1 The Text
Greek (NA28)
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.
Key terms highlighted: heis theos ho patēr (one God, the Father) and heis kyrios (one Lord)
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.
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.
NRSVue
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.
NASBRE
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
REV
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.
2 Context
First Corinthians 8:6 appears within Paul's discussion of food offered to idols (chs. 8–10), written around 53–55 CE. The Corinthians had asked Paul whether believers could eat meat that had been sacrificed in pagan temples. Paul responds by affirming monotheism against paganism: while pagans have "many gods and many lords" (v. 5), for believers there is one God and one Lord. The verse functions as a Christian confession of faith set against polytheistic culture.
The structure of the verse is unmistakably modelled on the Jewish Shema — "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deut 6:4). Paul appears to take the Shema's "one God" and "one Lord" and distribute them: "one God" is identified as the Father, "one Lord" is identified as Jesus Christ. Whether this constitutes a splitting of the Shema to include Jesus within YHWH's identity, or a careful distinction between the one God (who is the Father) and a separate agent (who is the Lord Jesus), is the central question.
The prepositions are precise and potentially significant. The Father is described with ex (from/out of) — the source of all things. Jesus is described with dia (through) — the agent or instrument. In Jewish creation theology, God is always the source; wisdom or the word is the instrument. Whether this distinction preserves a hierarchy (source vs. agent) or collapses it (both included in one divine identity) drives the entire debate.
3 The Debate
Trinitarian
Reading
Paul reformulates the Shema (Deut 6:4) to include Jesus Christ within the divine identity. The Shema's "one LORD" (kyrios, translating YHWH) is now identified as Jesus, while "one God" is identified as the Father. This is not a splitting of God but an expansion of Jewish monotheism from within — Jesus is included in the identity of the one God of Israel.
Reasoning
This is Richard Bauckham's signature argument. For a first-century Jew to take the most sacred confession of monotheism and place Jesus alongside YHWH within its structure is extraordinary. The Shema allusion is unmistakable: heis theos and heis kyrios correspond to the Shema's affirmation of God's oneness. Paul is not adding a second deity but identifying Jesus as intrinsic to what "one God" means. The creative prepositions (ex and dia) distribute the functions of the one God across Father and Son without subordinating one to the other.
Strongest counterargument
Paul explicitly says "one God" equals "the Father" — not the Father and the Son together. The structure actually distinguishes: the one God is the Father; the one Lord is Jesus. If Paul intended to include Jesus in the identity of the one God, why does he identify "one God" exclusively as the Father? The very verse that is supposed to prove Jesus is included in the divine identity actually reserves the title "God" for the Father alone.
Key scholars: Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, Gordon Fee
Biblical Unitarian
Reading
"One God" is the Father, full stop. Paul preserves strict Jewish monotheism by identifying the one God as the Father alone, while Jesus holds the distinct role of Lord — the supreme agent through whom God acts. The prepositions are decisive: ek (from) the Father marks the ultimate source; dia (through) Jesus marks the instrumental agent. Source and agent are not the same. Dale Tuggy argues (What is the Trinity?; "On Bauckham's Bargain," Theology Today, 2013) that Paul's modified Shema places the Father in the "God" slot and Jesus in the "Lord" slot — this distinguishes them rather than including Jesus within the divine identity. The "through whom" language is standard agency language: all things come from the Father as source, through Christ as agent.
Reasoning
The same passage (v. 5) mentions "many lords" in the pagan world — the word kyrios is not inherently a divine title but denotes authority and lordship. David is called kyrios; Caesar is kyrios. Paul distinguishes between God and Lord, not because he is splitting the Shema to include Jesus, but because he is making two distinct affirmations: there is one God (the Father) and one supreme human agent (the Lord Jesus). The distinction is consistent with Paul's theology elsewhere (1 Cor 15:24–28; 11:3).
Strongest counterargument
The Shema allusion is real and hard to dismiss. For a Jewish monotheist to take the structure of Deuteronomy 6:4 and place Jesus Christ alongside YHWH within it is remarkable, even if Jesus is given a distinct role. No other intermediary figure in Jewish literature receives this treatment. The Shema reformulation goes beyond what Jewish agency traditions can easily accommodate.
Key scholars: Anthony Buzzard, James D.G. Dunn, Dale Tuggy
Agency Christology
Reading
Jesus fills the role of God's Wisdom or Logos as the agent of creation (cf. Prov 8, Wis 7–9). The preposition dia (through) is the characteristic preposition for the instrument of creation in Jewish Wisdom theology: God creates through Wisdom. Paul places Jesus in this instrumental, mediatorial role — the one through whom God accomplishes his creative and redemptive purposes.
Reasoning
The ek/dia distinction maps perfectly onto Jewish creation theology where God is the source and Wisdom is the instrument. Philo uses identical prepositional language: God is the cause "from whom" (ex hou), while the Logos is the instrument "through whom" (di' hou). Paul places Jesus in exactly the position that Jewish theology assigned to personified Wisdom — supreme among all creatures, agent of God's purposes, but not identical with God himself.
Strongest counterargument
An agent who merely fills Wisdom's role should not receive the structural position that YHWH occupies in the Shema. Paul does not say "one God and his Wisdom" — he says "one Lord, Jesus Christ," using the divine title kyrios in a Shema-structured confession. Agent language cannot fully account for the unique devotional and confessional status Paul gives to Jesus here.
Key scholars: James D.G. Dunn, Larry Hurtado, Pheme Perkins
? Questions to Ask This Text
Is Paul splitting the Shema to include Jesus in YHWH's identity, or distinguishing the one God (Father) from the one Lord (Jesus)?
Do the prepositions ek (from) and dia (through) imply a hierarchy between source and agent, or do they distribute divine functions equally?
Paul says "one God" = the Father. If Jesus is also God, why does Paul not say so here in his most explicit monotheistic statement?
How does v. 5 ("there are many gods and many lords") affect the meaning of kyrios in v. 6? Is "Lord" a divine title or a title of authority?
Does "through whom all things came" refer to the original creation or the new creation? Would this change the Christological implications?
How does this verse relate to 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, where the Son is subjected to the Father? Are they compatible?
Does Paul place Jesus in the "God" slot or the "Lord" slot of his modified Shema? What does that distinction imply?
Key Concepts for This Passage
Understanding these concepts will help you evaluate the arguments above:
4 Related Passages
5 Go Deeper
Trinitarian perspective
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (2008), ch. 6 on the Shema. Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, rev. 2014). N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (2013).
Biblical Unitarian perspective
Anthony Buzzard & Charles Hunting, The Doctrine of the Trinity (1998). James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (1989). Dale Tuggy, "1 Corinthians 8:6 and the Shema" in Trinities podcast series. Dale Tuggy, "On Bauckham's Bargain" in Theology Today 70:2 (2013). Dale Tuggy, What is the Trinity? (2017).
Agency / Wisdom background
Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord (1988). Pheme Perkins, First Corinthians (Paideia, 2012). James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (1998).
Shema and Jewish monotheism
Erik Waaler, The Shema and the First Commandment in First Corinthians (WUNT, 2008). Loren Stuckenbruck & Wendy North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (2004).