Lessons #263 and 264
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Food sacrificed to idol: supernatural beings (1 Cor 8:4-7)
. 4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 7 But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
Recall that the second proposition of this section that we have been considering is that there is hierarchy in the concept of supernatural beings revealed in the Scripture. Consequently, in the last study we considered the subject of gods and demonstrated they are real although they are to be described as the lesser gods, some of which are angels as God’s messengers and some as those God assigned to rule the nations as a punishment to humankind for continuous rejection of His authority and or rule as evident in the building of the Tower of Babel. Despite this punishment God chose Abraham and so Israel as His own people through whom He would reveal His plan that eventually ends up in the Messiah coming through Israel. We, of course, indicated that when Israel rebelled against God and He sent them into exile that like what He did with the nations, He assigned the Angel Michael as the ruler of Israel or in the words of Daniel “the great prince who protects” Israel. Apparently, there is more to what God did when He judged humankind following the incident of the Tower of Babel that we should recognize to fully comprehend what the Holy Spirit directed Apostle Paul to pen down about the supreme God, the creator of the lesser gods. It is with more of this truth that we begin our study of 1 Corinthians 8:6.
The additional thing that God did when He judged humanity following the incident of the Tower of Babel is that as part of His punishment, He assigned the nations to the worship of the lesser gods since they rejected Him, the supreme God. Thus, idolatry that primarily involved worshipping of the lesser gods is a punishment to the nations for rebellion against God. This declaration is based primarily on what the Holy Spirit wrote through Moses, as recorded for us in Deuteronomy 4:19:
And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.
Without doubt, this verse is concerned with God’s prohibition to Israel of worshipping any of the heavenly bodies since many Gentile nations regarded these either as representing the various gods or controlled by them. This aside, the verse also implies that idolatry originated as part of God’s punishment when He judged mankind at the Tower of Babel incident in that He assigned the nations to worship lesser gods since they rejected Him. However, He eventually chose Abraham and so the Israelites as the objects of His personal attention to create a model nation so that through them He would show Gentile nations the blessing He bestowed on those who acknowledge His authority. Thus, verse 19 implies that idolatry in the sense of worshipping lesser gods is God’s judgment that He brought on people for rejecting His authority. This implication is that God Himself is responsible for the beginning of idolatry among humankind since He allotted to various nations their own gods.
The implication that God is responsible for nations being involved in idolatry that include the worship of heavenly bodies even though it is a punishment is difficult for many commentators to accept. Thus, there are several attempts to change this implication. The earliest attempt, according to a rabbinic tradition, is that the translators of the Septuagint instead of the clause of Deuteronomy 4:19 things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven they rendered it
“these the LORD your God allotted to give light to all nations.” This approach is faulty because it gives the impression that the heavenly bodies only provide light for the nations but not Israel. Others explain the clause as simply that God created the heavenly bodies to serve the earth based on creation narrative of Genesis 1:14–18:
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
It is true that God created the heavenly lights to serve humankind, but it is not this function that is advocated in Deuteronomy 4:19. This understanding does not help in interpreting the contrast that the Lord made between other nations and Israel as His inheritance in Deuteronomy 4: 20:
But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.
Furthermore, the Hebrew word (ḥālǎq) translated “apportioned” or“allotted” in Deuteronomy 4:19 is used in a similar passage that implies God allotted other gods to the nations in Deuteronomy 29:26:
They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.
The verbal phrase had not given is literally had not allotted. Some who dispute that God allotted the gods to the nations argue that the sentence gods he had not given them does not mean that God allotted to the nations gods they worship but they offer no satisfactory explanation of the sentence. Why would God speak of not giving or not allotting gods to Israel if He had not done so for other nations? Furthermore, it should not be difficult to accept that God allotted the gods to the nations as punishment since the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul speaks of God handing over people who rejected Him to various sinful conducts as we read in Romans 1:21–25:
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
The point is that another result of the punishment on the nations due to the incident of Tower of Babel is that of allotment of lesser gods as object of worship by the nations that have rejected the supreme God’s authority.
This explanation of allotment of other gods to the nations is essential in understanding what the apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 8:6 about the existence of “one God.” It is probably the case that the Holy Spirit brought in the apostle’s mind the contrast expressed in Deuteronomy 4:19-20 where Moses began verse 20 with the contrasting phrase But as for you that indicates Israel is different from the other nations because God chose them and redeemed them from bondage as His treasured possession. He contrasted between Israel that worship the Supreme God and the other nations that worship lesser gods or other divine beings that are created. So, the apostle began his statement of 1 Corinthians 8:6 with the phrase yet for us with the sense of contrasting between believers and unbelievers.
We assert that Apostle Paul was contrasting between believers in Christ and unbelievers when he penned 1 Corinthians 8:6 because of the personal pronoun us the apostle used. The pronoun refers to the apostle and the Corinthians. Most of the Corinthian believers were Gentiles while the apostle was a Jew. Therefore, the bond that held he and the Corinthians together is that he and they are in union with Christ. Being in Christ makes all the difference and sets apart all those who believe in Christ from all unbelievers. The point is that the pronoun “us” in the context is used to refer to the apostle and the Corinthians but in application refers to all believers in Christ.
Believers in Christ or Christians are unique in that they are the only ones today that believe in a supreme being we call God that exists in three distinct persons. There are those who claim to worship “one god” but whatever they claim, the one they worship, is not the God of creation that believers in Christ worship. In effect, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul intended to convey to the Corinthians and so to all believers that we worship a unique divine being that exists in three distinct persons although only two of the persons are mentioned in the passage we are considering. It is to convey this truth that that apostle stated in the first clause of 1 Corinthians 8:6 for us there is but one God, the Father. Before we consider this clause, there are two observations we need to make. Verse 6 is the only passage in the entire NT epistles where we find the word “one” and “God” used absolutely with a Greek phrase translated “one God, the Father.” The other place we find similar phrase is Ephesians 4:6:
one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
But in this passage, the word “Father” is qualified with the phrase of all unlike 1 Corinthians 8:6 that we simply have the phrase the Father. Another observation is that it is only in verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 8 where the word “God” is followed by the phrase in the Greek that translates “the Father.” The closest Greek phrase to what we have in 1 Corinthians 8:6 that has the word “Father” qualified with the pronoun “our” is in 2 Thessalonians 2:16:
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,
Hence, there is a sense that what the apostle wrote in the clause of 1 Corinthians 8:6 for us there is but one God, the Father is unique. By the way, there is no verb in the Greek since the Greek literally reads for us one God, the Father. We will say more about the fact Apostle Paul did not use any verb when he penned the verse.
In any case, the clause for us there is but one God, the Father has been taken by some to imply that the doctrine of the Triune God or Trinity that is unique to the Christian faith is false. The so-called Jehovah Witnesses use the clause to deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Their argument generally goes like this: “
Scripture is that the Holy Spirit would have brought in mind of Apostle Paul a passage that in a sense is similar to what he penned down in 1 Corinthians 8:6, especially as he did not use any verb in the first part of the verse as we have already stated. Remember we indicated that the clause in the NIV of 1 Corinthians 8:6 for us there is but one God, the Father is literally for us one God This passage reads there is but one God, and who is he? The Father!” Thus, they conclude that Jesus cannot be God. Of course, they do not read the rest of 1 Corinthians 8:6 and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live to recognize that it is impossible for Jesus Christ not to be God based on this verse. This aside, part of the problem of this verse hinges on the word “one.” The problem is that when most people read the word “one” they immediately conclude that it refers to the lowest cardinal number and so they think in terms of quantity. This is wrong because the English dictionary lists other meanings of the word “one” when used as an adjective. What I am about to say should cause all of us to recognize that ignorance is at the root of many of our problems on this planet. This aside, the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary gave other definitions with illustrations. Take for example, it indicates that “one” can pertain to “being the same in kind or quality” which it illustrates with the phrase “both of one species” that could then mean “both of the same species.” Another meaning is “some” that it illustrates with the expression “will see you again one day” that could be read “will see you again someday.” Still another meaning listed is “only” that is illustrated with the sentence “the one person she wanted to marry” which may be read as “the only person she wanted to marry.” So, you get the point that even from the English perspective, the word “one” should not always be thought in terms of quantity. However, we will demonstrate from biblical languages that the word “one” is not always to be taken as a reference to quantity.
We begin with reviewing what we said before concerning the word “one” in 1 Corinthians 8:4. The word “one” is translated from a Greek word (heis) that is a numerical term with the meaning “one.” However, there are several senses associated with this basic meaning. The word may mean “one” with focus on the quantitative aspect of person or thing. Thus, it may mean “one in contrast to many” as Apostle Paul used the word to indicate that one person, Adam, was responsible for entrance of sin into the world in Romans 5:12:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—
The word may mean “one” with focus on uniformity or quality of a single entity and so in some passages may mean “one and the same” as it is used to describe the God that justifies both Jews and Gentiles by faith in Christ Jesus in Romans 3:30:
since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
The phrase only one God may be translated one and the same God. The Greek word may mean “one” in referring to an unspecified entity so may mean “someone” as it is used in the instruction regarding the practice of speaking in tongues in public worship as stated in 1 Corinthians 14:27:
If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.
Our Greek word may be used as a marker of something that is “first” as it is used for the first day of the week when Apostle Paul encouraged the Corinthians to make their contributions that were to be given to believers in Jerusalem as we read in 1 Corinthians 16:2:
On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.
Hence, it should be clear that the Greek word translated “one” in 1 Corinthians 8:6 has several other usages.
We turn to the Hebrew Scripture to demonstrate that the word “one” similar to the Greek usage has several usages or meanings. One may wonder why we should refer to the OT Scripture when we are considering the NT. For one thing, the Holy Spirit who gave the NT also gave us the OT; thus, He will not confuse us by defining words differently in the NT as in the OT depending on the context. That aside, the primary reason we refer to the OT, the Father. When the apostle penned down the Greek, we believe that the Holy Spirit would have brought into his mind a passage often referred as the “Shema” that is quite familiar with the Jews, especially those who are Rabbis, like the apostle. I am referring to Deuteronomy 6:4:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
The sentence of the NIV The LORD our God, the LORD is one is Literally The LORD our God, the LORD one so the Hebrew line contains no verb similar to what the apostle did with the first part of 1 Corinthians 8:6 we are considering. It is true that the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 6:4 contains a verb, but it also contains a sentence that is not found in the Hebrew text since the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 6:4 reads:
“And these are the ordinances and the judgments that the Lord commanded the children of Israel when they came out from the land of Egypt: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
This notwithstanding, we believe that the Holy Spirit brought in the mind of the apostle the passage that is known as the Shema as he penned down 1 Corinthians 8:6. Hence, we refer to the OT Scripture to understand how the word “one” is used in the OT Scripture.
The word “one” of Deuteronomy 6:4 is translated from a Hebrew word (ʾěḥāḏ) that as an adjective may be used in three ways. It can be used as an adjective of quantity with the meaning “one (whole), single, same” It is with the meaning “same” that the word is used to indicate the procedure for certain offerings that aliens in Israel would offer should be the same as the native Israelite in Numbers 15:15:
The community is to have the same rules for you and for the alien living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the alien shall be the same before the LORD:
The phrase the same rules is literally one decree. The meaning “single” is used by Prophet Isaiah in announcing the loss of children and widowhood that will come to Babylonia despite its arrogant claims as we read in Isaiah 47:9:
Both of these will overtake you in a moment, on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells.
The phrase on a single day is literally on one day. Another use of the Hebrew word that is often translated “one” in the OT Scripture is as an as adjective of quality so means “unique, singular, only.” It is with the meaning “only,” that is, one of a unique class or kind, and so distinctive as the word is used with the meaning “only” in describing the lover in Song of Solomon 6:9:
but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter [literally “one daughter] of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.
It is with the meaning “unique” that the word is used in Zechariah 14:9:
The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.
The clause his name the only name may be translated his name will be unique. Another usage of the Hebrew word as an adjective is as “particularizing” adjective so has the meaning “certain” as it is used to report what Haman had to say about the Jews, as recorded in Esther 3:8:
Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.
In Deuteronomy 6:4, the Hebrew word is used in the sense of “unique” so that Moses declared to Israel that the LORD is unique. Anyway, the key reason for examining the Hebrew word translated “one” is simply to observe that the Hebrew word can be used as an adjective of quality and so it can mean “unique.”
We have considered the various meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words translated “one” in the English Bible. The question is to understand how it is used in our passage. Some interpreters give the impression that “one” is used in a numeric sense because they say it contrasts to the use of the adjective “many” in 1 Corinthians 8:5 regarding “gods” and “lords” and that it is used to confess monotheism, that is, belief in one God, as for example, in 1 Timothy 2:5:
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
While it cannot be doubted that in some passages, the word “one” may be used in a quantitative sense but that such a meaning is not intended in 1 Corinthians 8:6 because of the difficulty such understanding would create with the mention of “Father” and “Jesus Christ” in the same verse. Anyway, since we have indicated that Apostle Paul’s mind would have gone to the Shema, that is, to Deuteronomy 6:4, then the understanding of the word “one” in that passage would have been in his mind as he used the word “one” in 1 Corinthians 8:6. As we argued in our interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8:4, based on Deuteronomy 6:4, it is in the sense of “unique” that the Greek word translated “one” is used in the two occurrences of the Greek word in 1 Corinthians 8:6. Thus, the apostle in using the word “one” meant to convey that the true God is in a class by Himself or unique and so the word “one” is used in a qualitative and not quantitative manner to describe God that Christians worship. In effect, when the apostle wrote the phrase in the Greek translated in 1 Corinthians 8:6 one God, he intended to convey that the God of Christians is unique and different from the lesser gods that exist either in heaven or on earth. By the way, it is the same Greek word (theos) translated “gods” in 1 Corinthians 8:5 that is used in verse 6 for “God” although the Greek concept of “God” is different from that of the Christians since their gods were not regarded as creators of the universe per se. Anyway, from the use of the same Greek word for the gods mentioned in verse 5, it is important to convey that the God of the Christians is unique or in a class by Himself among divine beings although the same Greek word is used to translate the word “gods” and “God.” The point then is that Apostle Paul is concerned not merely to confess monotheism but because of the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit that the God of the Christians is unique. We are saying that it is his new understanding of God that is certainly different from what he believed as a rabbi that he intended to communicate in the phrase one God. In other words, he wanted to convey the uniqueness of the God of the Christians.
The uniqueness of the God of Christians is that of plurality of persons in a unique class of divine beings and that of unity in function. This point, we have stated, makes the God of the Christians not the same as the god of Islam. Again, the God of the Christians is unique because of the plurality of persons and unity of function in the divine being we call God. This plurality of persons is different from polytheism, the belief in existence of many gods. Christians recognize that there are other divine beings, but they are lesser than the divine being that Christians worship because this divine being that exist in plurality of persons is the creator. We describe the God we worship sometimes with the word “Godhead” that is in a sense a neutral term for the essential being of God as unique. That aside, the Holy Spirit conveyed through Apostle Paul regarding the plurality of persons in the unique divine being that we worship and the unity in the function of the plurality of persons that we call God in 1 Corinthians 8:6. The uniqueness of this God is such that the Holy Spirit did not separate the concept of plurality of persons from unity in function. I mean that the Holy Spirit did not explicitly state that there is plurality of persons first and then followed by discussion on the unity in function. No! The two are presented together as it will become evident in the exposition of the verse we are considering. But before we do, we should recognize that although the verse we are about to consider is concerned with two persons of the God of the Christians but there are three persons in the divine being we call God of the Christians. While the apostle did not mention in 1 Corinthians 8:6 the third person of the divine being we call God, that does not mean he does not recognize the third person, the Holy Spirit, for he does as evident in the closing greetings of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that is, 2 Corinthians 13:14:
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Here the apostle mentioned two persons of the Godhead distinctively, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, without any direct reference to the Father. It is probably that the Holy Spirit through the apostle intend for us to understand “God” here as a reference to the “Father” because God is associated with love just as the Father is associated with love in 2 Thessalonians 2:16:
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,
Be that as it may, the first person of the unique God that Christians worship is the “Father” as Apostle Paul wrote in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 8:6 one God, the Father. The article “the” is used here in the sense of “one of a kind” or “unique” to indicate that in the class we call God there is a unique person or one of a kind person that is described as “Father.” Although the article is used to describe the unique person in the divine being, we call the Christian God, but it is also possible that the article is used to say to those who have been liberated from idolatry through faith in Jesus Christ that this Father is not Zeus that is claimed by their worshippers as the father of all divine and human beings. No! This Father is in a class of the divine being we call God and distinct among the persons we call God and so cannot be compared with anyone that is assigned the title “father” as a sign of reverence.
The word “Father” in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is translated from a Greek word (patēr) that may mean the male parent as the immediate biological ancestor, that is, father, as it is used to describe Joseph’s relationship to Jacob in Acts 7:14:
After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.
In the plural, it may refer to male and female parents together as the Greek word is used to describe Moses’ father and mother in Hebrews 11:23:
By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
The word may mean “forefather, ancestor, progenitor”, that is, one from whom one is descended and generally, at least, several generations removed as the word is used to describe Israel’s forefathers with whom the Lord made a covenant when they came out of Egypt, as described in Hebrews 8:9:
It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
It in this sense of the word that the Israelites of the time of the Lord Jesus called Abraham their father in John 8:39:
“Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did.
The word may mean “father” in the sense of one who is responsible for having guided another into faith or into a particular pattern of behavior; hence, means “spiritual father.” It is in the negative sense of guiding one to a particular pattern of behavior that the word is used for the Lord Jesus’ description of the devil as father of those Jews who opposed Him during His earthly ministry, as stated in John 8:44:
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
The word may mean “father” as a title of respectful address, as in Matthew 23:9:
And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
By the way, the prohibition of the Lord here about calling anyone one father is not against the word “father” to address one’s biological father; instead, He meant one should not use the word “father” as a title of honor in addressing someone of a superior rank so that what Jesus prohibits is using the honorary title “father” to address some teacher or leader in the spirit of superiority. This means that all those religious leaders that expect others to call them “father” are in violation of our Lord’s instruction. Of course, the word under this meaning of title of respect can be used to designate older male members of a local church without violating what the Lord taught as the word is used in Apostle John’s epistle in addressing older males in 1 John 2:13:
I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.
The Greek word may mean “father” in the sense of a revered, deceased person(s) with whom one shares beliefs or traditions. Hence, the word may mean “father” as an “archetype” or “prototype” of a group or the founder of a class of persons as the word is used to describe Abraham as the father of those who believe in the Lord regardless of their circumcision status in Romans 4:11:
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.
The word may mean “Father” as a description of the supreme deity, who is responsible for the origin and care of all that exists. Thus, God as the originator and ruler is called “Father of lights” in James 1:17:
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
It is under this meaning that the word is used to describe the first member of the Godhead, as it is used by Apostle Paul in instructing the attitude of thankfulness on our part in Ephesians 5:20:
always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 8:6, it is used with the meaning “Father” in sense of the supreme deity, who is responsible for the origin and care of all that exists. Hence, the word “Father” is used in the sense of “creator” which relates to a function of one person of our divine being that we Christians call the true God.
That the word “Father” is used in sense of creator in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is implied in the next clause of the NIV from whom all things came and for whom we live. As we indicated previously, there are no verbs in the Greek since literally the Greek reads from whom all things and we to him. It is true that there are no verbs used in Greek, but the Greek prepositions used give the sense of the Greek phrase being concerned with creation. The word “from” is translated from a Greek preposition (ek) that has several usages in the Greek. It may be used as a marker of separation from something or from a group with the meaning “from, out of” as the word is used in the quotation from the OT that Apostle Paul applied to the church, requiring believers to separate themselves from the immoral conduct and influence of unbelievers as we read in 2 Corinthians 6:17:
“Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
The preposition may be used as a marker that denotes origin of something or its derivation, hence it is used by Apostle Paul to convey that if we die, we are going to live eternally in a heavenly home with a body that is not subject to death as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:1:
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
The preposition may be used as marker of the effective cause of something so may mean “by, because of ” so Apostle Paul used it with the meaning “by” to indicate he and members of his team did not harm the Corinthians because of what they did as we read in 2 Corinthians 7:9:
yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.
The phrase by us could be translated “because of us” or “through us.” In our passage of 1 Corinthians 8:6, the Greek preposition is used to denote origin or that from which something is derived. The originator in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is the Father since the relative pronoun whom refers to the Father previously mentioned.
The Father or originator is associated with the clause of 1 Corinthians 8:6 from whom all things came or literally from whom all things. Although there is no verb in the Greek it is not difficult to interpret what the literal phrase means because of the word “from” that we indicated conveys the sense of origination. Therefore, the phrase is to be understood to mean that the Father created all things. The phrase all things certainly refers to the universe since the Greek phrase translated “all things” in our verse has the sense of the universe in Ephesians 4:10:
He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
The phrase the whole universe of the NIV is literally all things. Anyway, the phrase all things of 1 Corinthians 8:6 refers to everything created by the Father. This would include the gods or lesser gods. The Father created all divine beings that we describe as lesser gods. It is important to include them in the phrase to indicate they are different from the Father who is the unique divine being because He is not created but the creator of the other lesser gods that reside in heaven and those that are assigned to rule the nations. The all things the Father created include humans since the Greek phrase is used in a sense that refers to humanity as we read in Galatians 3:22:
But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
The phrase the whole world is literally all things. The apostle states that all things are under sin. This means primarily that human beings are under sin. It is true the Holy Spirit tells us through Apostle Paul that material creation is suffering the effects of sin as implied in Romans 8:22:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
However, humans are those who are directly under sin. Therefore, the phrase of Galatians 3:22 the whole world or literally all things refers primarily to humans. The implication is that all things in 1 Corinthians 8:6 also include humans. Furthermore, all things include every living thing as the same Greek phrase is used in 1 Timothy 6:13:
In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you.
The clause who gives life to everything is literally who gives life to all things. Thus, everything that is living is created by the Father. The point we need to stress is that the focus in declaring that the Father is the creator is first on the lesser gods, then on humans, every living thing, and the physical universe.
The apostle having conveyed that God created all creatures both in heaven and on earth then added a phrase that the translators of the NIV rendered as and for whom we live in 1 Corinthians 8:6. The Greek is verbless so that literally it reads and we to him. The problem is how to understand the literal phrase. The translators of the NIV and many other versions supplied the word “live” or “to exist” or “to move” to make sense of the phrase. It is probably that the apostle meant to convey that we, believers in Christ, belong to God as His inheritance or treasured possession. We said this because, as we have noted, the apostle certainly had in his mind the fact that God disinherited the nations so to say, by assigning lesser gods to rule them while He chose Israel as His own nation in the passage we have considered in our last study, that is, Deuteronomy 32:8–9:
8When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.
So, when the apostle wrote of creation of the universe by the Father, the Holy Spirit would have brought this passage back in his mind but this time applying it to believers in Christ. It is for this reason that we believe that when the apostle wrote literally in 1 Corinthians 8:6 and we to him that he would have had in mind that believers belong to God. By the way, after my interpretation I consulted various English versions to see how they translated the phrase and to my surprise, the CEB agrees with the interpretation that I offered although I do not know the reasoning behind their translation of and we belong to him. Nonetheless, it is clear that I am not the only one who understood the phrase as I have interpreted it.
In any event, the apostle had identified the first person in the divine class we call God as “Father.” In addition, he wrote of His function of creation of all the lesser gods, all human beings and lower creatures of God but probably with emphasis on the creation of the lesser gods in order to show that the unique God of the Christians that exist in plurality of person is their creator. This will of course support our second proposition that there is hierarchy in the concept of supernatural beings revealed in the Scripture. The God we worship is highest in authority because He is the creator of all beings and things in heaven and on earth. This brings us to the second person in the plurality of the persons of Godhead.
10/16//20