One God, the Father

Paul is writing to a church in crisis. The Corinthian believers are fractured over several issues, and one of the sharper ones is about food offered to idols. In Corinth, most of the meat available in the markets had passed through a pagan temple as part of the animal's slaughter. Even food served at a civic banquet or a family meal might have been sacrificed to an idol first. What do Christian believers do? Refuse all such food? Eat it freely? Eat it only in certain circumstances?

Paul's answer begins not with practical counsel but with theology. Before he addresses the question about meat, he tells the Corinthians what they already know about God.

"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." (1 Corinthians 8:4-6)

This passage is one of the most important Christological statements in the entire New Testament. Paul is doing something deliberate with Jewish monotheism, and unpacking what he is doing opens up the positive case for the Biblical Unitarian reading of Christ.

The Greek text of verse 6

ἀλλ' ἡμῖν εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατήρ ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν, καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς δι' αὐτοῦ.

Transliterated: all' hēmin heis theos ho patēr, ex hou ta panta kai hēmeis eis auton; kai heis kurios Iēsous Christos, di' hou ta panta kai hēmeis di' autou.

The structure is a careful parallelism:

| Clause A (Father) | Clause B (Jesus) | |-------------------|-------------------| | one God, the Father | one Lord, Jesus Christ | | from whom are all things | through whom are all things | | and we unto him | and we through him |

The two clauses mirror each other. Paul is naming one God (the Father) and one Lord (Jesus Christ), and he is assigning the instrumentality differently to each. "From" (ex) the Father. "Through" (dia) Jesus Christ. The Greek prepositions carry the load.

Paul is splitting the Shema

To understand what Paul is doing, you have to hear the Shema in the background. Deuteronomy 6:4, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible used by all first-century Greek-speaking Jews):

ἄκουε, Ἰσραήλ· κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν.

Akoue, Israēl: kurios ho theos hēmōn kurios heis estin. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

Now look at the Shema's vocabulary. Two divine titles: kurios (Lord, which translates Yahweh) and theos (God, which translates Elohim). One confession: heis (one).

Now look at Paul. "One theos, the Father... and one kurios, Jesus Christ." Paul has taken the Shema's two divine titles and assigned them. The title theos goes to the Father. The title kurios goes to Jesus. The heis (one) is preserved in both clauses. This is not Paul denying the Shema. This is Paul expounding the Shema with Jesus as the kurios who is the Father's agent.

The translation across camps is stable. There are not significant disputes about what this verse says in English. The interpretation is where traditions diverge.

Two readings of the split Shema

Traditional Trinitarian readings see Paul's split of the Shema as evidence that both the Father and the Son are included within the one God. The argument: Paul would not split the Shema between two distinct beings; he must therefore be teaching that the Father and Son both participate in the identity of the one God of Israel. Richard Bauckham's God Crucified (1998) develops this reading at length.

This reading has real force, but it imports an assumption. It assumes that the only way Paul could split the Shema's two titles is if both recipients are within the one God's identity. The assumption is not necessary. There is another way to read what Paul is doing, and it is arguably closer to his first-century Jewish context.

The Biblical Unitarian reading sees Paul's split as the natural application of the Shaliach principle (agency) to the Messiah. The first-century Jewish concept of a divinely authorized agent is that the agent carries the sender's authority without becoming the sender. Moses carried the authority of Yahweh without becoming Yahweh. The high priest carried the authority of Yahweh without becoming Yahweh. The Shekinah (the indwelling presence of Yahweh in the Temple) was God's own presence and yet was distinct from God himself in a way the rabbis found subtle and irreducible.

Jesus, as the Messiah whom God has exalted and given "the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9), is now the kurios through whom God has acted decisively. He is the Shaliach. Paul assigns the title kurios to him, which in the Septuagint is the name of Yahweh, because the Messiah is the one through whom Yahweh has acted. This is exactly what Acts 2:36 says: "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Peter's claim is that God made Jesus kurios. The title was bestowed on Jesus by the Father, not intrinsic to Jesus by nature.

On this reading, the Father remains the one God (heis theos), and Jesus is the one Lord (heis kurios) whom the one God has appointed. The Shema is preserved in both clauses: one theos, one kurios, not many. What Paul has done is clarify how the one God has now acted: through his Messiah, who is the one kurios.

The agency in the prepositions

The Greek prepositions do significant work.

Of the Father, Paul says the creation is ex autou ("from him") and we exist eis auton ("unto him"). Ex ("from") indicates source or origin. Eis ("unto") indicates goal or destination. The Father is the source of all things and the end toward which all things exist. This is the language of ultimate agency. The Father is the first cause and final cause of everything.

Of Jesus, Paul says the creation is di' autou ("through him") and we exist di' autou ("through him"). Dia ("through") indicates means or instrumentality. Jesus is the one through whom the Father acts. This is the language of secondary or intermediate agency. The Father does the work; Jesus is the agent through whom the work is done.

Notice that Paul is careful. He does not say creation is "from" Jesus in the way it is "from" the Father. The Father is the source in an ultimate sense that Jesus is not. Jesus is the means through which the Father's purposes are accomplished, which is Shaliach language exactly. This is not a lesser Christology; it is the New Testament's own Christology.

The distinction between ex and dia is maintained elsewhere in Paul. Romans 11:36: "From him and through him and to him are all things." This is all said of God (the Father) by himself, with no Christological distribution. Romans speaks of the Father as ex, dia, and eis all together. But 1 Corinthians 8 distributes ex/eis to the Father and dia to the Son. Paul is precise about the agency relations.

Why "through whom are all things"?

One of the most common objections to the Biblical Unitarian reading of 1 Corinthians 8:6 asks about the "all things through him" clause. If Jesus is not the Creator, how can Paul say all things are through him? The standard Trinitarian reading takes this as evidence of Christ's participation in creation.

The Biblical Unitarian reading has several responses, each with textual support.

First, the new creation. Paul regularly speaks of Christ as the agent of the new creation, the redemption and restoration of all things, not the original creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 announces the new creation "in Christ." Galatians 6:15 declares that in Christ Jesus "a new creation" is what counts. Colossians 1 expands this: Jesus is both the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of every creature, and all things are being reconciled through him. The "all things through him" of 1 Corinthians 8:6 fits this pattern: all things have been brought under the Father's redemptive purposes through the Son.

Second, the Logos background. Paul is writing inside a Jewish Hellenistic world in which God's Word, Wisdom, and Name are all described as agents "through which" God creates and acts. Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is beside God at creation. The Word in Philo of Alexandria is the instrument through which God structures the world. The Memra in the Jewish Targums is the divine agency through which God accomplishes his purposes. None of these figures is a second Person of the one God; all of them are ways of describing God's own agency. Paul is working in this vocabulary, and "through whom are all things" for Jesus is the Logos tradition applied to the Messiah.

Third, the Shaliach grammar. A Shaliach carries the full authority of the sender. When the sender accomplishes something through the Shaliach, the sender is acting. When Paul says all things are through Jesus Christ, he is not saying Jesus Christ is the first cause. He is saying the Father has made Jesus Christ the one through whom the Father's purposes are carried out. The Father is still the source.

These readings together show that "through whom are all things" does not force a Trinitarian reading of the verse. The Shaliach framework accounts for it.

What Paul is not doing

A common misreading takes 1 Corinthians 8:6 as Paul's new Christian replacement for the Jewish Shema. On this reading, the Shema said one God; Paul expands this to "one God and one Lord," effectively adding Jesus to the monotheistic formula.

Paul is not doing this. Paul is interpreting the Shema, not replacing it. The "one God" of the Shema remains one God. The additional clause about the "one Lord Jesus Christ" is Paul's identification of the Messiah as the kurios of the Shema, the one through whom Yahweh has now acted to redeem. This is a Jewish monotheistic move, not a Trinitarian one.

The distinction matters. A Trinitarian reading of 1 Corinthians 8:6 requires importing the idea that the Son shares in the one God's identity. A Shaliach reading of 1 Corinthians 8:6 requires only the idea that the Messiah is the one God's authorized agent. The first reading imports a later doctrinal category. The second reading stays inside Paul's Jewish vocabulary.

What this changes

If 1 Corinthians 8:6 is read as the Biblical Unitarian reading suggests, several things follow.

First, Paul confirms John. The Fourth Gospel's "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) and "the only true God" (John 17:3) and the sending-language throughout fit Paul's split Shema naturally. The Father is the one God. Jesus is the one Lord whom God has sent. Both writers are saying the same thing with different vocabulary.

Second, the Messiah remains fully human. Paul is not claiming Jesus is ontologically divine. Paul is claiming Jesus is the Messiah whom God has made Lord. The humanity of the Messiah is preserved. The exaltation of the Messiah is real but derivative, granted by the Father (Philippians 2:9, Acts 2:36).

Third, Christian worship retains its monotheistic integrity. The early Christian community's worship of Jesus (prayer to Jesus, reverence toward Jesus, baptism in Jesus's name) is not the worship of a second divine being. It is the worship of the one God through the one Messiah the one God has appointed. Paul would see no conflict between this practice and the Shema, because the Messiah is the Father's authorized Shaliach. What is done to the Shaliach is done to the sender. The logic is Jewish, not Greek.

The invitation

Read 1 Corinthians 8 in full, from verse 1 through the end of chapter 10, where Paul concludes the argument about idol food. Notice how the "one God, one Lord" framework Paul establishes in 8:6 structures the entire argument. Notice how Paul distinguishes the Father's exclusive divinity from the Son's derivative lordship throughout. Notice that the Trinitarian reading, while possible to construct, is not the reading that naturally falls out of the Greek.

Then set Paul next to John. John 17:3 says the Father is the only true God. 1 Corinthians 8:6 says there is one God, the Father. These verses were written by different authors, in different settings, to different audiences, in different decades. They agree precisely. The confession of New Testament Christianity is that the Father alone is the one God, and Jesus is the one Lord the Father has appointed.