1 Corinthians 8:5-6

“For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many, and lords many, 6. but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.” Καὶ γάρ, and indeed. Paul affirms, in harmony with the Corinthians, that whatever may be the multiplicity of gods worshipped by the heathen, the Christian recognises only one God, Him whose character he here defines, and but one Lord, the Mediator between God and men. “The imagination of the Greeks,” says Beet, “filled with divinities the visible and invisible heavens, and on earth, mountains, forests, and rivers.” These are the λεγόμενοι θεοί, the beings designated by the name of gods and worshipped as such, but who, as the epithet indicates, have only the name of deity. The two propositions which begin, the one with εἴπερ, even though, the other with ὥσπερ, as indeed, have been very variously understood, according as the two verbs εἰσί, are, which stand at the head of both, have been taken to denote a logical or a real existence. In the view of Rückert, Olshausen, Meyer, Kling, Hofmann, real existence is to be understood in both cases in this sense: “Even if (εἴπερ) the gods of mythology really exist (a supposition which is not absurd), agreeably to the fact that (ὥσπερ) there really exist gods and lords in abundance (the angels in their different orders enumerated by Paul, Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16; comp. Deu 10:17 and Psa 136:2-3), even if such gods really exist, yet there is for us, Christians, only one God and one Lord.” But it is not easy to explain clearly the relation between these two real existences, the former of which on this understanding is put as hypothetical, and then the second as certain, and which nevertheless both relate to one and the same subject. Others, like Chrysostom, Calvin, Beza, Neander, de Wette, regard these two existences as imaginary. “Even though (εἴπερ) the heathen worship a multitude of fictitious gods, as one may see, indeed (ὥσπερ), that according to them, every place is full of gods and lords....” But de Wette himself cannot help seeing the useless tautology of these two propositions of really identical meaning. Commentators of a third view, like Grotius, Billroth, understand the former of the two εἰσί, are, in the sense of a real existence, the latter in that of an imaginary existence: “Even though there really exists a host of beings, such as the sky, the sun, the moon, the earth, the ocean, which are made gods, as it may be seen in fact that among the heathen these are deities.” But with what view would the apostle thus insist on the reality of the creatures which heathenism had deified? If, as is exact, one of the two verbs should denote a real, the other a fictitious existence, is it not much more natural to interpret in the latter sense that one of the two εἰσί (are), which is accompanied by the participle λεγόμενοι, called? For this apposition undoubtedly does not force us (comp. 2Th 2:4) to attribute an imaginary character to these gods, but it permits and leads to it. In this case the following would be the meaning of the verse: “Even though there are in abundance beings called gods, and worshipped as such, with whom the imagination of the heathen peoples both heaven and earth (Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Ceres, Bacchus, Nymphs), as in fact (ὥσπερ) there really exist we must not be deceived on the point gods many and lords many....” By these last words the apostle means, that if the particular mythological deities are only fictions, there is yet behind these fictions a reality of which we must take account. In 1 Corinthians 10:20 he expressly declares, that “what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons;” not, certainly, that he regards the god Jupiter as one demon and the god Apollo as another; but in heathenism in general he recognises the work of malignant spirits, who have turned man away from God, and filled the void thus formed in the soul with this vain and impure phantasmagoria. It is in the same sense that he describes demons, Ephesians 6:12, as “rulers of the present darkness;” that he calls Satan, 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this world who blinds the unbelieving; and that Jesus Himself calls him the Prince of this world (John 12:31; John 14:30). The term, gods many, refers to the heads of this kingdom of darkness; the term, lords many, to the inferior spirits, the subordinate agents; comp. in our Epistle 1 Corinthians 15:24.

If criticism, such as is practised in our day, had the least interest in setting our Epistle in opposition to that of the Romans, how easy would it be for it to maintain by means of this passage, either that they proceed from two different authors, or that the apostle's ideas had become changed in the interval between the one and the other! In point of fact, the explanation which the apostle gives of the origin of heathenism in the Epistle to the Romans (chap. 1) is purely psychological, and leaves wholly out of account all influence exercised by superior beings. But the two explanations hold true together and complete one another. The apostle emphasizes in each Epistle that which is of importance to the subject he is treating; in Romans, where he wishes to bring out the corruption of mankind, he shows the moral origin of idolatry: how this great collective sin proceeded from the heart of man; in our Epistle, where he has in view certain practical rules to be drawn for the conduct of the Corinthians, he emphasizes the diabolical influence which concurred to produce heathenism. Is there not a lesson of prudence and wise reserve to be drawn from this fact for so many other analogous cases? It will be seen afterwards with what view the apostle here presents simultaneously these two aspects of the truth: on the one side, the nothingness of heathen divinities; and, on the other, the diabolical reality which is hidden under this empty phantasmagoria. The first point of view will justify the liberty allowed in regard to the eating of offered meats; the second, the absolute prohibition against taking part in the idol feasts.

Vv. 6. With these fictitious, and yet, in a certain sense, real gods and lords, Paul forcibly contrasts by the adverb ἀλλά, but, and the pronoun ἡμῖν, for us, put first, the only God and the only Lord recognised by the Christian conscience. The title the Father, added to the word God, is taken in the absolute sense in which it embraces His Fatherhood both in relation to Christ and to us. The apostle here adds two notions: the proceeding of all things from God alone (ἐξ οὗ, of whom), and the moral consecration of believers to Him alone (εἰς αὐτόν, for Him). In such a context he cannot be intending to describe thereby His greatness and perfection; but he means that nothing of all that forms part of the universe created by such a Being (offered meats in particular) can defile the believer (1 Corinthians 10:25-26). How could that which is made by God prevent him from being and remaining for God what he ought to be? (see Hofmann).

As God, the Father, is contrasted with the principal heathen deities, Christ, the Lord, is so with the secondary deities who served as mediators between the great gods and the world. What Paul means is, that as the world is from God, and the Church for God; so the world is by Christ, and the Church also by Him.

The former of the two propositions relative to Christ: by whom are all things, can only apply, as is recognised by all the critics of our time, de Wette, Heinrici, Reuss, Meyer, and even Pfleiderer and Holtzmann, to the work of creation. Baur thinks that the διά may be referred in the first proposition, as well as in the second, to the work of redemption. But the ἡμεῖς, we, of the second proposition evidently contrasts Christians, as objects of redemption, with τὰ πάντα, all things, as objects of another work, which, as is shown by the previous proposition, can only be creation. Holsten, alone, cannot bring himself to this avowal. In the words, all things by Him, he finds only the idea of the government of all things by the glorified Christ. But the by Him corresponds to the of Him (ἐξ αὐτοῦ) of the previous proposition, and can consequently apply only to the same work, that of creation, of which God is the author and Christ the agent. It is the same thought as in Colossians 1:15-17, where the ἐν corresponds to our διά, and as in John 1:3, where the δἰ αὐτοῦ expresses the creation of all things by the Logos. The idea which Holsten finds in this proposition would, besides, be out of all relation to Paul's object, which is to show that a meat divinely created cannot separate man from God. The Vaticanus, instead of δἰ οὗ, reads δἰ ὅν, on account of whom; evidently the mistake of a copyist.

In the second proposition the word ἡμεῖς, we, contrasted with all things, shows that the subject in question is the spiritual creation accomplished by Christ, the work of salvation. These words have their commentary in Colossians 1:18-22, as the preceding in Colossians 1:15-17. They form the counterpart of the second preceding proposition relating to God. In the physical order we are of God and by Christ; in the spiritual order we are by Christ and for God.

We have already pointed out more than once how, notwithstanding the diversity of forms, the views of Paul coincide with those of John. We have just seen this in connection with the regimen δἰ οὗ, which so vividly reminds us of the δἰ αὐτοῦ of John 1:3. This connection is equally striking if we compare from the Christological viewpoint this saying of Paul with John 17:3. In the two passages, the personal distinction between God and Christ is strongly emphasized, though the community of nature between both appears from this very distinction, and from all the rest of the books where these sayings are contained. Reuss maintains that there are in the Gospel of John two opposite theories going side by side; but we must in that case say the same of the writings of the Apostle Paul, whose rigorous logic no one disputes. In point of fact there is no contradiction in either; for both emphasize with the full consciousness of what they affirm the subordination of the Son in the unity of the Divine life; see on 1 Corinthians 3:23.

Here we have one of the passages which establish the complete unity of the apostle's Christology in his first letters, and in those of his imprisonment (Col., Eph., Phil.). “Let there be an end then,” says Gess rightly (Apost. Zeugn., ii. p. 295), “to the assertion that the Christology of the later Epistles is contrary to that of Paul; according to which Christ, it is held, is nothing more than the ideal or celestial man, and that though one is forced to allow that our passage makes Him the mediator of the creation of the universe!”

Thus far, St. Paul would say, we are all at one, but here now is the point where difference begins, and this difference impresses the Christian who loves, with regard and sacrifices toward those whose judgment differs from his.