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Romans 9.5
hōn hoi pateres kai ex hōn ho Christos to kata sarka
ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς , τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ,
whose [are] the patriarchs and of whom [is] the Christ -
ho
ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς , εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ! ἀμήν .
-
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, for ever praised! Amen.
In But is he God we mention the fascinating little book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, where she mentions an Old English rhyme which runs:
All the ladies in this land
Have twenty fingers in each hand;
Five and twenty on hands and feet;
And this is true, without conceit.<1>
At first sight it looks as if we are reading nonsense! Only by shifting the main breaks in the sentence so that they follow ‘fingers’ and ‘five’ do the words at last make sense.
A comparable situation arises in Romans 9.4-
They are Israelites .... to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen.
(RSV; similarly CEV GNB Goodspeed Moffatt NAB NEB NWT REB)
They are Israelites .... Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, in natural descent, sprang the Messiah, who is supreme above all. Blessed be God for ever! Amen.
(NEB mg; similarly JNT LB)
They are Israelites ... to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
(NRSV; similarly AV Lattimore Message NASB NKJV)
They are Israelites .... To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.
(ESV; similarly HCSB Knox LTB Message NCV NIV NKJV NLT Phillips)
Of these, the first gives sovereignty and deity to the Father; the second assigns supremacy to Christ but deity to the Father; the third affirms Christ’s supremacy and probably his divinity as well, while the last clearly refers the whole sentence to Christ.
Which of these alternatives is the correct one? Given that the second translation has relatively little support, we are probably left with a choice between the first option or the last two, which are broadly similar. In favour of the first version, several arguments can be made:
a) Paul almost invariably confines the title ‘God’ to the Father, just as consistently as he tends to assign the word ‘Lord’ to Christ.
b) The description eulogetos (‘blessed’) is only ever applied to the Father in the New Testament.
c) The title ‘God over all’ has clear parallels with ‘one God ... who is over all’ (Eph 4.6) where it specifically refers to the Father.
d) There is little in Paul’s subject-
The combined force of these arguments is certainly impressive. However, the case is by no means completely watertight. In answer to the first point, for example, there are clear instances where Paul uses theos to refer to someone, or something, other than the Father,<2> quite apart from the other possible applications of the title to Christ that are noted elsewhere in this appendix. Moreover, as we noted in Chapter Six, Paul on various occasions borrows descriptions of Christ that in the Old Testament were originally made about Yahweh himself, with a clear instance in the following chapter of Romans (Rom. 10: 13; compare Joel 2: 32).
Similar objections can also be made to the other points raised: thus while Christ is nowhere else described as eulogetos he is sometimes described as eulogmenos; while he is not elsewhere called ‘God over all’ he is in Romans 10.12 called ‘Lord of all’; and while some writers find the appearance of such a major statement about Christ’s nature to be too abrupt, others feel that the context suits it admirably.<3>
Moreover, from a purely grammatical viewpoint, there are strong reasons for preferring the latter two versions. To begin with, to qualify the description of Christ with the phrase kata sarka (‘according to the flesh’ -
Furthermore, if the last part of the verse was a separate expression of praise to the Father, we would expect Paul to have signalled the change of subject much more clearly than he actually does. Instead, we are being asked to believe that he begins a new sentence on a relative pronoun that comes before the noun to which it is supposed to refer, a practice that is completely inconsistent with similar doxologies in his letters. The result is ‘to impoverish the climax of the whole passage’ (Liddon);<5> ‘to do violence to the word order’ (Morris);<6> ‘to divorce it from its antecedent’ (Turner);<7> to ‘interrupt the train of thought’ (Metzger).<8> We can echo the words of Calvin, who once stated that,
To separate this clause from the rest of the context for the purpose of depriving Christ of this clear witness to his divinity, is an audacious attempt to create darkness where there is full light.<9>
Finally, we should note the testimony of the ante-
Taking all these factors into account, and following the precedent of the most closely related examples in Paul’s writings (in particular 2 Cor 11.31), it is quite probable that Christ is being acclaimed here as ‘God over all’. Given that Paul presents this declaration in an apparently uncontroversial manner, in a letter to a church he has never previously visited, such a conclusion provides very powerful evidence for the widespread belief in Christ’s deity at the time when this letter was written. But the statement remains a curiosity: Paul neither clarifies or develops it, even though the need for an explanation seems clear, given that elsewhere in Romans he consistently applies the title theos to the Father. For this reason alone, the questions raised by this verse are never likely to disappear completely.