “How can there be any unity between Christ and the devil? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” (ERV).
Paul reinforced this idea by turning to an analogy he used in his earlier message to the Corinthians- the concept of God’s people as His temple or dwelling place…
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).