February 14, 2025

10. Christology in 1 Corinthians

35 minutes

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1 Corinthians 3:22-23; 8:4-6; 11:3; 15:23-28

1 Corinthians has much to say about Christ

Christ is the domain in which we exist (1:2, 4, 9; 6:11, 15, 17; 7:14; 12:12, 27).

Christ’s death is the message of salvation (1:23-24; 2:2; 3:11; 5:7; 15:3-5).

Christ is whom we have communion with (10:16, 21).

Christ’s name has real spiritual authority and power (1:10; 5:3-4).

Christ is resurrected (15:12, 20, 23).

Christ is returning (1:7-8; 15:23, 57; 16:22).

God is greater than Christ

1 Corinthians 3:22-23; 11:3; 15:23-28

Christ is subordinate to God. This subordination is not temporary, but eternal. God has empowered Christ to rule, but once Christ returns and completes his mission, he will hand that power back to God.

Christ himself repeatedly taught the superiority of his Father and his obedient subordination to God (Mat 20:23; 26:39; Mark 10:18; 13:32; John 5:19, 30; 7:16; 8:28; 14:28; 17:3).

1 Corinthians 8:4-6

This text is all about the gods. How should Christians think of the gods? Are they real or fake? If fake, can’t we just go to their sacrifices and eat the meat?

Moyer Hubbard: “There were gods everywhere. Gods for travelers, gods for hunters, gods for sailors, gods for warriors, gods for lovers, gods for poets; gods to help with childbirth, gods to help with baking, gods to help with treachery, gods to protect the hinges of your doors…the list is endless. …The young woman in love could appeal to the goddess Peitho (Persuasion) to convince a hesitant suitor. The merchant selling his wares frequented the temple of Tyche (Success) to ensure that his business would thrive. The farmer fertilizing his field invoked Sterculius, the god presiding over the spreading of manure. Athletes flocked to Herakles (Hercules), the infirm to Asclepius, mariners to Poseidon (Neptune).”1

Splitting the Shema in 1 Corinthians 8:6

James Dunn: “[Paul] asserts that Christ the Lord also is one; thereby he splits the Shema (Deut. 6.4), the Jewish confession of monotheism, between God the Father and Christ the Lord in a way that has no earlier parallel.”2

Richard Hays: “V. 6 takes the extraordinarily bold step of identifying ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ with ‘the Lord’ acclaimed in the Shema”3

T. Wright: “V. 6 functions as a Christian redefinition of the Jewish confession of faith, the Shema.”4

Richard Bauckham: “[V]erse 6 … incorporates Jesus Christ into the unique divine identity. … That Paul has here produced a Christian version of the Shema has now rightly been recognized quite widely…”5

1 Corinthians 8:6 is not the Shema.

Deuteronomy 6:4 (LXX)

Ἄκουε, Ισραηλ· κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν·

Hear, O Israel: Lord (is) our God, Lord is one

1 Corinthians 8:6

ἀλλ’ ἡμῖν εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατὴρ ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν, καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς δι’ αὐτοῦ.

yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

These two texts only have 3 words in common: Lord (κύριος), God (θεὸς) and one (εἷς). This “agreement” is limited to 12.5% (3 out of 24 words).

Paul was a Jew.

Wayne Meeks: “The affirmation that “God is one” is as basic to Pauline Christianity as it was to all Judaism (1 Thess. 1:9; Gal. 3:20; Rom. 3:30; Eph. 4:6; 1 Cor. 8:4, 6; cf. 1 Cor. 11:12; 15:28; 2 Cor. 5:18).”6

James McGrath: “That Paul could do this in passing, without explaining it or defending it, seems very unlikely indeed. The fact of the matter is that Paul does not say that there is one God who is both Father and Son; he says rather that there is one God and also one Lord. …The combination “one God and…” suggests that we are dealing with a paraphrase of the Shema with an additional affirmation added alongside it—otherwise we would surely have expected Paul to express himself differently. Theoretically, he could have written, “There is one God: the Father, from whom are all things, and the Son, through whom are all things.” This would have emphasized the oneness of God while including Jesus clearly within that one God. Instead, Paul uses a statement about one God, which itself is sufficient to reiterate the point of the Shema, and then goes further to talk about ‘one Lord.’”7

Andrew Perriman: “[T]he distinction appears to be introduced, in the first place, because Paul is about to speak quite emphatically both of one God and of one Lord in order to preclude conflicting loyalties. This is pointedly unlike the Shema with its single heis. The effect is not to fuse two identities in one but to dissociate, to create two distinct affirmations, anticipated in the preceding acknowledgement of many gods and many lords: not only is God the Father one but the Lord, Jesus Christ, also is one—two separate unities.”8

1 Corinthians 8:6 translation options

Using words of existence (ontology)

ESV: yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

NIV: 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.

NLT: There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.

Using words of movement (soteriology)

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (1978): “For us one God, the Father, from whom (come) all things and towards whom we (go), and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom (come) all things and by whom we (go).9

David Garland (2003): But for us One God, the Father out of whom [come] all things and we [go] toward him and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [come] all things and we [go to the Father] through him.10

Paul Gardner (2018): “Certainly for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and to whom we go, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we [come to God].”11

What does “all things” refer to?

Jerry Wierwille: “Paul’s use of “all things” varies depending upon the context. Among his uses are cosmological (1 Cor 15:27; Eph 3:9), soteriological (Rom 8:32; Eph 1:10-11, 23; 4:10; 2 Cor 4:15; 5:18), the differences between man and woman (1 Cor 11:12), spiritual gifts or empowerments (1 Cor 12:6), the course of world/life events (Rom 8:28; Col 4:7), reputation, status, and privileges (Phil 3:8), thoughts and intents (1 Cor 2:10, 15), and living creatures (1 Tim 6:13).”12

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “Paul uses ta panta most frequently in strictly soteriological contexts.”13

Usage depends on the verse itself and the context. None of the Roman gods claimed to be creators. Jupiter (Zeus) comes closest, but even he merely helped establish order from chaos. Philosophers talked about creation using their theories of emanations, mostly to prevent anyone from thinking the highest God got his hands dirty.

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “In this perspective the meaning of the verse can be summarized in the following paraphrase: From God come all things which enable us to return to him. All these things are given through Christ and in him we go to the Father.”14

New creation in 1 Corinthians 8:6

Much of the dispute is between creation or salvation. What if both are in view? Rather than saying Paul went from creation to salvation in the first half of 1 Cor 8:6 and then returned to creation before finally jumping back to salvation in the second half, what if he’s talking about salvation using the language of creation?

Andrew Perriman: “God clearly takes the initiative in the re-creative action, but it is “from him” (ex autou) that the Corinthians are “in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:30). At the same time Christ is the agent of the transformation as “power of God and wisdom of God” (1:24; cf. 1:30). In a different context, but still with reference to the foolishness of the wisdom of this age, Paul asserts that “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come–all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (3:18-23). In other words, the “all things” of this new reality, which are quasi-cosmic in scope, are theirs through Indeed, those “called to be saints” in Corinth owe their very existence as such to him. This means that at least the second part of 1 Cor 8:6, but probably the whole verse, is a statement not about creation but about “new creation.””15

All things through Christ sounds like a mediator. See 1 Tim 2:5-6.

Bibliography

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the God of Israel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

Dunn, James D. G. Christology in the Making. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.

Gardner, Paul. 1 Corinthians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018.

Garland, David E. 1 Corinthians. Becnt, edited by Robert Yarbrough and Robert Stein. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.

Hays, Richard. First Corinthians. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997.

Hubbard, Moyer V. Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.

McGrath, James F. The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003.

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. “Corinthians 8:6: Cosmology or Soteriology?”, Revue Biblique 85 (1978): 253-67.

Perriman, Andrew. In the Form of a God. Studies in Early Christology, edited by David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.

Wierwille, Jerry. “One God, One Lord (1 Cor 8:6)–‘Christianized’ Shema or Soteriological Acclamation?” Paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Windsor, England, July 26, 2024.

Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993.

Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 21-2.
James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 180.
Richard Hays, First Corinthians (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), 140.
N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 121.
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 211.
Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003), 165.
James F. McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 39-40.
Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 71.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Corinthians 8:6: Cosmology or Soteriology?,” Revue Biblique 85 (1978): 253.
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Becnt, ed. Robert Yarbrough and Robert Stein (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 375.
Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018), 372.
Jerry Wierwille, “One God, One Lord (1 Cor 8:6)–‘Christianized’ Shema or Soteriological Acclamation?” (paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Windsor, England, July 26, 2024), 6.
Murphy-O’Connor 68.
Murphy-O’Connor 265.
Perriman, 84-5.

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