Why Romans 1:3-4 Is Not A Proof-Text For The Dual Natures Of Christ

Rom. 1:3-4 – (The gospel of God) concerning his son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord. NASB

This passage is typically understood as a proof-text for the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. That Yeshua was of the seed of David according to the flesh is supposed to connote his human nature, while his being declared the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness is supposed to connote his divine nature, hence Christ has two natures. The commentaries of popular expositors are replete with statements to this effect. The claims made concerning this passage reveal a strong tendency for commentators to read the presuppositions of their tradition into scripture wherever the text might afford an opportunity, as this text does. Here are some examples:

of the seed of David according to the flesh — That is, with regard to his human nature. Both the natures of our Lord are here mentioned; but the human is mentioned first, because the divine was not manifested in its full evidence till after his resurrection . . .  “The phrase, κατα πνευμα αγιωσυνης, according to the Spirit of holiness,” says Mr. Locke, “is here manifestly opposed to κατα σαρκα, according to the flesh, in the foregoing verse,” and so must mean his divine nature; “unless this be so understood, the antithesis is lost.”

Benson Commentary

according to the flesh—that is, in His human nature (compare Ro 9:5; Joh 1:14); implying, of course, that He had another nature, of which the apostle immediately proceeds to speak . . . 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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

According to the flesh.—The word is here used as equivalent to “in His human nature, in that lower bodily organisation which He shares with us men”. . . According to the spirit of holiness.—In antithesis to “according to the flesh,” and therefore coming where we should expect “in His divine nature.”

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

He was a descendant of David in his human nature, or as a man. This implies, of course, that he had another nature besides his human, or that while he was a man he was also something else; that there was a nature in which he was not descended from David . . . If in this passage we understand the apostle to declare, that Christ was of the seed of David, according to his 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.

Barnes’ Notes

We note that in each of these examples the authors simply assume that the passage is referring to the orthodox doctrine of the two natures of Christ (though it doesn’t actually state that), based on a perceived antithesis in the text between Christ’s human (according to the flesh) and divine (according to the Spirit) natures. We will come back to this in time.

We can also see this same bias in favor of the orthodox belief enshrined in some modern English versions. For example:

AMP – ³ [the good news] regarding His Son, who, as to the flesh [His human nature], was born a descendant of David [to fulfill the covenant promises], ⁴ and [as to His divine nature] according to the Spirit of holiness was openly designated to be the Son of God with power [in a triumphant and miraculous way] by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

CEV – ^3-4 This good news is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! As a human, he was from the family of David. But the Holy Spirit proved that Jesus is the powerful Son of God, because he was raised from death.

GW – ³ This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant of David. ⁴ In his spiritual, holy nature he was declared the Son of God. This was shown in a powerful way when he came back to life.

GNT – ³ It is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: as to his humanity, he was born a descendant of David; ⁴ as to his divine holiness, he was shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death.

ISV – ³ regarding his Son. He was a descendant of David with respect to his humanity ⁴ and was declared by the resurrection from the dead to be the powerful Son of God according to the spirit of holiness—Jesus the Messiah, our Lord.

TLB – ³ It is the Good News about his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came as a human baby, born into King David’s royal family line; ⁴ and by being raised from the dead he was proved to be the mighty Son of God, with the holy nature of God himself.

NOG – ³ This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Yeshua Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant of David. ⁴ In his spiritual, holy nature he was declared the Son of God. This was shown in a powerful way when he came back to life.

Besides these translations of the text being poor and inadequate, they are also based on the theological predilections of their translators and/or editors, as will soon become obvious.

To be sure, there are some aspects of this passage which are difficult to translate and interpret, and this difficulty is exacerbated by the limitations forced upon the text by the need to make it consistent with the orthodox tradition. So let’s take a close look at each facet of the passage in order to see if we can ascertain authorial intent.

According to the Flesh/According to the Spirit

The whole basis of the orthodox interpretation of this passage seems to hinge on the misguided assumptions that the phrase “according to the flesh” refers to Christ’s human nature and the phrase “according to the Spirit” refers to his divine nature, and that these two are being set in antithesis to each other. If these assumptions can be shown to be wrong or at least not necessary to a correct understanding of the text, then this passage becomes moot in as far as being a biblical confirmation of the two natures doctrine.

Let’s look first at the phrase “according to the flesh.” Despite the confident assertions of many expositors, this phrase does not mean “in his human nature,” as each of the above commentaries claim. The Greek reads kata sarx, which literally translated means according to flesh. First, we note that the phrase contains no 3rd person possessive pronoun (his), making this interpretation suspect right from the start. Next, let’s look at other uses of this phrase in this same letter and in other of Paul’s letters to see if “according to human nature” is even a viable meaning. I will also examine the claim that the phrase implies a second nature distinct from the human nature, for why would Paul say “according to his human nature” if that were his only nature.

By my count, the phrase kata sarx appears 22 times in the NT, 21 times in Paul’s letters and once in the gospel of John¹. The phrase can be seen to have more than one meaning in Paul’s usage², of which one is “by natural descent or lineage.” Take for example Rom. 4:1:

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh, has discovered regarding this matter?”

Did Paul mean “our ancestor according to our human nature?” And if so, does he imply that the Jews had a second nature distinct from their human nature? Or is it better to take his words as “Abraham, our ancestor by natural lineage?” Another pertinent text is Romans 9:3, which reads:

“For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Again we can see that Paul is not saying “my kinsmen according to my human nature,” and if he were saying this would that imply that he had a divine nature also, like Christ? What Paul obviously means is “my kinsmen according to natural lineage,” i.e. Paul and his fellow Jews were all natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Two verses later, in v. 5, we encounter the phrase again, this time in relation to the Messiah, of whom Paul says ” from whom [the Israelites] is the Messiah according to the flesh.” Paul’s point here is not that the Messiah’s human nature is derived from the lineage of Israel and that he has another nature not derived from the Israelite stock, but that the Messiah was of the same natural lineage as the Israelites.

So when we come back to our passage in 1:3 we can see that Paul simply means to say that God’s son, Yeshua the Messiah, came to be out of the seed of David by natural descent. To read more than this into Paul’s words would clearly be eisegesis. The phrase kata sarx never means according to human nature in Paul’s usage and to read this meaning into the phrase would result in absurdity.

Next, let’s look at the phrase “according to the Spirit of holiness.” There seems to be no good reason for taking this phrase in Rom. 1:4 to refer to Christ’s supposed divine nature, in contrast to his human nature, except as an attempt to validate the orthodox tradition. Most English translations capitalize the word ‘spirit’ to make it refer to the Holy Spirit of God, but this is uncertain. Many commentators freely acknowledge that the phrase pneuma hagiosynes would be a one off usage as a reference to the Holy Spirit (Gr. pneuma hagios, with or without the definite article). Even if it could be maintained that this is referring to the Holy Spirit, how would it make sense, from a trinitarian perspective, to say then that the phrase refers to Christ’s divine nature? Does orthodoxy teach that the divine nature of Christ is synonymous with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity? Many commentators, seeing the problem (though some apparently do not), look for another way to explain this unusual phrase. The varied ways in which expositors interpret this passage reveals the ambiguity of the phrase and the difficulty they have in explaining it in a way that conforms to orthodox tradition. Here are some attempts made by some interpreters:

Barnes – “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 . . . 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.”

Lange – Within his lengthy and convoluted explanation of this phrase Lange says,”{Kata pneuma hagiosynes] is evidently the antithesis or counterpart of [kata sarka], and as [sarx] here means the human nature of Christ, [pneuma] must mean His divine nature, which is all Spirit, and intrinsically holy.” He concludes by saying the phrase means: “The Divine side of Christ’s person with the essential characteristic of holiness.”

Meyer – Meyer goes against most expositors in referring the phrase to the human spirit of Christ: “Consequently the [spirit] of Christ, although human, was exalted above all other human spirits, because essentially filled with God, and thereby holy, sinless, and full of divine unpolluted life, as was no other human [spirit]; and for this reason His unique quality is characterized by the distinguishing designation πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, i.e. spirit full of holiness.

A. T. Robertson – “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).”

Vincent – “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.”

As you can see, there is no general agreement as to the meaning of this phrase as it applies to the Messiah (and I could multiply examples), and frankly, these expositors come across as if they are just contriving an explanation because they have to say something about it. I would suggest that the confusion and the convoluted and contrived explanations of most expositors regarding this whole passage is the result of their attempt to make the passage conform to the orthodox tradition (when really, there is a much simplier explanation). In this vein, they almost universally agree that the two phrases, “according to the flesh” and “according to the spirit of holiness” are being set in contrast to each other. They just think this is obvious. This, in itself, sets them up to misunderstand Paul’s thought process.

I propose that we take the two phrases not as contrasting two distinct natures in Messiah, but as pointing out two different aspects of the sonship of the man Yeshua in relation to God, aspects which are not contrastive but complementary and progressive. When Paul uses these two phrases in contrast he uses a word to denote that contrast, such as alla or de, which are absent in our passage. And I propose the phrase kata pneuma hagiosynes should be translated as “a spirit of sanctification.” In this sense, the word ‘spirit’ is purely abstract and has no concrete meaning³. “According to a spirit of sanctification” probably means something like “in consequence of a setting apart.” This view takes hagiosynes in the sense of being set-apart for God’s purpose rather than as personal moral purity.

The Meaning of Horizo

Let’s move on now to the next phrase “who was declared son of God with power.” The Greek word behind “was declared” is the passive aorist particple of horizo, which, in it’s different forms, appears eight times in the NT, including this passage. In the seven other occurrences⁴ it clearly does not mean ‘declared’. The lexicons define it as to mark out (as a land boundary), to designate, appoint, determine or define. The word simply does not mean ‘to declare’. The reason that the majority of English versions have chosen to translate horizo as declared in this one instance is purely theological, to avoid the appearance that Yeshua was appointed as son of God only at his resurrection, implying he was not before this point. This, again, is a theological predilection being forced upon the text, for, from their perspective, if the Messiah is eternally the Son of God how can Paul say that he was appointed as such by his resurrection from the dead? Too many presuppositons have precipitated the traditional translation and interpretation of this passage.

While the idea of to appoint is valid, I think the best way to understand the word horizo in this context is in relation to it’s primary meaning of marking out the boundaries of a piece of land so as to define it and separate it from the other land around it. Understood in this way, Paul is saying that Yeshua was marked out, chosen from among all of the descendants of David alive at that time, to be God’s son. Having established that Yeshua was of the seed of David by natural descent, a necessary qualification for the Messiah, it was still necessary to determine how he was marked out, in distinction from all the other of David’s descendants then existing, as the chosen one. This marking out was accomplished in consequence of a setting apart, the result of a resurrection from the dead.

Son of God – Two Views

One overarching presupposition of the traditionalist view is that the relationship of the son to God is an eternal relationship and that the title ‘son of God’ implies deity. This has, of course, been the predominate view of the Son in the collective consciousness of Christendom since the 4th century. The problem, though, is that this concept of the Son is not derived from the Hebrew scriptures or even from the NT authors, who relied upon the Hebrew scriptures, but from the so-called early church fathers, Gentile converts who had previously been educated in the schools of Greek philsophy. To them it just was axiomatic that a son of God was one who shared the divine essence, to whatever degree, with the god whose son he was. Being ignorant of the Hebraic concept of son of God they simply brought their presuppositions over into their Christian faith and interpreted the sonship of the Messiah in accord with the Greek thought that still influenced their thinking. But the Hebraic concept, which certainly must be the foundation for our understanding of this sonship rather than the Greek concept, contains no thought of an ontological relationship between the son and God. In the Hebraic concept the relationship is metaphorical and analogous. God chooses a man from among the descendants of David to be ruler for him over his kingdom. This chosen one is given the status or functional position of a vicegerent to God and his relationship to God is analogized as a father/son relationship. Note what Yahweh said concerning the one whom he chooses for this position, paying careful attention to the prepositions used:

“I will be to him for a father and he will be to me for a son . . .” 2 Sam. 7:14

This same explanation of the relationship between God and the one he chooses to reign over his kingdom is repeated three other times, in 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10 and 28:6. It is also reiterated in Psalm 2, an inauguration psalm, where in v. 7 the newly installed king recounts Yahweh’s former decree:

“He said, ‘To me⁵ you are my son, this day I have become your father.’ “

For those who insist that the title takes on a new dimension in the NT when applied to Yeshua, implying a divine ontology, I would direct your attention to Luke 1:32-33 where the angel Gabriel informs Mary regarding the son to whom she is to give birth:

“³²He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. ³³He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

This statement accords perfectly with the Hebraic concept and leaves no room for an ontological relationship⁶, for his ontology is connoted in his relationship to David and his status as ‘son of the Most High’ is seen in the fact that he is destined to reign over the house of Jacob, i.e. God’s kingdom, forever.

Pertinent to the fact that the Messiah will reign forever is Paul’s statement that Yeshua was designated as son of God with power. Although Yeshua was son of God from the moment of his birth, seeing that he was the one whom God chose from the seed of David to reign over his kingdom, it was not until his resurrection from the dead that he was made fit or perfected for his role as ruler over God’s kingdom forever. The promised Messiah would be the final king in the line of David, for his reign was to last forever, and for this reason he had to be endowed with the power of an indestructible life⁷, i.e. immortality.

Putting It All Together

Now back to the flow of Paul’s thought in Romans 1 to put it all together. What we have seen is that Paul, in this passage, is giving the validation for Yeshua being the son of God, i.e. the chosen one from David’s line. Initially he shows that Yeshua’s messiahship is validated by his lineal descent from the seed of David⁸. But something further was needed to set him apart, to mark him out from all the other descendants of David then existing. This, God did by raising him from the dead, which event also endowed him with the power of an indestructible life, a prerequisite for reigning forever. Once it is taken for granted that Paul is working from the Hebraic view of son of God then this interpretation becomes obvious, having before been obscured by the assumption of the Greek view of son of God.

But even presupposing the Greek view and the orthodox doctrine of the two natures, the passage would still be highly ambiguous in that regard. If Paul was trying to advance a concept of two natures in Messiah why the ambiguity? Paul certainly had available to him the language necessary to set forth this idea in clear terms. For example, Paul could easily have said that Yeshua was “tou genomenou ek spermatos Dauid kata ho anthropinos phusis autou, tou horisthentos huiou Theou en dynamei kata theiotes autou ex anastaseos nekron, Iesou Christou tou kyriou hemon.“⁹ If Paul would have written this there would be no debate as to his meaning. Likewise, if the Greek view of son of God had never come to predominate in the collective consciousness of Christendom, there would also be no debate as to Paul’s meaning.

I will close this article with a paraphrase of the passage with explanatory comments in parentheses:

[The good news] regarding his son (son here is appositional to Jesus Christ our Lord in v. 4), the one having come to be from the seed of David by natural descent; the one being marked out (in distinction from all other descendants of David) as 'son of God' with [the] power (of an indestructible life), in consequence of being set-apart, the result of a resurrection from the dead - Jesus Christ our Lord.

Endnotes

1. Jn. 8:15; Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 8:1, 4, 5, 12(2x); 9:3, 5; 1 Cor. 1:26; 10:18; 2 Cor. 1:17; 5:16(2x); 10:2, 3; 11:18; Gal. 4:23, 29; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22. ↩︎
2. Possible meanings of the phrase are:
   a) In accordance with the dictates of our mortality – Rom. 8:1, 4, 5, 12
   b) according to natural descent or lineage – Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 9:3, 5; 1 Cor. 10:18
   c) by birth or natural – 1 Cor. 1:26
   d) based on mere outward appearances – 2 Cor. 5:16
   e) in a self-seeking manner – 2 Cor. 1:17; 10:2, 3; 11:18
   f) in the natural manner – Gal. 4:23, 29; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22
   ↩︎
3. Other passages which use ‘spirit’ in this manner are Is. 4:4; 19:14; 28:6; Zech. 13:2; Rom. 11:8; 1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 4:13; 2 Tim. 1:7 ↩︎
4. Lk. 22:22; Acts 2:23; 10:42; 11:29; 17:26, 31; Heb. 4:7 ↩︎
5. The 1st person preposition el, meaning to me, can be connected either with “He said” or with “you are my son.” To connect it with “you are my son” reflects the same thought seen in the original decree “he will be to me for a son. ” This understanding of the text is reflected in the Targum Psalms. ↩︎
6. It is noteworthy that the author of Hebrews, in chapter 1, cites four passages from the Hebrew bible which speak of the status of the one chosen from David’s line, two of which are 2 Sam. 7:14 and Ps. 2:7; the other two are Ps. 45:6-7 and Ps. 110:1, which are ideal depictions of the Davidic king. There is no good reason to suppose that the author of Hebrews has abandoned the Hebraic perspective in favor of a Greek prespective of the Son. All four passages originally spoke of the reigning human king, so a divine ontology is unnecessary for their ultimate fulfillment. If you think Heb. 1:1-3 necessitate then please see my study on Hebrews 1. ↩︎
7. What the author of Hebrews, in 7:15-25, says regarding the priesthood of Messiah is just as relevant to his kingship. ↩︎
8. That the Messiah would be a descendant of David is established in the following passages: Ps. 89:3-4, 28-29, 35-37; Is. 9:6-7; 11:1-2, 10; 16:5; Jer. 23:5-6; 30:9; 33:15-17, 21; Ezek. 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5. ↩︎
9. Translation: “. . . the one having come to be from the seed of David according to his human nature, the one having been marked out son of God with power according to his divine nature, by a resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” ↩︎