Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

This is plain as to the authority He assumes as a teacher both of truth and duty. Everything which He declared to be true, all Christians have ever felt bound to believe, without examination and all that He commanded them to do or to avoid, they have ever regarded as binding the conscience. His authority is the ultimate and highest ground of faith and moral obligation. As the infinite and absolute reason dwelt in Him bodily, his words were the words of God. He declared himself to be the Truth, and therefore to question what He said was to reject the truth; to disobey Him was to disobey the truth. He was announced as the Logos, the personal and manifested Reason, which was and is the light of the world, — the source of all reason and of all knowledge to rational creatures. Hence He spake as never man spake. He taught with authority. He did not do as Moses and the prophets did, speak in the name of God, and say, Thus saith the Lord, referring to an authority out of themselves. But He spoke in his own name, and the Apostles in the name of Christ. He was the ultimate authority. He uniformly places Himself in the relation of God to his people. Ye shall be saved "if ye do whatsoever I command you." He that heareth me heareth God. I and the Father are one; He in me and I in Him. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away. Moses said unto you thus and so, but I say unto you. He did not deny the divine mission of Moses, but He assumed the right to modify or repeal the laws which God had given to his people under the old economy. The whole of revealed truth in the Old as well as in the New Testament is referred to Him as its source. For the ancient prophets taught nothing but what "the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify," which is equivalent to saying that they spake "as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" or "that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." And the Apostles presented themselves simply as witnesses of what Christ had taught. Paul declared that he received all his knowledge "by the revelation of Jesus Christ." And in his Epistle to the Corinthians he expresses the same truth by saying negatively, that his knowledge was not derived from human reason (the spirit that is in men), but from the Spirit of God. Nothing is more obvious to the reader of the New Testament than this divine authority as a teacher everywhere claimed by Christ and for Him. To disbelieve Him is to disbelieve God; and to disobey Him is to disobey God. This is entirely different from the authority claimed by the prophets and Apostles. They assumed nothing for themselves. Paul disclaimed all authority over the faith of God's people, except on the ground of the proof which he gave that it was "Christ speaking in" him. (2 Cor. xiii. 3.)

The divine authority of Christ is manifest in the control which He claimed over all his people and over all creatures. All power was and is in his hands. His ministers are under his direction; He sends one here and another there. All Paul's labors and journeyings were performed under his continued guidance. This is but an illustration of the universal and absolute control which He constantly exercises over the whole universe. The angels in heaven are his messengers, and the course of human history, as well as the circumstances of every individual man, is determined by Him. So also is the eternal destiny of all men in his hands. I will reward every man, He says, according to his works. (Matt. xvi. 27, and Rev. xxii. 12.) "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. vii. 22, 23.) In the last day, at the "time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." (Matt. xiii. 30.) And in ver. 41, "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." The king in that day will say, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was a hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:" for "inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me." It is the attitude, therefore, in which men stand to Christ (provided they have heard his name), which is to determine their destiny in the last day. Sinning against Christ, denying or rejecting Him, is denying or rejecting God. Our Lord therefore uniformly places Himself in the relation of God to the souls of men, claiming the same authority over them, the same right to decide their destiny, and representing all sin as committed against Himself. Thus also He says, that it were better for a man to have a millstone hung about his neck and he cast into the midst of the sea, than to offend one of the little ones who believe on Him. "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God." (Luke xii. 8, 9.) "He that loveth father or mother.... son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Such supreme love is due to God alone, and Christ in claiming this love from us, places Himself before us as God.

D. The Nature of his Promises.

The same is plain from the nature of his promises. Christ promises to his people blessings which none but God has either the right or the power to bestow. He promises to forgive sin. It is intuitively certain that God only can forgive sin; He is our moral governor; it is against Him that all sin is committed, and He only has the right to remit its penalty. When therefore Christ says to the soul, Thy sins are forgiven, He exercises a divine prerogative. Even the Man of Sin, who sitteth in the temple of God and exalteth himself above all that is called God, claims no more than the judicial authority of deciding when the conditions of pardon at the bar of God have been fulfilled. He assumes, in relation to the divine law, the relation which a human judge sustains to the law of the land. A judge does not acquit or condemn on his own authority. The authority is in the state or sovereign power. The judge merely determines whether the grounds of condemnation are present or not. But as the sovereign against whom sin is committed, Christ has the right to pardon or to punish. Again, He promises the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist announced his approach as one who was to baptize the people with fire and with the Holy Ghost. And accordingly it is recorded that He did send down on his disciples, especially on the day of Pentecost, power from on high. It had been predicted that God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh; and that prophecy the Apostle Peter teaches was fulfilled when Christ, exalted at the right hand of God, shed forth his gifts on his waiting disciples. In his farewell discourse to the Apostles, He said, I will send you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, who shall abide with you forever. All the sanctifying influences, as well as all the gifts of teaching and of miracles which the Church has ever enjoyed, come from the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives the Spirit to every one severally as He will. "Unto every one of us, says Paul, "is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." (Eph. iv. 7.) He promises to hear and answer the prayers of his people in all ages and in all parts of the world. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it." "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." "Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." He thus promises his continued presence to his disciples wherever they may be. He also promises to all who believe on Him, eternal life. He has power to quicken or to give life to as many as He will. "My sheep follow me, and I give unto them eternal life." "I will raise them up at the last day." "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life." "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." "A crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me in that day." "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." "I go to prepare a place for you." "I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is obvious that the infinite God himself can neither promise nor give anything greater or higher than Christ gives his people. To Him they are taught to look as the source of all blessings, the giver of every good and every perfect gift. There is no more comprehensive prayer in the New Testament than that with which Paul closes his Epistle to the Galatians: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." His favour is our life, which it could not be if He were not our God.

A fourth general feature of the New Testament teaching concerning Christ, relates to the control attributed to Him over the external world. The laws of nature are ordained by God. They can be changed or suspended by Him alone. A miracle, therefore, or any event which involves such change or suspension, is an evidence of the immediate operation of divine power. The efficient agent, therefore, in working a miracle, must possess divine power. When Moses, the prophets, or the Apostles wrought miracles, they expressly disclaimed the idea that it was by their own efficiency. Why look ye on us, says the Apostle Peter, as though by our own power we had made this man whole? When Moses divided the Red Sea, the efficiency by which that effect was produced was no more in him than in the rod with which he smote the waters. Christ, however, wrought miracles by his own inherent power; and it was to his efficiency the Apostles attributed the miracles wrought through them. It was his name, or faith in Him, as Peter taught the people, which effected the instantaneous healing of the lame man. Christ never referred this miraculous power to any source out of Himself; He claimed it as his own prerogative; and He conferred the power upon others. He said of Himself that He had power to lay down his life and power to take it again; that He had life in Himself and could give life to as many as He pleased; I will give you, He said to his disciples, power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the adversary. Every miracle of Christ, therefore, was a visible manifestation of his divinity. When He healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, restored the lame, raised the dead, fed thousands with a few loaves of bread, and calmed the raging of the sea, it was by a word, by the effortless exercise of his will. He thus manifested forth his glory, giving ocular demonstration to those who had eyes to see, that He was God in fashion as a man. He therefore appealed directly to his works, "Though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in Him." "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not." (John x. 37, 38.) "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." (John xv. 24.)

It is only a small part of the evidence of the divinity of our Lord that can thus be gathered up from the general teaching of the New Testament. It is important to bear in mind that faith in this doctrine rests not on this or that passage, or on this or that mode of representation, but upon the whole revelation of God concerning his Son. The divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is wrought into the texture of the Scriptures, and is everywhere asserted or assumed. There are, however, many passages in which the doctrine is so clearly presented, that they should not be passed by in any formal discussion of this subject.

§ 3. Particular Passages which Teach the Divinity of Christ.

John i. 1-14. Why the higher nature of Christ is called ho logos and why John used that designation, are different questions. As the word logos does not occur in Scripture in the sense of reason, it should be taken in its ordinary meaning. The question why the Son is called "The Word" may be answered by saying that the term expresses both his nature and his office. The word is that which reveals. The Son is the eikon and apaugasma of God, and therefore his word. It is his office to make God known to his creatures. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The Son, therefore, as the revealer of God, is the Word. The reason why John selected this designation of the divine nature of Christ, is not so easy to determine. It may indeed be said that there is ground for the use of the term in the usage of the Old Testament and of the Jews who were contemporaries with the Apostle. In the Hebrew Scriptures the manifested Jehovah is called the Word of God, and to Him individual subsistence and divine perfections are ascribed. (Ps. xxxiii. 6; cxix. 89; Is. xl. 8; Ps. cvii. 20; cxlvii. 18.) This is more frequently done in the apocryphal books and in the Targums. It was not therefore an unusual or unknown term introduced by the Apostle John. Still as he only, of the New Testament writers, thus employs the word, there must have been some special reason for his doing so. That reason may have been to counteract the erroneous views concerning the nature of God and his Word, which had begun to prevail, and which had some support from the doctrines of Philo and other Alexandrian Jews. It is, however, of less importance to determine why John calls the Son logos, than to ascertain what he teaches concerning Him. He does teach (1.) That He is eternal. He was in the beginning; i.e., was before the creation; before the foundation of the world; before the world was. Compare Prov. viii. 23; John xvii. 5, 24; Eph. i. 4. These are all Scriptural forms of expressing the idea of eternity. The Word then was (en), He did not begin to be but already was. The en of ver. 1 stands opposed to egeneto ver. 14. "He was the Word, and became flesh." (2.) The eternal Word existed in intimate union with God. "The Word was with God;" as Wisdom is said to have been with Him in the beginning. (Prov. viii. 30; John i. 18.) (3.) He was God. The word theos clearly the predicate, as it is without the article (compare John iv. 24, pneuma ho theos, God is a Spirit), and because logos is the subject in the whole context. That theos is neither to be taken for theios, nor rendered a God, is plain from what is immediately said of the logos in the following verses, and from the analogy of Scripture, which proves that the logos is theos the highest sense of the word. In this connection ho theos en o logos would be equivalent to saying, "The Son is the Father." Theos without the article occurs frequently in the New Testament when it refers to the supreme God. (4.) The logos is the creator of all things. All things were made by Him. di' autou. The dia. here does not necessarily express subordinate instrumentality. All things are said to be dia theou as well as ek theou. The Father operates through the Son and the Son through the Spirit. All that the preposition indicates is subordination as to the mode of operation, which is elsewhere taught in relation to the persons of the Trinity. That all creatures owe their being to the Word, is made the more prominent by saying, "Without him was not anything made that was made;" pan ho gegonen is through Him. He therefore cannot be a creature. He was not only before all creatures, but everything created was by Him caused to be. (5.) The logos is self-existent. He is underived. "In him was life." This is true only of God. The Godhead subsisting in the Father, Word, and Spirit, alone is self-existent, having life in itself. (6.) The life of the Word "is the light of men." Having life in Himself, the Word is the source of life in all that lives, and especially of the intellectual and spiritual life of man; and therefore He is said to be the light of men; i.e., the source of intellectual life and knowledge in all their forms. (7.) The logos, as the true or real light, shineth in darkness (en te skotia = en tois eskotismenois) in the midst of a world alienated from God. The men of the world, the children of darkness, do not comprehend the light; they do not recognize the Word as God, the creator of all things, and the source of life and knowledge. To those who do thus recognize Him, He gives power to become the sons of God, that is, He raises them to the dignity and blessedness of God's children. (8.) This Word became flesh that is, became a man. This use of the word flesh is explained by such passages as 1 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. ii. 14; Rom. viii. 3, in connection with Luke i. 35; Gal. iv. 4; Phil. ii. 7. As to the glory of the incarnate logos, the Apostle says of himself and of his fellow disciples, "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father"; such as could belong to none other than to Him who is the eternal Son of God, consubstantial with the Father.

This introduction, which thus unmistakably sets forth the divine nature of Christ, is the key-note of John's Gospel, and of all his other writings. His main object is to convince men that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, and that the acknowledgment of Him as such is necessary to salvation. This Apostle was, therefore, in the early Church called the Theologos, because he taught so clearly and earnestly that the logos is God. In verse 18 of this chapter he says that the Son alone has the knowledge of God, and is the source of that knowledge to others. He showed Nathanael that He knew his character, being the searcher of hearts. In his discourse with Nicedemus, He spoke with divine authority; revealing the things of heaven, because He came from heaven and was even then in heaven. His coming into the world was the highest evidence of divine love, and the salvation of all men depends on faith in Him; that is, on their believing that He is what He declared Himself to be, and trusting Him and obeying Him accordingly. When the Jews censured Him for healing a lame man on the Sabbath, He defended Himself by saying that God worked on the Sabbath; that He and the Father were one; that He did whatever God did; that He could give life to whom He willed; that all judgment was committed to Him, and that He was entitled to the same honour as the Father. In the sixth chapter He sets Himself forth as the source of life, first under the figure of bread, and then under that of a sacrifice. In the eighth chapter He declares Himself to be the light of the world. "He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He alone could give true freedom, freedom from the condemnation and power of sin. He had been the only Saviour from the beginning as He was the object of faith to Abraham, who saw his day, and rejoiced, for he says, "Before Abraham was I am," thereby asserting not only his preexistence, but his eternity, as He declares himself to be the "I am," that is, the self-existing and immutable Jehovah.

In chapter x., under the character of a shepherd, He represents Himself as the head of all God's people, whose voice they hear, whose steps they follow, and in whose care they trust. For them He lays down his life, and takes it again. To them He gives eternal life, and their salvation is certain, for no one is able to pluck them out of his hands; and He and the Father are one. The eleventh chapter contains the history of the resurrection of Lazarus, on which it maybe remarked, (1.) That his disciples had full confidence that Christ could deliver from death whom He pleased. (2.) That He claims to be the resurrection and the life. To all that believe on Him He is the source of spiritual life to the soul, and of a resurrection to the body. (3.) In illustration and proof of his divine power, He called Lazarus from the grave.

The discourse recorded in the 14th, 15th, and 16th, and the prayer recorded in the 17th chapter, are the words of God to men. No created being could speak as Christ here speaks. He begins by exhorting his disciples to have the same faith in Him which they had in God. He went to prepare heaven for them, and would return and take them to Himself. The knowledge of Him is the knowledge of God. He who had seen Him had seen the Father also; for He and the Father are one. He promised to send them the Holy Ghost to abide with them permanently; and that He would manifest Himself to them as God manifests Himself to the saints, revealing to them his glory and love, and making them sensible of his presence. He would continue to be to his Church the source of life; union with Him is as necessary as the union of a branch to the vine. The Holy Spirit sent by Him would reveal the things of Christ, rendering the Apostles infallible as teachers, and giving divine illumination to all believers. It was necessary that He should leave them in order to send the Spirit, who would convince the world of the sin of not believing Him to be all He claimed to be; of the righteousness of his assumption to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world, of which his going to the Father (i.e. resurrection) was the decisive proof; and also of the certainty of a future judgment, inasmuch as the prince of this world was already judged. The Spirit was to glorify Christ, i.e., to reveal Him as possessing all divine perfections, for whatsoever the Father hath the Son hath likewise. His intercessory prayer could proceed from the lips of none but a divine person. He speaks as one who had power over all flesh, and who could give eternal life to all whom God the Father had given Him. Eternal life consists in the knowledge of God, and of Him whom God had sent. He prays that He, clothed in our nature, might be glorified with the glory which He had before the foundation of the world; that his people might be sanctified; that they might be one by his dwelling in them, and that they might be made partakers of his glory.

He was condemned by the Jews for claiming to be the Son of God, and by Pilate for claiming to be a king. When He was crucified the heavens were darkened, the earth trembled, the dead arose, and the vail of the temple was rent. By his resurrection his claim to be the Son of God and Saviour of men was authenticated. Thomas, not being present at the first interview between Christ and his disciples, doubted the fact of his resurrection; but when he saw Him he was fully convinced, and owned Him as his Lord and God. (John xx. 28.) That ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou is an address to Christ, and not an exclamation, is evident, (1.) From the words apekrithe kai eipen, he responded and said, which would be out of place before an exclamation. They introduce a reply to what Christ had said. Thomas answered that he was fully satisfied and firmly convinced that Christ was Lord and God. The word eipein never means to exclaim. (2.) Such an exclamation would be abhorrent to a Jew, who had even a superstitious reverence for the name of God, especially for the name Jehovah, and ho kurios ho theos is equivalent to yhvh 'lhym. (3.) The repetition of the pronoun mou also requires the passage to be considered as an address to Christ.

In his epistles the Apostle John presents the divinity of Christ with equal prominence. The great design of those epistles was to establish the faith of believers in the midst of the errors which had begun to prevail. The chief of those errors was denial, in some form, of the incarnation of the Son of God. Hence the Apostle not only insists so strenuously on the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, but makes that the one great fundamental doctrine of the gospel. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." He begins his epistles by reminding his readers that the Apostles had enjoyed the clearest possible evidence that the Logos tes zoes (He who has life and gives life) was manifest in the flesh. They had seen, looked upon, and handled Him. John gave believers this assurance in order that they might have fellowship with God and with his Son Jesus Christ. Many had already apostatized and denied the doctrine of the incarnation. To deny that doctrine, however, was to deny God; for whosoever denies the Son, rejects the Father also. He exhorts them, therefore, to abide in the Son as the only means of abiding in God and attaining eternal life. The tests by which they were to try those who professed to be inspired teachers, were, (1.) Whether they acknowledged the doctrine of the incarnation, i.e., of the true divinity and humanity of Christ. (iv. 2, 3, 15.) (2.) Conformity of doctrine with the teachings of the Apostles. (3.) Love to God, founded on his redeeming love to us, and love to the brethren, springing from this love to God. In chapter v. he tells his readers that the great truth to be believed is that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the faith which overcomes the world. This great truth is established by the testimony of God, both external and internal, for he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not this testimony makes God a liar, because he believeth not the record which God has given of his Son. In Him is eternal life, so that he that hath the Son, hath life. He closes his epistle by saying: "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true (i.e., that we may know the true God); and we are in Him that is true (i.e., the true God), even in his Son Jesus Christ. This (i.e., this person Jesus Christ) is the true God and eternal life." That this passage is to be referred to Christ, is plain. (1.) Because He is the subject of discourse in the context, and throughout the epistle. The great design of the Apostle is to tell us who and what Christ is. (2.) In the immediately preceding clauses he had called Him the true, "we are in Him that is true," even in Jesus Christ. "The true" and "the true God," are used as convertible expressions. (3.) Christ is repeatedly called "eternal life," by this Apostle, and "eternal life" is said to be in Him, which language is not used of God as such, nor of the Father. (4.) Christos is the natural antecedent of houtos, not only because the nearest, but because it is the prominent subject. (5.) This has been the received interpretation in the Church, at least since the Arian controversy; and the objections urged against it are mainly theological, rather than exegetical. It is to be remarked that Christ is here called not merely theos but ho theos, as in John xx. 28.

The Book of Revelation is one continued hymn of praise to Christ, setting forth the glory of his person and the triumph of his kingdom; representing Him as the ground of confidence to his people, and the object of worship to all the inhabitants of heaven. He is declared to be the ruler of the kings of the earth. He has made us kings and priests unto God. He is the First and the Last, language never used but of God, and true of Him alone. Compare Is. xliv. 6. In the epistles to the seven churches, Christ assumes the titles and prerogatives of God. He calls Himself, He who holds the seven stars in his right hand; the First and the Last; He who has the sharp sword and eyes of fire, from which nothing can be hid. He has the seven spirits. He is the Holy and the True. He has the keys of David; He opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens; his decision on the destiny of men admits of no appeal. He is the supreme arbiter; the faithful and true witness; the arche tes ktiseos tou theou, the principle, i.e., both the head and source, of the whole creation. He reproves the churches for their sins, or praises them for their fidelity, as their moral ruler against whom sin is committed and to whom obedience is rendered. He threatens punishments and promises blessings which God alone can inflict or bestow. In chapter v. the Apostle represents all the inhabitants of heaven as prostrate at the feet of Christ, ascribing blessings and honour and glory and power to Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever. The New Jerusalem is the seat of his kingdom. He is its light, glory, and blessedness. He again and again declares himself to be the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last (i.e., the immutable and eternal), the Beginning and the End, for whose second coming the whole Church is in earnest expectation.

In the epistles of Paul, the same exalted exhibition is made of the person and work of Christ. In the Epistle to the Romans, Christ is declared to be the Son of God, the object of faith, the judge of the world, the God of providence, the giver of the Holy Spirit, and what in the Old Testament is said of Jehovah, the Apostle applies to Christ. In chapter ix. 5, He is expressly declared to be "over all, God blessed forever." The text here is beyond dispute. The only method to avoid the force of the passage is by changing the punctuation. Erasmus, who has been followed by many modern interpreters, placed a full stop after kata sarka, or after panton. In the former case the passage would read, "Of whom is Christ concerning the flesh. The God who is over all be blessed forever;" in the latter, "Of whom Christ came concerning the flesh, who is above all," i.e., higher than the patriarchs. It is frankly admitted by the advocates of these interpretations that the reason for adopting them is to avoid making the Apostle assert that Christ is God over all. As they do not admit that doctrine, they are unwilling to admit that the Apostle teaches it. It was universally referred to Christ in the ancient Church, by all the Reformers, by all the older theologians, and by almost all of the modern interpreters who believe in the divinity of Christ. This uniformity of assent is itself a decisive proof that the common interpretation is the natural one. We are bound to take every passage of Scripture in its obvious and natural sense, unless the plainer declarations of the Word of God show that a less obvious meaning must be the true one. That the common interpretation of this passage is correct is plain, —

1. Because Christ is the subject of discourse; God is not mentioned in the context. The Apostle is mentioning the distinguishing blessings of the Jewish nation. To them were given the law, the glory, the covenant, and the promises, and above all, from them "as concerning the flesh (i.e., as far as his humanity is concerned), Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever." Here everything is natural and to the point. It shows how preeminent was the distinction of the Jews that from them the Messiah, God manifest in the flesh, should be born. Compared to this all the other prerogatives of their nation sink into insignificance.

2. The words kata sarka demand an antithesis. There would be no reason for saying that Christ, as far as He was a man, was descended from the Jews, if He was not more than man, and if there were not a sense in which He was not descended from them. As in Rom. i. 3, 4, it is said that kata sarka He was the Son of David, but kata pneuma the Son of God; so here it is said, that kata sarka He was descended from the patriarchs, but that in his higher nature He is God over all, blessed forever.

3. The usage of the language demands the common interpretation. In all exclamations and benedictions, in distinction from mere narration, the predicate uniformly stands before the subject, if the copula einai omitted. This usage is strictly observed in the Septuagint, in the Apocrypha, and in the New Testament. We therefore always read in such doxologies eulogetos ho theos, and never ho theos eulogetos. In the Hebrew Scriptures, vrvk occurs forty times in doxologies and formulas of praise before the subject. It is always "Blessed be God," and never "God be blessed." In the Septuagint, Psalm lxviii. 20 (19), kurios ho theos eulogetos is the only apparent exception to this rule. And there the Hebrew adheres to the common form, and the Greek version is a rhetorical paraphrase of the original. The Hebrew is simply vrvk 'dny 'dny for which the LXX. have, Kurios ho theos eulogetos, culogetos kurios. Every consideration, therefore, is in favour of the interpretation which has been accepted by the Church as giving the true meaning of this passage. Christ is God over all, blessed forever.