A. Knowledge about idols (8:1–6)
A. Knowledge about idols (8:1–6)
1. Now about (peri de) is the formula that introduces matter raised by the letter from the Corinthians (see on 7:1). This is another topic that gave them difficulty. We know that we all possess knowledge may be a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter (so NEB, GNB). Paul agrees. Knowledge is important and he associates himself with his readers in its exercise. The use of all may be a gentle reminder that the knowledge on which the Corinthians prided themselves was by no means unusual, but the common possession of Christians. But love is more important. Knowledge puffs up (see note on ‘take pride’ in 4:6). Knowledge is so often accompanied by pride, which is the very antithesis of the genuine Christian spirit. While knowledge may make people proud, love builds up (cf. Phillips, ‘while knowledge may make a man look big, it is only love that can make him grow to his full stature’). Builds up (oikodomei) properly applies to the erection of buildings; Paul is fond of using it metaphorically for the development of Christian character (see TNTC on 1 Thess. 5:11).
2. Knowledge here on earth is, at best, incomplete. No matter what a man thinks he knows (the perfect tense implies full and complete knowledge), he does not yet know (if the aorist is inceptive, he has not even begun true knowledge) as he ought (‘must’, dei). There is no point in priding oneself on what is inevitably partial and incomplete (cf. 13:9). There is probably also the thought that he who thinks he knows really does not know (cf. 3:18). As Kay says, ‘Knowledge is proud that it has learnt so much. Wisdom is humble that it knows no more.’
3. Love, by contrast, has permanent effects. Paul surprises us here. After ‘If anyone thinks he knows something he knows nothing. If anyone loves God’ we expect something like ‘he has real knowledge’. Instead we read, he is known by God. The really important thing is not that we know God, but that he knows us: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’ (2 Tim. 2:19; cf. Gal. 4:9). People who truly love God are brought within the sphere of those on whom God is graciously pleased to set his knowledge.
In these three verses Paul has given a very gentle rebuke to those who gave too high a place to knowledge. Love rather than knowledge is the Christian’s guide.
4. Returning to the subject of idol meats, Paul agrees with the Corinthians that an idol is nothing at all in the world (or ‘there is no idol in all the world’; cf. JB, NEB). He may well be quoting the Corinthians again, as many think. He is certainly not giving his own full idea on the matter, for he later says that what is sacrificed to idols is actually sacrificed to devils (10:20). There are spiritual beings behind the idols, though not the ones their worshippers thought. But here this is not the point. Paul is prepared to agree that the gods the heathen worship are no gods. In all this ordered universe there is no reality corresponding to idols. This is a necessary consequence of the assertion that there is no God but one. One of the first things a little Jewish boy was taught was the Shema, ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Deut. 6:4). It was absolutely fundamental, and the Jew clung to it with a fierce tenacity. The Christian was no less sure of it than the Jew.
5. Paul allows that there are so-called gods. Idol worshippers referred to the objects of their worship as ‘gods’, and really believed them to be such. But so-called indicates their unreality. All are dismissed, whether their abode was thought to be in heaven or on earth (Chrysostom sees those in heaven as the sun, moon and stars, those on earth as demons). There is probably no great difference between many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’. ‘Lord’ was a common way of referring to deity in the cults of the time (which makes Paul’s frequent application of the term to Jesus Christ significant). Paul is simply making it clear that the heathen world worshipped a multitude of deities, none of which was real.
6. Yet is the strong adversative all’, and for us is in an emphatic position. In sharp contrast to the idolaters, Christians are essentially monotheistic: there is but one God. He is given his characteristic title, the Father, partly to point to his relationship to the Son, and partly to indicate his tender care for his people (both are mentioned in the following clauses). Pagans divided up creation among their gods and goddesses, each having his own sphere. But the one God, says Paul, is responsible for all things. We came from him and we live for him; he is our origin and goal. The preposition eis, for, indicates the set of the life. The believer lives for God.
Paul thinks also of the Son, the one Lord, Jesus Christ. One draws attention to Christian monotheism over against the plurality of the gods of the heathen, and Lord to the deity of Christ. So, of course, does the fact that he is mentioned in this way in the same breath as the Father. Paul does not stay to examine the relationship between them (and thus sets later theologians many a problem!). But clearly he is saying that there is but one God, and just as clearly he is including the Lord Jesus within that one Godhead (cf. Moffatt, ‘For Paul the one Lord is vitally one with the one God’). Through whom all things came points to Christ as the Agent in creation; the Father created through the Son (cf. John 1:3; Col. 1:15f.). Through whom we live means that Christians have their being only through him. It is a reference to the new creation in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17).