Romans 1:1–7

Reading

Paul names the Son first and then describes two aspects of him: according to the flesh he is David's descendant; according to the Spirit of holiness he is declared Son of God in power. The Son is the subject who possesses both.

Argument

The grammar puts "his Son" before both participles. The one who came from David's line is already identified as God's Son — so sonship is not something acquired at v. 4, and the descent from David is predicated of a subject who precedes it.

Horizō in v. 4 need not mean "appointed to a new status." It can mean "marked out," "declared," "shown to be" — which is how most modern versions render it. The resurrection publicly demonstrates what was already true.

"In power" qualifies the declaration, not the sonship: he was always Son; at the resurrection he is Son in power.

"Spirit of holiness" is a Semitic way of saying "Holy Spirit," and the parallel with "according to the flesh" is the standard two-aspect construction Paul uses elsewhere — compare Romans 9:5, where Christ is "according to the flesh" from Israel, with something further then said of him.

Thomas Schreiner and Douglas Moo both read the couplet as flesh/Spirit rather than human/divine natures, but hold that it presupposes a pre-existent Son who entered the Davidic line.

Counterargument

The verb in v. 3 is ginomai. Paul does not say the Son was from David's seed but that he came to be — the ordinary verb for coming into existence or being born. He uses it the same way at Galatians 4:4 ("born of a woman, born under the law").

"According to the flesh" is not two-natures language. Paul uses kata sarka some twenty times, almost always of lineage, outward circumstance, or a mode of living — "my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Rom 9:3), "not many were wise according to the flesh" (1 Cor 1:26). Here it plainly means "by descent." Reading it as "in his human nature" imports a category from a later century (see Two Natures).

The phrase in v. 4 is not the usual one for the Holy Spirit. Paul writes kata pneuma hagiōsynēs — "spirit of holiness," anarthrous, using a noun (hagiōsynē) he employs only twice elsewhere, both times of moral purity in believers: "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1) and "blameless in holiness before our God" (1 Thess 3:13). If Paul meant the Holy Spirit he had a standard phrase available.

The structure is temporal. The hinge is "by the resurrection from the dead" — an event, dividing a before from an after. Two stages, not two substances.

Rebuttal

Trinitarians answer that ginomai is the ordinary verb for being born and carries no implication about what preceded the birth — Galatians 4:4 uses it of one whom God "sent forth," so the same verse contains both.

On the temporal structure: two stages and two natures are not exclusive. Paul can narrate a career while presupposing a person.

The reply on Galatians 4:4 depends on reading "sent forth" as implying pre-existence, which is itself contested (compare the sending of John the Baptist at John 1:6). And granting that kata sarka means "by descent" — which the Pauline usage strongly supports — removes the couplet's usefulness as a two-natures text, whatever else is true. The verse can still be read within a two-natures framework; it does not supply one.

Key scholars: Douglas Moo, Thomas Schreiner, Richard Longenecker

Reading

Paul describes two stages in one human life. The Messiah came into existence from David's line; by his resurrection he was appointed Son of God in power. The hinge is an event in history, not a distinction of natures.

Argument

The Davidic descent is a qualification, not a concession. Paul's gospel is "promised beforehand through his prophets" and concerns a descendant of David — which is what the prophets promised. Elsewhere Paul makes it part of the gospel itself: "remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel" (2 Tim 2:8).

Ginomai means coming to be. It is the verb behind Matthew's opening "the book of the genesis of Jesus Christ" (Matt 1:1) and the "birth" of Jesus at Matt 1:18 — both usually obscured in English.

The "spirit of holiness" is most likely his own. Paul's only other uses of hagiōsynē describe moral purity in people. Read that way, v. 4 says Jesus was vindicated as Son of God in power in accordance with a life of holiness — which is what the resurrection vindicated. Paul says as much elsewhere: he "learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8, of the same figure), and was "declared righteous in spirit" (1 Tim 3:16).

Horizō is appointment language elsewhere in the New Testament. God "has fixed a day on which he will judge the world by a man whom he has appointed (hōrisen)" (Acts 17:31); Jesus is "the one appointed (hōrismenos) by God to be judge of the living and the dead" (Acts 10:42). The same author who wrote those sentences reports Peter saying "God has made him both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36).

And the risen Christ still lives by God's power. "He was crucified in weakness, but he lives by the power of God" (2 Cor 13:4) — a present-tense statement about the exalted Lord.

Counterargument

“Concerning his Son” stands before both clauses, which is hard to reconcile with sonship beginning at the resurrection. If Paul thought Jesus became Son at Easter, naming him “his Son” as the subject of the Davidic descent is a confusing way to say so.

And the flesh/spirit couplet is a genuine contrast; reading both halves as stages in one human life flattens a parallel Paul seems to have inherited already formed.

Rebuttal

BU answer: "his Son" is Paul's designation of the person he is writing about, from the standpoint of writing — the same way one might say "the president was born in 1961" without implying he was president in 1961. Luke uses sonship language of Jesus at conception (Luke 1:35) and Paul applies Psalm 2:7 ("today I have begotten you") to the resurrection at Acts 13:33. The New Testament attaches sonship to more than one moment, which suggests it marks office and vindication rather than origin.

On the couplet: the contrast is preserved, but it is between descent and vindication — how he came, and how he was shown to be what he came as. That is a real parallel and does not require two substances.

Key scholars: James D.G. Dunn, Anthony Buzzard, Dustin Smith, Sean Finnegan

Reading

The pre-existent Logos enters the Davidic line and is enthroned in power at the resurrection. Both halves are real: a genuine coming-to-be in the flesh, and a genuine elevation.

Argument

The Logos framework can accept the force of ginomai without difficulty. Something genuinely came to be — the Logos in flesh — which is what John 1:14 says with the same verb ("the Word became flesh").

And it can accept horizō as real appointment, because a derived divine agent can be given what he did not previously exercise. The Trinitarian must soften "appointed" to "declared" to protect co-equality; the Logos position need not.

The two-stage structure is therefore not a problem but a description: procession, incarnation, exaltation. That is the pre-Nicene shape of Christology, and Romans 1:3–4 fits it without adjustment.

Counterargument

Nothing in the passage mentions a Logos, a pre-existent agent, or a descent. The framework is compatible with the text but is not indicated by it, and the confession Paul quotes looks thoroughly messianic in vocabulary.

Rebuttal

Logos theologians reply that Paul is quoting an existing confession precisely because it was common ground, and common ground is not where you state contested metaphysics. The framework's claim is that it explains the wider Pauline corpus, including this passage, without needing to explain any part of it away.

Key scholars: Larry Hurtado, Justin Martyr (historically), David Bentley Hart

Reading

“Son” names the humanity the one God assumed. According to the flesh, that humanity descends from David; according to the spirit of holiness, it is vindicated in power at the resurrection.

Argument

Oneness theology reads “Son of God” as a term proper to the incarnation, so a text in which the Son comes to be from David's seed and is appointed in power at the resurrection presents no difficulty at all — it describes the career of the humanity God took.

The flesh/spirit couplet is read as the human and divine aspects of the one incarnate God, without positing a second person.

Counterargument

The passage is framed as “the gospel of God … concerning his Son”, which distinguishes God from the Son in the same clause, and the greeting in v. 7 distinguishes “God our Father” from “the Lord Jesus Christ”.

Rebuttal

Oneness writers reply that the distinction is between God as he is in himself and God as manifest in the Son, and that the greeting's pairing is the standard way the New Testament names the one God in his transcendent and incarnate aspects.

Key scholars: David K. Bernard, David Norris