Lessons #265 and 266
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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.
The second proposition of this section that we have been considering, if you recall, is that there is hierarchy in the concept of supernatural beings revealed in the Scripture. The supernatural being that is supreme and highest in authority is the divine being that we call God. This supreme being that we call God is unique among all the divine beings either in heaven or on earth. His uniqueness is the concern of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 8:6. This uniqueness we stated is the concern of the phrase of 1 Corinthians 8:6 there is but one God. We indicated that the Holy Spirit through the apostle was not concerned with quantity as the number “one” would suggest instead that the concern was the uniqueness of the God we Christians worship that is revealed in the Bible. Consequently, in our last study, we indicated that verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 8 is concerned with unique doctrine of the Christian faith regarding the God we Christians worship, that is, that the God we worship that is revealed in the Bible is unique. This 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. We stated that 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 Christians worship because this divine being that exist in plurality of persons is the creator. That this unique divine being we call God is described as the creator is because of the phrase of 1 Corinthian 8:6 one God, the Father. So, the word “Father” introduced us to the first person of the unique God the Holy Spirit mentioned in our verse that leads us to speak of the plurality of persons in the Godhead. We continue with the second person the Holy Spirit through the apostle introduced as a member of this unique God, that is above and creator of the lesser gods, humans, and other creatures of God. But before we do, let me comment further about our assertion in the last study that the apostle was aware of the third person of the Holy Spirit but made no direct reference to Him at this point in His epistle.
Why is it that the Apostle Paul made no reference to the third person of the Godhead or any reference to the fact that He is a person in the plurality of the unique God he introduced in the passage we are considering? The simplest reason is that the apostle was constrained by the contexts to reference only two members of the Godhead as he wrote the section we are considering. In verse 5 the apostle wrote indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”. The mention of “gods” and “lords” imply that the apostle on stating that there is unique God among the divine beings or lesser gods that he should refer to the first unique member of the Godhead called “the Father” and the second unique person that answers to the issue of many “lords.” Thus, it was important for the apostle to describe the first two members of the Godhead or the unique God. The apostle had already written in the preceding chapters in a way that the person or the deity of the Holy Spirit is not in doubt. Recall what he wrote of the relationship of believers and the Holy Spirit. He indicated that believers are God’s temple and that the Holy Spirit lives in them as he penned in 1 Corinthians 3:16:
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
Later, the apostle indicate that the body of the believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit as recorded in 1 Corinthians 6:19:
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
Believers are called God’s temple in the third chapter of the epistle and then they are described as a temple of the Holy Spirit in the sixth chapter. The clear implication is that Holy Spirit is God and so we recognize that Holy Spirit is a member of the plurality of persons of the Godhead. Hence, it was not necessary for the apostle to write about the Holy Spirit in the passage we are considering. As we said, it is because of the word “lords” that it was necessary for him to refer to the second person in the plurality of persons of the unique God.
Be that as it may, the second person in the plurality of the unique God we worship is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is introduced in the clause of 1 Corinthians 8:6 and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ. There is no verb used in the Greek since literally the Greek reads, and one Lord Jesus Christ. The word “one” here as we considered in our previous study should not be understood in quantitative sense but in a qualitative sense so that we should recognize that the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul declared that we have a unique Lord. I realize that some take the word “one” in quantitative sense because of the declaration of 1 Corinthians 8:5 there are many “gods” and many “lords.” Their argument is that because of the word “many” that we should understand the word “one” in a quantitative sense. This is unlikely what the Holy Spirit through the apostle conveyed to us. The sense is that we have a unique Lord. This makes more sense since Apostle Paul recognized that the word “Lord” he used could refer to God in the OT as we may gather from his quotation of a passage in the OT in 1 Corinthians 1:31:
Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
The apostle quoted from Jeremiah 9:23:
This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches,
The word LORD used in Jeremiah is translated from the Hebrew word for the God of Israel so that the apostle was aware that the word “Lord” refers to the God of creation. Because the apostle recognized that Jesus Christ is God, he would not be lumping Jesus among the many lords he had mentioned; instead, he would want to communicate that Jesus as Lord is in a class by Himself among those called “lord.” Thus, we contend that he would not have used the word “one” in a quantitative sense but in a qualitative sense.
To appreciate that the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul is concerned with the uniqueness of Jesus as Lord, we need to consider the Greek word rendered “lord” in our passage. Even before we consider the Greek word, we should understand that the word “lord” is one used to describe the pagan god Zeus as the “lord” of all and of the many of the other pagan gods, such as, Isis and Hermes. Thus, it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to convey that Jesus Christ is unique and in no way in the same class as those called “lords” among the pagan gods. With this comment, let us then consider the word “lord” used in our passage.
The word “Lord” used in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is translated from a Greek word (kyrios) that may mean “owner” in the sense of one who is in charge by virtue of possession. It is in this sense that the word is used to describe a slave girl that was involved in fortune-telling that Apostle Paul healed for which he and his team were manhandled, as we read in Acts 16:19:
When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.
Another meaning of our Greek word refers to one who is in a position of authority and so means “lord, master.” It is in this sense that the word is used to give the instruction to slave owners regarding the proper treatment of their slaves in Colossians 4:1:
Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
Still another meaning of our Greek word is as a title of respect hence means “sir”, as it is used by the Samaritan woman as she addressed Jesus Christ since she did not initially know who He was as we read in John 4:15:
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
The word may be used to refer to Jesus Christ. It is in this sense that it is used in citation of the OT Scripture in John 1:23:
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Apostle Paul quite often used the word in referring to the Lord Jesus as he used it in the exhortation for believers to remain zealous regarding spiritual matters as we read in Romans 12:11:
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
The word may refer to an angel as in Acts 10:4:
Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 8:6, the word is used in the sense of “sovereign master of all creation” to refer to Jesus Christ.
There can be little doubt that Apostle Paul’s use of the word “Lord” is influenced by its usage in the Septuagint. This is because in the Septuagint, the Greek word is used to describe the God of Israel (Yahweh) as the sovereign ruler, as implied in Psalm 103:19:
The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
The One described in the Septuagint with the Greek word we considered is stated to be over all gods, that is, the One who rules over the other gods as we read in Psalm 95:3:
For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.
So, it is not difficult to believe that when the apostle used the Greek word in 1 Corinthians 8:6, he was thinking of this Lord as “sovereign master of creation.”
Why is the Lord that Apostle Paul wrote in the phrase one Lord unique? One may ask. The apostle provided two answers. His first answer is that it is because of the title ascribed to this Lord that indicates He is the only Lord so appointed because He is God. It is this reason that is given in the description that follows in 1 Corinthians 8:6 Jesus Christ. This title is unique in that no being on earth or in heaven other the unique Lord that apostle described has this title. As we stated previously, there are humans who are given the title of “lord” either by others or they claim it but they often have a title that is common to many other persons. Take for example, the Pharaoh in Egypt was called “lord” but the title Pharaoh is used generally not for one ruler of Egypt but for many. Likewise, in Rome those described as “lords” were their emperors with different personal names so that the title “emperor” applied to several rulers. But the Lord that the apostle described is unique in that He is the only One described Lord that bears the title Jesus Christ.
The name Jesus is a common name among the Hebrew people being equivalent to Joshua (Hebrew yehôšuaʿ) a name that means either “Yahweh is salvation” or “the Lord saves.” The Greek word (Iēsous) translated “Jesus” is translated Joshua, the successor of Moses in Stephen’s sermon as we read in Acts 7:45:
Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David,
That the name Jesus was a common name among the Jews in the NT is evident in the fact that there are others with that name as we find, for example, in Colossians 4:11:
Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me.
The name Jesus as a proper name to be given to the child that was to be born through Mary via virgin pregnancy is explained in relationship to salvation in Matthew 1:21:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
That the name of the son to be born by Mary is “Jesus” is differentiated from all others that bear that name because this Jesus would be involved in forgiveness of sins. That in and of itself implies that the name Jesus that that Apostle Paul used to describe the unique Lord indicates that He is unique among all those that call themselves “lord” or called by others with the title “lord.”
To further differentiate this Jesus that is Lord, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul adds the second title Christ. The word “Christ” is translated from a Greek word (Christos) that means “the Anointed One, the Messiah, Christ” as it is used in Herod’s description of baby Jesus that he wanted to kill as narrated in Matthew 2:4:
When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
The Greek word may be used as the personal name ascribed to Jesus as we read in 1 Corinthians 2:2:
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 8:6, the word is used in the sense of “Anointed One,” that is, “Christ.” It is not used here as a proper name but a title. To the Jews of the NT times, the word Christ or Messiah was a title that referred to the promised Davidic King that would bring an everlasting peace to the people of Israel. Consequently, in the NT, many Jews believed the Messiah would be a political-military figure that would free them from foreign oppression. This we can learn from the confession of the two men that were on their way to Emmaus that the Lord Jesus appeared following His resurrection, as we read in Luke 24:21:
but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.
Furthermore, it is because of this expectation that the Messiah or Christ would be a political-military figure that caused Herod to panic and so attempted to kill Him as recorded in the passage we cited previously, that is, in Matthew 2:4.
In any case, Apostle Paul’s use of the title Jesus Christ is quite significant as we can learn from what he wrote in his epistles. To the apostle the title “Jesus Christ” means that Jesus Christ is God since he used the title to describe Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle indicated that Jesus Christ is declared “Son of God” in Romans 1:4:
and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
In the apostle’s first epistle to the Corinthians, he indicated that Jesus Christ is the God’s Son as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:9:
God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
The same claim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is stated in 2 Corinthians 1:19:
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”
The description of Jesus Christ as son of God has caused problems to many people who do not understand what the term means. Part of the problem is that we think of the word “son” most often as biological term that means that a male child is fathered by the one described as his father. Thus, many people find it difficult to accept that Jesus Christ is God because they say that there is no way to have one God and still call Jesus Christ the Son of God. Others mock such notion by saying that for Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, God must have a wife. This mocking, as we have stated, is because people think of the son and father relationship only in biological terms. But that is not the way to understand what the Scripture declares concerning Jesus Christ being the Son of God. Anyway, there are other ways of understanding the word “son” when used in association with someone. The word “son” may be used to indicate that an individual is a member of a large coherent group such that the word describes a person as a member of humanity as we find the Greek word (huios) translated son used in Ephesians 3:5:
which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
The phrase to men is literally to sons of men that means “humans” so that the NRSV use the phrase to humankind. The word “son” may be used to describe one whose identity is defined in terms of a relationship with a person or thing such that an individual is bound to a personality by close, non-material ties. In this usage, an individual is linked to the character of the personality so that the phrase “son of” may be used. A good example of this involves believers in Christ that are linked to Abraham because he was the first individual whose relationship to God is based on faith as we read in Galatians 3:7:
Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.
The phrase children of Abraham is literally sons of Abraham. The word “son” may be used to indicate that a person is a follower or disciple of another in a spiritual relationship. This is the way the word “son” is used to describe the relationship between Peter and Mark in 1 Peter 5:13:
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark.
Mark was not Peter’s biological son but his spiritual son in that he is a follower of Peter. So, you get the idea that the word “son” does not necessarily mean biological relationship.
At any rate, the use of the phrase “Son of God” to describe Jesus Christ is to convey that He is God or that He is a member of the unique being called God that exists in plurality of persons. The divine nature of Jesus Christ is evident in the announcement of the virgin birth in Luke 1:35
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
The angel who announced the virgin birth indicated that the child that would be born as the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary has the divine nature that is the reason Jesus Christ is to be called the Son of God. The angel implies that the Holy Spirit would work in Mary so that she will become pregnant. So, as in the case of a woman being pregnant by a man, results in the child born to be a human being that shares the human nature so Jesus would have the divine nature as well as human nature. It is difficult for us at the present time to understand that the phrase “Son of God” implies deity because we do not have the same view as the Jews of the time of Jesus Christ when the title was applied to Him. To show that the Jews of that time understood that the title implies divinity, let me take you to two different interactions between the Jews and Jesus Christ. On one occasion, Jesus claimed that God is His Father but the Jews who understood the implication of such a claim charged Him of blasphemy, as we read in John 5:16–18:
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
It is clear the Jews understood that Jesus Christ calling God His Father meant that He claimed divinity and so they charged Him of blasphemy. On another occasion, Jesus Christ stated He is the Son of God. The result was that the Jews who heard Him wanted to stone Him to death because they charged Him of blasphemy. Jesus questioned them of their reason for wanting to stone Him to death and they gave the answer that it is because He claimed to be God, as narrated in the record of John 10:33:
“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Note that to the Jews who heard the claim of Jesus Christ, He was merely a man. It is for this reason that they indicated that a man claimed to be God. What was the claim of Jesus Christ that the Jews understood to mean that He claimed to be God? It is His calling Himself the “Son of God” as we gather from John 10:36:
what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
This understanding that the phrase “Son of God” refers to deity of Jesus Christ enables us to understand that the Jews who confessed Jesus Christ as the Son of God were saved. Nathanael confessed this to Jesus Christ as recorded in John 1:49:
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
So did Martha, as we read in John 11:27:
“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Thus, we should recognize that the Jews understood the phrase “Son of God” as meaning that the One described with it is God. Consequently, it is not surprising then that Apostle John tied salvation to accepting that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, as we read in John 20:31:
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The same apostle tells us that anyone who believes that Jesus is Christ, that is, to say that He is the Son of God is one that is regenerated as we read in 1 John 5:1:
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
Hence, we can understand that to Apostle Paul, the title Jesus Christ meant that He is God. This interpretation is supported by the fact that he, in a most direct way, stated that Jesus Christ is God in Titus 2:13:
while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
This passage, as we have stated, is the most direct declaration of the deity of Jesus Christ through the pen of Apostle Paul but it should not surprise us because the apostle had already stated that we have a unique Lord. In the apostle’s mind, the unique Lord must be God since he must have known that Thomas, one of Jesus’ apostles, described Jesus Christ after His resurrection as his Lord and God, according to John 20:28:
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
This confession of Thomas is difficult for the Jehovah’s Witnesses to handle because of the implication that Thomas called Jesus Christ God. Therefore, they say that Thomas was just exclaiming his surprise because they assert that if you saw someone that has died come back to life that you too might say “Oh! My God” out of sheer surprise. Hence, they say that Thomas did not mean anything by what he said. Another approach they adopt is to ignore the passage and cite verse 31 where Christ is described as “Son of God.” They argue that since the Father is called God then the Son could not be God. This argument taken to another level is like saying that because a man called father of a son is human therefore his son cannot be human. Anyway, the problem is that when they give a simple explanation of expressing surprise, they ignore the Greek construction indicates that “Lord” and “God” refers to the same person. To account for the Greek construction used, the UBS handbook suggests that to avoid any misunderstanding of what Thomas declared that the exclamation My Lord and my God! may be translated translate “you are my Lord, even my God.” Or that the entire verse may be translated “you are the one who rules over me, and you are God whom I worship.” So, there is no way to get around the fact that Thomas called the risen Lord Jesus Christ His God. That aside, the fact remains that to Apostle Paul, the title Jesus Christ conveys that the unique Lord that is the Son of God is indeed God and so a second member in the plurality of persons in the Godhead.
It is not only that when Apostle Paul used the title Jesus Christ to describe the unique Lord that he was declaring Him God but also, He conveyed much more about the unique Lord because of the various things He asserted in his epistles about the One he described with the title Jesus Christ. Let us consider some of the things the apostle associated with the title Jesus Christ so we get the idea that the apostle must have used the title to describe the uniqueness of the Lord he introduced as a member of the plurality of the persons of the unique divine being we call God.
First, the title Jesus Christ means to the apostle that the unique Lord he described is the One through whom God puts men right with Himself without reference to the Law. This, of course, requires that anyone that is to be put right with God must believe in Jesus Christ, as we read in Romans 3:22:
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
The phrase righteousness from God refers to both God’s attribute of righteousness as well as His activity of saving righteousness. Anyway, the point is that without Jesus Christ no one can be put right with God.
Second, the title Jesus Christ means to the apostle that the unique Lord he described is the agent of humans being reconciled to God, as we read in Romans 5:11:
Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Reconciliation is the restoration of the estranged and alienated person to friendship and intimacy with God. We humans became God’s enemy as the apostle wrote in the preceding verse, that is, in Romans 5:10:
For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
We became God’s enemies and estranged from Him because of our sins as the apostle wrote also in Colossians 1:21:
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
It is sin that separated us from God, so we incurred His wrath as that is implied by the declaration of the Lord through Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 59:1–2:
1Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. 2But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Hence, it is clear that because of our sin we became alienated from God but the Holy Spirit through the apostle conveys to us that it is the unique Lord that he described with the title Jesus Christ is responsible for restoring us into friendship with God instead of being His enemies. No wonder the apostle described this unique Lord as the mediator between man and God in 1 Timothy 2:5:
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
The apostle’s use of the word “man” here recognizes the fact that the unique Lord took on human nature to carry out His work of reconciling humanity to God and so we should recognize that the apostle implies that Jesus Christ is both God and man in one person in order to be our mediator. The picture the apostle painted when he described Jesus Christ as the agent of our reconciliation to God is that of two parties who are at odds with each other that needs to have peace between them but there is no way one side could contact the other, so to say. We were enemies with the unique God, the creator, as we have said, through our sins. The problem then is that God could not reach out to us because we wronged Him and because of His character, so a mediator was necessary. This mediator must be God and man in one person. So, Jesus Christ, the apostle said is that mediator to help bridge the gap and reconcile us to God. The implication is that Jesus Christ in humanity is the only being qualified to bridge the gap between God and man because of His dual nature in one person.
Third, the title Jesus Christ means to the apostle that the unique Lord he described is the agent of receiving eternal life by those who believe in Him, as stated in Romans 5:21:
so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the One who grants eternal life to believers as part of His function as a member of the unique God as He stated in His priestly prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John, specifically John 17:2:
For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.
The Lord Jesus prior to His priestly prayer conveyed the truth that He is the member of the Godhead that grants eternal life, as we read in John 10:28:
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
This declaration of the Lord Jesus is clearly an assurance that a saved person would never be lost. There are those who are unsure about how secure their salvation is. Such individuals should hear clearly what the Lord promised here. By the way, those who think they can lose their salvation seem not to understand what eternal life means. Eternal life is an “unending life.” Thus, it is difficult to perceive how Jesus Christ would grant someone an “unending life” and some sin causes the unending life to end. That kind of thought contradicts the meaning of “eternal life.”
Fourth, the title Jesus Christ means to the apostle that the unique Lord he described is the agent of sanctification and justification as he penned in 1 Corinthians 6:11:
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
We have studied this passage in detail but let me just remind you that the sentence you were sanctified means that God has dedicated the Corinthians and so all believers to Himself. Likewise, the sentence you were justified means that God has declared us to have satisfied all the claims of the Law because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ and so in good standing with Him. Believers have been declared righteous before God not because of what we have done as demanded by the Law but because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Thus, Apostle Paul recognized that without Jesus Christ we do not have any possible way of being declared righteous or considered as those who belong to God.
he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will –
God’s family include Himself in the three persons of Godhead and in an extended sense the lesser gods that He has created prior to the creation of humans. Since creation of humans and through the death of Jesus Christ, humans have become members of the family of God in heaven that the Holy Spirit referenced through Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:15:
from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
Adoption is really a legal term that describes the transfer of a person from a natural family into another family so that the person so received becomes a beneficiary of all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of the new family. Our adoption into the family of God was carried out through Jesus Christ. Hence, to the apostle, Jesus Christ is the unique member of the Godhead that is responsible for placing us into the family of God, that is, He is the agent of our adoption. Thus, it is clear the apostle sees Jesus Christ as central in God’s plan for our salvation. Anyway, we have considered some of the things that Apostle Paul would have meant in the use of the title Jesus Christ to describe the unique Lord he wrote about in the passage we are studying. Everything we have considered so far involve the blessing of salvation but there is one more thing that the apostle would have also conveyed as he wrote the title Jesus Christ we are considering that is not pleasant, so to say, as we will note next.
Sixth, the title Jesus Christ meant to the apostle that the unique Lord he described is the agent of God’s judgement as the apostle penned down in Romans 2:16:
This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
The declaration of judgment through Jesus Christ is another way the apostle recognized the deity of Jesus Christ since the One who will judge is Jesus Christ. We are sure of this because Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry stated unequivocally that He is the member of the Godhead that has the function of judging people, as we read in John 5:22–23:
22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
The assertion of the Lord Jesus Christ in this passage conveys He is co-equal to the Father as God. For unless He is co-equal to the Father, He would not have stated that people should honor Him as they honor the Father. Anyway, the Lord Jesus Christ is clear that He is the member of the Godhead that is responsible for judgment of any kind. Consequently, when the apostle spoke of judgment in the eternal state, he spoke in terms of appearing before Jesus Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:10:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Be that as it may, our consideration of what the title Jesus Christ meant to Apostle Paul and should mean to us is part of our exposition of the question: Why is the Lord that Apostle Paul wrote in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 8:6 one Lord unique? We have considered the first answer which is that it is because of the title ascribed to this Lord that indicates He is the only Lord that is appointed so because He is God. It is this reason that is given in the description that follows in 1 Corinthians 8:6 Jesus Christ that we have considered. This brings us to the second answer, which is where we begin in our next study.
10/23//20