1 Corinthians 8: We Know There is Only One God

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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1 Corinthians chapter 8, 1 Corinthians chapter 8, and if you are frozen in utter shock,

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I have something other than Hebrews on my iPad. I'll be looking at a completely different subject this evening, so I know that's outside of my normal range, but hopefully we'll all be able to stay together.

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1 Corinthians chapter 8, we'll be reading the entire chapter where we read.

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Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge.

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Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, it is not yet known as he ought to know, but if anyone loves

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God, he is known by Him. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and there is no

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God but one. For even if there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one

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God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist through Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

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However, not all men have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled.

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But food will not commend us to God. The idol the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

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But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you of knowledge dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

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For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when he is weak, you sin against Christ.

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Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.

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Amen. This particular chapter introduces us to how the

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Apostle Paul dealt with an issue of difference amongst the brethren there at the church of Corinth.

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And they had a lot of those issues. We sometimes pray,

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Oh Lord, let us have the days of the early church. Then we read 1

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Corinthians and say, Well Lord, maybe a little bit after the early church. Because here was a church, not only did they have problems clearly manifested to us by 1 and 2

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Corinthians, but we discover in one of the earliest writings of the

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Christian era, after the New Testament, it's frequently called First Clement by tradition, it is ascribed to Clement of Rome.

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At the time that it was written, there wouldn't have been a single bishop of Rome, but he might have been the secretary for the elders or something like that.

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But be that as it may, it's written toward the end of the 1st century, and guess what it's about? Problems in Corinth.

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It's written from Rome to Corinth. The Corinthians had kicked out their elders for no good reason, and had basically caused a riot in the church.

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And so this church, even though they had inspired letters of scripture written to them, to attempt to correct their problems,

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Well, you've heard it said many times, if you ever find yourself a perfect church, don't join it, because you'll ruin it.

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And that does seem to be the case with the church down through the ages in its individual manifestations.

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Here in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, what you have is a situation that requires us to know a little something about the backgrounds to be able to appreciate what is being said.

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We can simply jump in our cars and head over to Fry's or to Safeway.

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It's amazing how you go from state to state, and all of the grocery store's names change.

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They're the same chains, but they have different names in different states. It's really odd. But we can just get into our cars, we can go over, and within a mile of my house or so, there's a large

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Fry's, and they have a large deli department, and I'll go over there. I love getting this particular kind of just super yummy, super lean turkey.

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And I get it sliced real thin and just make wonderful, wonderful sandwiches. And it's well stocked.

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I mean, you can choose from anything there. It's wonderful. And I rarely have to ask where the meat came from.

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Thankfully, we don't live in England right now to ask whether it's halal. Was the name of Allah spoken over when the turkey was killed, which is starting to happen in places like England these days.

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But you can choose anything you want. That wasn't the case. Fry's has not been around that long.

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And so we go back to Corinth. The primary source of meat in the city would be found in the fact that you have many, many temples in the city in which sacrifices were being made.

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Sacrifices to the gods. To, as Paul describes them, to idols. Now concerning things, sacrifice to idols.

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And so the primary way of obtaining meat in the marketplace was that you would be bidding on, waging on, trying to get a good deal on how things were done in those days.

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It didn't just have a stamp on it. You'd sort of barter with somebody. Which if I was doing it would probably mean

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I'd always pay the most of anybody. But you would barter in the meat market. And the meat normally would be coming from one of the sacrifices to one of the idols in one of the temples.

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That was just simply the main source of meat that would be available to you. Well this caused a problem.

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Especially if, let's say you've been converted to Christ and you've been involved in particularly idolatrous sacrifices and religious observance.

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And now you want to have nothing to do with that religious observance. You want nothing to do with that religion.

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And let's say you're one of the guys that used to do the sacrificing. You knew exactly where that meat went. Well now you would be scandalized if you went into that meat market and you know where that meat is and you're going to be partaking of the same meat that you had been involved in the sacrifice of only a few weeks or months earlier before you had bowed the knee to Christ and had renounced these idols and realized that they were enemies of Christ.

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But then there were others in the Church of Corinth. And they recognized those who were scandalized by these things.

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But their argument was, there's no such thing as an idol. All that is, is a statue.

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There is no spiritual reality to it. There are no other gods but one God. And so we don't have to worry about eating sacrificed idols.

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Because it's all been blessed by God. It's all from God's creation. We don't have to worry about this.

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And so there is division. There is a problem. And here Paul addresses that particular issue.

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He says, yes, we all have knowledge. We all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.

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So in other words, what we have in this chapter, in an overview way, is

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Paul trying to deal with two different groups in the Church. And this is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things in the world to do.

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I have said many, many times, some of you know that next April, I am scheduled to do a debate in the

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South London Mosque. That is the largest, currently, the largest physical mosque in the

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United Kingdom. Okay? And I imagine there is going to be 20 Christians, and all sorts of people who are not

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Christians. Long beards, hijabs, and so on and so forth. I would rather do that, than to deal with divisions in the

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Church. I really, the Muslims don't scare me as much as Angry Baptists.

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Okay? There is really no comparison there. It is extremely difficult to deal with these tensions within the fellowship.

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And that is exactly what Paul is doing here. What you have got on the one side are the people saying, look, that is what

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I used to do. I am hurt by that. I do not want to have any connection with that.

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And when I see you doing that, I am scandalized by it. But the other people are saying, you are a legalist.

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You need to have the knowledge that we have. We have knowledge that there is no such thing as an idol in this world.

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And so you have the two sides. And they are not coming together. What does Paul suggest as the mechanism of bringing peace and harmony in a

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Church, where division exists, over an issue that on the one side,

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Paul agrees with those who are saying, yeah, an idol is nothing in the world. You do not have to worry about eating meat -sacrificed idols, unless someone walks up to you and says, here is a cheeseburger from Apollos' temple.

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And they say it out loud. Then you should know thank you. But if you are in the meat market, and yes, you know there is a possibility, but it does not say, here, did

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Apollos' meat? It is just simply meat. Then you can buy it without any problem.

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You can eat it without any problem. You give thanks to God, all is well. But there are, and he describes them as weaker brethren, where if the possibility exists that this was involved in pagan sacrifice,

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I do not want anything to do with it. So you have got the two sides. Theologically, Paul says, you are right.

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You have knowledge. Your knowledge is right. But, knowledge makes error him.

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What does love do? Love edifies. It builds up. And it builds up someone else in the congregation.

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And that is why he says, if anyone supposes that he knows anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know, but if anyone loves

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God, he is known by him. So in other words, if you think you have got it all figured out, let me tell you something.

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You have not even started. It is amazing to me when I have people come up to me sometimes and they have just got all the answers.

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Some young buck, you know, and he has got all the answers. And he might come up to me after a debate or something like that and he knows exactly how

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I should have done everything. And there are a lot of folks like that. But what

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Paul is saying is, if you think you know something, let me tell you something. Nobody in this life even gets a start in really knowing what there is to know about the truth of God.

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But, if anyone loves God, he is known by him. Now don't now leap off the other side of the balance.

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Because there are many, many people who as a result of this have just eschewed any kind of knowledge whatsoever.

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Oh, knowledge just puffs up. Knowledge makes you arrogant. So just not even worry about it.

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That is not Paul's point either. He actually happens to agree with the people who have the knowledge here. They are right. But, in the congregation, love without knowledge will always cause friction.

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I am sorry. Knowledge without love will always cause friction. Got to keep the order straight there.

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Knowledge without love will always cause friction. In division within the church. And so, if anyone loves

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God, he is known by him. Therefore, he says, and notice how he deals with this.

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Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know, and he is speaking for the whole

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Christian congregation, we do know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world. Now what does he mean by that?

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He knows there are idols. Remember Acts chapter 17? We saw the idols of the unknown

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God and things like that. But there is no such thing as the corresponding reality, in the sense of, these are not true gods.

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There is no such thing as an idol in the world, and there is no god but one.

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There is no god but one. Now there is a direct statement of monotheism.

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And you need to understand, today that is considered to be a given, but it was not a given in that day.

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The Jews were detested by many of the Romans for their monotheism.

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Jews and Christians together were frequently called atheists, because they said there were no gods, plural, but only one

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God. And it was considered to be extremely arrogant. And think about it.

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If the norm in your culture was the worship of many gods, and you come along and say, your gods don't exist, and the

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God I worship actually is the creator of all things, and you need to worship Him. Who do you think you are?

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They got the exact same kind of response that we get in a post -modern society, where people say, well who do you think you are, that you know what the truth is?

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It's nothing new under the sun. And so, it was not out of popularity that words like this would be stated, but he says, we know, we know that there is no

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God but one. There is only one true God. This is a standard statement of the monotheism, what was called second temple

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Judaism. The second temple, the temple that existed in the days of the Lord Jesus, out of which many of those first disciples came, there is no

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God but one. For, even if there are so -called gods, so -called gods, legaminoid, those that are identified or called gods, as there were gods many and lords many.

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And so he says, even if there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, and there are lots of them,

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I mean the pantheon of Roman gods and Greek gods was huge, and then you had the gods of the east, and you had the gods of the

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Egyptians, and all sorts of that stuff, even if there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are gods many and lords many, yet for us there is but one

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God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

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However, not all men have this knowledge. Now when he says that, he's transitioning back into his discussion at the end, about the fact that there are people in the congregation, and because of what their experience was, they do not yet fully understand that the worship they were involved with, those that they worshipped, those idols they worshipped, didn't really exist.

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There was no reality behind it. It was deception. It was certainly satanic.

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We're not denying the spiritual power of those things, but the idea that there are gods many and lords many, and I've just moved my allegiance from a lesser god to a greater god, no, no, no, no, no.

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That can't be it. Some people, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice, an idol in their conscience, being weak as defiled.

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So there are weak people that are still growing in Christ, still coming to understand the reality of the fact that there is only one true creator, and that means everything else that exists is under his sovereignty and control, under his power.

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There is no Apollos out there, there is no Zeus over here. There is only one true god.

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And notice how the apostle addresses this issue. He says, look, even if it is popular to identify these idols, whether in heaven or on earth, as so -called gods, yet for us, for who?

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For those who know God. For true believers. For us, there is but one

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God. That does not mean, well, we just limit our worship. These other gods are out there, but we just choose not to worship them.

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No. We have knowledge, and the knowledge is absolute monotheism.

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There is only one God, the Father from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one

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Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we exist through him.

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Now, I want us to look at the language that Paul uses here, to make some application this evening.

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Listen to that phraseology. But, for us, the Christian people, one

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God, Hais Theos, one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we unto him, and Hais Kurios, one

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Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.

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Now, we are in the middle of a discussion that a lot of people would go, Oh, yeah,

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I went to church on Resurrection Sunday evening, and talked about meat sacrifice idols.

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Yeah, that was exciting. But, you happen to be reading one of the most important Christological, Trinitarian, theological sections in all of the

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New Testament. Has it ever struck you, most of the time, that we encounter these rich, deep texts, they're smack dab in the middle of really regular stuff in the church.

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What do I mean by that? Paul's dealing with the army of the church, keeping brothers and sisters together, in the bond of love, in the fellowship.

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Remember over in Philippians, Philippians 2, 5 through 11, the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as to God? What's that about?

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Treat one another with humility of mind. It's a sermon illustration about peace in the church.

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Colossians 1, the whole thing about Christ as the creator of all things, beware of those coming into the church who are teaching these things, who might deceive you.

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All of it is focused upon the church. And that's what you have here. In 1

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Corinthians chapter 8, verses 5 through 6, is one of the most important insights into what the

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New Testament teaches about the relationship with the Father and the Son, that we possess. And yet it's in the middle of a chapter, as we've already seen, that is very, very practical in its application.

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I want to make application of that before we finish this evening. Now, over in Romans 11, 36, we have very similar language to this, but notice how it is said here.

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Speaking simply of God, and from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever.

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Amen. Now there you have all the same Greek prepositions simply used of God as a whole.

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No differentiation. And yet, here, you have differentiation in the terminology that Paul uses.

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Because when he talks about our one God, notice the language that he uses.

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One God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.

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If we look back at the Old Testament, what was the common possession of all of the

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Jewish people? What they would repeat each morning when they would arise? What was the confessional statement?

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It was called the Shema. Shema means to hear. It's a command.

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Hear. Shema Yisrael. Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Hear, Israel. Yahweh Eloheinu.

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Yahweh is our God. Yahweh Echad. Yahweh is

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One. But in the Greek Septuagint translation of that text, what you had was

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Hear, Israel. Kurios hathaios haimon. Kurios ais estin.

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Kurios was the word that was used for Yahweh. The word Lord was substituted for the word

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Yahweh. So, the Lord is our God. The Lord is

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One. Two phrases. Now, once you hear that, then you look at this phrase, and you realize, here in 1

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Corinthians 8, Paul has done something absolutely amazing.

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Well, it may not be amazing to us. But again, we need to step back from our familiarity with these things and see what it is he's doing.

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What he's done is he has reproduced all the words from the

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Shema. But he has made them specifically Christian. In light of the revelation of the

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Doctrine of the Trinity. And what is the revelation of the Doctrine of the Trinity? The Incarnation, Ministry, Death, Burial, Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit of God. All of the New Testament is written after the

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Revelation and therefore is to be read in light of the Revelation of what

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God has done in Christ. And so, when he speaks to the

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Corinthians, he's not telling them, notice this is not... Now, before I talk to you about idols,

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I need to give you a theology lesson here. I need to introduce you to the God we're talking about. No. This is done in passing.

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This is taken as common knowledge. Now, we know this is the knowledge that is ours.

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Now, why do I emphasize that? Because Paul deals with this issue in the congregation based upon the presupposition that they, as the

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Christian people, shared a particular commitment of faith. There was a revelation that was theirs.

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There was a truth they were committed to as the people of God. It wasn't that everybody got together and decided to share their feelings.

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That's not a basis for the Church. If that was how the

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Church was done, and there are people running around out there that think that's how the Church should be done, we should all get together and talk about how we feel today.

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And that makes people feel just wonderful about each other, and that's all wonderful and good, but that's not what the

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Christian Church is about. If that's the way things work, Paul could never have argued this way, because maybe someone doesn't feel that way.

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Maybe some of the weaker brethren, I just don't feel that that's the case. No, he can appeal to a common accepted norm, a truth to which they were all committed.

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There is one God, the Father, one Lord, Jesus Christ. So he doesn't expand upon these things, but what he's done is he has taken the

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Shema, and he has made it fuller in light of the revelation that has taken place.

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And so we have theos, that's in the first phrase of the Shema, kurios ha -theos, the

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Lord is our God, and so there is one theos, there is one God, the

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Father, and then he adds this phrase, from whom are all things, and we for Him.

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And one Lord, because it says kurios ha -Yisestim, there is one Lord.

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And one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, through whom, and it's the same word, the same phrase, taphonto, all things are, and we through Him.

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So, the all things come from the Father through the Son, and we have been created for the

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Father, and we exist through Him. All those phrases.

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A monotheistic Jew would have understood of the one true God. Now what you have in the light of the

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New Testament revelation is not a new God. If Paul was trying to get away from the

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Shema, why would he use the words of the Shema? But he uses the very words that every

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Jewish person said every morning. It says, look what God has done.

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Now in the light of Bethlehem, in the light of Calvary, in the light of Pentecost, we have not changed

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God. We simply accept the revelation He has made of Himself.

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Very important to see this. It's very important to understand that this high view of Christ is not something that developed over the centuries.

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It's not something that first came into existence of the Council of Nicaea or something like that. It is part and parcel, it is of the very essence of the revelation that's taken place between the

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Old and New Testaments. It is part of the very fabric of the

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New Testament writings itself, and I would say that you can't begin to make heads or tails of the New Testament writings until you understand these divine truths.

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And so with that in mind, what would I like to make application of this evening? Well first, looking at verses 5 and 6,

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I would highly recommend this phrase, this section to you for your scripture memorization.

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Because just as it is a goldmine of insight into how we understand the

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Father and the Son, the fact that the term theos, God, is normally Paul's use word for the Father, kurios for the

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Son, these are their Trinitarian names. Any goldmine is just as likely to be used for deception and falsehood.

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And many of the religious groups with whom I work misuse and abuse this term. It is misused and abused by Mormons.

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See, there are many gods and many lords. They take it exactly opposite of how

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Paul intended it, but that's what happens when you believe the Bible has been corrupted and you have other books of scripture and prophets and so on and so forth and worship many gods.

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The Jehovah's Witnesses will use it to try to divide Christ off from God the Father. The Muslims will use it to try to say, see, we only have one

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God, the Father. I even attended a debate. I wasn't debating. It's sometimes very frustrating for me when

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I attend other people's debates because I want to be up there. I can't, and they have to tie me up and gag me and things like that.

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But the Muslim misquoted this verse. He quoted only the first half of verse 6.

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But to us there is but one God, the Father. See? Christians didn't believe that Jesus was God. And I was just like, ah!

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I did get up and ask a question during the audience thing. Sort of started debating that, but that's another issue.

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All these groups will misuse and abuse these words unless we know what the context is and hence can use them rightly.

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Any text that carries great treasure for us of truth has a proportional opportunity of being twisted and abused by those who twist and abuse the

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Scriptures. So keep that in mind. We need to know what this text is really saying to us. But then there is, to me, this wonderful application.

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And that is, the Apostle Paul felt that it was necessary to address what had yet become a full -blown division in the

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Church, but he could foresee the possibility that this could lead to a real division in the

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Church. And what he wants is he wants to see unity amongst the brethren. And when there's that kind of tension, there's that kind of difficulty, that unity isn't necessarily going to be there.

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And so he wants to address it, but he addresses it based upon the common faith that is ours.

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He didn't just simply use his apostolic authority and say, you people over here do this, and you people over here do that.

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Just do it. Just listen to what I have to say. That's it. He explains, to those who have knowledge, you need to join to your knowledge, love.

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And he concludes the chapter, even though he has made it clear, look, if you're in the meat market, buy your meat and don't worry about it.

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But, as he concludes the chapter, I do not want to destroy my brother from whom

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Christ died. I do not want to cause stumbling for my brother.

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And if I am put in a situation where I can't eat meat anymore, then fine, I won't eat meat.

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I will give up my rights in the service of others. And is that not exactly what his sermon illustration was in Philippians chapter 2?

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Is that not exactly what humility of mind is? Having certain rights but laying them aside in the service of others?

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I will not allow my freedom to be the occasion of the destruction of another believer. That's how he concludes the chapter.

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So, you might be right in your theology, but your theology must be applied in love.

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So he makes that kind of application. But at the same time he explains to the weaker brother, think about your profession of faith.

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Think about what you believe about God. There is no

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God outside of the one true God. These deities you worship, as he says to the

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Galatians, you once served those which were not gods. You worship those which by very nature are no gods.

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There is no God but one. And so think about your profession of faith.

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This is one area where we keep pounding away at this.

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And I know at this point, and this illustration doesn't work quite as well for us, but you're preaching to the choir.

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We don't have one of those. But you know what it means. Preaching to the folks that already agree with you.

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There must be a regular activity on our parts where we are taking all the things that we believe, the entirety of our life, and we are examining them in the light of God's word.

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We are to bring what we believe about God together with what we believe about eating and sacrifice to idols in our former life.

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There can't be one thing over here and one thing over here because clearly for the weaker brethren, they haven't seen how these two fit together yet.

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And sometimes that takes time. Understand that. Aren't you glad God's given us all time? He doesn't expect us to be perfect.

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He doesn't expect us to have perfect knowledge the instant we walk in. But what He is doing is He's calling the weaker brethren, bring these things together.

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See how they fit together. Don't become apathetic. Don't become stuck in those things.

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See the beautiful consistency of all that the Christian life is to be. And what's the foundation?

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It's not my experience. It's not my feelings. It's not my past. What's the foundation?

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Our common confession of who God is. One thing's obvious.

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Whatever it was Paul spent all that time, whenever he had, when he was in Ephesus, and he spent his three years there, and you know that, you know, he talks about the sermons he was giving lasted for hours and hours and hours, so much so that people fell asleep and a couple died.

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But he raised them up. But anyways, what were they talking about? I don't think it was necessarily a strong emphasis upon the identity of the seventh head of the ten beast monster in Revelation.

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I think most of that time was spent Who is your God? Who is this

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Christ? What has he accomplished? It was the focus upon the main things.

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Because he can say to them, Look, for us, there is but one

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God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him. And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist for Him.

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And he doesn't have to defend that. He doesn't have to say, Oh, you know, I forgot to tell you about this, I'm sorry. No, it's a given.

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And so what that means is, our emphasis upon the main things, the plain things, the central things, who

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God is, who Christ is, what the accomplishment of the Gospel is, the inspiration, reliability of the

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Word of God, these are the things that we need to be focused upon, and we have apostolic example of.

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And so to me, looking at a text like this, and to see that the very foundation that Paul uses to try to bring unity in the

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Church is our common faith. Not experiences, not calling people to,

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Well, you know, let's sit around, let's have a little chat about this. How do you feel about this?

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Or how do you feel about that? The apostle doesn't do that. He does talk about love, but love doesn't mean that we don't any longer have a sure word from God.

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So what do we find in this text? A treasure trove, verses five through six, of insight that takes us deeply back into the

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Old Testament. We see the consistency of God's revelation. We see the fact that we're not worshiping some new

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God, but instead the one God of the Shema, who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, to Moses, is still the one

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God we worship today. There has been no change in that sense, but there has been a much greater revelation.

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Oh, in the light of this, we can look back and we can see those rich passages in the Old Testament. We have that.

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But how did we get that? Well, because people in Corinth were just like us today.

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There were problems. Some were weaker brethren, some were stronger brethren, but even being stronger brethren in knowledge didn't necessarily mean that they were stronger brethren in love.

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And yet, God in his patience and in his providence dealt with them just as he deals with us.

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He had patience with them just as he has had patience with us. And I'm awful glad to know that.

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And so, this text, to me, yeah, sometimes it's battleground.

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I'm having to deal with this right now in regards to the subject of Mormonism. But we can never allow these central texts to be taken out of their context so we do not hear them as they were originally heard.

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And I hope that as you hear this, I hope you've been enriched in your understanding, wow, Paul uses the Shema, and here we're confirmed again in the fact that we believe about the one true

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God is exactly what the scriptures have revealed to us all along. All of that is true. But I also hope that you appreciate the fact that the reason we have that statement is because God is concerned about our living out

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Jesus' commandment to love one another. And that in having true knowledge, if we want to be known by God, we will not be known by Him by how much we know.

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We'll be known by Him if we love Him for who He is. That's why we have to have knowledge. That's why we have to have truth.

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He wants to be worshipped for who He is. We need to know who He is. But mere orthodoxy without love, well, as Paul described it elsewhere, it's a clanging bell.

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We need to have and need to pray for that balance that only the

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Holy Spirit of God can provide us. Love for God, love for His truth, love the one.

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Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word and for its message to us.

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And we would pray that, Father, You would help us to love one another rightly. And, Lord, that You would help us to understand what it means that if we love, that we are known by You.

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Help us to know You truly, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but always to remember that what You desire from us is that greatest commandment.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit. May we love

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Your truth, but may we love You. The Supreme is our Lord. In Christ's name.