The Upper Register

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 10

I have argued that the original Christological formula quoted by Paul went as follows: 

“born of the seed of David, according to the flesh;
marked out Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness”

The point of the primitive formula was to explain the identity of Jesus in terms of his two natures, human and divine, using two of his most important titles as keywords:  “seed of David” and “Son of God.”

In focusing on the two natures of Christ, my view is similar to the Hodge-Warfield view. Yet it is slightly different in that I do not take “the Spirit of holiness” as denoting the divine nature of Christ but rather the Holy Spirit. The divine nature of Christ is denoted by the term “Son of God.”

In keeping with this, I argued that the verb horizo is to be translated “marked out,” since it would not make sense to say that he was “appointed” the divine Son of God. Rather, he was marked out as such by the Spirit’s powerful activity in his earthly ministry.

Now, perhaps you may be questioning the validity of taking “Son of God” in an ontological/divine sense rather than a functional/messianic sense. After all, the Davidic king was a “son of God” in some sense without making him divine (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7). This is a widely-held interpretation of the title “Son of God.”

For example, Schreiner argues that

“The appointment of Jesus being described here [in Rom 1:3-4] is his appointment as the messianic king … The title huiou theou in verse 3 is a reference not to Jesus’ deity but to his messianic kingship as the descendant of David.”

[Thomas Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 42].

I’m not accusing Schreiner of heresy but he has bought into this notion of a functional “messianic sonship” (at least in this text - I’m sure he would acknowledge higher meanings elsewhere). But this category, as applied to Jesus, just does not exist in the NT. I would challenge anyone to look up all 131 references to Jesus as “Son,” “the Son,” “Son of God,” “Son of the Most High God,” “My Son,” etc., in the NT. If you do that, you will see that the title “Son of God” – when applied to Jesus in the NT – is primarily about ontological not functional status. It has to do with his status as the eternal, divine Son. This is not only true in the Pauline epistles (17x), the Gospel of John (27x), the Johannine epistles (24x), and Hebrews (12x), where we might expect such divine nuances. It is also true in the Synoptic Gospels, including the most primitive layers of the tradition – Matthew (22x), Mark (11x), Luke (14x).

An excellent discussion of the meaning of the title “Son of God” in the Gospels can be found in chapter 12 of George Eldon Ladd’s Theology of the New Testament. Ladd argues that the two titles, “Son of God” and “Messiah,” are not equivalent in the Gospels.

For example, at the beginning of his public ministry, immediately after being baptized by John, the voice from heaven declares:  “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mk. 1:11). In what sense is Jesus here designated God’s Son? It is tempting to think that at his baptism, Jesus became God’s Son in the messianic sense, that is, he was appointed to messianic sonship in the sense of Psalm 2:7.

But Ladd argues that the while Psalm 2:7 is alluded to, it is only quoted partially. “I have begotten you” is left out. Instead, a clause from Isaiah 42:1, “with whom I am well pleased,” is added. Ladd argues that this clause should be translated, “whom I have chosen” (cp. LXX). Ladd writes: 

“The heavenly voice may therefore be rendered, ‘This is my only Son; him I have chosen.’ Sonship and messianic status are not synonymous. Rather, sonship is the prior ground and the basis of Jesus’ election to fulfill his messianic office … He does not become the Son; he is the Son. Sonship is antecedent to messiahship” (163-4).

[George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (rev. by Donald A. Hagner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.]

He is the eternal Son of God. The eternal Son is chosen to be the Messiah. At his baptism, the voice from heaven proclaims that the eternal Son of God is now appointed Messiah.

This is reinforced by Jesus himself in the following pericope found in all three Synoptic Gospels:

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘“The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt 22:41-45 ESV).

Yes, Jesus is the son of David, the anointed King, the Messiah. But he is much more than that. He is not only David’s son; he is also David’s Lord who as deity is worthy to sit at the right hand of God. Whose son is he? He is David’s son (as to his human nature) and he is God’s Son (as to his divine nature). The Jews expected a purely human messiah, a political deliverer, but not a divine Savior who would die as a ransom for sinners and be raised and exalted to the right hand of God to be the object of faith and worship.

Let’s return to the primitive formula. That formula, I argue, was used by the earliest Jewish Christian community as a handy way of summarizing who Jesus is. Just as the baptism of Jesus distinguishes the two aspects of Jesus’ identity – eternal Son of God, then appointed Messiah – so the Christological formula quoted by Paul in Rom 1:3-4 explains the identity of Jesus in terms of his two sonships, but in reverse order:  “seed of David” (or Messiah) as to his human nature, but much more than that – he was also marked out the divine “Son of God,” as evidenced by the powerful operation of the Spirit given to the Son “without measure” (which operation of the Spirit, Paul adds, was powerfully demonstrated at his resurrection).

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 9

Using Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (UC Irvine), in conjunction with the assistance of good ole LSJ, I have examined the verb horizo in extra-biblical Greek. Here are the results of my study. There are nine main usages, and these nine can be subdivided into two groups – the first six and the last three.

First, to mark out land by boundaries

“For when he learned of Polycrates’ death, first he set up an altar to Zeus the Liberator and marked out around it that sacred enclosure which is still to be seen in the suburb of the city” (Herodotus 3.142). A sacred enclosure (temenos) is a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god.

Second, to limit the range/extent of something

“Now that you have seen fit to confiscate the property of Erasiphon, I relinquish two-thirds to the State … So I have limited my share to one-third of their property, making no exact calculation, but leaving much more than two-thirds to the Treasury” (Lysias 17.6).

“Women are not allowed by law to accept agreements involving too large a sum, but a limit has been set defining the amount to which they may do so” (Dio Chrysostom 74.10).

Third, to decide someone’s fate or destiny

“Then the Delphian lords … decided that my mistress should die, by being cast from the rock” (Euripides, Ion 1222).

“Yes, for my father’s fate has marked out this destiny for you” (Aeschylus, Choephoroe 927).

Fourth, to lay down or ordain (legal/judicial contexts)

“And yet, gentlemen, in cases of this sort your laws lay down the most severe penalties if an Athenian transports corn to any place other than your city” (Lycurgus, Oratio in Leocratem §27).

“Against those who call God as a witness in favour of assertions which are not true, the punishment of death is ordained in the law” (Philo, Spec. 2.252).

Fifth, to fix upon, in the sense of selecting one option within a range of options

“‘Well then,’ said Socrates, ‘that there may be no question raised about my obedience, please fix the age limit below which a man is to be accounted young’” (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.35).

“In this case he shall depart into another country and place, and dwell there as an exile for a year; and should he return within the time fixed by the law or set foot at all within his own country, he shall be put in the public jail by the Law-wardens for the space of two years” (Plato, Leges 864e6).

“For all breaches of the law alike, however small, they fixed upon the death penalty, making no special allowances, in their assessment of the magnitude of crimes, for the individual circumstances of each” (Lycurgus, Oratio in Leocratem §65).

Sixth, to appoint

“You, O Lord, according to the sweetness of your grace, promised forgiveness to those who repent of their sins, and in the multitude of your mercies appointed repentance as salvation for sinners” (Prayer of Manasseh 7b).

The six usages of horizo to this point all have one thing in common:  they have to do with an action of marking, limiting, ordaining, fixing, or appointing something that could have been marked, limited, ordained, fixed or appointed differently. The sacred enclosure to Zeus could have been made three feet larger in circumference. The share of property retained by Lysias could have been half rather than a third. The law could have fixed the time of exile at two years rather than one. And so on. There is a sense in which the act of setting limits involves an arbitrary decision, or is at least not dictated by the nature of things.

If we use these first six usages of horizo as the measure for the meaning of the word in Rom 1:4, we might very well incline toward the rendering “appointed Son-of-God-in-power.”

However, the next three usages of horizo push us in a different direction. In these usages, the word has more to do with defining, determining, and marking out that which is the case. The act of determining is not an arbitrary decision, a picking of one option among many, but is one that is dictated by the nature of the case.

Seventh, to define

“Shall we therefore rightly define the pious man as one who knows what is lawful concerning the gods?” (Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.6.4; cp. 4.6.6).

“… those who define the good as pleasure” (Plato, Respublica 505c; cp. Sophista 246b; Gorgias 475a; Theaetetus 190e).

“And life is defined, in the case of animals, by the capacity for sensation; in the case of man, by the capacity for sensation and thought” (Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 1170a16; cp. 1104b24).

“For from whence could [geometry] define and pronounce that a point is that which has no parts, that a line is length without breadth,” etc. (Philo, Congr. 147; cp. Deus 44).

“A man who lives in an irrational manner is separated from the life of God; for to live according to God is defined by Moses to consist in loving him; for Moses says to the children of Israel, ‘Your life is to love the living God’” (Deut 30:20) (Philo, Post. 69).

Eighth, to determine by measuring, ascertaining, or dating

“Or is it rather because, since they measured time by the phases of the moon, they observed that in each month the moon undergoes three very important changes?” (Plutarch, Aetia Romana et Graeca 269C).

“Manetho says that the Jews departed out of Egypt, in the reign of Tethmosis, three hundred ninety-three years before Danaus fled to Argos; Lysimaehus says it was under king Bocchoris, that is, one thousand seven hundred years ago; Molo and some others determined it as every one pleased: but this Apion of ours, as deserving to be believed before them, hath determined the exodus exactly to have been in the seventh Olympiad, and the first year of that Olympiad” (Josephus, Contra Apionem 2.17).

“I date his hostility from the very day when he wiped out the Phocians” (Demosthenes 9.19).

Ninth, to mark out what is already there

“Medicine is, of course, a science … Then the temperate man will know, indeed, that the doctor has a certain science; but when he has to put its nature to the proof, must he not consider what its subjects are? Is not each science marked out, not merely as a science, but as a particular one, by the particular subjects it has?” (Plato, Charmides 171a).

“He who fixes his eyes considers perverse things, and he marks out with his lips all evil” (Prov 16:30 LXX).

So there are broadly two types of determination indicated by horizo – determinations that involve fixing upon one option among many, and determinations that involve marking out what is already the case. The only way we know the difference in any case is from the context.

“It depends entirely upon the connection whether a declarative or a determinative decision is meant, whether it means … to determine that one is something, or that one is to be something” (Hermann Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek [4th ed.], pp. 461-2).

I would argue that the context, specifically the formula frame, of Rom 1:3-4 supports the declarative meaning. The introductory portion of the frame, “concerning his Son,” with the two genitive participles modifying “Son,” makes clear that it is God’s Son who was born of the seed of David and that it is God’s Son who was then declared with power to be what he was all along.

“The position of the words τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ – being placed, so to speak, outside the bracket, they are naturally taken to control both participial clauses alike – would seem to imply that the One who was born of the seed of David was already Son of God before, and independently of, the action denoted by the second participle” (Cranfield, 1.58).  

It is not that, by his resurrection, Jesus was appointed Son of God in power, but that he was powerfully marked out to be what he had been all along, namely, Son of God.

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 8

“Marked out Son of God.” Many Christologically-orthodox modern commentators think that the verb must be translated “appointed” (as it is rendered in Acts 10:42; 17:31; Heb 4:7), but they avoid the adoptionist implication by taking “in power” as qualifying “Son of God,” so that the whole statement reads, “appointed Son-of-God-in-power.” This seems to be the majority opinion among evangelical commentators (Barrett, Bruce, Cranfield, Moo, Murray, Schreiner, Stott, Witherington).

But a better solution is to translate horizo here as “to declare, designate, or mark out.” Though it is no longer the majority view, this is the view of the Greek fathers Chrysostom and Theodoret, and is still backed by a number of older commentators (Calvin, Haldane, Hodge, Melanchthon, Morris, Shedd, Tholuck), major English versions (AV, ESV, NASB, NIV, NRSV), and at least two lexica of NT Greek (Cremer’s Biblico-Theological Lexicon of NT Greek, and BDAG).

This translation is supported by the following considerations:

First, the anarthrous “Son of God” means that it is indefinite and qualitative rather than definite, and this fits better with the meaning “marked out.” Note that the direct objects of horizo in Acts 10:42; 17:31; Heb 4:7 are also anarthrous, and although typically translated “appointed,” a rendering along the lines of “marked out” or “identified” seems to fit better in these contexts as well.

Second, the word horizo in extra-biblical Greek means “to define, delimit, mark out the boundaries of” and is related to the nouns horos, horion, “boundary, something marked out by boundaries,” and horismos “a marking out.” (My next post will provide examples from extra-biblical Greek.) The focus of the word is on the mental identification of something already present, not on making something or someone something they were not before. The verb horizo was carefully selected to focus on the thought of definition and demonstration, not on the thought of becoming something that he was not before.

Gerald O’Collins rightly states:

“What he had been before (Son of God) was now definitively realized, confirmed, and given clearer definition by his passage from his earthly state to his risen state” (Christology [New York: Oxford University Press, 1995], 130).

Third, this interpretation of horizo fits better with “according to the Spirit of holiness.” The activity of the Spirit in the life of Jesus (at his virginal conception, his baptism, his powerful miracles, his prophetic teaching, and his resurrection) marks him out and identifies him as the divine Son of God. The twofold preposition kata focuses on the mental apprehension, “from the point of view of the flesh … from the point of view of the Spirit’s activity.” If the meaning is “appointed Son-of-God-in-power by the Spirit of holiness,” then we would expect a different prepositional phrase, such as ek or dia.

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 7

Having expressed my doubts about the Vos-Gaffin interpretation, I now want to give my own interpretation.

To start off, it is important for my view to note that there is a wide consensus among NT scholars that Paul is here quoting a pre-existing,  primitive Christological formula. I hesitate to call it a “confession” or “creed,” since it is not elaborate enough to call it that. It is merely a brief, handy Christological formula, in which the basic identity of Jesus is viewed through a double lens:  with regard to his fleshly descent, he is the human Son of David; with regard to the Spirit, he is marked out as the divine Son of God.

Formula Frame	Seed of David	Son of God
concerning his Son
	who was born	who was marked out
	of the seed of David	Son of God in power
	according to the flesh	according to the Spirit of holiness
		by resurrection of the dead
Jesus Christ our Lord

Most agree that the frame in which the formula is set (“concerning his Son … Jesus Christ our Lord”) is Paul’s. There is less agreement among scholars about identifying the phrases that Paul inserted into the formula, but I think he added “in power” and “by the resurrection of the dead.” The reason is that these two clauses are without corresponding elements in verse 3. Plus, these two clauses also seem to go together naturally since it was his resurrection that most powerfully demonstrated his deity.

The carefully balanced structure suggests that it is a Christological formula, but that it is a pre-Pauline formula quoted by Paul needs further evidence. The primary evidence is the unique vocabulary:  horizo (“mark out”) is not used elsewhere in Paul, and he never uses “Spirit of holiness” to speak of the Holy Spirit. Also, the attributive genitive “of holiness” is a Semitic use of the genitive, which supports the conjecture that the creedal formula originated in the primitive Palestinian Christian community.

Another consideration is that Paul does not typically emphasize Jesus’ royal descent from the house of David. The only other reference is 2 Tim 2:8. The statement that Jesus was “born of the seed of David” is Jewish in its presupposition that Davidic descent of Jesus as one of his qualifications as the Messiah.

If these arguments are valid, then the original Christological formula, before Paul's additions was: 

"born of the seed of David according to the flesh,
marked out Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness."

This early Christological formula provided a handy, brief explanation of the two natures of Christ in terms of his two sonships: “seed of David” as to his fleshly descent, but also “Son of God,” as evident by the working of the Spirit in his life. Since the formula likely originated in the primitive Jerusalem church, the working of the Spirit in the life of Jesus is probably to be understood in light of early Gospel traditions. The Gospels emphasize the role of the Spirit in Jesus' earthly career from start to finish: 

• Jesus' miraculous birth (Luke 1:35)
• His baptism (Mat 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-34)
• His overcoming of Satan’s temptations in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-14)
• His authoritative teaching as a prophet (Mark 1:21-28)
• His working of miracles (Acts 2:22; 10:38)
• His authority over Satan and the demons (Matt 12:28, cp. v 18; Mark 3:11; Luke 4:41; Matt 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28)

It is hard for us to grasp this, since the role of the Spirit in the earthly career of Jesus seems to make him a mere man who was empowered by the Spirit. But the primitive community did not see it this way. In the majority of the above passages, especially the ones in the Gospels, the powerful presence of the Spirit in Jesus is connected with his divine Sonship (look them up). Evidently, the first Jewish believers in Jesus thought that only the divine Son of God could have received the Spirit "without measure" (John 3:34). I think they viewed the Spirit in terms of the anointing that the Davidic kings, as typological sons of God, received:  "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38). They saw the baptism of Jesus, when he was anointed with the Spirit, as the fulfillment of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1 (see Matt 3:17; 12:18). 

But Paul is not content to look at these initial fulfillments. He subsumes all of these lesser manifestations of the Spirit under the one big heading of Jesus' resurrection. This fits with Paul's general lack of concern to recount the detailed events of Jesus' earthly career, aside from his death and resurrection. So he inserts "in power ... by resurrection of the dead" into the primitive formula in order to sharpen it. He wants to say, yes, all of these intrusions of the Spirit are important, but the eschatological event that definitively and powerfully proved his identity as God's Son was the Spirit's raising him from the dead. The Spirit's presence and action in his birth, his miracles, his casting out demons, etc., were foreshadowings pointing to the dramatic climax, the Spirit's ultimate act of exhibiting him before the world as the divine Son by raising him from the dead and enthroning him at the right hand of God.

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 6

In this post I want to sketch out the third (and final) doubt that has caused me to question the Vos-Gaffin interpretation. Recall that the Vos-Gaffin interpretation places great weight on the phrase “by the resurrection of the dead,” effectively bisecting the life of Christ into two phases:  (1) the phase of his existence when he was conformed to the old aeon, the present evil age (= the kata sarka phase), and (2) dating from his resurrection, the new phase of his existence when he was conformed to the new aeon, the age to come (= the kata pneuma phase). In the kata sarka phase, he was characterized by the weakness and transitoriness of the present age. In the kata pneuma phase, his existence was characterized by the eschatological power and incorruption of the age to come.

On this interpretation, a parallel text would be 2 Cor 13:4:  “He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.” To use the language of systematic theology, Vos and Gaffin would say that Rom 1:3-4 teaches the two states of Christ, his state of humiliation and his state of exaltation.

These are wonderful theological truths that I do not question. Further, this view has the strong advantage of comporting so well with the redemptive-historical, two-age presuppositions of Paul’s theology. I'm just not sure this is really what Rom 1:3-4 is (primarily) about.

My third doubt has to do with the fact that this bisection of the life Christ into two phases sits uncomfortably with the other phrases in these two verses, “seed of David” and “Son of God.” These neglected phrases do not mark historical changes that occurred at the resurrection of Christ but facts that are true of him equally before and after the resurrection. The Vos-Gaffin interpretation makes much of terms “according to the flesh,” “according to the Spirit,” and “by the resurrection of the dead” - all of which are taken in redemptive-historical senses - but it tends to gloss over, downplay, and minimize the phrases “seed of David” and “Son of God” - titles that are less clearly connected with redemptive-historical transitions in the life of Jesus.

And yet these phrases, "seed of David" and "Son of God," are the ones highlighted by the structure of the text:

Verse 3	Verse 4
Born	Marked out
Of the seed of David	Son of God in power
According to the flesh	According to the Spirit of holiness
	By the resurrection of the dead

BTW, the above is also the structure given by most commentators, e.g.: Fitzmyer, Michel, Moo, and Schreiner.

Contrast this with the Vos-Gaffin structure:

Verse 3	Verse 4
Born	Declared
According to the flesh	According to the Spirit of holiness
Of (ek) the seed of David	By (ek) the resurrection of the dead

I’m not aware of any commentators (besides Murray) who follow the Vos-Gaffin structure. Note that Vos and Gaffin leave out the most important phrase of all: “Son of God”! And not only that, they also switch the order of the clauses in verse 3 by moving “of the seed of David” after “according to the flesh.”

By leaving “Son of God” out of the structure, it is not set in parallel with “seed of David” as it should be. But the heart of the contrast or parallelism is between these two appellations for Christ, “seed of David” (as to this human nature) and “(divine) Son of God” (as evidenced by the powerful activity of the Spirit in his life, most especially in the resurrection).

By making the contrast a historical one, the implication then would be that Christ’s character as “seed of David” is one that only characterized his state of humiliation. At the resurrection, he ceased to be the seed of David.

Further, are we to say that his title of “Son of God” is one that only characterizes him from the resurrection onward? That he was not the Son of God during the time when he was the seed of David?

Now, to be sure, Vos and Gaffin avoid this heretical implication by pointing out that it was at the resurrection that he was marked out as “Son of God in power” (taking “in power” attributively rather than adverbially). This saves them from flat-out heresy. But it begs the question, “Can you find any other place in the NT where this idea that Jesus became ‘the Son of God in power’ at the resurrection is taught?” I’m not aware of any. The NT clearly affirms that he is the powerful, miracle-working Son of God prior to the resurrection (e.g., Matt 3:17; 4:3, 6; 8:29; 11:27; 14:33; 16:16; 17:5; 21:37; 26:63; 27:40, 43, 54 - to quote only the first Gospel). I’m not aware of any NT passages that make a distinction between “Son of God in weakness” (before his resurrection) and “Son of God in power” (after his resurrection).

Additionally, just open your Bible and read Matthew 1-4 and Luke 1-4 if you want evidence that both dimensions of Jesus' identity - his royal-Messianic role as son of David and his ontological identity as Son of God - exist together from the virgin birth of Jesus onward. (Of course his ontological identity as Son of God actually predates his virgin birth.) The resurrection does not mark any change or development in these two identities. It is not of tremendous significance with regard to these two titles. If anything, the resurrection simply confirms and demonstrates that both are true and continue to be true forever.

So, to sum up, my three doubts are as follows:

First, the Vos-Gaffin interpretation requires them to take the two occurrences of kata + acc. to mean “resultant state,” but this is not an attested usage, as far as I can tell. It is not listed in the lexica of NT Greek.

Second, the Vos-Gaffin interpretation relies on a questionable handling of the lexical data surrounding the word sarx (“flesh”). The word is used in Paul both in neutral senses and in morally pejorative senses, but it is only the morally pejorative usages that connect sarx with the present evil age under the headship of Adam. The usage of sarx in Rom 1:3 is certainly not morally pejorative, since it has to do with Christ (who is without sin) in his royal glory as the Messiah, the seed of David. As Warfield said, "To say, 'of the seed of David' is not to say weakness; it is to say majesty" (TCTPP, 81).

Third, the Vos-Gaffin interpretation exalts the phrases that are subordinate and demotes the phrases that are primary in Rom 1:3-4. In so doing, it creates an awkward tension that has to be mitigated by taking "in power" attributively with "Son of God," creating a theological concept unattested in the NT, namely, his sonship in weakness and his sonship in power. And even if deemed successful, this mitigating effort does nothing to relieve the implication that the royal-Messianic identity of Jesus as "of the seed of David" ended at his resurrection. It is contrary to NT theology to bisect the life of Jesus with the mid-point of the resurrection and then to connect Jesus’ status as “seed of David” with the pre-resurrection phase and his status as “Son of God” with the post-resurrection phase. In fact, the NT is clear that Jesus remains “seed of David” even into his state of exaltation, just as he was “Son of God” (even "Son of God in power") long beforehand.

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 5

My second doubt about the Vos-Gaffin interpretation has to do with their argument that the sarx-pneuma contrast stands for the redemptive-historical contrast between the two ages, this present age and the age to come. Both words are viewed as having an “aeonic” or “atmospheric” quality. Gaffin claims that sarx is “synonymous with aion, to be precise, this (old) age” (R&R, 107). Combining this meaning with the “result” interpretation of the preposition kata in Rom 1:3 yields the following interpretation: 

“The phrase [kata sarka] brings into view not only Christ’s human nature but also and pointedly the order into which the assumption of humanity brought him … The full thought of verse 3 is that by incarnation (by being born of the seed of David) the eternal Son of God entered the sphere of sarx, the old aeon, the present evil age” (R&R, 109-10).

You can see how this interpretation depends on taking kata + acc. to indicate result. But in addition to the problem that kata + acc. does not normally indicate result (see previous post), there are problems Gaffin’s claim that sarx is synonymous with “this present age.”

The main problem is one that James Barr warned against years ago, namely, “totality transfer” -- the error that occurs when discourse concepts in the larger context are read into the lexical concept of a word. Practically all NT scholars recognize that sarx in Paul’s usage has a spectrum of usages, from morally neutral meanings such as the physical body or simply humanity, to morally negative meanings such as fallen humanity in rebellion against God (see any major Pauline theology, e.g., Schreiner, and the article on "flesh" in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters). The aeonic or atmospheric meaning is mostly attached to the morally negative usages, and even then, the aeonic aspect is derived more from the broader theological context than from the word sarx itself.

One way to highlight the problem of “totality transfer” is to ask: Would Vos and Gaffin say that pneuma is synonymous with “the age to come”? Surely, they would not. In fact, they both correctly argue (contra Hodge and Warfield) that “the Spirit of holiness” in Rom 1:4 denotes the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead.

Now to be sure, as Vos correctly emphasized, Paul’s conception of the Spirit is eschatological, since the principle and power of the eschaton has entered history in the resurrection of Christ as the firstfruits. But this does not mean that the word pneuma is synonymous with the age to come. It is the same with many other activities of the Spirit. The Spirit is the agent of regeneration, but the word pneuma is not synonymous with "regeneration." The Spirit is the "the life-giving Spirit" who transforms our bodies at the resurrection, but the word pneuma is not synonymous with "resurrection." These are discourse concepts, that is, theological concepts frequently used in Pauline contexts where the word pneuma appears, but they are not part of the lexical meaning of the word.

Similar caveats should be applied to the word sarx. Vos and Gaffin are surely right to see that the human sarx in Pauline thought is sometimes taken up into the realm of the present age so that the word can be used in morally negative sense. For example, “when we were in the flesh” (Rom 7:5) is almost tantamount to saying, “when we were in the old age under the headship of the first (fallen) Adam.”

But this meaning does not fit in Rom 1:3, since it is not sinners but Christ who said to be “born … according to the flesh.” Since sarx is here applied to the sinless Christ, it is not appropriate to read in the morally negative meaning of sarx in this case.

Gaffin cites a number of passages (R&R, 107) in his attempt to prove that sarx is synonymous with the present age, but they aren’t very convincing. Let’s look at them now. He classifies them into two groups: (1) “in the flesh” and (2) “according to the flesh.”

“In the flesh” (en sarki)

Rom 7:5: 

“For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death” (ESV).

I fully admit there is an aeonic or atmospheric element to sarx in this passage, since “living in the flesh” is tantamount to living under the headship of fallen Adam. It refers to the old man living under the reign of the old age. But this passage is clearly one of the ethically pejorative usages of sarx and denotes the state of sin prior to regeneration. So this is not a helpful cross-reference for illuminating Rom 1:3, which applies sarx to Christ in a sense that is clearly not ethically pejorative.

2 Cor 10:3:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh” (ESV).

Here Paul contrasts “living in the flesh” with “waging war according to the flesh.” He characterizes himself by the former but not by the latter. Thus, “living in the flesh” must be equivalent to “living in this mortal body.” There is a good parallel with Rom 1:3, because it is not ethically pejorative. But then it leads us in the direction of taking sarx in Rom 1:3 as referring to Christ’s human nature.

On the other hand “according to the flesh” (kata sarka) in this verse is ethically pejorative and has the nuance of engaging in something “in an unspiritual manner,” that is, engaging in the work of the ministry using means that are worldly rather than characterized by the Spirit. So “according to the flesh” in this verse does not serve as a good parallel with Rom 1:3.

Gal 2:20: 

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (ESV).

Same as 2 Cor 10:3. “Living in the flesh” means “living in this mortal body prior to the resurrection.” The term is not atmospheric in the sense of participating in the structures of the old aeon; it is precisely focused Paul’s own personal existence, “the life that I now live in the body.”

Philemon 15-16:

“For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (ESV).

Philemon is beloved “both in the flesh and in the Lord,” that is, both in terms of the earthly master-slave relationship and in terms of their shared union with Christ. Thus “in the flesh” focuses on human, earthly relationships.

“According to the flesh” (kata sarka)

1 Cor 1:26:

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards (kata sarka), not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (ESV).

This is the one verse that Gaffin puts the most weight on. But I am surprised that he does, since the verse implies that there are some in the Corinthian church who are wise according to the flesh, though “not many.” In other words, there are some (like Apollos) who are educated, even philosophically trained. We would probably use the word “intellectuals.” Just as there are “not many powerful" (e.g., members of the ruling elite or holders of office in the city of Corinth), "not many of noble birth" (that is, from the wealthy upper-crust of society, the landed aristocracy), so there are "not many intellectuals" in the church of Corinth. This is not aeonic at all, since Paul would not say it is inherently sinful to be powerful or of noble birth or a highly-educated intellectual -- though, of course, there are many temptations for Christians with these statuses.

Gal 4:23:

“But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise” (ESV).

The usage of “born according to the flesh” here could be taken in two ways: (1) referring to ordinary physical procreation, or (2) referring to Abraham’s impatience and sinful attempt to bring about the promise through having intercourse with Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar. If the first option is chosen, then sarx is not atmospheric at all and “born according to the flesh” in Gal 4:23 would be a perfect parallel with Rom 1:3, since it focuses on Christ’s fleshly, human descent from David. If the second option is chosen, then it is a morally negative usage like Rom 7:5 and thus would not apply to Christ, whose virgin birth was not “according to the (sinful) flesh” but by the power of the Spirit.

Eph 6:5:

“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh” (NASB), or “your earthly masters” (NIV, ESV).

This one is similar to Philemon 16. Slaves are to be obedient to their earthly masters. It is hard to see an atmospheric, redemptive-historical meaning here.

The Vos-Gaffin view that sarx has an atmospheric quality having to do with the old aeon under Adam is legitimate. But I would argue that it only applies to the cases where sarx has an ethically pejorative sense, and even then it is not that sarx is synonymous with the old aeon under Adam ("totality transfer") but that it takes on that connotation or coloring from the broader theological context of Paul's two-age, eschatological presuppositions.

But if sarx only has this connotation when used in morally negative contexts, then it follows that this connotation does not apply to Rom 1:3 since here it is applied to Christ, and Christ was born without sin. When sarx is used neutrally, it does not seem to have this atmospheric quality but simply denotes human relationships, human nature, or physical procreation and descent.

In sum, it makes more sense to take sarx in Rom 1:3 as referring to the human nature of the Messiah, with primary reference to his physical body. Remember, the word "flesh" is used in the same sentence as the verb "born" and the noun "seed," words with all have to do with physical procreation. Thus Rom 1:3 means "he was born of the seed of David as to his human nature/descent." Rom 1:3 would then fall under the morally neutral usage of sarx in reference to the physical dimension of human nature, e.g.:

Rom 9:5: "from whom is the Christ according to the flesh"
1 Tim 3:16: "he was manifested in the flesh"
Col 1:22: "he has reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death" 
Rom 8:3: "God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh"
1 Pet 3:18: "being put to death in the flesh"

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 4

I've summarized the two main Reformed interpretations of Romans 1:3-4, the Hodge-Warfield view and the Vos-Gaffin view. I used to hold to the Hodge-Warfield view, and then I switched to the Vos-Gaffin view after reading the section in Gaffin's book Resurrection and Redemption (R&R) where he deals with this passage. However, without abandoning the Vos-Gaffin view completely, recently I have begun to develop some doubts about the Vos-Gaffin view.

My first doubt is a grammatical problem. The Vos-Gaffin view requires that the two kata phrases ("according to the flesh ... according to the Spirit of holiness") be taken as indicating result.

Vos writes:

“The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force: they describe the mode of the process, yet so as to throw emphasis rather on the result than on the initial act: Christ came into being as to his sarkic existence, and he was introduced by horismos into his pneumatic existence” (EAPCS, 229 [1912] = 104 [1980]).

Gaffin says that kata sarka indicates that by his incarnation “the eternal Son of God entered the sphere of sarx, the old aeon, the present evil age” and that kata pneuma indicates that by his resurrection he “entered the sphere of the Spirit, the new aeon, the coming age,” so that the prepositional phrase “brings into view the resultant state in its specifically spiritual character” (R&R, 110). 

But this “result” interpretation of the two kata prepositions is forced. The preposition kata + acc. has seven usages according to BDAG, but none of them indicate “result” or “resultant state.” BDAG identifies the occurrences in Rom 1:3-4 under “denoting relationship to something, with respect to, in relation to” (BDAG kata B6). This is clearly what the phrase kata sarka means in Rom 4:1 (“our forefather with respect to the flesh”) and 9:5 (“from whom is the Christ with respect to the flesh”).

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 3

Geerhardus Vos:

“The reference is not to two coexisting sides in the constitution of the Saviour, but to two successive stages in his life:  there was first a genesthai kata sarka, then a horisthenai kata pneuma. The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force:  they describe the mode of the process, yet so as to throw emphasis rather on the result than on the initial act:  Christ came into being as to his sarkic existence, and he was introduced by horismos into his pneumatic existence … By the twofold kata the mode of each state of existence is contrasted, by the twofold ek the origin of each. Thus the existence kata sarka originated ‘from the seed of David’, the existence kata pneuma originated ‘out of resurrection from the dead’ … The resurrection is to Paul the beginning of a new status of sonship:  hence, as Jesus derived his sonship kata sarka from the seed of David, he can be said to have derived his divine-sonship-in-power from the resurrection … The resurrection is characteristic of the beginning of a new order of things, as sarkic birth is characteristic of an older order of things. What stands before the Apostle’s mind is the contrast between the two aeons … Paul is not thinking of the resurrection of Christ as an event, but of what happened to Christ in its generic qualitative capacity, as an epoch partaking of a strictly eschatological nature. From resurrection-beginnings, from an eschatological genesis dates the pneumatic state of Christ’s glory which is described as a sonship of God en dynamei” (EAPCS, 229-30 [1912] = 104-5 [1980]).

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.:

“A proper interpretation of these verses must appreciate the centrality of the temporal factor minimized by Warfield … The pneuma-sarx antithesis, then, while it has important anthropological implications, is fundamentally a historical contrast. Intrinsic to it is what Warfield dismisses in passing, the capacity for expressing temporal distinction. It is an antithesis between two aeons, one present and one coming, between the old world order which is passing away and the new which remains … The phrase [kata sarka] brings into view not only Christ’s human nature but also and pointedly the order into which the assumption of humanity brought him, the environment with which this humanity is necessarily associated and from which it cannot be abstracted. The full thought of verse 3 is that by incarnation (by being born of the seed of David) the eternal Son of God entered the sphere of sarx, the old aeon, the present evil age … By resurrection the preexistent Son, having become incarnate in the old order …, entered the sphere of the Spirit, the new aeon, the coming age; his personal, incarnate mode of existence is now conformed to the pneumatic world-order entered at the resurrection … Verse 4, then, is of a piece with I Corinthians 15:45 and II Corinthians 3:17” (R&R, 105, 109-10).

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 2

Charles Hodge:

“The limitation kata sarka, according to the flesh, obviously implies the superhuman character of Jesus. Were he a mere man, it had been enough to say that he was of the seed of David; but as he is more than man, it was necessary to limit his descent from David to his human nature. That the word sarx here means human nature is obvious both from the scriptural usage of the word, and from the nature of the case. See John 1:14; Rom 9:5; 1 Tim 3:16; 1 John 4:2, 3. It is not the flesh or body, as opposed to the soul, but the human, as opposed to the divine nature, that is intended … According to the Spirit of holiness. As just remarked, these words are in antithesis with kata sarka; as to the flesh he was the Son of David, as to the Spirit the Son of God. As sarx means his human nature, pneuma can hardly mean anything else than the higher or divine nature of Christ … It was by the resurrection that he was proved to be the Son of God … As Christ had openly declared himself to be the Son of God, his rising from the dead was the seal of God to the truth of that declaration” (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [originally published in 1864; reprinted by Banner of Truth, 1989], 18-21).

B. B. Warfield:

“Of course there is a temporal succession implied in the declarations of the two clauses … But it was not to indicate this temporal succession that Paul sets the two declarations side by side. It emerges merely as the incidental, or we may even say the accidental, result of their collocation. The relation in which Paul sets the two declarations to one another is a logical rather than a temporal one:  it is the relation of climax. His purpose is to exalt Jesus Christ. He wishes to say the great things about Him. And the two greatest things he has to say about Him in His historical manifestation are these – that He became of the seed of David according to the flesh, that He was marked out as the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead” (TCTPP, 78-79).

“Temporal succession was not what it was in Paul’s mind to emphasize, and is not the ruling idea of his assertion. The ruling idea of his assertion is the celebration of the glory of Christ … Paul is not adducing the resurrection because it cuts our Lord’s life-manifestation into two sections; but because of the demonstration it brought of the dignity of His person. It is quite indifferent to his declaration when the resurrection took place. He is not adducing it as the producing cause of a change in our Lord’s mode of being … What [the resurrection] did, and what Paul adduces it here as doing, was that it brought out into plain view who and what Christ really was” (TCTPP, 82).

“When Paul tells us of the Christ which he preached that He was made of the seed of David ‘according to the flesh,’ he quite certainly has the whole of His humanity in mind. And in introducing the limitation, ‘according to the flesh,’ into his declaration that Christ was ‘made of the seed of David,’ he intimates not obscurely that there was another side – not aspect but element – of His being besides His humanity, in which He was not made of the seed of David, but was something other and higher … He has not left us, however, to this speculation, but has plainly told us that the Christ he preached was not merely made of the seed of David according to the flesh, but was also marked out as the Son of God, in power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. Since the ‘according to the flesh’ includes all His humanity, the ‘according to the Spirit of holiness’ which is set in contrast with it, and according to which He is declared to be the Son of God, must be sought outside of His humanity … To say that Christ is, according to the Spirit of holiness, the Son of God, is to say that the Spirit of holiness is a designation of His divine nature” (TCTPP, 85).

Seed of David, Son of God (Rom 1:3-4), Part 1

Romans 1:3-4 reads as follows:

“… concerning his Son,
     born of the seed of David
          according to the flesh;
     marked out Son of God with power
          according to the Spirit of holiness
               by the resurrection of the dead,
Jesus Christ our Lord” (translation mine).

This has always been a fascinating passage for me. I was fascinated by it because it seemed to be a proof text for the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. The fact that Jesus is fully divine and fully human is easy to demonstrate from a large number of passages throughout the NT. But it was great to have one text where both natures are affirmed together.

The Chalcedonian interpretation of this text has a strong backing in the Reformed tradition. It is the view articulated by Calvin and Charles Hodge in their commentaries on Romans. And in an essay defending the deity of Christ, B. B. Warfield said that Paul in this text is using

“language so pregnant, so packed with implications, as to carry us into the heart of the great problem of the two-natured person of Christ” (TCTPP, 78).

He added that

“Paul is not here distinguishing times and contrasting two successive modes of our Lord’s being. He is distinguishing elements in the constitution of our Lord’s person, by virtue of which He is at one and the same time both the Messiah and the Son of God” (TCTPP, 84).

But when I was exposed to Geerhardus Vos’s interpretation, as mediated by Richard Gaffin in his book Resurrection and Redemption (R&R), I became convinced away from this view to the view that the text is really talking about the two stages in the life of Christ. My youthful desire to use this text to buttress my systematic beliefs about Christology gave way to the growing awareness of Paul’s eschatological and redemptive-historical concerns.

It just seemed more likely (in Vos’s words) that

“the reference is not to two coexisting sides in the constitution of the Savior, but to two successive stages in his life” (EAPCS, 229 [1912] = 104 [1980]).

And after Vos and Gaffin pointed out that Hodge and Warfield took “the Spirit of Holiness” as the divine nature of Christ (rather than as the Holy Spirit), their folly was evident. Hodge and Warfield had committed the sin so typical of systematic theologians – they had taken a verse out of context and used it as a proof-text to support a theological position that may be true enough but just not what this verse is talking about. Obviously we should never expect Paul to make a timeless, systematic-theological statement explicitly affirming the human and divine natures of Christ. The prepositional phrases, kata sarka and kata pneuma, denote not Christ’s two ontological natures but the two historical stages of his incarnate state:  his sarkic existence, which he entered at the incarnation, and his pneumatic existence, which he entered at his resurrection.

But recently I have begun to develop doubts about the Vos-Gaffin view. I'm not saying that I totally reject the view, and I think it contains a very important truth that can be redeemed, but I wonder about parts of it. I’ll explain my doubts in future posts, but before I do that, the next two posts will be quotes from Hodge and Warfield, and then from Vos and Gaffin.

EAPCS = Geerhardus Vos, “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.; Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 91-125. Originally published in Biblical and Theological Studies by the Members of the Faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912), 209-259.

R&R = Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (2nd ed.; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987).

TCTPP = B. B. Warfield, “The Christ That Paul Preached,” in The Person and Work of Christ (ed. Samuel G. Craig; Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 73-90.