This will be long, but to understand the full thrust of the argument... I'm sorry, you'll have to read the entire thing.
In 1 Corinthians 8-10 Paul has set up monotheism as this relational, loving commitment to the one God of Israel over against idolatry. According to Paul, the person who “loves God” (1 Cor 8.3) knows that “there is no God but one” (1 Cor 8.4). These statements made by Paul clearly encapsulate the monotheistic essence of Judaism, the Shema (“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” Deuteronomy 6.4-5). The allusions made to idolatry, to loving God, and believing that God is one disposes of any uncertainty that Paul is drawing here on the Shema.
Paul picks up on this very point in v. 6, “to us there is but 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.” But it is here at v. 6 that Unitarians argue for some kind of ontological distinction between the “one God” (v. 6a), and the “one Lord” (v. 6b), but the nature of that distinction is of some debate between sectarian groups.
On one end of the spectrum, the Witnesses argue that though pagans had “many gods and many lords” (v. 5), lords were considered secondary deities in relationship to the gods, and so Paul is borrowing from that idea in his comparison of Christ the “one Lord,” and the Father who is the “one God.” On the other, Socinians argue that v. 5 distinguishes “gods” as heavenly figures from “lords,” who are their earthly representatives, and that v. 6 likewise distinguishes between the Father as God in contrast to Christ, who is His representative Lord.
It seems particularly odd that the Witnesses would even attempt to argue that “lords” are deities second to the “gods,” particularly in light of their position of Christ as “a god.” Likewise, it also seems awkward that the Socinian would argue for a distinction of “gods” as heavenly figures, and “lords” as their earthly representatives in light of the Unitarian proposition that Jesus did not become “Lord” until his exaltation to the right hand of the Father in heaven.
Further, in v. 5 Paul refers to the “gods” as being both in heaven and on earth (“For although there may be so-called *gods in heaven or on earth*”), which ultimately undermines the Socinian interpretation by showing that Paul was not distinguishing between “gods” in heaven, and “lords” on earth.
However, neither of these arguments really seem to consider, and for obvious reasons, that κύριος (“Lord”) is the divine title emphasized in the Shema, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And in light of the overall context, Paul gives us the Christian self-understanding of how the monotheism of the Jewish Scriptures is to be interpreted in light of the incarnation of Jesus the Messiah, the “one Lord.”
Paul writes in vv. 5-6,
‘Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 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.’
Notice the contrast Paul makes: heathen idolaters have “many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’—
yet for us there is one God… one Lord.” In such a context where the Shema is central (
idolatry,
loving God,
God is one), it would be self-defeating for Paul to do anything but embrace together the “one God” and “one Lord” in union, otherwise he would be just as guilty of idolatry as the heathen who had a multiplicity of sovereigns.
Paul’s play on words in v. 6 makes the union of this “one God” and “one Lord” even more apparent. In drawing upon the monotheistic concept that God alone created the universe (Isaiah 44.24, 4 Ezra 3.4), Paul attributes to Christ a role in creation which Jews would commonly attribute to God (Heb 2.10, Rom 11.36). For Paul to include the “one Lord, Jesus Christ” in the divine work of creation places Him squarely in a unique union with the “one God, the Father.” Bauckham explains,
“that God is not only the agent or efficient cause of creation ('from him are all things') and the final cause or goal of all things ('to him are all things'), but also the instrumental cause ('through him are all things') well expresses the typical Jewish monotheistic concern that God used no one else to carry out his work of creation. By Paul's reformulation in 1 Corinthians 8:6, he includes Christ in this exclusively divine work of creation by giving to him the role of instrumental cause.” (God Crucified: Monotheism & Christology, 38-39)
Throughout the argument posed against idolatry in 1 Corinthians 8-10, Paul does not go on to speak about, as one would perhaps expect, the relationship between the Corinthians, and the “one God the Father” over against idolatry. Rather, notice that the argument is about the relationship between the Corinthians, and the “one Lord” Jesus over against idolatry (10.19-22),
“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?” (1 Corinthians 10.21-22 c.f. Deuteronomy 32.21, Malachi 1.7-12)
The “Lord” that is spoken of here is most naturally taken to refer to Jesus for various reasons:
- Up to this point in Paul’s letter it is only Jesus that is referred to as Lord (i.e., “one Lord,” “the Lord of glory,” et al). Piggy-backing this point is that it seems Paul has borrowed the "Lord of glory" epithet from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, where the expression is used only of YHWH (22.14; 25.3; 27.3-4; 63.2; 75.3)
- Paul’s utilization of κύριος (“Lord”) for Jesus where he alludes to OT texts involving the Divine Name (1 Cor 1.2 [c.f. Joel 2.32]; 1 Cor 2.16 [c.f. Isaiah 40.13]; 1 Cor 6.11 [c.f. Isaiah 45.25], et al)
- Paul uses this language of “the cup of the Lord” later in his letter to the Corinthians where it is Jesus who is the referent (1 Corinthians 11.27-28 c.f. 1 Corinthians 10.16-17, 2 Corinthians 6.15-16)
- For Paul to refer to Jesus’ involvement in Israel’s redemptive history makes it clear who the “Lord” is in this passage. According to Paul, Christ is “the rock” (1 Cor 10.4) that accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness, and goes so far to even warn the Corinthians, “We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.” There seems to be a connection between testing Christ (1 Cor 10.9), and provoking the Lord (1 Cor 10.22). Additionally, the question raised in 10.22 (“Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?”) is an allusion to the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32.21, “They have provoked me to jealousy with what is no god”), the very place Paul alludes to when he speaks of Christ as “the rock” (c.f. Deut 32.4, 15, 18, 31).
