Chapter 8 – One God Translation

1 Corinthians

   8 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know it as he should. 3 But if anyone loves God, that person is known by Him.
    4 So then concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol in the world is nothing, and that there is no God except for the one God. [1040] 5 Even though there are some called “gods,” either in heaven or on earth — as in fact there are many “gods” and many “lords” — 6 yet for us there is only one God, who is the Father,[1041] from[1042] whom are all things, and we are for Him; and one lord[1043] Messiah Jesus,[1044] through[1045] whom are all things, and we are through him.
    7 But this knowledge is not possessed by all. Some have been so used to idols, that they still think of the food they are eating as being sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is violated. 8 But food will not make us pleasing to God! If we do not eat this food, we are not worse off, and if we do eat it, we are not better off. 9 But be careful: on no account should this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if a weak believer sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol temple, will he not be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols and violate his own conscience? 11 And through your knowledge one who is weak is destroyed, a brother or sister for whom Messiah died. 12 In this way you sin against other believers by causing them to violate their weaker consciences, and you sin against the Messiah. 13 So if eating food sacrificed to idols causes my fellow believer to stumble, I will never eat such meat again, so that I will not cause any believer to stumble.

1 Corinthians

[1040]

Defined as the Father 1300 times in the NT and expressly so in the creedal statement of Jesus in John 17:3 and Mark 12:29. This is exactly the proposition given us by the Jew who agreed with Jesus on the greatest of all commandments (Mk. 12:29). That one and only God is defined here in v. 6 as the Father.

[1041]

The word “God,” very often in the NT “the God” (of Israel), occurs some 1300 times and means the Father and not the Son. Mal. 2:10 sums up the biblical definition of God: “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?” The later concept of God as Trinity is completely unknown in the Bible. Jesus defined God as did all Jews, based on Israel’s central creedal statement in Deut. 6:4 (see Mk. 12:29; Jn. 17:3). “The Lord our God is one Lord,” not two or three lords.

[1042]

The Father, who is God, is here as everywhere else said to be the source and origin of the creation. Col. 1:16 is no exception, since the creation there was “because of Christ” (a causal use of the Greek word en, “in,” Moulton, A Grammar of NT, Vol. 3, p. 253).

[1043]

The lord Messiah is never ever to be confused with the Lord God! The two lords are carefully distinguished in the oracle in Ps. 110:1. YHVH is of course the one God, and the second lord of Ps. 110:l (falsely capitalized in many versions) is the human being, adoni, “my lord,” the Messiah. Adoni is never a title of Deity, but always of non-Deity. Jesus is called “our lord Messiah” scores of times, and everyone knows that “our YHVH” is a language impossibility appearing nowhere. Luke 2:11 defines the lord Messiah who was born, and of course no one in the Bible imagined that God could be born (or die!). Dr. James Dunn makes our point well: “Paul speaks of God not simply as the God of Christ but as ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Even as Lord, Jesus acknowledges his Father as his God. Here it becomes plain that kyrios (lord) is not so much a way of identifying Jesus with God, but if anything more a way of distinguishing Jesus from God” (The Theology of Paul the Apostle, p. 254). Cp. 1 Cor. 3:23, “You are Christ’s and Christ is God’s,” and 11:3, “the head of Christ is God.” Ps. 110:1 had made all that very clear, but little or no attention has been paid to the two lords in that verse, the second of whom is non-Deity. It ought to be easy to see that “God speaking to God” shatters monotheism.

[1044]

It is one of the most disastrous misunderstandings of the NT to claim with some exegetes today that Paul has “split the shema” (the creed of Deut. 6:4) between God and the Son, calling Jesus YHVH and the Father GOD! This is an assault on biblical monotheism (and common sense!), which is always unitary monotheism and not Trinitarian. The master key to good understanding is that there aretwo “lords” based on Ps. 110:1, the second of whom is not YHVH! The title “lord” for Jesus is derived from Ps. 110:1, where the second lord (my lord, adoni) provides the indispensable information by which Jesus is entitled to be the “lord Messiah” (Lk. 2:11; Col 3:24: “you are serving the lord Messiah”). In Acts 2:34-36 Peter makes Ps. 110:1 the key to defining the exalted position of Jesus now at the right hand of the One God: Jesus is “made lord and Messiah.” One obviously cannot be made YHVH! Ps. 110:1 is by far the most often quoted or alluded to verse from the OT in the NT. Its significance cannot be overemphasized. Here Paul is in perfect agreement with the unitary monotheism of Jesus which he emphasized in Mark 12:29 and John 17:3. Both Jesus and Paul have the Shema as the pillar and foundation of their theology. This simple truth was blurred and lost from the second century on.
Moreover Jesus (Mk. 14:62) and Stephen (Acts 7:56) knew well that the one at the right hand of God was the Son of Man, the Human Being. This was certainly not “God at the right hand of God,” destroying monotheism! When proper attention is paid to the all-important Ps. 110:1 we can expect a return to biblical monotheism, the creed of Jesus. The simplicity of the NT creed is found in Paul’s summary statement that the truth needed for salvation is that “there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, Messiah Jesus, himself man” (1 Tim. 2:4-5). The whole point of the Bible is lost if Jesus is not a real human being. It is through “a man” that God has planned to judge the world (Acts 17:31), and that man is now an immortalized man! This too is the destiny of believers — to gain immortality at the resurrection. Placing the man Messiah (adoni of Ps. 110:1, a human person) next to God does not in any way alter the Shema, the creed of Jesus and of all Scripture. Paul spoke of “turning to the one God and waiting for His Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:9-10). God is still the Father alone. The idea of “redefining” the creed of the Bible in one verse in Paul is one of the most preposterous attempts of some to justify the post-biblical development of the Trinity.

[1045]

The things which are “through” Messiah are the things of the new creation. Jesus is also the human expression of God’s “wisdom,” the perfect embodiment of God’s eternal wisdom and plan. The “word,” God’s self-expression, not Word, became flesh when the Messiah, Son of God, came into existence (Jn. 1:14; Lk. 1:35; Mt. 1:20; 1 Jn. 5:18).