1 Corinthians 8:6

affirms in positive Christian terms, as 1 Corinthians 8:4 b stated negatively and retrospectively, the creed of the Cor [1249] believers. The “one God” of O.T. monotheism is “to us one God the Father”. “Of whom are all things, and we for Him:” the universe issues from God, and “we,” His sons in Christ, are destined therein for His use and glory He would reap in “us” His glory, as a father in the children of his house; see, on this latter purpose, Ephesians 1:5; Ephesians 1:10 ff., Ephesians 1:18 b, 1 Corinthians 3:9 ff.; also 1 Peter 2:9; James 1:18; John 17:9 f., etc.; cf. Aug [1250], “ Fecisti nos ad Te”. In the emphatic ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτὸν there speaks the joyful consciousness of Gentiles called to know and serve the true God; cf. 1 Corinthians 12:2 f., Ephesians 2:11 ff. The “one Lord Jesus Christ” is Mediator, as in 1 Timothy 2:5 “through whom are all things, and we through Him”; again ἡμεῖς stands out with high distinction from the dim background of τὰ πάντα. The contrasted ἐξ οὗ, εἰς αὐτὸν of the previous clause is replaced by the doubled διὰ of this: God is the source of all nature, but the end specifically of redeemed humanity; Christ is equally the Mediator and in this capacity the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) of nature and of men. The universe is of God through Christ (Hebrews 1:2; John 1:3): we are for God through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18; Ephesians 1:5, etc.). Colossians 1:15 ff. unfolds this doctrine of the double Lordship of Christ, basing His redemptional upon His creational headship. It is an exegetical violence to limit the second τὰ πάντα, as Grotius and Baur have done, to “the ethical new creation”; in 2 Corinthians 5:18 the context gives this limitation, which in our passage it excludes. The inferior reading διʼ ὅν (for οὗ : see txtl. note), “ because of whom are all things,” would consist with a lower doctrine of Christ's Person, representing Him as preconceived object, while with διʼ οὗ He is pre-existent medium of creation. The full Christology of the 3rd group of the Epp. is latent here. The faith which refers all things to the one God our Father as their spring, and subordinates all things to the one Lord our Redeemer, leaves no smallest spot in the universe for other deities; intelligent Christians justly inferred that the material of the idolothyta was unaffected by the hollow rites of heathen sacrifice.

[1249] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[1250] Augustine.