-- concerning then the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol [is] nothing in [the] world, and that there [is] no other God save one.
The question in front of Paul is meat offered to idols, and the Corinthians opened their case with a fact everyone agreed on: idols are not real. Paul grants the fact, then shows that a true fact, held without love, can still wreck a brother.
Paul's words go further than calling idols useless. Older translations read "an idol is nothing in the world"; one writer argues the point is that the beings the pagans imagined never existed:
The parallel in the last clause of verse 4 seems to favour translating it "there is no idol," rather than "an idol is nothing in the world." Either is legitimate in itself. It is quite true, as the prophets say, that the idols of the Gentiles are empty and powerless. But here the apostle appears to affirm that they had no existence in the world. There were no such beings as the pagans associated with their idols. Later on he shows there were demons behind them, as the law had already hinted (Deut. 32:17).
Paul does not stop at the negative. Naming the one God raises the question of where Christ stands, and one writer marks out what the apostle argues here and what he does not:
Fallen man imagines many gods and many lords in heaven and on earth. But to us Christians there is only one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Here the point is not to set before us the Deity of Christ. The point is how God has chosen to reveal Himself, and the place the divine Persons hold in the ways of grace towards men. The Father remains in Godhead, and God is the source of all, and all is for Him. The Son, while never ceasing to be God, has become flesh, and in Manhood has taken the place of Lord.
That truth reaches the dinner table:
Pagans may venerate many gods and lords, but to us they are nothing. We know only one God and one Lord... Since this is so, we may refuse to recognise the idols of the pagans in any way. We can treat all meats alike — whether offered to idols or not.
The Corinthians had to hold two truths together. They had grasped only one.
They had to own that the idol was nothing, and yet own that it was something to the consciences of men. Looked at in itself, as an idol, it was nothing; and the meat offered to it was what God created. But then the consciences of men got connected with demons about it... Yet knowledge only puffs up. The man who knew all this might eat this meat with a clear conscience himself. But he would stumble his brother, whose conscience was weak.
Calling the idol nothing does not mean nothing is happening. One writer points to what stands behind the image:
If the idols were nothing in themselves, the demons were a terrible reality of subtle and malicious evil. They ruined those who gave the idols reverence.
The Corinthians treated their correct doctrine as a permit. One writer weighs what knowledge is worth on its own:
Simply as knowledge, it is worth nothing. If we look at it as knowledge that we have, it only puffs us up; it is something in me, my knowledge. True Christian knowledge unfolded something in God. Through what is revealed, God, better known, became greater to the soul... As to the question itself, love decided it.
Some had turned this verse into a defence for joining the temple feasts.
Some of the Corinthians knew that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one (1 Cor. 8:4). Yet they thought that, seeing this, they might sit and eat in an idol's temple. In this they were wrong, and the apostle corrects their mistake. Care for their weaker brothers should have kept them away from idolatrous rites, even from an outward share in them. But more than this, they had no business to be there at all.
- Nothing. The idol has no real existence. The beings the pagans imagined behind their images are not there.
- One. Against a sky full of so-called gods and lords, we have one God, the Father, the source of all, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. This is about how God has revealed Himself and where we stand with Him.
- Something. What is nothing in itself is still something to a weaker conscience. Behind the empty image, demons are a real and malicious power.
- Not enough. Knowledge I hold as mine only puffs me up. The knowledge that counts unfolds God and makes Him greater to the soul.
- Love decides. The fact alone never settled the question of the meat. Care for a brother did — and that ruled out sitting down in the idol's temple.
For and if indeed there are [those] called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, (as there are gods many, and lords many,)
A practical question about food offered to idols leads Paul to ask what a "god" really is. His readers' world was full of beings that carried the titles "god" and "lord."
Paul does not deny that people use the word "god." He denies that anything answers to it. One writer traces where these gods come from: a mind that has let go of the true God.
Though there are those who are called gods by their worshippers, they are no more than an unclean dream. Heaven, as well as earth, is stained by idolatrous imaginings. Man makes gods of what God despises and hates. Man chose to forget the living and true God. Since then a darkened understanding has worn itself out in a pointless search for what should never have been lost.
Scripture itself sometimes calls certain people "gods." A commentator explains that use, then measures every rival against the true God.
True, there are those "called gods." Man calls them that. Even the Scriptures do: the elders of Israel were called this, only because they were God's representatives on earth (Ps. 82:6; Jn. 10:34,35). But that title never gave them any place of worship. If there were "gods many, and lords many," these were simply like lightless asteroids compared with the sun.
The plural is not decoration. One writer shows how long the list of pagan gods ran.
Pagan idolaters have "gods many and lords many" — a god, perhaps, for every virtue and for every vice too; and a lord for every separate place. For the Christian there is no other God but one.
Few of us bow to a carved image today. Another writer names an idol that is much harder to spot.
We may not be guilty of bowing down to a god of our own making — "gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man." But other idols are always trying to steal our hearts away from Him... The greatest and most subtle idol is self.
Against the crowd, Paul sets two Persons and two titles. A commentator explains why "Lord" is the word used of Jesus here, and what it asks of us.
Fallen man imagines many gods and many lords in heaven and on earth. But to us Christians there is only "one God, the Father" and "one Lord, Jesus Christ"... The Father remains in Godhead, and God is the source of all, and all for Him. The Son, while never ceasing to be God, has become flesh, and, in Manhood, has taken the place of Lord. So the One we know as Jesus Christ is the one Lord to Whom we all owe allegiance and submission. He is both the Creator of all things and the One by Whom we have been redeemed.
Calling an idol nothing is not the whole story. One writer points to what Paul says later in the same letter.
Deluded men may honour these strange objects and treat them as gods. But we know them as only the work of men's hands, and we know there is no other God but one. In saying this Paul had not forgotten that demons and their power lay behind the idols. He points to this sinister fact in 1 Cor. 10:19-20.
The rival powers do not stay quiet forever. One writer takes Paul's arithmetic into the book of Revelation, and applies it to the beast and the kings who follow him.
We may say — borrowing the language of 1 Corinthians 8:5 — that however many lords and kings there may be in heaven and on earth, the Lamb is Lord and King of them all, the beast and his followers included. They cannot help but fall before Him; and He has His associates, called, chosen and faithful.
- Called. The world is full of things called gods. Worshippers hand out the title, and behind it stands a mind that has forgotten the living and true God.
- Counted. Pagan worship multiplied them — a god for every virtue and vice, a lord for every place. Set beside the true God, they are lightless asteroids next to the sun.
- Cancelled. For the Christian the count drops to two. One God, the Father, the source of all. One Lord, Jesus Christ, Creator and Redeemer, to Whom we owe allegiance.
- Concealed. An idol is nothing, yet demons stand behind it — so the "nothing" is never harmless, and today's subtlest idol is self.
- Crowned. However many lords there may be in heaven or on earth, the Lamb is Lord and King of them all, and they fall before Him.