Romans 1:3-4

“ Concerning his Son, born of the race of David according to the flesh; established as the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ”

The apostle first designates the subject of gospel preaching in a summary way: it is Jesus Christ viewed as the Son of God. The preposition περί, concerning, might indeed depend on the substantive εὐαγγέλιον (gospel), Romans 1:1, in virtue of the verbal meaning of the word; but we should require in that case to take Romans 1:2 as a parenthesis, which is by no means necessary. Why not make this clause dependent on the immediately preceding verb: which He had promised afore? This promise of the preaching of the gospel related to His Son, since it was He who was to be the subject of the preaching.

Here begins a long period, first expressing this subject in a general way, then analyzing it in parallel propositions, which, point by point, form an antithesis to one another. They are not connected by any of the numerous particles in which the Greek language abounds; their simple juxtaposition makes the contrast the more striking.

It has been sought to explain the title Son of God merely as an official name: the theocratic King by way of eminence, the Messiah. The passages quoted in favor of this meaning would suffice, if they were needed to refute it: John 1:50, for example, where the juxtaposition of the two titles, Son of God and King of Israel, so far from demonstrating them to be synonymous, refutes the view, and where the repetition of the verb thou art gives of itself the proof of the contrary; and Psalms 2:7, where Jehovah says to the Messiah: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” This last expression is applied to the installation of the Messiah in His kingly office. But to beget never signifies to establish as king; the word denotes a communication of life.

Some explain the title by the exceptional moral perfection of Jesus, and the unbroken communion in which He lived with God. Thus the name would include nothing transcending the limits of a simple human existence. But can this explanation account for the passage, Romans 8:3: “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”...? It is obvious from this phrase that Paul ascribes an existence to the Son anterior to His coming in the flesh.

The title Son is also explained by our Lord's miraculous birth. So, for example, M. Bonnet: “In consequence of His generation by the Holy Spirit, He is really the Son of God.” Such, indeed, is the meaning of the term in the message of the angel to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee... wherefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” But the passage, Romans 8:3, just quoted, shows that the apostle used the name in a more elevated sense still, though the notion of the miraculous birth has obviously a very close connection with that of pre-existence.

Several theologians of our day think that the title Son of God applies to Jesus only on account of His elevation to divine glory, as the sequel of His earthly existence. But our passage itself proves that, in the apostle's view, the divine state which followed His resurrection is a recovered and not an acquired state. His personal dignity as Son of God, proceeded on from Romans 1:3, is anterior to the two phases of His existence, the earthly and the heavenly, which are afterward described.

The idea of Christ's divine pre-existence is one familiar to St. Paul's mind, and alone explains the meaning which he attached to the term Son of God. Comp. (besides Romans 8:3) 1 Corinthians 8:6: “One Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him;” Paul thus ascribes to Him the double creation, the physical and the spiritual; 1 Corinthians 10:4: “For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ;” Paul thus regards Christ as the Divine Being who accompanied the Israelites in the desert, and who, from the midst of the cloud, wrought all their deliverances; Philippians 2:6: “Who, being in the form of God,...emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” Add 2 Corinthians 8:9: “Who, though He was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” The riches of which He stripped Himself, according to the last of these passages, are, according to the preceding, the form of God belonging to Him, His divine mode of being anterior to His incarnation; and the poverty to which He descended is nothing else than His servant form, or the human condition which he put on. It is through His participation in our state of dependence that we can be raised to His state of glory and sovereignty. There remains, finally, the crowning passage on this subject, Colossians 1:15-17.

Son of God essentially, Christ passed through two phases, briefly described in the two following propositions. The two participles with which they both open serve as points of support to all the subsequent determining clauses. The fundamental antithesis is that between the two participles γενομένου and ὁρισθέντος; to this there are attached two others; the first: of the race of David and Son of God; the second: according to the flesh and according to the Spirit of holiness. Two phrases follow in the second proposition, with power and through His resurrection from the dead, which seem to have no counterpart in the first. But the attentive reader will have no difficulty in discovering the two ideas corresponding to them. They are those of weakness, a natural attribute of the flesh and of birth; for His resurrection is to Jesus, as it were, a second birth. Let us first study the former proposition by itself. The word γενομένου may bear the meaning either of born or become. In the second case, the word relates to the act of incarnation, that mysterious change wrought in His person when He passed from the divine to the human state. But the participle γενομένου being here construed with the preposition ἐκ, out of, from, it is simpler to take the verb in the sense of being born, as in Galatians 4:4: “ born of a woman ” (γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός). The phrase κατὰ σάρκα, according to the flesh, serves, as Hofmann says, “to restrict this affirmation to that side of His origin whereby He inherited human nature.” For the notion of a different origin was previously implied in the phrase Son of God.

What are we to understand here by the term flesh? The word has three very distinct meanings in the Old and the New Testaments. 1. It denotes the muscular and soft parts of the body, in opposition both to the hard parts, the bones, and to the liquid parts, the blood; so Genesis 2:23: “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;” and John 6:56: “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood.” 2. The word often denotes the entire human (or animal) body, in opposition to the soul; for example, 1 Corinthians 15:39: “There is one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts,” a saying in which the word flesh, according to the context, denotes the entire organism. In this second sense the part is simply taken for the whole. 3. By the same sort of figure, only still more extended, the word flesh sometimes denotes the whole of man, body and soul, in opposition to God the Creator and His omnipotence. So Psalms 65:2: “Unto Thee shall all flesh (every creature) come;” Romans 3:20: “No flesh (no man) shall be justified in His sight.” The first of these three meanings is inapplicable in our passage, for it would imply that Jesus received from His ancestor David only the fleshy parts of His body, not the bones and blood! The second is no less so; for it would follow from it that Jesus inherited from David only His bodily life, and not the psychical, the higher powers of human life, feeling, understanding, and will. This opinion is incompatible with the affirmation of the full humanity of Jesus, as we find in the writings of Paul (comp. Romans 5:15; 1 Timothy 2:5) and of John. For the latter, as well as Paul, ascribes to Jesus a human soul, a human spirit; comp. John 12:27: “My soul is troubled;” John 11:33: “He groaned in His spirit. ” There remains, therefore, only the third meaning, which suits the passage perfectly. As a human creature, Jesus derives His origin from David. All that is human in Him, spirit, soul, and body (1Th 5:23), so far as these elements are hereditary in mankind in general, this whole part of His being is marked by the Davidic, and consequently Jewish character. This royal and national seal is impressed not only on His physical nature and temperament, but also on His moral tendencies and aspirations; and this hereditary life could alone form the basis of His Messianic calling, without, however, obliging us to forget that in the Jew there is always the man, under the national, the human element. This meaning which we give to the word flesh is absolutely the same as that in the passage of John, which forms, as it were, the text of his Gospel: “The Word was made flesh (σὰρξ ἐγένετο),” John 1:14.

Relation of this saying to the miraculous birth.

In expressing himself as he does here, does St. Paul think of Jesus' Davidic descent through Joseph or through Mary? In the former case the miraculous birth would be excluded (Meyer and Reuss). But would this supposition be consistent, on the one hand, with the idea which the apostle forms of Jesus' absolute holiness; on the other, with his doctrine of the transmission of sin to the whole human race? He says of Jesus, Romans 8:3: “Sent in the likeness of sinful flesh; ” 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He who knew no sin; ” he ascribes to Him the part of an expiatory victim (ἱλαστήριον), which excludes the barest idea of a minimum of sin. And yet, according to him, all Adam's descendants participate in the heritage of sin (Romans 1:12; Romans 1:19, Romans 3:9). How reconcile these propositions, if his view is that Jesus descends from David and from Adam absolutely in the same sense as the other descendants of Adam or David? Paul thus necessarily held the miraculous birth; and that so much the more, as the fact is conspicuously related in the Gospel of Luke, his companion in work. A contradiction between these two fellow-laborers on this point is inadmissible. It is therefore through the intervention of Mary, and of Mary alone, that Jesus, according to Paul's view, descended from David. And such is also the meaning of the genealogy of Jesus in Luke's Gospel (Romans 3:23). Thus there is nothing to prevent us from placing the beginning of the operation of the Holy Spirit on the person of Jesus (to which the words: according to the Spirit of holiness, Romans 1:4, refer) at His very birth.

Yet this mode of hereditary existence does not exhaust His whole being. The title Son of God, placed foremost, contains a wealth which transcends the contents of this first assertion, Romans 1:3, and becomes the subject of the second proposition, Romans 1:4. Many are the interpretations given of the participle ὁρισθέντος. The verb ὁρίζειν (from ὅρος, boundary) signifies: to draw a limit, to separate a domain from all that surrounds it, to distinguish a person or a thing. The marking off may be only in thought; the verb then signifies: to destine to, decree, decide. So Luke 22:22, and perhaps Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31. Or the limitation may be traced in words; the verb then signifies: to declare. Or, finally, it may be manifested in an external act, a fact obvious to the senses, which leads to the meaning: to install, establish, or demonstrate by a sign. The first meaning: to destine to, has been here attempted by Hofmann. But this sense is incompatible with the clause: by the resurrection, and it would certainly have been expressed by the word προορισθέντος, destined beforehand (comp. Romans 8:29-30; 1Pe 1:20), it being impossible that the divine decree relative to the glorification of Jesus should be posterior to his mission to the world. Founding on the second meaning, many (Osterv., Oltram.) translate: “ declared to be the Son of God.” But the notion of declaration, and even the stronger one of demonstration, are insufficient in the context. For the resurrection of Jesus not only manifested or demonstrated what He was; it wrought a real transformation in His mode of being. Jesus required to pass from His state as son of David to that of Son of God, if He was to accomplish the work described in Romans 1:5, and which the apostle has in view, that of the calling of the Gentiles. And it was His resurrection which introduced Him into this new state. The only meaning, therefore, which suits the context is the third, that of establishing. Peter says similarly, Acts 2:36: “God hath made (ἐποίησε) that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Hofmann has disputed the use of the verb ὁρίζειν in this sense. But Meyer, with good ground, adduces the following saying of a poet: σὲ Θεὸν ὥρισε δαίμων, “destiny made thee God.” Not that the apostle means, as Pfleiderer would have it, that Jesus became the Son of God by His resurrection. He was restored, and restored wholly that is to say, with His human nature to the position of Son of God which He had renounced on becoming incarnate. The thought of Paul is identical with that of the prayer of Jesus on the eve of His death, as we have it in John's Gospel (John 17:5): “Father, glorify Thou me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” Jesus always was the Son: at His baptism, through the manifestation of the Father, He recovered His consciousness of Sonship. At His resurrection He was re-established, and that as man, in His state of Sonship. The antithesis of the two terms, born and established, so finely chosen, seems thus perfectly correct.

Three clauses serve to determine the participle established. The first indicates the manner: ἐν δυνάμει, with power; the second, the moral cause: κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, according to the spirit of holiness; the third, the efficient cause: ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, by His resurrection from the dead. With power, signifies: in a striking, triumphant manner. Some have thought to take this phrase as descriptive of the substantive Son of God; “the Son of God in the glory of His power,” in opposition to the weakness of His earthly state. But the antithesis of the two propositions is that between the Son of God and the son of David, and not that between the Son of God in power and the Son of God in weakness. The phrase: with power, refers therefore to the participle established: established by an act in which the power of God is strikingly manifested (the resurrection, wrought by the glory of the Father, Romans 6:4). The second clause: according to the spirit of holiness, has been explained in a multitude of ways. Some have regarded it as indicating the divine nature of Jesus in contrast to his humanity, the spirit of holiness being thus the second person of the Trinity; so Melanchthon and Bengel. But, in this case, what term would be left to indicate the third? The second divine person is designated by the names Son or Word, not Spirit. According to Theodoret, what is meant is the miraculous power which Jesus possessed on the earth; but how are we to explain the complement of holiness? and what relation is there between the virtue of working miracles, possessed by so many prophets, and the installation of Jesus in His place as Son of God? Luther understood by it the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the church, effected by Christ glorified. Then it would be necessary to translate: “ demonstrated to be the Son of God by the spirit of holiness, whom he poured out.” But this meaning does not suit the third clause, whereby the resurrection is indicated as the means of the ὁρίζειν, not Pentecost. No doubt one might, in this case, translate: “ since the resurrection.” But Pentecost did not begin from that time. Meyer and others regard the spirit of holiness as meaning, in opposition to the flesh: the inner man in in Jesus, the spirit as an element of His human nature, in opposition to the outer man, the body. But, as we have seen, the human nature, body and soul, was already embraced completely in the word flesh, Romans 1:3. How, then, could the spirit, taken as an element of human nature, be contrasted with this nature itself? Is, then, the meaning of the words so difficult to apprehend? The term spirit (or breath) of holiness shows clearly enough that the matter here in question is the action displayed on Christ by the Holy Spirit during his earthly existence. In proportion as Jesus was open to this influence, his whole human nature received the seal of consecration to the service of God that is to say, of holiness. Such is the moral fact indicated Hebrews 9:14: “ Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God.” The result of this penetration of his entire being by the breath of the Holy Spirit was this: at the time of His death there could be fully realized in Him the law expressed by the Psalmist: “Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy one to see corruption” (Psa 16:10). Perfect holiness excludes physical dissolution. The necessary corollary of such a life and state was therefore the resurrection. This is the relation expressed by the preposition κατά, according to, agreeably to. He was established as the Son of God in a striking manner by His resurrection from the dead, agreeably to the spirit of holiness, which had reigned in Him and in His very body. In the passage, Romans 8:11. the apostle applies the same law to the resurrection of believers, when he says “that their bodies shall rise again, in virtue of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them.” Paul is not therefore seeking, as has been thought, to establish a contrast between inward (πνεῦμα, spirit) and outward (σάρξ, flesh), nor between divine (the Holy Spirit) and human (the flesh), in the person of Jesus, which would be a needless digression in the context. What he contrasts is, on the one hand, the naturally Jewish and Davidic form of his earthly appearance; and, on the other, the higher form of being on which he entered at the close of this Jewish phase of his existence, in virtue of the principle of holy consecration which had marked all his activity here below. For this new form of existence is the condition on which alone He could accomplish the work described in the verse immediately following. The thought of the apostle does not diverge for an instant, but goes straight to its aim.

The third clause literally signifies: by a resurrection from the dead (ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν). He entered upon his human life by a simple birth; but in this state as a son of David he let the spirit of holiness reign over him. And therefore he was admitted by a resurrection into the glorious life of Sonship. The preposition ἐξ, out of, may here signify either since or in consequence of. The first meaning is now almost abandoned, and undoubtedly with reason; for the idea of a simple succession in time does not suit the gravity of the thought. Paul wishes to describe the immense transformation which the facts of his death and resurrection produced in the person of Jesus. He has left in the tomb his particular relation to the Jewish nation and the family of David, and has appeared through his resurrection freed from those wrappings which he had humbly worn during his earthly life; comp. the remarkable expression: minister of the circumcision, Romans 15:8. Thus it is that, in virtue of his resurrection and as the Son of God, he was able henceforth to enter into connection with all mankind, which he could not do so long as he was acting only as the son of David; comp. Matthew 15:24: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The absence of the article before the word resurrection and before the plural dead is somewhat strange, and must be explained in the way indicated by Hofmann: “By an event such as that which takes place when the dead rise again.” There needed a death and resurrection, if he was to pass from the state of son of David to that of Son and Christ of humanity. It is therefore on the character of the event that the apostle insists, rather than on the fact itself.

Before passing to the subject of the calling of the Gentiles, which is the direct consequence of this transformation in the person of the Messiah wrought by the resurrection, Paul sums up in three terms the analysis of his person which he has just given: Jesus; this name denotes the historical person, the common subject of those different forms of existence; the title Christ or Messiah, which sums up Romans 1:3 (Son of David), and that of Lord that is to say, the representative of the divine sovereignty which follows from his elevation to the position of Son (Romans 1:4). On the title of Lord, see 1 Corinthians 8:6; Philippians 2:9-11. When he says our, Paul thinks of all those who by faith have accepted the sovereignty of Jesus.

The intention of the passage, Romans 1:3-4, has been strangely misunderstood. Some say: it is a summary of the gospel doctrine which the apostle means to expound in this treatise. But a summary is not stated in an address. The true summary of the Epistle, besides, is found Romans 1:17. Finally, christological doctrine is precisely one of the heads, the absence of which is remarkable in our Epistle. Gess says: “One must suppose that the apostle was concerned to sum up in this introduction the most elevated sentiments which filled his heart regarding the Mediators of salvation.” But why put these reflections on the person of Christ in the address, and between what Paul says of his apostleship in general (Romans 1:1-2), and what he afterward adds regarding his apostleship to the Gentiles in particular (Romans 1:5-6)? Hofmann thinks that Paul, in referring to the relation between Jesus and the old covenant, wishes to indicate all that God gives us new in Christ. But this observation would suit any other place rather than the address. The most singular explanation is Mangold's: “A Jewish-Christian church like that of Rome might be astonished at Paul's addressing it as if it had been of Gentile origin; and the apostle has endeavored to weaken this impression by reminding it (Romans 1:2) that his apostleship had been predicted in the Old Testament, and (Romans 1:3) that the object of his preaching is above all the Messiah, the Son of David.” So artificial an explanation refutes itself. The apostle started (Romans 1:1-2) from the idea of his apostleship, but in order to come to that of his apostleship to the Gentiles, which alone serves to explain the step he is now taking in writing to the Christians of Rome (Romans 1:5-6). To pass from the first of these ideas to the second, he rises to the author of his apostleship, and describes Him as the Jewish Messiah, called to gather together the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Romans 1:5); then as the Son of God raised from the dead, able to put Himself henceforth in direct communication with the Gentiles through an apostolate instituted on their behalf (Romans 1:4). In reality, to accomplish this wholly new work, Jesus required to be set free from the form of Jewish nationality and the bond of theocratic obligations. He must be placed in one uniform relation to the whole race. This was the effect of the transformation wrought in His person by His death and resurrection. Thus there is no difficulty in understanding the transition from Romans 1:4 to Romans 1:5.