Romans 1:4 - Collection of Biblical Commentaries

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Romans 1:4
And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
Romans 1:4
Who was declared (tou horisthentos). Articular participle (first
aorist passive) of horizō for which verb see note on Luk 22:22
and note on Act 2:23. He was the Son of God in his preincarnate
state (2Co 8:9; Php 2:6) and still so after his Incarnation (Rom
1:3, “of the seed of David”), but it was the Resurrection of the
dead (ex anastaseōs nekrōn, the general resurrection implied by
that of Christ) that definitely marked Jesus off as God’s Son
because of his claims about himself as God’s Son and his
prophecy that he would rise on the third day. This event (cf. 1
Corinthians 15) gave God’s seal “with power” (en dunamei), “in
power,” declared so in power (2Co 13:4). The Resurrection of
Christ is the miracle of miracles. “The resurrection only declared
him to be what he truly was” (Denney).
According to the spirit of holiness (kata pneuma
hagiōsunēs). Not the Holy Spirit, but a description of Christ
ethically as kata sarka describes him physically (Denney).
Hagiōsunē is rare (1Th 3:13; 2Co 7:1 in N.T.), three times in
lxx, each time as the attribute of God. “The pneuma hagiōsunēs,
though not the Divine nature, is that in which the Divinity or
Divine Personality Resided” (Sanday and Headlam).
Jesus Christ our Lord (Iēsou Christou tou kuriou hēmōn).
These words gather up the total personality of Jesus (his deity
and his humanity).
Romans 1:4
Declared (ὁρισθέντος)
Rev., in margin, determined. The same verb as in the compound
separated in Rom 1:1. Bengel says that it expresses more than
“separated,” since one of a number is separated, but only one is
defined or declared. Compare Act 10:42; Act 17:31. It means to
designate one for something, to nominate, to instate. There is

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an antithesis between born (Rom 1:3) and declared. As
respected Christ's earthly descent, He was born like other men.
As respected His divine essence, He was declared. The idea is
that of Christ's instatement or establishment in the rank and
dignity of His divine sonship with a view to the conviction of
men. This was required by His previous humiliation, and was
accomplished by His resurrection, which not only manifested or
demonstrated what He was, but wrought a real transformation
in His mode of being. Compare Act 2:36; “God made,” etc.
With power (ἐν δυνάμει)
Lit., in power. Construe with was declared. He was declared or
instated mightily; in a striking, triumphant manner, through His
resurrection.
Spirit of holiness
In contrast with according to the flesh. The reference is not to
the Holy Spirit, who is nowhere designated by this phrase, but
to the spirit of Christ as the seat of the divine nature belonging
to His person. As God is spirit, the divine nature of Christ is
spirit, and its characteristic quality is holiness.
Resurrection from the dead (ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν)
Wrong, since this would require the preposition ἐκ from. Rev.,
correctly, of the dead. Though this resurrection is here
represented as actually realized in one individual only, the
phrase, as everywhere in the New Testament, signifies the
resurrection of the dead absolutely and generically - of all the
dead, as exemplified, included, and involved in the resurrection
of Christ. See on Php 3:11.
Romans 1:4
But powerfully declared to be the Son of God, according to the
Spirit of Holiness - That is, according to his divine nature. By the
resurrection from the dead - For this is both the fountain and
the object of our faith; and the preaching of the apostles was
the consequence of Christ's resurrection.

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Romans 1:4
THE WITNESS OF THE RESURRECTION
It is a great mistake to treat Paul’s writings, and especially this
Epistle, as mere theology. They are the transcript of his life’s
experience. As has been well said, the gospel of Paul is an
interpretation of the significance of the life and work of Jesus
based upon the revelation to him of Jesus as the risen Christ. He
believed that he had seen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and
it was that appearance which revolutionised his life, turned him
from a persecutor into a disciple, and united him with the
Apostles as ordained to be a witness with them of the
Resurrection. To them all the Resurrection of Jesus was first of
all a historical fact appreciated chiefly in its bearing on Him. By
degrees they discerned that so transcendent a fact bore in itself
a revelation of what would become the experience of all His
followers beyond the grave, and a symbol of the present life
possible for them. All three of these aspects are plainly declared
in Paul’s writings. In our text it is chiefly the first which is made
prominent. All that distinguishes Christianity; and makes it
worth believing, or mighty, is inseparably connected with the
Resurrection.
I. The Resurrection of Christ declares His Sonship.
Resurrection and Ascension are inseparably connected. Jesus
does not rise to share again in the ills and weariness of
humanity. Risen, ‘He dieth no more; death hath no more
dominion over Him.’ ‘He died unto sin once’; and His risen
humanity had nothing in it on which physical death could lay
hold. That He should from some secluded dimple on Olivet
ascend before the gazing disciples until the bright cloud, which
was the symbol of the Divine Presence, received Him out of
their sight, was but the end of the process which began unseen
in morning twilight. He laid aside the garments of the grave and
passed out of the sepulchre which was made sure by the great
stone rolled against its mouth. The grand avowal of faith in His
Resurrection loses meaning, unless it is completed as Paul
completed his ‘yea rather that was raised from the dead,’ with
the triumphant ‘who is at the right hand of God.’ Both are

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supernatural, and the Virgin Birth corresponds at the beginning
to the supernatural Resurrection and Ascension at the close.
Both such an entrance into the world and such a departure from
it, proclaim at once His true humanity, and that ‘this is the Son
of God.’
Still further, the Resurrection is God’s solemn ‘Amen’ to the
tremendous claims which Christ had made. The fact of His
Resurrection, indeed, would not declare His divinity; but the
Resurrection of One who had spoken such words does. If the
Cross and a nameless grave had been the end, what a reductio
ad absurdum that would have been to the claims of Jesus to
have ever been with the Father and to be doing always the
things that pleased Him. The Resurrection is God’s last and
loudest proclamation, ‘This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.’
The Psalmist of old had learned to trust that his sonship and
consecration to the Father made it impossible that that Father
should leave his soul in Sheol, or suffer one who was knit to Him
by such sacred bonds to see corruption; and the unique Sonship
and perfect self-consecration of Jesus went down into the grave
in the assured confidence, as He Himself declared, that the third
day He would rise again. The old alternative seems to retain all
its sharp points: Either Christ rose again from the dead, or His
claims are a series of blasphemous arrogances and His
character irremediably stained.
But we may also remember that Scripture not only represents
Christ’s Resurrection as a divine act but also as the act of
Christ’s own power. In His earthly life He asserted that His
relation both to physical death and to resurrection was an
entirely unique one. ‘I have power,’ said He, ‘to lay down my
life, and I have power to take it again’; and yet, even in this
tremendous instance of self-assertion, He remains the obedient
Son, for He goes on to say, ‘This commandment have I received
of My Father.’ If these claims are just, then it is vain to stumble
at the miracles which Jesus did in His earthly life. If He could
strip it off and resume it, then obviously it was not a life like
other men’s. The whole phenomenon is supernatural, and we

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shall not be in the true position to understand and appreciate it
and Him until, like the doubting Thomas, we fall at the feet of
the risen Son, and breathe out loyalty and worship in that
rapturous exclamation, ‘My Lord and my God.’
II. The Resurrection interprets Christ’s Death.
There is no more striking contrast than that between the
absolute non-receptivity of the disciples in regard to all Christ’s
plain teachings about His death and their clear perception after
Pentecost of the mighty power that lay in it. The very fact that
they continued disciples at all, and that there continued to be
such a community as the Church, demands their belief in the
Resurrection as the only cause which can account for it. If He
did not rise from the dead, and if His followers did not know that
He did so by the plainest teachings of common-sense, they
ought to have scattered, and borne in isolated hearts the bitter
memories of disappointed hopes; for if He lay in a nameless
grave, and they were not sure that He was risen from the dead,
His death would have been a conclusive showing up of the
falsity of His claims. In it there would have been no atoning
power, no triumph over sin. If the death of Christ were not
followed by His Resurrection and Ascension, the whole fabric of
Christianity falls to pieces. As the Apostle puts it in his great
chapter on resurrection, ‘Ye are yet in your sins.’ The
forgiveness which the Gospel holds forth to men does not
depend on the mercy of God or on the mere penitence of man,
but upon the offering of the one sacrifice for sins in His death,
which is justified by His Resurrection as being accepted by God.
If we cannot triumphantly proclaim ‘Christ is risen indeed,’ we
have nothing worth preaching.
We are told now that the ethics of Christianity are its vital
centre, which will stand out more plainly when purified from
these mystical doctrines of a Death as the sin-offering for the
world, and a Resurrection as the great token that that offering
avails. Paul did not think so. To him the morality of the Gospel
was all deduced from the life of Christ the Son of God as our
Example, and from His death for us which touches men’s hearts

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and makes obedience to Him our joyful answer to what He has
done for us. Christianity is a new thing in the world, not as
moral teaching, but as moral power to obey that teaching, and
that depends on the Cross interpreted by the Resurrection. If we
have only a dead Christ, we have not a living Christianity.
III. Resurrection points onwards to Christ’s coming
again.
Paul at Athens declared in the hearing of supercilious Greek
philosophers, that the Jesus, whom he proclaimed to them, was
‘the Man whom God had ordained to judge the world in
righteousness,’ and that ‘He had given assurance thereof unto
all men, in that He raised Him from the dead.’ The Resurrection
was the beginning of the process which, from the human point
of view, culminated in the Ascension. Beyond the Ascension
stretches the supernatural life of the glorified Son of God. Olivet
cannot be the end, and the words of the two men in white
apparel who stood amongst the little group of the upward
gazing friends, remain as the hope of the Church: ‘This same
Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into
heaven.’ That great assurance implies a visible corporeal return
locally defined, and having for its purpose to complete the work
which Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, each
advanced a stage. The Resurrection is the corner-stone of the
whole Christian faith. It seals the truths that Jesus is the Son of
God with power, that He died for us, that He has ascended on
high to prepare a place for us, that He will come again and take
us to Himself. If we, by faith in Him, take for ours the women’s
greeting on that Easter morning, ‘The Lord hath risen indeed,’
He will come to us with His own greeting, ‘Peace be unto you.’
Romans 1:4
And declared to be the Son of God,.... Not made as he is
said to be before, when his incarnation is spoken of; nor did he
begin to be the Son of God, when he was made of the seed of
David, but he, the Son of God, who existed as such, from
everlasting, was manifested in the flesh, or human nature: and
this his divine sonship, and proper deity, are declared and made

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evident,
with, or "by"
his power; which has appeared in the creation of all things out
of nothing; in upholding all things in their beings; in the
government of the world, and works of Providence; in the
miracles he wrought; in his performing the great work of
redemption; in the success of his Gospel, to the conversion of
sinners; and in the preservation of his churches and people:
here it seems chiefly to regard the power of Christ in raising the
dead, since it follows, and which is to be connected with this
clause,
by the resurrection from the dead; and designs either the
resurrection of others, as of Lazarus, and some other persons,
in his lifetime, and of some at his resurrection, and of all at the
last day: or the resurrection of his own body, which dying he
had power to raise up again, and did; and which declared him to
be, or clearly made it appear that he was the Son of God, a
divine person, truly and properly God: and this was done
according to the Spirit of holiness; which may be
understood of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity,
who is holy in himself, and the author of holiness in the saints;
and who is the declarer of Christ's sonship, partly by bearing a
testimony to it in the word, and in the hearts of believers, and
chiefly by being concerned in the resurrection of the body of
Christ from the dead; or else by the Spirit of holiness may be
meant the divine nature of Christ, which, as it is holy, so by it
Christ offered himself to God, and by it was quickened, or made
alive, when he had been put to death in the flesh; and which
must be a clear and strong proof of his being truly the Son of
God.
Romans 1:4
Who was predestined [2] the Son of God. The learned bishop of
Meaux, Bossuet, in his second Pastoral Instruction, in which he

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condemned the French translation of Mons. Simon, (p. 127.)
takes notice, that according to St. Paul, and the constant
doctrine of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, Christ as
man, or the human nature of Christ united to his divine person,
was predestined without any precedent merits, by a free and
liberal predestination of God’s goodness. (Witham) --- Christ, as
man, was predestined to be the Son of God; and declared to be
so (as the apostle here signifies) first by power, that is, by his
working stupendous miracles; secondly, by the spirit of
sanctification, that is, by his infinite sanctity; thirdly, by his
resurrection, or raising himself from the dead. (Challoner)
Romans 1:4
And declared - In the margin, “determined.” Τοῦ ὁρισθέντος
Tou horisthentos. The ancient Syriac has, “And he was known to
be the Son of God by might and by the Holy Spirit, who rose
from the house of the dead.” The Latin Vulgate, “Who was
“predestinated” the Son of God,” etc. The Arabic, “The Son of
God destined by power special to the Holy Spirit,” etc. The word
translated “declared to be” means properly “to bound, to fix
limits to,” as to a field, to determine its proper limits or
boundaries, to “define,” etc. Act 17:26, “and hath determined
the bounds of their habitation.” Hence, it means to determine,
constitute; ordain, decree; i, e. to fix or designate the proper
boundaries of a truth, or a doctrine; to distinguish its lines and
marks from error; or to show, or declare a thing to be so by any
action. Luk 22:22, “the Son of man goeth as it was determined,
as it was fixed; purposed, defined, in the purpose of God, and
declared in the prophets. Act 2:23, “him being delivered by the
determinate counsel, the definite. constituted will, or design, of
God. Act 11:29; Heb 4:7, “he limiteth a certain day,” fixes it,
defines it. In this sense it is clearly used in this place. The act of
raising him from the dead designated him, or constituted him
the Son of God. It was such an act as in the circumstances of
the case showed that he was the Son of God in regard to a
nature which was not “according to the flesh.” The ordinary
resurrection of a man, like that of Lazarus, would not show that
he was the Son of God; but in the circumstances of Jesus Christ

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it did; for he had claimed to be so; he had taught it; and God
now attested the truth of his teaching by raising him from the
dead.
The Son of God - The word “son” is used in a great variety of
senses, denoting literally a son, then a descendant, posterity
near or remote, a disciple or ward, an adopted son, or one that
imitates or resembles another; see the note at Mat 1:1. The
expression “sons of God,” or “son of God,” is used in an almost
equal latitude of signification. It is:
(1) Applied to Adam, as being immediately created by God
without an earthly father; Luk 3:38.
(2) It is applied to saints or Christians, as being adopted into his
family, and sustaining to him the relation of children; Joh 1:12-
13; 1Jn 3:1-2, etc. This name is given to them because they
resemble him in their moral character; Mat 5:45.
(3) It is given to strong men as resembling God in strength;
Gen 6:2, “The sons of God saw the daughters of men,” etc. Here
these men of violence and strength are called sons of God, just
as the high hills are called hills of God, the lofty trees of
Lebanon are called cedars of God, etc.
(4) Kings are sometimes called his sons, as resembling him in
dominion and power, Psa 82:6.
(5) The name is given to angels because they resemble God;
because he is their Creator and Father, etc., Job 1:6; Job 2:1;
Dan 3:25.
But the name the “Son of God” is in the New Testament given
by way of eminence to the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the
common and favorite name by which the apostles designated
him. The expression “Son of God” is applied to him no less than
27 times in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and 15
times in the Epistles and the Revelation The expression my Son,

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and his Son, thy Son, etc. is applied to him in his special
relation to God, times almost without number. The other most
common appellation which is given to him is “Son of man.” By
this name he commonly designated himself. There can be no
doubt that that was assumed to denote that he was a man, that
he sustained a special relation to man, and that he chose to
speak of himself as a man. The first, the most obvious,
impression on the use of the name “Son of man” is that he was
truly a man, and was used doubtless to guard against the
impression that one who manifested so many other qualities,
and did so many things like a celestial being, was not truly
human being.
The phrase “Son of God” stands in contrast with the title “Son of
man,” and as the natural and obvious import of that is that he
was a man, so the natural and obvious import of the title “Son
of God” is that he was divine; or that he sustained relations to
God designated by the name Son of God, corresponding to the
relations which he sustained to man designated by the name
Son of Man. The natural idea of the phrase, “Son of God,”
therefore is, that he sustained a relation to God in his nature
which implied more than was human or angelic; which implied
equality with God. Accordingly, this idea was naturally
suggested to the Jews by his calling God his Father; Joh 5:18,
“But said also that God was his Father, “making himself equal
with God.” This idea Jesus immediately proceeded to confirm;
see the note at Joh 5:19-30. The same idea is also suggested in
Joh 10:29-31, Joh 10:33, Joh 10:36, “Say ye of him whom the
Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest: “because I said I am the Son of God?” There is in
these places the fullest proof that the title suggested naturally
the idea of equality with God; or the idea of his sustaining a
relation to God corresponding to the relation of equality to man
suggested by the title Son of man.
This view is still further sustained in the first chapter of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, Rom 1:1-2, “God hath spoken unto us
by His Son.” He is the brightness of his glory, and the express

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image of his person, Rom 1:3. He is higher than the angels, and
they are required to worship him, Rom 1:4-6. He is called
“God,” and his throne is forever and ever, Rom 1:8. He is “the
Creator of the heavens and the earth,” and is immutably the
same, Rom 1:10-12. Thus, the rank or title of the “Son of God”
suggests the ideas and attributes of the Divinity. This idea is
sustained throughout the New Testament. See Joh 14:9, “He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father;” Rom 1:23, “That all
men shall honor the Son even as they honor the Father;” Col
1:19, “It hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness
dwell;” Col 2:9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily:” Php 2:2-11; Rev 5:13-14; Rev 2:23. It is not
affirmed that this title was given to the second person of the
Trinity before he became incarnate; or to suggest the idea of
any derivation or extraction before he was made flesh. There is
no instance in which the appellation is not conferred to express
his relation after he assumed human flesh. Of any derivation
from God, or emanation from him in eternity, the Scriptures are
silent. The title is conferred on him, it is supposed, with
reference to his condition in this world, as the Messiah. And it is
conferred, it is believed, for the following reasons, or to denote
the following things, namely.
(1) To designate his unique relation to God, as equal with him,
Joh 1:14, Joh 1:18; Mat 11:27; Luk 10:22; Luk 3:22; 2Pe 1:17,
or as sustaining a most intimate and close connection with him,
such as neither man nor angels could do, an acquaintance with
his nature Mat 11:27, plans, and counsels, such as no being but
one who was equal with God could possess. In this sense, I
regard it as conferred on him in the passage under
consideration.
(2) It designates him as the anointed king, or the Messiah. In
this sense it accords with the use of the word in Psa 82:6. See
Mat 16:16, “Thou art “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Mat
26:63, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us
whether “thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” Mar 14:61; Luk
22:70; Joh 1:34; Act 9:20, “he preached Christ in the

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synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”
(3) It was conferred on him to denote his miraculous conception
in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Luk 1:35, “the Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, therefore διό dio also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the “Son of God.”
(It is readily admitted, that on the subject of the “eternal
Sonship” very much has been said of an unintelligible kind.
Terms applicable only to the relation as it exists among people
have been freely applied to this mystery. But whatever may be
thought of such language as “the eternal generation,” “the
eternal procession,” and “the subordination” of the Son; the
doctrine itself, which this mode of speaking was invented to
illustrate, and has perhaps served to obscure, is in no way
affected. The question is not, Have the friends of the doctrine at
all times employed judicious illustration? but, What is the
“Scripture evidence” on the point? If the eternal Sonship is to be
discarded on such grounds, we fear the doctrine of the Trinity
must share a similar fate. Yet, those who maintain the divinity
of Christ, and notwithstanding deny the eternal Sonship, seem
generally to found their objections on these incomprehensible
illustrations, and from thence leap to the conclusion that the
doctrine itself is false.
That the title Son of God, when applied to Jesus, denotes a
natural and not merely an official Sonship, a real and not a
figurative relation; in other words, that it takes origin from the
divine nature, is the view which the Catholic Church has all
along maintained on this subject: no explanation which falls
short of divinity will exhaust the meaning of the title. Christ is
indeed called the Son of God on account of his miraculous
conception; “That holy thing,” said the angel to the Virgin,
“which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of the
Highest.” But the creation of Adam, by the immediate power of
God, without father or mother, would constitute him the Son of
God, in a sense equally or even more exalted than that in which
the title is applied to Jesus, if the miraculous conception were

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allowed to exhaust its meaning. Nor will an appeal to the
resurrection of Christ serve the purpose of those who deny the
divine origin of the title, since that is assigned as the evidence
only, and not the ground of it.
The Redeemer was not constituted, but declared or evidenced to
be, “the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the
dead.” In the search for a solution short of divine Sonship,
recourse is next had to the office of Christ as Mediator. Yet
though the appellation in question be frequently given in
connection with the official character of Jesus, a careful
examination of some of these passages will lead to the
conclusion, that “though the Son of God hold the office, yet the
office does not furnish the reason or ground of the title.” The
name is given to distinguish Jesus from all others who have held
office, and “in such a way as to convince us that the office is
rendered “honorable” by the exalted personage discharging its
duties, and not that the person merits the designation in virtue
of the office.” “When the fulness of the time was come, God
sent forth his Son, made of a woman,” etc. “God so loved the
world that he gave his “only begotten Son,” etc. Now the glory
of the mission in the first of these passages, and the greatness
of the gift in the second, is founded on the original dignity of the
person sent and given. But if the person derive his title from the
office only, there would seem to be comparatively little grandeur
in the mission, and small favor in the gift. The passages quoted
would more readily prove that God had bestowed favor on
Jesus, by giving him an office from which he derived so much
“personal dignity!”
The following are some of the passages in which the appellation
“Son of God” is found connected with the office of Christ. “These
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, (an
official term signifying “anointed Saviour”), the Son of God;”
“He answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ (the official
designation) is the Son of God;” “Whom say ye that I am? And
Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God” Now it is reasonable to suppose, that these

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declarations and confessions concerning the person of Christ,
contain not only an acknowledgment of his official character, but
also of his personal dignity. “Thou art Jesus the Christ,” is the
acknowledgment of his office, and “thou art the Son of God,” is
an acknowledgment of his natural dignity. The confession of the
Ethiopian eunuch, and of Peter, would be incomplete on any
other supposition. It should be borne in mind also, that the
question of Christ to Peter was not, What office do ye suppose I
hold? but, “Whom say ye that I am?” See Haldane on Rom 1:4.
If, then, the miraculous conception, the resurrection, and the
office of Christ, do not all of them together exhaust the meaning
of the appellation, we must seek for its origin higher still - we
must ascend to the divine nature. We may indeed take one step
more upward before we reach the divine nature, and suppose,
with Professor Stuart and others, that the name denotes “the
complex person of the Saviour,” as God and man, or in one
word, “Mediator.” Comment on Heb. Exe. 2. But this is just the
old resolution of it into official character, and is therefore liable
to all the objections stated above. For while it is admitted by
those who hold this view, that Christ is divine, it is distinctly
implied, that the title Son of God would not have been his but
for his office.
In the end therefore we must resolve the name into the divine
nature. That it implies equality with God is clearly proved in this
commentary. So the Jews understood it, and the Saviour tacitly
admitted that their construction was right. And as there is no
equality with God without divinity, the title clearly points to such
a distinction in the Godhead as is implied in the relative terms,
Father and Son. Indeed it is not easy to understand how the
doctrine of the Trinity can be maintained apart from that of the
eternal Sonship. If there be in the Godhead a distinction of
persons, does not that distinction belong to the nature of the
Godhead, independent of any official relations. Or will it be
maintained, that the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
arises entirely from the scheme of redemption, and did not exist
from eternity? We may find fault with Dr Owen, and others, who

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speak of a “hypostatical subordination of persons in the
Godhead.” Prof. Stuart, Com. Heb. Exe. 1. Yet, the distinction
itself, through we cannot explain it, “must” be allowed to exist.
The remaining evidence of the eternal Sonship may be thus
stated.
1. Christ is called God’s “own Son,” his “beloved,” and “well
beloved,” and “only begotten Son.’ So strong and special
adjuncts seem intended to prevent any such idea as that of
figurative Sonship. If these do not express the natural
relationship, it is beyond the power of language to do it.
Moreover, correct criticism binds us to adopt the natural and
ordinary signification of words, unless in such cases as plainly
refuse it,
2. In a passage already quoted, God is said “to have sent forth
His Son to redeem us,” etc. And there are many passages to the
same effect, in which is revealed, not only the pre-existence of
Christ, but the capacity in which he originally moved, and the
rank which he held in heaven. “God sent forth his Son,” implies
that he held that title prior to his mission. This at least is the
most obvious sense of the passage, and the sense which an
ordinary reader would doubtless affix to it. The following
objection, however, has been supposed fatal to this argument:
“The name Son of God is indeed used, when speaking of him
previous to his having assumed human nature, but so are the
names of Jesus and the Christ, which yet we know properly to
belong to him, only as united to humanity.” It is readily allowed
that the simple fact of the name being given prior to the
incarnation proves nothing of itself. But the case is altered when
this fact is viewed in connection with the difficulty or
impossibility of resolving the Sonship into an official relation. No
such difficulty exists in regard to the terms “Jesus” and “Christ,”
for they are plainly official names, signifying “anointed Saviour.”
3. Rom 1:3-4. If in this passage we understand the apostle to
declare, that Christ was of the seed of David, according to his

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human nature, the rule of antithesis demands, that we
understand him next to assert what he was according to his
divine nature, namely, the Son of God.
The views given in this Note are those adopted by the most
eminent orthodox divines. The language of the Westminster
divines is well known; “The only Redeemer of the covenant of
grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of
God, of one substance etc.” “Larger Catechism.” Mr. Scott “is
decidedly of opinion, that Christ is called the only Son of God in
respect of his divine nature.” Commentary, Heb 1:3-4.” The late
Principal Hill, in his Theological System, having exposed what he
deemed erroneous views on this subject, adds, “there is a more
ancient and a more exalted title to this name (Son of God),
which is inseparable from the nature” of Christ. “3rd edition, vol.
i., page 363.)”
With power - ἐν δυνάμει en dunamei. By some this expression
has been supposed to mean in power or authority, after his
resurrection from the dead. It is said, that he was before a man
of sorrows; now he was clothed with power and authority. But I
have seen no instance in which the expression in power denotes
office, or authority. It denotes physical energy and might, and
this was bestowed on Jesus before his resurrection as well as
after; Act 10:38, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Spirit, and with power; Rom 15:19; 1Co 15:43. With such
power Jesus will come to judgment: Mat 24:30. If there is any
passage in which the word “power” means authority, office, etc.,
it is Mat 28:18, “All power in heaven and earth is given unto
me.” But this is not a power which was given unto him after his
resurrection, or which he did not possess before. The same
authority to commission his disciples he had exercised before
this on the same ground, Mat 10:7-8. I am inclined to believe,
therefore, that the expression means “powerfully, efficiently;”
he was with great power, or conclusiveness, shown to be the
Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Thus, the phrase
“in power” is used to qualify a verb in Col 1:29, “Which worketh
in me mightily,” “Greek,” in power, that is, operating in me

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effectually, or powerfully. The ancient versions seem to have
understood it in the same way. “Syriac,” “He was known to be
the Son of God by power, and by the Holy Spirit.” “AEthiopic,”
“Whom he declared to be the Son of God by his own power, and
by his Holy Spirit,” etc. “Arabic,” “Designated the Son of God by
power appropriate to the Holy Spirit.”
According to the spirit of holiness - κατά πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης
kata pneuma hagiōsunēs. This expression has been variously
understood. We may arrive at its meaning by the following
considerations.
(1) It is not the third person in the Trinity that is referred to
here. The designation of that person is always in a different
form. It is “the Holy Spirit,” the Holy Ghost, πνεῦμα ἅγιον
pneuma hagion, or τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον to pneuma to hagion;
never “the spirit of holiness.”
(2) It stands in contrast with the flesh; Rom 1:3, “According to
the flesh, the seed of David: according to the spirit of holiness,
the Son of God.” As the former refers doubtless to his human
nature, so this must refer to the nature designated by the title
Son of God, that is, to his superior or divine nature.
(3) The expression is altogether unique to the Lord Jesus Christ.
No where in the Scriptures, or in any other writings, is there an
affirmation like this. What would be meant by it if affirmed of a
mere man?
(4) It cannot mean that the Holy Spirit, the third person in the
Trinity, showed that Jesus was the Son of God by raising him
from the dead because that act is no where attributed to him. It
is uniformly ascribed either to God, as God Act 2:24, Act 2:32;
Act 3:15, Act 3:26; Act 4:10; Act 5:30; Act 10:40; Act 13:30,
Act 13:33-34; Act 17:31; Rom 10:9; Eph 1:20, or to the Father
Rom 6:4, or to Jesus himself Joh 10:18. In no instance is this
act ascribed to the Holy Spirit.

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(5) It indicates a state far more elevate than any human
dignity, or honor In regard to his earthly descent, he was of a
royal race; in regard to the Spirit of holiness, much more than
that, he was the Son of God.
(6) The word “Spirit” is used often to designate God, the holy
God, as distinguished from all the material forms of idol
worship, Joh 4:24.
(7) The word “Spirit” is applied to the Messiah, in his more
elevated or divine nature. 1Co 15:45, “the last Adam was made
a quickening Spirit.” 2Co 3:17, “now the Lord (Jesus) is that
Spirit.” Heb 9:14, Christ is said to have offered himself through
the eternal Spirit. 1Pe 3:18, he is said to have been “put to
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” 1Ti 3:16, he is
said to have been “justified in the Spirit.” In most of these
passages there is the same contrast noticed between his flesh,
his human nature, and his other state, which occurs in Rom 1:3-
4. In all these instances, the design is, doubtless, to speak of
him as a man, and as something more than a man: he was one
thing as a man; he was another thing in his other nature. In the
one, he was of David; was put to death, etc. In the other, he
was of God, he was manifested to be such, he was restored to
the elevation which he had sustained before his incarnation and
death,
Joh 17:1-5; Php 2:2-11. The expression, “according to the Spirit
of holiness,” does not indeed of itself imply divinity. It denotes
that holy and more exalted nature which he possessed as
distinguished from the human. What that is, is to be learned
from other declarations. “This expression implies simply that it
was such as to make proper the appellation, the Son of God.”
Other places, as we have seen, show that that designation
naturally implied divinity. And that this was the true idea
couched under the expression, according to the Spirit of
holiness, appears from those numerous texts of scripture which
explicitly assert his divinity; see Joh 1:1, etc., and the note on
that place.

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By the resurrection from the dead - This has been also
variously understood. Some have maintained that the word
“by,” ἐξ ex, denotes after. He was declared to be the Son of God
in power after he rose from the dead; that is, he was solemnly
invested with the dignity that became the Son of God after he
had been so long in a state of voluntary humiliation. But to this
view there are some insuperable objections.
(1) It is not the natural and usual meaning of the word “by.”
(2) It is not the object of the apostle to state the time when the
thing was done, or the order, but evidently to declare the fact,
and the evidence of the fact. If such had been his design, he
would have said that previous to his death he was shown to be
of the seed of David, but afterward that he was invested with
power.
(3) Though it must be admitted that the preposition “by, ἐξ ex,”
sometimes means after (Mat 19:20; Luk 8:27; xxiii. 8, etc.), yet
its proper and usual meaning is to denote the efficient cause, or
the agent, or origin of a thing, Mat 1:3, Mat 1:18; Mat 21:25;
Joh 3:5; Rom 5:16; Rom 11:36, “OF him are all things.” 1Co
8:6, “one God, the Father, of whom are all things,” etc. In this
sense, I suppose it is used here; and that the apostle means to
affirm that he was clearly or decisively shown to be the Son of
God by his resurrection from the dead.
But here will it be asked, how did his resurrection show this?
Was not Lazarus raised from the dead? And did not many saints
rise also after Jesus? And were not the dead raised by the
apostles; by Elijah, by the bones of Elisha, and by Christ
himself? And did their being raised prove that they were the
sons of God? I answer that the mere fact of the resurrection of
the body proves nothing in itself about the character and rank of
the being that is raised. But in the circumstances in which Jesus
was placed it might show it conclusively. When Lazarus was
raised, it was not in attestation of anything which he had taught

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or done. It was a mere display of the power and benevolence of
Christ. But in regard to the resurrection of Jesus, let the
following circumstances be taken into the account.
(1) He came as the Messiah.
(2) He uniformly taught that he was the Son of God.
(3) He maintained that God was his Father in such a sense as to
imply equality with him, Joh 5:17-30; Joh 10:36.
(4) He claimed authority to abolish the laws of the Jews, to
change their customs, and to be himself absolved from the
observance of those laws, even as his Father was, John 5:1-17;
Mar 2:28.
(5) When God raised him up therefore, it was not an ordinary
event. It was “a public attestation, in the face of the universe, of
the truth of his claims to be the Son of God.” God would not
sanction the doings and doctrines of an impostor. And when,
therefore he raised up Jesus, he, by this act, showed the truth
of his claims, that he was the Son of God.
Further, in the view of the apostles, the resurrection was
intimately connected with the ascension and exaltation of Jesus.
The one made the other certain. And it is not improbable that
when they spoke of his resurrection, they meant to include, not
merely that single act, but the entire series of doings of which
that was the first, and which was the pledge of the elevation
and majesty of the Son of God. Hence, when they had proved
his resurrection, they assumed that all the others would follow.
That involved and supposed all. And the series, of which that
was the first, proved that he was the Son of God; see Act
17:31, “He will judge the world in righteousness, by that man
whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance to all
people, “in that he hath raised him from the dead.” The one
involves the other; see Act 1:6. Thus, Peter Act 2:22-32 having
proved that Jesus was raised up, adds, Act 2:33, “therefore,

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being by the right hand exalted, he hath shed forth this,” etc.;
and Act 2:36, “therefore, let all the house of Israel know
assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have
crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
This verse is a remarkable instance of the “apostle” Paul’s
manner of writing. Having mentioned a subject, his mind seems
to catch fire; he presents it in new forms, and amplifies it, until
he seems to forget for a time the subject on which he was
writing. It is from this cause that his writings abound so with
parentheses, and that there is so much difficulty in following
and understanding him.
Romans 1:4
declared = marked out. Greek. horizo. See Act 2:23. Compare
Psa 2:7.
Son of God. App-98.
with power = in (Greek. en) power (Greek. dunamis. App-
172.); i.e. powerfully. Compare Php 3:10.
spirit. App-101.
holiness. Greek. hagiosune. Only here, 2Co 7:1. 1Th 3:13.
Nowhere in Greek. literature. It is the Genitive of apposition
(App-17.) The expression is not to be confounded with pneuma
hagion (App-101.) His Divine spiritual nature in resurrection is
here set in contrast with His human flesh as seed of David.
resurrection. Greek. anastasis. App-178. Compare Act 26:23.
From. of.
dead. App-139. See Mat 27:52, Mat 27:53.
Romans 1:4
declared] Better, defined, marked out by sure signs. Same

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word as Heb 4:7 (“He limiteth a certain day”). His Resurrection
shewed Him to be none other than the Son. The same Greek
word is used in e.g. Act 10:42; Act 17:31; and rendered there
“ordained;” perhaps rightly so. But obviously its meaning will
slightly vary as connected with the Sonship or with the
Judgeship of Christ.
the Son of God] Cp. Act 13:32-33, for a close parallel; one of
the many between St Paul’s Discourses and Epistles. The
Sonship of the Redeemer, the truth proclaimed at His baptism
(Mat 3:17), is enforced and illustrated through the N. T. In this
Epistle see especially cch. Rom 5:10, Rom 8:3; Rom 8:29; Rom
8:32.
with power] Lit. in power. Cp. 1Co 15:43. Power attended and
characterized His Resurrection, both as cause and as effect. The
practical reference here is to the fulness of the proof of the fact.
The true Resurrection was not such as that imagined by e.g.
Schleiermacher; the creeping forth of a half-slain Man from his
grave. It was miracle and triumph.
according to the Spirit of holiness] This phrase presents two
questions: (1) what is “the Spirit of Holiness”? (2) what is
meant by “according to”? We take them in order. A. “The Spirit
of Holiness” must mean either the Holy Paraclete, or the sacred
Human Spirit of Christ, or His Deity regarded as (what it is, Joh
4:24,) Spirit. The reference here seems to be to the Paraclete;
for (1) in this Epistle He is very frequently referred to, in a way
which makes an initial reference here highly probable; (2) the
expression “Holy Spirit” is so closely akin to “Spirit of Holiness”
that any reference of the words other than that to the Paraclete
would need special evidence; and such evidence can hardly be
found in St Paul. (See 1Ti 3:16; Heb 9:14; for the nearest
approaches to it in N. T.) B. The words “according to” may refer
to the Paraclete, either (1) as the Agent in the Incarnation (Luk
1:35), or (2) as concerned in the Resurrection (see Rom 8:11
for a very partial parallel), or (3) as the Inspirer of the Prophets.
Of these possibilities (1) is most unlikely, for the Sonship of

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Christ here in question is plainly the Eternal Sonship (see Rom
9:5), not that of the Incarnation; (2) accords better with
Scripture usage; but (3) far more so, in view of the frequent
mention of the Holy Spirit as the Inspirer. See Act 20:23; 1Ti
4:1; Heb 3:7; Heb 9:8; Heb 10:15, (and cp. 1Pe 1:11); for
places where “the Spirit” is evidently the Holy Spirit as the
Author of Prophecy. The present passage will thus mean: “He
was declared to be the Son of God, with power, (even as the
Holy Ghost foretold,) in consequence of the resurrection.”
by the resurrection] Lit. out of, from; i.e. in consequence, as
a result, of. The same construction and meaning occur e.g.
2Co 13:4, where lit. “He was crucified out of weakness; He
liveth out of the power of God; we shall live out of, &c.” The
grand result of the resurrection here stated is that His
prophesied character and dignity were, by the resurrection,
made unmistakably clear.
Romans 1:4
And declared to be the Son of God - See the note on Act
13:33, where this subject is considered at large. The word
ορισθεντος, which we render declared, comes from οριζω, to
bound, define, determine, or limit, and hence our word horizon,
the line that determines the farthest visible part of the earth, in
reference to the heavens. In this place the word signifies such a
manifest and complete exhibition of the subject as to render it
indubitable. The resurrection of Christ from the dead was such a
manifest proof of our Lord’s innocence, the truth of his doctrine,
and the fulfillment of all that the prophets had spoken, as to
leave no doubt on any considerate and candid mind.
With power - εν δυναμει, With a miraculous display of Divine
energy; for, how could his body be raised again, but by the
miraculous energy of God? Some apply the word here to the
proof of Christ’s sonship; as if it were said that he was most
manifestly declared to be the Son of God, with such powerful
evidence and argument as to render the truth irresistible.

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According to the spirit of holiness - There are many
differences of sentiment relative to the meaning of this phrase
in this place; some supposing that the spirit of holiness implies
the Divine nature of Jesus Christ; others, his immaculate
sanctity, etc. To me it seems that the apostle simply means that
the person called Jesus, lately crucified at Jerusalem, and in
whose name salvation was preached to the world, was the Son
of God, the very Messiah promised before in the holy Scriptures;
and that he was this Messiah was amply demonstrated.
1st, By his resurrection from the dead, the irrefragable proof
of his purity, innocence, and the Divine approbation; for, had
he been a malefactor, as the Jews pretended, the miraculous
power of God would not have been exerted in raising his
body from the dead.
2nd, He was proved to be the Son of God, the promised
Messiah, by the Holy Spirit, (called here the spirit of
holiness), which he sent down upon his apostles, and not on
them only, but on all that believed on his name; by whose
influence multitudes were convinced of sin, righteousness,
and judgment, and multitudes sanctified unto God; and it
was by the peculiar unction of this spirit of holiness, that the
apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
Act 4:33.
Thus, then, Christ was proved to be the true Messiah, the son of
David according to the flesh, having the sole right to the throne
of Israel; and God recognized this character, and this right, by
his resurrection from the dead, and sending forth the various
gifts and graces of the Spirit of holiness in his name.
Romans 1:4
And (g) declared [to be] the Son of God with (h) power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead:
(g) Shown and made manifest.

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(h) The divine and mighty power is set against the weakness of
the flesh, for it overcame death.
Romans 1:4
And declared—literally, “marked off,” “defined,”
“determined,” that is, “shown,” or “proved.”
to be the Son of God—Observe how studiously the language
changes here. He “was MADE [says the apostle] of the seed of
David, according to the flesh” (Ro 1:3); but He was not made,
He was only “declared [or proved] to BE the Son of God.” So Jn
1:1, 14, “In the beginning WAS the Word … and the Word was
MADE flesh”; and Is 9:6, “Unto us a Child is BORN, unto us a Son
is GIVEN.” Thus the Sonship of Christ is in no proper sense a
born relationship to the Father, as some, otherwise sound
divines, conceive of it. By His birth in the flesh, that Sonship,
which was essential and uncreated, merely effloresced into
palpable manifestation. (See on Lu 1:35; Ac 13:32,33).
with power—This may either be connected with “declared,”
and then the meaning will be “powerfully declared” [LUTHER,
BEZA, BENGEL, FRITZSCHE, ALFORD, &c.]; or (as in our version, and
as we think rightly) with “the Son of God,” and then the sense
is, “declared to be the Son of God” in possession of that “power”
which belonged to Him as the only-begotten of the Father, no
longer shrouded as in the days of His flesh, but “by His
resurrection from the dead” gloriously displayed and henceforth
to be for ever exerted in this nature of ours [Vulgate, CALVIN,
HODGE, PHILIPPI, MEHRING, &c.].
according to the spirit of holiness—If “according to the
flesh” means here, “in His human nature,” this uncommon
expression must mean “in His other nature,” which we have
seen to be that “of the Son of God”—an eternal, uncreated
nature. This is here styled the “spirit,” as an impalpable and
immaterial nature (Jn 4:24), and “the spirit of holiness,”
probably in absolute contrast with that “likeness, of sinful flesh”

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which He assumed. One is apt to wonder that if this be the
meaning, it was not expressed more simply. But if the apostle
had said “He was declared to be the Son of God according to the
Holy Spirit,” the reader would have thought he meant “the Holy
Ghost”; and it seems to have been just to avoid this
misapprehension that he used the rare expression, “the spirit of
holiness.”1
Romans 1:4
“Spirit of holiness” was a common Jewish name for the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of God. A regular synagogue prayer regarded
the future resurrection of the dead as the ultimate
demonstration of God’s power. The phrase “Son of God” meant
many things to many different people in the ancient world, but
it could strike Roman pagans as portraying Jesus as a rival to
1
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New
Testaments, On Spine: Critical and Explanatory Commentary. (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997),
Ro 1:4.
Holy Spirit *Holy Spirit. Although used only twice in the Old Testament (Ps 51, Is 63), this term became a standard
title for the Spirit of God in New Testament times. Many people believed that the Spirit had been quenched since the
completion of the Old Testament and that prophecy continued only in muted form; but the Old Testament had
promised an outpouring of the Spirit in the end, when the Messiah would come. Jewish people especially associated
the Spirit with prophecy and divine illumination or insight, and many also (especially the Essenes) associated it with
God purifying his people in the end time. The New Testament includes both uses, although it also speaks of the Spirit
as a person like the Father and Son (especially in John), which Judaism did not do.
synagogue *Synagogues. Assembly places used by Jewish people for public prayer, Scripture readings and
community meetings.
resurrection *Resurrection. Although some scholars earlier in the twentieth century derived the idea of Jesus’
resurrection from Greek mystery cults, it is now widely understood that early Christian belief shared little in common
with the Mysteries’ myths, which simply reenacted a seasonal revivification of fertility. Rather, Jesus’ resurrection
was rooted in a Jewish hope, which in turn was rooted in notions of God’s covenant, promise and justice from early
in Israel’s history. Most Palestinian Jews believed that God would resurrect the bodies of the dead (at least the
righteous, and many believed also the wicked), at the end of the age (Dan 12:2). There was, however, never any
thought that one person would rise ahead of everyone else; thus Jesus’ resurrection, as an inauguration of the future
kingdom within history, caught even the disciples by surprise.
Son *Son of God. The term was applied generically to all Israel (Ex 4:22) but specifically to the Davidic king (2 Sam
7:14), especially (following 2 Samuel) the ultimate restorer (Ps 2:7; 89:27). Although most Jewish texts from the time
of Jesus do not use it to designate the Messiah, some do (Essene interpreters of 2 Sam 7:14).

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the emperor; in the Old Testament it referred to the Davidic
line, thus ultimately to the promised Jewish king (see 1:3; cf. 2
Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:27). Paul here regards Jesus’ resurrection
as the Spirit’s coronation of him as the Messiah and as
humanity’s first taste of the future resurrection and kingdom.2
Romans 1:4
According to the spirit of holiness. NRSV
This expression
completes a parallel reference to Jesus’ dual nature. The two
phrases use the Greek kata, which is literally translated by the
words according to. Jesus was a descendant of David. according
to the flesh (kata sarka) and he was declared Son of God
according to the spirit of holiness (kata pneuma hagiousunes).
In short, Christ was fully human and fully divine. Jesus’ entire
life, from his human conception to his resurrection, was
planned, promised, and fulfilled by God. There is some question
Old Testament *Old Testament. The common modern term for the Hebrew Bible (including Aramaic portions) as
defined by the Jewish and Protestant Christian canons; Jewish readers generally call this the Tenach.
Messiah *Messiah. The rendering of a Hebrew term meaning “anointed one,” equivalent to the original sense of the
Greek term translated “Christ.” In the Old Testament, different kinds of people were anointed, and some of the Dead
Sea Scrolls mention two main anointed ones in the end time, a king and a priest. But the common expectation
reflected in the biblical Psalms and Prophets was that one of David’s royal descendants would take the throne again
when God reestablished his kingdom for Israel. Most people believed that God would somehow have to intervene to
put down Roman rule so the Messiah’s kingdom could be secure; many seem to have thought this intervention
would be accomplished through force of arms. Various messianic figures arose in first-century Palestine, expecting a
miraculous intervention from God; all were crushed by the Romans. (Jesus was the only one claimed to have been
resurrected; he was also one of the only messiahs claiming Davidic descent, proof of which became difficult for any
claimants arising after A.D. 70.)
kingdom *Kingdom. This term means “rule,” “reign” or “authority” (not a king’s people or land, as connotations of
the English term could imply). Jewish people recognized that God rules the universe now, but they prayed for the
day when he would rule the world unchallenged by idolatry and disobedience. The coming of this future aspect of
God’s reign was generally associated with the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. Because Jesus came and will
come again, Christians believe that the kingdom has been inaugurated but awaits consummation or completion.
“Kingdom of heaven” is another way (Matthew’s usual way) of saying “kingdom of God.” “Heaven” was a standard
Jewish way of saying “God” (as in Lk 15:21).
2
Craig S. Keener and InterVarsity Press, The IVP Bible Background Commentary : New Testament (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ro 1:4.
NRSV
Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted,
1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of
America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

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over whether the expression the spirit of holiness, which is not
capitalized in Greek, refers to the Holy Spirit acting through the
Resurrection or to the spirit of Christ’s holy character that,
combined with the Resurrection, declares his Sonship. The NIV
preserves the ambiguity in its text, while other translations
(e.g., NRSV) sometimes make note of the difference. The
emphasis of Paul’s statement is that Jesus was clearly marked
out as the Son of God when he rose from the dead.
Declared the Son of God. NASB
The term declared here does
not mean that Christ somehow achieved or gained his Sonship.
It means that his nature as God’s Son was made clear by his
resurrection from the dead. NIV
He was, is, and will always be
the Son of God. Christ’s resurrection unmistakably revealed that
truth to the world. At the time of his resurrection, Christ was
glorified and restored to his full rights and status as Son of God
in power (Philippians 2:4–9).
HE IS RISEN!
Our personal declaration or acceptance of Jesus as God’s
Son does not affect the truth of who he is, but it certainly
makes a difference in our lives. In surrendering to that
truth, we place ourselves in a position where we can benefit
from all Christ offers. He is our Savior even before we
accept him as such; but until we accept him, we have not
been saved. And that is only the beginning. The faith that
believers have in God’s guidance rests on the truth of
Christ’s resurrection. The same power that raised Christ
from the dead is the power that operates in believers’ lives
not only to save, but also to help them obey God and to
give them victory over death.
NIV Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®
. NIV®
. Copyright ©
1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights
reserved.
NASB
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968,
1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Romans 1:1
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Jesus Christ our Lord. NIV
Jesus is eternal and exalted as Lord
at God’s right hand (Psalm 110:1; Acts 2:33–35). The gospel
message tells us about Christ, the Son of God, who humbled
himself and then was glorified by the Holy Spirit. When the
gospel message is received, Jesus becomes our Lord. The
message is true (Jesus Christ is Lord), whether we believe it or
not. But personally recognizing Jesus as our Lord is an
important part of realizing that his authority extends to every
area of our lives.3
Romans 1:4
But declared to be the Son of God. Though in human form
he was demonstrated to be divine by power, such power as he
displayed in mighty miracles, and especially by the greater
miracle of his own resurrection from the dead. According to
the spirit of holiness. It must be noted that this is a contrast
with according to the flesh in verse 3, and hence must refer to
our Lord’s holy nature. The body was descended from David,
but the pure, holy life was demonstrated to be divine. One was
a human nature; the other was a divine nature. This nature is
spoken of as “the spirit of holiness,” because it is contrasted
with sinful flesh. 4
Romans 1:4
Declared with power to be the Son of God. The word
declared means, 1. To limit, or, when referring to ideas, to
define. 2. To decree (Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; Hebrews 4:7). 3.
To appoint or constitute (Acts 10:42; 17:31). A few
commentators give this last meaning to the word in this
passage. The apostle would then be saying that Christ was
appointed, or constituted, the Son of God by or after his
resurrection. But this is inconsistent with Paul’s teaching
elsewhere that Christ was the Son of God before the foundation
3
Bruce B. Barton, David Veerman and Neil S. Wilson, Romans, Life application Bible commentary (Wheaton, IL:
Tyndale House Publishers, 1992), 6.
4
Barton Warren Johnson, The People's New Testament : With Explanatory Notes (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research
Systems, Inc., 1999), 15.

Romans 1:1
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of the world (Colossians 1:15). As is shown above, Son of God
is not a title of office but of nature, and therefore Christ cannot
be said to have been constituted the Son of God. This
interpretation also would create great difficulties in the latter
part of the verse. Hence even those commentators who insist
most strenuously on adhering to the direct meaning of words
are forced by the demands of the context to understand the
Greek word as a declaration, or in reference to human
knowledge. That is, when Christ is said to be constituted the
Son of God, we are not to understand that he became or was
made Son, but was, in the view of men, thus decreed.
With power. Theophylact and Theodoret understand these
words to refer to the miracles which Jesus, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, performed to confirm his claim to be the Son of God.
The former of these commentators takes the words through
the Spirit, with power, by his resurrection to denote three
distinct proofs of the Sonship of Christ. He was proved by his
miraculous power, by the Holy Spirit either as given to him, or
as by him given to his people (the latter is Theophylact’s view),
and by his resurrection to be the Son of God. But the change of
the prepositions, and especially the antithetical structure of the
sentence, by which through the Spirit is obviously opposed to
his human nature, are decisive objections to this
interpretation.
Other commentators try to link with power to Son and say
“Son in power,” meaning “powerful Son.” But a more common
and natural construction is to link with power … Son to
declared, meaning “powerfully, effectually proved to be the
Son of God.” He was declared emphatically to be the Son of
God.
Through the Spirit of holiness. As has just been pointed
out, these words are in antithesis to as to his human nature.
In his human nature he was the Son of David; in the Spirit he
was the Son of God. As sarx means his human nature, Spirit
can hardly mean anything else than the higher or divine nature

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of Christ. The word Spirit may be seen in this sense in 1
Timothy 3:16, “vindicated by the Spirit.” He was shown to be
just; his claims were all sustained by the manifestations of his
divine nature, that is, of his divine power and authority: “who
through the eternal Spirit” offered himself to God (Hebrews
9:14). First Peter 3:18 is a more doubtful passage.
The genitive of holiness is a qualification of Spirit, the
Spirit of holiness, the Spirit whose characteristic is holiness.
This expression seems to be used here to prevent ambiguity, as
the Holy Spirit is appropriated as the designation of the third
person of the Trinity. As the word “holy” often means “august,”
so “holiness” expresses that attribute of a person which renders
him worthy of reverence; the Spirit of holiness is therefore
the Spirit to be most venerated, the divine nature, or Godhead,
which dwelt in Jesus Christ. This is the Logos, who in the
beginning was with God, and was God, and who became flesh
and dwelt among us.
It is clear that Spirit does not mean here the spiritual state of
exaltation of Christ. First, the word is never used in this way
elsewhere; and, second, it is inconsistent with the antithesis to
human nature.
Those who understand the phrase Spirit of holiness to refer
to the Holy Spirit either suppose that the apostle refers to the
evidence given by the Spirit to the Sonship of Christ (Calvin’s
view), or think he is appealing to the testimony of the Spirit as
given in the Scriptures: “Christ was declared to be the Son of
God according to the Spirit.” To both these views, however, the
same objection remains, that the antithesis is destroyed.
By his resurrection from the dead. Erasmus, Luther, and
others translate this “after the resurrection from the dead”: it
was not until Christ had risen that the evidence of his Sonship
was complete, or its full import known even to the apostles. But
it suits the context better, and is more in line with the
Scriptures, to consider the resurrection itself as the evidence of

Romans 1:1
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his Sonship. It was by the resurrection that he was proved to be
the Son of God. God, says the apostle, “has set a day when he
will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.
He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the
dead” (Acts 17:31). The apostle Peter also says that “In his
great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter
1:3; compare 1 Peter 3:21; Acts 13:35 and 26:23; 1
Corinthians 15:20). In these and many other passages the
resurrection of Christ is represented as the great conclusive
evidence of the truth of all that Christ taught, and of the validity
of all his claims.
If it be asked how the resurrection of Christ is a proof that he
is the Son of God, the answer is, first, that he rose by his own
power. He had power to lay down his life, and he had power to
take it again (John 10:18). This is not inconsistent with the fact
taught in so many other passages, that he was raised by the
power of the Father, because what the Father does, the Son
likewise does. Creation, and all other external works, are
impartially ascribed to the Father, Son, and Spirit. In the second
place, as Christ had openly declared himself to be the Son of
God, his rising from the dead was God’s seal to the truth of that
declaration. Had Christ continued under the power of death, it
would have meant that God had disallowed Christ’s claim to be
his Son; but since God raised Christ from the dead, he publicly
acknowledged him, saying, “You are my Son; this day I have
declared you as such.” “If Christ has not been raised, our
preaching is useless,” says the apostle, “and so is your faith.…
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits
of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 20).
Jesus Christ our Lord. These words are in apposition with
his Son in the third verse: his Son … Jesus Christ our Lord.
All the names of Christ are precious to his people. He is called
Jesus, “Saviour,” because he saves his people from their sins
(Matthew 1:21). The name Christ — that is, Messiah, Anointed
— connects him with all the predictions and promises of the Old

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Testament. He is the anointed prophet, priest, and king, to
whom all believing eyes had so long been directed, and on
whom all hopes centered.
He is our Lord. This word is often used as a mere term of
respect, equivalent to “Sir.” But as it is used by the Septuagint
as the translation of the Hebrew word adonai, in the sense of
supreme Lord and possessor, so in the New Testament it is
applied in the same sense to Christ. He is our supreme Lord and
possessor. We belong to him, and his authority over us is
absolute, reaching to the heart and conscience as well as to our
behavior. To him every knee shall bow and every tongue
confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He, then,
who in this exalted sense is our Lord is, in his human nature,
the Son of David, and, in his divine nature, the Son of God.5
Romans 1:4
ὁρισθέντος υἱου̂ θεου̂ ἐν δυνάμει, “appointed Son of God in
power.” ὁρισθέντος (only here in Paul) is quite frequently taken
in the sense “designated” (RSV), “declared to be”
(BGD, NEB, NIV). This would be acceptable so long as it is
recognized that the verb denotes an act of God which brought
Jesus to his designated status (“Son of God in power”)—a sense
which “appointed” conveys more accurately (see the evidence
cited in MM and TDNT 5:450–51; and the strong
statements, e.g., of Lagrange, Barrett, Murray, Michel,
5
Charles Hodge, Romans, Originally Published: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 1835., The Crossway
classic commentaries (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1993), Ro 1:4.
RSV Revised Standard Version (NT 1946, OT 1952, Apoc 1957)
BGD W. Bauer, F. W. Gingrich and F. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT
NEB The New English Bible
NIV The New International Version (1978)
MM J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder, 1930)
TDNT G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, eds., tr. G. W. Bromiley Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols., ET
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76)
e.g. exempli gratia, for example

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Käsemann, and Cranfield). The occasion of the “appointment” is
clearly the resurrection (“as from the resurrection of the dead”);
no doubt it was in recognition of this clear implication that the
Old Latin textual tradition prefixed προ- to the verb (see Notes),
to predate to eternity the decision to appoint (“predestined”).
But here the act of appointment itself is described (in parallel
with γενομένου), without raising the question as to whether it
had been foreordained (for which the perfect ὡρισμένος would
have been more appropriate; cf. Acts 2:23; 10:42) (despite
Allen). According to the creedal formula, then, Jesus became
something he was not before, or took on a role which was not
previously his before (cf. Michel).
That status or role is described as “Son of God in power”; that
ἐν δυνάμει should be taken with the noun rather than the verb is
generally accepted to be the most obvious reading of the phrase
(see, e.g., Lagrange, Gaugler, Fitzmyer, Cranfield; against NEB—
“by a mighty act,” NIV—“declared with power,” Boismard). “In
power” was presumably important to Paul. It indicated that
Jesus’ divine sonship (v 3) had been “upgraded” or “enhanced”
by the resurrection, so that he shared more fully in the very
power of God, not simply in status (at God’s right hand—see
below κύριος), but in “executive authority,” able to act on and
through people in the way Paul implies elsewhere (e.g., 8:10; 1
Cor 15:45; Gal 2:20; Col 2:6–7). For Paul this would be a
further way of saying that the gospel was not about Jesus
simply as Messiah; that role was inadequate for the full sweep
of God’s purpose; the full extent of God’s purpose could only be
realized through Jesus as Messiah (of Israel) risen from the
dead to become the Son of God in power (for all); cf. Schmidt,
17–19, and again Theobald, 386–89.
For those aware that the royal Messiah was also called God’s
Son (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; 1QSa 2.11–12; 4QFlor 1.10—fin.;
cf. confer, compare
1QSa Appendix A (Rule of the Congregation) to 1QS
4QFlor Florilegium (or Eschatological Midrashim) from Qumran Cave 4

Romans 1:1
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4DQpsDan Aa
) the phrase “in power” would be a natural
qualification: Jesus did not first become God’s Son at the
resurrection; but he entered upon a still higher rank of sonship
at resurrection. Certainly this has to be designated a “two-stage
Christology” (the first line is not simply preparatory to the
second, as the parallelism shows—against Wengst, 114–16),
though what precisely is being affirmed of each stage in relation
to the other is not clear. To describe the Christology as
“adoptionist” (as Knox; Gaston, Paul, 113) is anachronistic since
there is no indication that this “two-stage Christology” was
being put forward in opposition to some already formulated
“three-stage Christology” (as in later Adoptionism); cf. Maillot.
And Paul would certainly see the earlier formula as congruent
with his own Christology; as already noted under Form and
Structure, it is hardly likely that Paul would both use the
formula as an indication of common faith with his readers and
attempt to correct it at the same time (Eichholz, Theologie,
130–31). 1:4 together with the similar very early Christological
formulation in Acts 2:36 and early use of Ps 2:7 in reference to
the resurrection (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5) should be seen
more as evidence of the tremendous impact made by the
resurrection of Jesus on the first Christians than as a carefully
thought-out theological statement. That being said, it remains
significant that these early formulations and Paul saw in the
resurrection of Jesus a “becoming” of Jesus in status and role,
not simply a ratification of a status and role already enjoyed on
earth or from the beginning of time (see further
Dunn, Christology, 33–36).
κατὰ πνευ̂μα ἁγιωσύνης, “in terms of the spirit of holiness”;
(NJB’s “in terms of the Spirit and of holiness” is inadmissible).
The term is clearly Semitic in character, modeled on the Hebraic
form (not the LXX) of Ps 51:11 and Isa 63:10–11 (see also T.
NJB New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
LXX The Septuagint, Greek translation of the OT
T. Levi Testament of Levi (from Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs)

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Levi 18.11; 1QS 4.21; 8.16; 9.3; 1QH 7.6–7; 9.32; 12.12;
etc.); cf. the phrases used in Rom 8:15; Gal 6:1; Eph 1:17;
and 2 Tim 1:7. It would almost certainly be understood by Paul
and the first Christians as denoting the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
which is characterized by holiness, partaker of God’s holiness
(see on 1:7); but these looser phrases remind us that the
conceptuality of God’s power active upon humankind and
creation was not yet so sharply defined as in later Christian
thought (cf. 11:8). Still important for the Pauline (and early
Christian) conception of the Spirit as heavenly power is H.
Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck, 1888; ET The Influence of the Holy Spirit, tr. R.
A. Harrisville and P. A. Quanbeck II [Philadelphia: Fortress,
1979]); further literature in Dunn, Jesus. See further on 5:5.
The κατά is probably deliberately vague; elsewhere Paul for
one seems to go out of his way to avoid attributing Jesus’
resurrection to the Spirit (6:4; 8:11; and further
Dunn, Christology, 144). All he says here is that the new phase
of Christ’s existence and role was characterized by holy Spirit,
just as the previous phase was characterized by flesh. The
sense of πνευ̂μα = “heavenly sphere or its substance,” argued
for by Schweizer in his influential article (“Röm 1:3f.”;
also TDNT 6:416–17) is too cosmological and static; with both
σάρξ and πνευ̂μα what is envisaged is a “condition” and power
which determine the kind of existence actually lived out (so also
the resurrection body as σω̂μα πνευματικόν, “spiritual
body”); cf. Käsemann, Theobald, 379, and Form and Structure.
This helps us to see that the antithesis of the two lines once
again need not be unnaturally exclusive. As the assertion of
Jesus as Son of God “from the resurrection” need not exclude
the idea of the royal Messiah as God’s son, so the description of
Jesus’ resurrection sonship as κατὰ πνευ̂μα need not exclude
1QS (Rule of the Community, Manual of Discipline)
1QH (Thanksgiving Hymns) from Qumran Cave 1
ET English translation

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the idea that Jesus on earth was determined in some degree at
least by the Spirit (as is testified in early traditions about
Jesus—e.g., Matt 12:28//Luke 11:20; Acts 10:38). Paul would
certainly not be averse to seeing “flesh” and “Spirit” as
competing forces in Jesus’ life as much as in the believer’s (Gal
5:16–17; Rom 8:12–14; cf. Althaus), or to the idea that Jesus
provided a pattern for living “in terms of the Spirit” (see on 6:17
and 15:3). So he may well have seen Jesus’ resurrection
appointment κατὰ πνευ̂μα as in some important sense an
outworking of his life on earth lived κατὰ πνευ̂μα (cf. 2 Cor
4:16–5:5). See Dunn, “Jesus.” For the older view see Kuss, 6–
8; and cf. Haacker and the still valuable treatment of Godet.
Unconcerned by his use of anachronistic categories, Cranfield
continues to argue that Paul “intended to limit the application of
του̂ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυίδ to the human nature which
the One (God’s Son, v 3) assumed” (“Comments,” 270—my
italics; similarly 278).
ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρω̂ν, “as from the resurrection of the
dead”—not “as from his resurrection from the dead” (see
particularly Nygren). The phrase presumably reflects the earliest
Christian belief that Jesus’ resurrection was not simply a “one-
off” event, but actually part of the beginning of the general
resurrection prior to the last judgment; cf. Acts 4:2, 23:6, the
metaphor of Christ’s resurrection as the “first fruits” of the final
resurrection (1 Cor 15:20, 23), and the obviously ancient
tradition of Jesus’ resurrection being accompanied by a more
general resurrection in Matt 27:52–53—a clear indication of the
impact made by Jesus’ resurrection on the first disciples and of
the enthusiasm engendered by it. Whatever the precise force of
the ὁρισθέντος it is clear enough that in the formula Christ’s
divine sonship in power is thought of as beginning or as
operative from the resurrection (see further above). On the
question of whether the ἐκ is temporal or causal, see Wengst,
114–15.
ʼΙησου̂ Χριστου̂ του̂ κυρίου ἡμω̂ν, “Jesus Christ our
Lord”—in apposition to “concerning his Son” (v 3) and with that

Romans 1:1
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phrase probably forming the bracket with which Paul framed the
earlier formula (see Form and Structure), and by means of
which he underlined the centrality of Christology in the common
faith of the first Christians (Bornkamm, Paul, 249). One of Paul’s
regular phrases in speaking of Jesus, in which the word order
was very flexible (usually ὁ κύριος ἡμω̂ν ʼΙησου̂ς Χριστός); as
here in 5:21; 7:25; 1 Cor 1:9; Jude 25 (see BGD, κύριος).
κύριος is Paul’s favorite title for Christ (about 230 times in the
Pauline corpus); and its close link here to ἐξ ἀναστάσεως
νεκρω̂ν reflects the degree to which, for Paul and the first
Christians generally, the Lordship of Christ was a result of his
resurrection—another element in his “becoming” (see on
ὁρισθέντος κτλ. above, and further on 10:9; but also on 4:24).
“Christ Jesus our Lord” is the other side of Paul’s self-
consciousness as “slave of Christ Jesus” (v 1), and its regularity
in Paul’s letters shows how much it had become second nature
for Paul to think of himself and Christians at large as bound to
Jesus as slave to master, their lives to be spent at the behest of
the risen one.6
Romans 1:4
Who was declared (του ὁρισθεντος [tou horisthentos]).
Articular participle (first aorist passive) of ὁριζω [horizō] for
which verb see on Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23. He was the Son of
God in his preincarnate state (II Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:6) and still so
after his Incarnation (verse 3, “of the seed of David”), but it was
the Resurrection of the dead (ἐξ ἀναστασεως νεκρων [ex
anastaseōs nekrōn], the general resurrection implied by that of
Christ) that definitely marked Jesus off as God’s Son because of
his claims about himself as God’s Son and his prophecy that he
would rise on the third day. This event (cf. I Cor. 15) gave
God’s seal “with power” (ἐν δυναμει [en dunamei]), “in power,”
declared so in power (II Cor. 13:4). The Resurrection of Christ is
the miracle of miracles. “The resurrection only declared him to
be what he truly was” (Denney).
6
James D. G. Dunn, vol. 38A, Word Biblical Commentary : Romans 1-8, electronic ed., Logos Library System; Word
Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 13.

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According to the spirit of holiness (κατα πνευμα
ἁγιωσυνης [kata pneuma hagiōsunēs]). Not the Holy Spirit, but
a description of Christ ethically as κατα σαρκα [kata sarka]
describes him physically (Denney). ἁγιωσυνη [Hagiōsunē] is
rare (I Thess. 3:13; II Cor. 7:1 in N.T.), three times in LXX,
each time as the attribute of God. “The πνευμα ἁγιωσυνης
[pneuma hagiōsunēs], though not the Divine nature, is that in
which the Divinity or Divine Personality Resided ” (Sanday and
Headlam). Jesus Christ our Lord (Ἰησου Χριστου του κυριου
ἡμων [Iēsou Christou tou kuriou hēmōn]). These words gather
up the total personality of Jesus (his deity and his humanity). 7
Romans 1:4
Declared (ὁρισθέντος). Rev., in margin, determined. The
same verb as in the compound separated in ver. 1. Bengel says
that it expresses more than “separated,” since one of a number
is separated, but only one is defined or declared. Compare Acts
10:42; 17:31. It means to designate one for something, to
nominate, to instate. There is an antithesis between born (ver.
3) and declared. As respected Christ’s earthly descent, He was
born like other men. As respected His divine essence, He was
declared. The idea is that of Christ’s instatement or
establishment in the rank and dignity of His divine sonship with
a view to the conviction of men. This was required by His
previous humiliation, and was accomplished by His resurrection,
which not only manifested or demonstrated what He was, but
wrought a real transformation in His mode of being. Compare
Acts 2:36; “God made, ” etc.
With power (ἐν δυνάμει). Lit., in power. Construe with was
declared. He was declared or instated mightily; in a striking,
triumphant manner, through His resurrection.
7
A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol.V c1932, Vol.VI c1933 by Sunday School Board of the
Southern Baptist Convention. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Ro 1:4.
Rev. Revised Version of the New Testament.
Lit. Literally.

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Spirit of holiness. In contrast with according to the flesh.
The reference is not to the Holy Spirit, who is nowhere
designated by this phrase, but to the spirit of Christ as the seat
of the divine nature belonging to His person. As God is spirit,
the divine nature of Christ is spirit, and its characteristic quality
is holiness.
Resurrection from the dead (ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν). Wrong,
since this would require the preposition ἐκ from. Rev., correctly,
of the dead. Though this resurrection is here represented as
actually realized in one individual only, the phrase, as
everywhere in the New Testament, signifies the resurrection of
the dead absolutely and generically — of all the dead, as
exemplified, included, and involved in the resurrection of Christ.
See on Philip. 3:11.8
Romans 1:4
Next he stresses the quality of his being as Son of God: who
was powerfully declared to be Son of God by the
resurrection of the dead. In every instance where Paul uses
the word “dead” after the word “resurrection,” the Greek word
“dead” is in the plural. Sometimes he explicitly means a
resurrection of individuals (cf. I Cor 15:12, 13, 21, 42). But
here in Rom 1:4 and also in Acts 26:23 he is referring to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet the term “dead” is in the plural.
Hence in the resurrection of this individual there is implicit the
resurrection of all who will be raised by him. But explicitly in
Rom 1:4 Paul is referring to the victory of Christ over death (cf.
6:9). The use of the plural here is a stylistic trait of the writer.
In accordance with the Spirit of Holiness. The
resurrection from the dead was a fact proclaimed by Christians.
But the powerful declaration of Jesus as Son of God by his
8
Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.,
2002), 3:i-4.
cf. confer (compare)

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resurrection was the work of the Holy Spirit in illuminating the
full meaning of the historical fact. Some scholars take “spirit of
Holiness” to be a strengthened form of “the Holy Spirit” (see
Arndt, hagiōsynē, p. 10). Others take the phrase to refer to
Christ’s human spirit, which was characterized by great
holiness—“in relation to the (his) spirit of holiness” (see Sanday
and Headlam, ICC, p. 9; cf. Arndt, pneuma, 2}, p. 681).
Another view equates “holiness” here with Deity or God. But the
Spirit of God, according to this view, is not the Holy Spirit but
the Creative Living Principle, God operative in human affairs
(see Otto Procksch, TWNT, I, 116: “Christ’s Deity becomes clear
by the resurrection in which the new creation shows itself
according to the Principle of ...Deity.”Being born (1:3; AV, was
made) asserts origination. Being declared (v. 4) asserts the
designation of what is. Hence the human and the divine are
contrasted in these two verses. One must decide whether the
phrase, pneuma hagiōsynēs (Spirit of Holiness, spirit of
holiness, Creative Principle of Deity), modifies the declaration,
or describes the person of Christ, or conveys the idea of the
activity of God in the world. The first interpretation, which
certainly appears to be the best, calls for the translation, “Spirit
of Holiness.”9
Arndt Arndt-Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon
p. page, pages
ICC International Critical Commentary
TWNT Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Kittel)
AV Authorized Version
9
Charles F. Pfeiffer and Everett Falconer Harrison, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary : New Testament (Chicago: Moody
Press, 1962), Ro 1:4.

Romans 1:4 - Collection of Biblical Commentaries

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Romans 1:4 - Collection of Biblical Commentaries