1 Corinthians 8:6

1 Corinthians 8:6. yet to us (Christians) there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things as their primal Source, and we unto him as their last End; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things as the immediate Agent in their production, and we through him. [1]

[1] The use of the preposition “through,” of Christ's agency, has been urged as shewing that the apostle viewed Him as a mere subordinate instrument of God in the production of all things. But even in classical Greek and most certainly in the Greek of the New Testament this preposition is used where immediate agency is intended; it being left to the context or the subject itself to determine whether immediate or subordinate agency is intended (see Winer, § 47; Jelf, § 627; and Fritzsche, ad Rom. i. 5, p. 15). In Romans 11:36, it is said of God, in the most absolute sense, “ through whom are all things;” and in this very Epistle, “God is faithful, through whom ye were called” (Romans 1:9). It is not that this preposition differs nothing from those which properly express primary causation, but merely that it is often used in place of such and no doubt with a shade of meaning not easily conveyed in English.

Note. This statement embodies a profound truth, which however only close study of it reveals. It might have sufficed for the apostle's purpose to say in opposition to the polytheism that reigned at Corinth ‘To us Christians there is no divinity, and no object of worship, save the one living and true God.' But instead of this, he breaks his statement into two distinct propositions, expressing two marked contrasts between Christianity and heathenism. First, by the “one God,” of us Christians, we mean “The Father,” in opposition to the “ gods many” of the heathen. Next, in opposition to the “ lords many” of the heathen, “to us there is one Lord, (even) Jesus Christ.” Now, why so? Because there is in the human breast a deep conviction of the vast distance between God and men, but at the same time insatiable longing to have it bridged over, and a fond persuasion that this difficulty must and can be met. From this state of mind sprang the conception pervading alike the East and the West in different forms, and far from being confined to the vulgar, nor originating with them that there exist intermediate and subordinate divinities, or emanations from the supreme Divinity through whom the two extremities meet. Now what Christianity does is not to extinguish this conviction and this emotion, out of which the universe came to be thus ignorantly peopled, but to disclose the sublime Reality that underlies all these dreamings, namely, that while there is one Fontal Source of all things, “one God, the Father, of whom are all things, there is also “one (Mediatorial) Lord, even Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and through whose intervention “we through Him” are brought nigh to this “one God,” otherwise unapproachable. See 1 John 1:1-4, where this same profound truth is expressed in studied opposition to that subtle Gnosticism, which even in our apostle's time was stealing into the atmosphere of Christian thought (as is plain from the Epistle to the Colossians), but was threatening, in the beloved disciple's old age, when he wrote his first Epistle, to darken the air of the churches of Proconsular Asia and the surrounding region.