Greg Beale on End of Exile in 2 Cor 6:16-18

I’m currently writing a chapter on 1 & 2 Corinthians for an NT Introduction. While I’ve always felt like I had a good grip on 1 Corinthians (its argument and scholarly conversation), but generally I haven’t been as familiar with 2 Corinthians, so I’m always learning more here.

There is an interesting point 2 Corinthians 6 where Paul has some really dense intertextuality going down:

16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” [Lev. 26:12; Jer. 32:38; Ezek. 37:27]
17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” [Isa. 52:11; Ezek. 20:34,41]
18 And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”  [2 Sam. 7:14; 7:8]
(2 Cor 6:16-18 NIV)

Beale notes how all of the passages mentioned or alluded to by Paul have an exilic context. He surmises that:

Paul understand reconciliation in Christ to be the inaugurated fulfilment of the OT prophecies of Israel’s restoration from exile. While Paul would perhaps allow that this prophecy began fulfilment with the nation’s return from Babylon, the escalated fulfilment occurred at Christ’s death and resurrection.
Greg Beale, “Old Testament Background of Reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5-7 and its Bearing on the Literary Problem of 2 Corinthians 6.14-71,” NTS 35 (1989): 575. See also his A New Testament Biblical Theology, 711-19.