Paul resumed his discussion of knowledge after digressing briefly in verses 2 and 3 to comment on the superiority of love over knowledge.
8:4 In this verse Paul returned to the original subject of eating meals in idol temples and applied the priority of love over knowledge to it. Unquestionably idols are not spirit beings such as God. There is only one true God (Deut. 6:4). Every Christian should know that, and the Corinthians did. "We know that"affirms what they all knew as true.
8:5 Nevertheless for many people, the pagans and even Christians who do not have a correct concept of deity, there are many beings they regard as gods and lords over various areas of life.
"The two terms gods' and lords,' which set up the Christian confession in v. 6, reflect the two basic forms of Greco-Roman religion as it has been modified by the coming of the Oriental cults. The gods' designate the traditional deities, who are regularly given this appellation in the literature but are seldom referred to as kyrioi(lords'). The term kyrios, on the other hand, is the normal title for the deities of the mystery cults."202
8:6 For instructed Christians there is only one God and one Lord. Paul did not mean that there are two separate beings, God and Lord. These are two names for the one true God who exists as Father and Son. The Scriptures establish the deity of Jesus Christ elsewhere (e.g., John l:1, 14; 10:30; Col. 1:15-19; et al.). Paul did not argue that point here but simply stated the Son's equality with the Father within the Godhead.
The point of difference is this. The Father is the source and goal of all things whereas the Son is the agent though whom all things have come from God and will return to God. Since Paul's point was the unity of the Godhead, there was no need to complicate matters by referring to the Holy Spirit here.
