Deeper Commentary

 

CHAPTER 8

8:1 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols. We know that we all have knowledge; yet knowledge puffs up, but love builds up-  Paul’s whole position about meat offered to idols reflects the fact that he recognised that there would be some believers who still could not escape the sense that the idol is really something to be feared, that in some sense it is alive and accepting the sacrifice offered to it, even though the believer in the other half of his brain knew full well that idols are nothing and there is only one true God. We all know this, Paul reasons, and yet some still can’t escape their sense that the idol is there, and that if they eat meat offered to it they are fellowshipping with it, even though it doesn’t exist.  Our tendency would be to be hard on such a person, insisting that they cannot worship the true God and yet also have this sense of the idol. And yet Paul knew that there is a dualism within each of us; we can still have a sense of the false even whilst we believe the true. And the Lord is more gracious than many of us seem to be to this feature of our nature.

It is hard to piece together what was really going on in the politics of the early church, because Paul seems to have submitted to their wishes apart from where essential principle was concerned. Luke in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 make the record sound so positive- as if the conference in Jerusalem solved all the problems, even though it is clear that it didn’t, and the Gentile believers were still classed as second rate. It was after this that Paul wrote here: “As touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth” (AV). This sounds like an allusion to the agreements hammered out at Jerusalem-‘we all know what was agreed’, Paul seems to be saying. There was nothing wrong in itself with the compromises agreed. But it was love that edifies, not a legalistic use of those decrees as ‘knowledge’. It all sounds as if there was joy at the conversion of the Gentiles, even though there was “much disputing” about it. And yet it is observable that the whole Acts record doesn’t reflect the spirit of controversy and struggle against apostasy which the epistles so insistently reflect. Paul didn’t protest being told not to teach Jews by his brethren- but he got on and did so. It was not knowledge of intellectual truth alone which justifies a person- for we know so pitifully little anyway (:2). It is doing what is best for the building up of others, in the spirit of love. Those who so love the idea of 'saving truth' need to remember this; for truth, no matter how pure, will not save of itself. As Fred Pearce remarked many years ago, "It is not an inspired Bible which will save you, but faith in the blood of Christ and God's grace".

8:2 If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he does not know anything as he ought to know- This sounds like another of the allusions to Job (here to 26:14) in the New Testament- particularly once it is realized that 1 Corinthians has several other Job allusions. "Thinks" is literally to show, to account, to have reputation. We all have knowledge (:1)- not just some would be leader who says he has it. And anyway, it's not about knowledge- it's about whether God knows us in that we are in relationship with Him because we love Him (:3). This is the knowledge required., and it was this knowledge which was lacking in those who thought that their academic knowledge was what ought to make them be held in high repute. This is the force of the person thinking / showing / reputing that he 'had knowledge'. "As he ought to know" is an aorist really meaning 'as he ought to come to know'. It is the knowing of relationship which is in view, the process of knowing- and this is developed in the next verse. Their knowledge was just facts; Is. 28:13 speaks exactly to this problem by rebuking Israel for having no relationship with God but rather just treating His word as "line upon line, here a little and there a little... precept [concept] upon concept". And this is how so much Bible study has been for many. They have glorified it in itself, and have apparently not come to spiritual relationship with God.

8:3 But if anyone loves God- This alludes to the first commandment, to love God; and the Lord assures us that this still stands for His people today. The idea of loving God was used in a similar context earlier, in 1 Cor. 2:9, in arguing that human knowledge and learning will not lead us to real faith and relationship with God; but the spiritually minded "love God" and so have His Son revealed to them by the Spirit.

The same is known by Him- See on :2. Here we have the same tension between love and knowledge which was introduced in :1. But there is a nuance; for God to know us means that He is in relationship with us, and we on our part love Him. It is for us to love Him; it is for Him to know us. This stands as a caveat to our rightful emphasis upon the need to correctly know doctrine about God. Isaac Newton remarked that he was only gathering pebbles on the shore of the ocean of truth. Truly "How little a portion is heard of Him" (Job 26:14). In other words, we will never know God to perfection in this life; but what we can be sure of and rejoice in is that He knows us. Paul almost implies that we can easily forget this wondrous fact, because of our obsession with wanting to fully know about Him. It was this emphasis upon relationship with God which had been missed by the Corinthians, for they did not have the Spirit (3:1) and were therefore left with only technical knowledge of Him. And that can be so with those who pride themselves on being 'Bible students' and yet resist the entrance and leading of the Spirit, and despise the idea of 'relationship with God' as being nebulous and not really what they think their religion is all about.

Paul will later remark that the Corinthians are living in sin because they do not have the knowledge of God (1 Cor. 15:34). "The knowledge of God" is an ambiguous genitive, meaning both 'our knowing about God' and 'God's knowing of us'. It is mutual relationship which is the intention of Christianity and the person of the Lord Jesus, through whom this "knowledge of God" is mediated.

8:4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol has real existence and there is no God but one- "We know" must be read in the context of what has been noted on 'knowledge' in :1-3. The technical knowledge was that there is one God and therefore idols have no real existence as gods. But Paul is going to go on to reason about how that knowledge should be used in love in practice. 'Idol' and 'God' are placed in antithesis because idols were seen as the representations of living gods behind them, somewhere out in the cosmos. The implications of there being one God is that such beings have no real existence. Note that Paul has just alluded to the commandment to love God (:3), and here he alludes to the commandment that "God is one". The Lord Jesus likewise quoted those two commandments as being effectively one commandment (Mk. 12:31). Paul had truly meditated upon the Lord's teaching and absorbed it to such an extent that it is everywhere part of his own reasoning and logical process. In this alone he sets us a great example. Eating was understood in first century religious terms as an act of fellowship with others. Hence the anger with the Lord for breaking His bread and sharing His table with anyone whom He could urge to sit down with Him. To eat food sacrificed to idols was felt to be a sign of fellowship with the god whom that idol represented. The food was freighted with such significance in the eyes of those who lived in that worldview. But belief in one God meant that this was not to be the mindset of Christians.

8:5 For though there are those called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are gods many and lords many- As noted on :4, the idols were "those called gods" in that they represented them. The location of the supposed gods represented varied- some were thought to be on earth, others "in heaven". Those entities supposed to be represented by the idols were 'gods' and 'lords'. These were two different categories; and the difference is reflected in the next verse, which states that we have only one God, the Father, and one Lord- Jesus.

8:6 To us there is only one God- See on :5. The denarius of Tiberius which Jesus used bore the words: Tiberius CAESAR DIVI AUGusti Filius AUGUSTUS Pontifex Maximus. Caesar was to be seen as the Son of God. The Lord Jesus was the only, and  begotten Son of God. The implication is that no other ‘son of God’ was begotten as Jesus was- He was the real Son of God, the one and only (Jn. 1:14,18; 3:16,18). Caesar was to be worshipped as God (see L.R. Taylor, The Divinity Of The Roman Emperor). Julius Caesar was known as Divus Julius after his death; indeed, many of the Caesars were held to have ‘resurrected’ to heaven and been granted Divine status. “To us [and this is the emphasis] there is only one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:4-6) takes on a vital radicality in the light of this. As does NT teaching about His resurrection and subsequent Divine glorification.  

The Father, of whom are all things and we are everything to Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, for the sake of whom are all things, and we exist for His sake- "All things" have one source; whereas the pagans considered that the various gods were each responsible for different aspects of life. Earlier in this section, Paul has spoken of how we know God and He knows us. This idea of relationship is continued here; we are for His sake, and He is for our sake. All things are of Him, and we are all things ["everything"] to Him. His focus upon us His people is challenging indeed. All things are for our sakes (2 Cor. 4:15). We are all things to Him. This gives a window onto the question of other creations, both now and within infinite time and space. Even the Angels are for our sakes, and are in that sense inferior to us in ultimate terms, according to the reasoning of Hebrews 1 and 2. The focus of the Father is in His only begotten Son, and thereby upon all who are in Him.

8:7 However there is not in all men that knowledge, but some being used until now to the idol, eat things sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled- This is a description of how things were in reality within the "all men" of the Corinthian church. Not all had the knowledge; yet in :1 Paul says that they did all have knowledge. He is again playing on the difference between theoretical knowledge, and the spiritual knowing of relationship. Indeed he opened the letter in chapter 1 by doing the same; likewise, they all had the Spirit, and yet they were not spiritual (3:1). They knew God on one hand, but on another they had not the knowledge of God in real spiritual terms (15:34). It was because of this lack of knowledge as it was meant to be, that their conscience was defiled. They thought the gods really existed, because their 'knowledge' that God is one didn't translate into knowledge as knowledge is meant to be. When they ate the food offered to idols, they did so as a real act of fellowship with those supposed gods; the act of eating their food was understood by them in their conscience as meaning that those gods existed, and they were in fellowship with them. Despite this 'weakness', Paul speaks so often of the need to care for the "weak" (s.w.) and retain them within the Lord's body, and to become weak that we might save these weak ones (1 Cor. 9:22; 11:30; 12:22). Without doubt, Paul's approach was to preach the Gospel, get people baptized into Christ whether by his hands or others, and then tolerate their weakness of understanding and moral behaviour whilst making every effort to teach them further and correct them. This is in sharp contrast to the attitude of many today.

When dealing with the problem of fornication, Paul doesn’t directly appeal to any legal code, not even the ten commandments, nor the agreement at the Council of Jerusalem, because he was appealing for life to be lived according to the spirit rather than any law. Likewise when writing about meat offered to idols in 1 Cor. 8, he could so easily have appealed to the agreements made at the Council as recorded in Acts 15. But he doesn’t. For love’s sake he appeals. He asks them “judge ye what I say”, he seeks for them to live a way of life, rather than obey isolated commandments as a burden to be borne. It is simply so that brethren and sisters, men and women, prefer simple yes / no commandments rather than an appeal to a way of life. In those communities and fellowships where everything is reduced to a mere allowed / not allowed, there tends to be less internal division than if it is taught that life must be lived by principles. Paul was smart enough to know this, especially with his background in legalism. And yet he chose not to lay the law down with Corinth; instead he appealed to a spirit of life, even though he must have foreseen the strife that would come of it.

8:8 But food will not commend us to God. Neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. Nor, if we eat, are we the better- The earlier section in this chapter has spoken of how the critical issue is relationship with God and not technical knowledge. Attitudes to food likewise will not commend us to God. The issue is not about whether to eat idol food or not- Paul will go on to explain that the question is all about love. He introduced the whole section by contrasting knowledge which puffs up with the love which builds up (8:1); and that building up is of others through our sensitivities to them and their weaknesses. Note how Paul uses the same word for "commend" in saying that we shall be 'presented' without fault to God at the last day (2 Cor. 4:14; 11:2; Eph. 5:27; Col. 1:22). That spotless presentation is by grace; it's nothing to do with whether we were ritually defiled or not by food. That itself is a mere technicality.

8:9 But take heed, lest by any means this freedom of yours becomes a stumblingblock to the weak- It wasn't a question of who was technically right or wrong on the issue of idol food. It was a question of having the love which builds up others, by not being a stumbling block to them; rather than who had the technical knowledge. This is one of several passages which warn us not to make the weak to stumble. But none of those passages actually says that we can know who is weak. What they are saying is that in God's eyes, there are weak members amongst every group of believers, and therefore we should watch our behaviour, because it will have an effect upon whoever is weak. But this doesn't mean that we actually know who  the weak ones are. Because we don't know who is especially weak we must always be careful in our behaviour, whoever we are with. Indeed we have to adopt the perspective that in a sense we are all weak. To understand 1 Cor. 8:9, we must understand what it means to be weak. The Greek word translated "weak" here usually means one of two things: physical illness, or spiritual weakness. Sometimes these two senses are combined (e.g. when James speaks of praying for the "sick" brother, or when Jesus talks of how pleased he was that brethren had visited the "sick" brother in Mt. 25:36). Paul  often uses the word in his letters to Corinth. He says that we are all weak because of our natures (1 Cor. 15:43), and that Christ died on account of the fact that we are weak (2 Cor. 13:4 Gk.). Because of this, Paul reasons, we're all weak, because Christ died for every one of us. He therefore says that to sin against a weak brother is to sin against Christ; because Christ has associated himself with our spiritual weakness, in order to save us from it (1 Cor. 8:12). Thus he says that when we visit a weak brother (spiritually? it's the same word), we visit Him. He so closely associates himself with the weak brother. Christ on the cross carried the sins of "the weak" (i.e. all of us), and thereby left us an example of how we should behave towards the "weak". In this context, Paul says that we should likewise love our neighbour (in the ecclesia; Rom. 15:1-4). What he seems to be saying is that we should understand that we are all weak, and therefore try to help each other, in the same spirit as Christ died for the weakness of each of us. If we recognize that we are all weak, we'll avoid two common mistakes: 1) Thinking that some brethren aren't weak and should therefore be followed blindly; and 2) Thinking that some believers are "weak" whilst the rest of us are "strong". Paul didn't want the Corinth ecclesia to think he was wagging the finger at them and implying: 'You lot are so weak, but I'm strong'. Several times he speaks of his own weakness, and he glories in the fact that although he is so (spiritually) weak, God works through him so mightily; indeed, he comes to the conclusion that God's strength is perfectly expressed through his spiritual weaknesses (2 Cor. 11:30; 12:5,9,10). He says that he preached to Corinth in the first place in (spiritual) "weakness" (1 Cor. 2:3)-  because it seems that when he first got to Corinth, he wasn't spiritually strong enough to grasp the nettle of witnessing to the city as he should have done (Acts 18:9,10). Having admitted to Corinth that he himself was weak, he can say that whenever one of them is weak, he feels weak too; in other words he's saying that he can totally empathize (not just sympathize) with a weak brother's feelings (2 Cor. 11:29). 

8:10- see on 1 Cor. 8:9; 11:3.

For if a man sees you who have knowledge dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be encouraged to eat things sacrificed to idols?- Paul may mean this as a hypothetical case; the believer who knows for sure there is only one God could sit and eat at an idol sacrifice, seeing the food as just food and nothing else; and do nothing technically wrong. But by doing so, he would encourage the weaker brother to eat just the same food but as an act of fellowship with the false gods of paganism. But it might also be that the Corinthians were so weak that despite their knowledge of the one God and rejection of the existence of other gods, they still ate in the idol's temple. Interestingly, Paul doesn't criticize them for doing this itself; rather he reasons more subtly that by doing so, they were leading weaker Christians into sin. Later on he will argue that one cannot eat at the Lord's table and at the table of idols: "You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons" (1 Cor. 10:21). But at this point in 8:10, Paul is saying that one can literally eat food there, if this is not a participation, an active fellowshipping, with the idol. But externally, eating food at the idol's table looked as if they were partaking with the idol / demon. Paul recognized that two men can do the same thing externally and yet understand it quite differently in their hearts. But the problem is that the external behaviour can lead the weaker brother into sin in their heart, or as Paul has put it, "their conscience is defiled".

Our example- and let’s not forget, we all set an example of one sort or another- will either edify others towards righteousness, or "encourage" [AV “embolden”] our weaker brother to sin (1 Cor. 8:1,10). We ‘edify’ others in only one of two directions; this is the point behind Paul using the same Greek word in both verses.

8:11 For through your knowledge he that is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died- This has been the whole theme of the section- knowledge as knowledge alone puffs up, but love builds up. Indeed, possession of knowledge, of 'truth' in this sense, can actually destroy others when that truth is used irresponsibly. And we likewise have all seen this kind of thing happen in conservative church life. We can build others up and we can also cause them to "perish", and thus the death of Christ is made in vain for that brother- thanks to our selfish attitude to the truths we possess by grace. Knowledge or truth of itself cannot just be insisted upon in a vacuum. We are not to shrug and say that "Well that's their fault, his problem, her lack of faith" because an individual weaker in faith and understanding is made to stumble by our indulgence in "truth". This is like the weak Corinthians who believed in 'gods out there' behind the idols being led to worship them- all by observing their 'stronger' brethren flaunting the truth / knowledge they held, in their freedom to eat idol food.

8:12- see on 1 Cor. 8:9.

And thus, sinning against the believers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ- Christ is His body; to persecute His brethren is to persecute Him, to sin against them is to sin against Him. Paul had learnt this principle through reflection on his own sins against Christ insofar as He sinned against His brethren by persecuting them. Even the very weakest, those who still felt the gods existed, are called "believers" and are seen as members of the body of Christ, and as members to whom the Lord Jesus is particularly sensitive. Clearly the scope of acceptance into the body of Christ [which is achieved by baptism] is far wider than many think. Likewise the tolerance is far broader; for our inclination would be to tell those who believe in pagan gods to get out of the church. But Paul doesn't take that approach, indeed in chapter 12 he will argue that the presence of these "weak" within the body is the more necessary for us who consider ourselves strong. The word for "wounding" is used about the servant "beating" the fellow servant (Mt. 24:49; Lk. 12:45). This 'beating' can be done through selfishly indulging in our own truth and knowledge in a way which spiritually damages others. This is the way God looks upon the commonly held idea that "It's OK in my conscience". That is not quite the point, as Paul will later develop in chapter 10. The parable of the fellow servant refers specifically to the situation at the Lord's coming. Paul's vision of the latter day ecclesia was therefore that materialistic elders would act with no thought as to their effect on the consciences of the flock, and thereby many would stumble.

8:13 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh again, so that I do not cause my brother to stumble- The eating of food referred to is specifically eating food offered to idols, perhaps even more specifically- eating it in the idol temple itself (:10). Paul is obviously aware here of the Lord's strict words for those who make their brother stumble. They shall be treated as Babylon, and cast into the depths of the sea. To not make others stumble must therefore be a paramount consideration. A closed table approach, ever censuring others for their failures and barring them from the Lord's table, seems to me a sure way to make others stumble- and it has done so in so many cases. We must give more weight to the Lord's words and to Paul's teaching here. It's not about me, my conscience, my knowledge, my truth. It's all about attitudes to the weak and not making them stumble.

 The AV and some MSS add that Paul would not eat food "while the world standeth"- This could be hyperbole concerning how serious he was, or he could be saying he would not eat such food until the Jewish Law, which was intrinsically part of the Jewish world, was fully done away with in AD70. Col. 2:22 says that the using of the (Mosaic) laws "are to perish" - in the future, i.e. AD70.