The Analytic Christian is a Christian YouTube channel that focuses on philosophical theology. Jordan Hampton usually interviews experts in specific fields of philosophical theology. Here are some of the channel's Playlists that are directly relevant to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Trinity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew32U1gyOc8&list=PLlVH-ThCazKmStWtxqvoCPP3QD_mhfCI8
The Incarnation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ-m5nl4x4w&list=PLlVH-ThCazKkHW-733L5uQlR4EKRRDcy1
In the Beginning was the Son! Amazing Facts that Tovia Singer Doesn't Want You to Know
https://youtu.be/jROAbBmDKVE
Is Christ's Nature Contradictory? James Anderson vs. Jc Beall
https://youtu.be/HQHOcubDs6E
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.- Mark 13:32 ESV
Mark 13:32 is the number one verse used by atheists and anti-Trinitarians to argue that Jesus wasn't omniscient. There are a number of passages in the New Testament that appear to show that Jesus wasn't omniscient. As a Trinitarian I usually explain them by appealing to the two minds view of Christ [popularized by Thomas V. Morris' book The Logic of God Incarnate] whereby Christ's divine mind is omniscient while His human mind is not omniscient. However, that explanation doesn't fully work in responding to Mark 13:32 because it doesn't address the problem that the Holy Spirit isn't accounted for. It would still leave the Holy Spirit not omniscient, contrary to 1 Cor. 2:10 which states, "For the [Holy] Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God." One could get around that by saying that the Lord Jesus didn't intend to include the Holy Spirit in the equation. While that works, it probably won't satisfy most atheists and anti-Trinitarian theists. The following videos answer the problem of Mark 13:32 in a way that does overcome all the problems. All three videos describe in varying depth the solution that I initially resisted when I first encountered it. However, it makes a lot more sense to me nowadays. See also my blogpost Jesus' Omniscience where I present the positive Biblical evidence for Jesus' omniscience. I've linked to it a second time at the very bottom of this blogpost.
The a longer clip of the above video is on another YouTube channel here:
https://youtu.be/6Y3qf1aRTkA
John 4:25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things."
John 4:29 "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"
Mark 2:8 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, "Why do you question these things in your hearts?
Mark 13:23 But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand.
Matt. 9:4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Luke 9:47 But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts...
John 1:46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"
John 2:24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
John 5:42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
John 6:64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)
John 18:4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?"
John 16:30 Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God."
John 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst."
John 21:17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.
Matt. 11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.- John 10:15
Luke 10:22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Acts 1:24 And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen
1 Cor. 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Luke 11:49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,'
Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Rev. 2:23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.
Jer. 17:10 "I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds."
1 King 8:39 then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), [cf. 1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Chron. 28:9]
Some Christian philosophers, such as Thomas Morris, have postulated an independent conscious life for the incarnate Logos in addition to the conscious life of Jesus of Nazareth, what Morris calls a “two minds” view of the Incarnation. He provides a number of intriguing analogies in which asymmetrical accessing relations exist between a subsystem and an encompassing system, such that the overarching system can access information acquired through the subsystem but not vice versa. He gives a psychological analogy of dreams in which the sleeper is himself a person in the dream, and yet the sleeper has an awareness that everything that he is experiencing as reality is in fact merely a dream.See William Lane Craig's description in a debate Here (at 1 hour, 9 minutes, 21 seconds):
Morris proposes that the conscious mind of Jesus of Nazareth be conceived as a subsystem of a wider mind which is the mind of the Logos. Such an understanding of the consciousness of the Logos stands in the tradition of Reformed theologians like Zwingli, who held that the Logos continued to operate outside the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The main difficulty of this view is that it threatens to lapse into Nestorianism, since it is very difficult to see why two self-conscious minds would not constitute two persons.
If the model here proposed makes sense, then it serves to show that the classic doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ is coherent and plausible. It also serves religiously to elicit praise to God for his self-emptying act of humiliation in taking on our human condition with all its struggles and limitations for our sakes and for our salvation.....
-J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig in chapter 30 of their book The Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
I independently came to the same conclusions as Steve Hays and Thomas Morris due to various types of my own dreams, including lucid dreaming. Some instances came from dreams in which I was talking to other people in deep dialogue. In one instance one of the persons told a joke that was so funny I laughed out loud and woke up. Then I thought, "Who really told the joke?" Barring demonic, angelic or divine communication, I must have told the joke to myself with me simultaneously knowing and not knowing the punchline.A counter argument might be that Jesus specifically said "ONLY the Father knows". That would exclude the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, in my other blogposts I've argued for the full deity of Jesus, and the personality and full deity of the Holy Spirit. Along with the Holy Spirit's omniscience.
I've also had dreams that ran like a movie where everything previous in the dream perfectly lead up to the denouement. It surprised me even though I must have concocted the intricate storyline subliminally.
Here's an example from a lucid dream. About 22 years ago as a teenager I found out about lucid dreaming and realized I'd experienced it a few times before. So, I decided that the next time I had a lucid dream I would fly. Soon afterwards I experienced a lucid dream and found myself in a house. I decided to fly through the roof like Superman. I did so and flew over the countryside enjoying the scenery (especially since I dream in color). After flying for a while I slowly started flying faster and faster and faster. Eventually I flew so fast that it started scaring me to the point that I couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to wake myself up.
What's interesting about this incident (and other lucid dreams I've had) is that in one sense *I* was in control, but in another sense *I* was not in control, it was the subliminal *Me* that was in control and was frightening *Me*.
Canon Liddon in his Bampton lectures at Oxford University said that a doxology to Christ as God "is the natural sense of the passage. If the passage occurred in a profane author and its essence and structure alone had to be considered, few critics would think of overlooking the antithesis between [Greek which I, AP, am guessing should be transliterated as 'ho Christos to kata sarka'] and [Greek: 'theos eulogetos']. Still less possible would it be to destroy this antithesis outright, and to impoverish the climax of the whole passage, by cutting off the doxology from the clause which precedes it, and so erecting it into an independent ascription of praise to God the Father."Quotes taken from pages 332-335 of Robert Morey's The Trinity: Evidence and Issues. I'm too lazy to type out all the sources. So, if you want the sources, get a copy of Morey's book.
Hendriksen wrote:
"This item serves as a fitting climax. From them, that is, from the Israelites (see verse 4) Christ derived his human nature. He was and is a Jew. What a source of intense satisfaction and rejoicing this should be for Jews! The apostle hastens to add that although Jesus is indeed a Jew, he is also much more than a Jew. Though he has a human nature, he also has a divine nature. He is God! It should be clear that when Paul says, 'Christ, who is over all God blest forever,' he confesses Christ's deity."
A.T Robertson wrote in his Word Studies
"A clear statement of the deity of christ following the remark about his humanity. This is the natural and the obvious way of punctuating the sentence. To make a full stop after sarka (or colon) and start a new sentence for the doxology is very abrupt and awkward. See Acts 20:28 and Titus 2:13 for Paul's use of theos applied to Jesus Christ."
Charles Hodge wrote:
"The relative who must agree with the nearest antecedent. There is no other subject in the context sufficiently prominent to make a departure from this ordinary rule, in this case, even plausible."
Dean Alford wrote:
"The rendering...is the only one admissible by the rules of grammar and arrangement."
Raymond Brown wrote:
"...This interpretation would mean that Paul calls Jesus God. From a grammatical viewpoint this is clearly the best reading, [sic] Also, the contextual sequence is excellent; for having spoken of Jesus' descent according to the flesh, Paul now emphasizes his position as God."
Lenski wrote:
"Christ is over all, i.e., the supreme Lord. This apposition is complete in itself. If no more were added, this apposition makes Christ God, for we have yet to hear of one who is 'over all' and is not God."
Robert Haldane wrote:
"The awful blindness and obstinacy of Arians and Socinians in their explanations, or rather perversions, of the Word of God, are in nothing more obvious than in their attempts to evade the meaning of this celebrated testimony to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ. They often shelter themselves under various readings; but here they have no tenable ground for an evasion of this kind. Yet, strange to say, some of them have, without the authority of manuscripts, alter the original, in order that it may suit their purpose. there is no difficulty in the words - no intricacy in the construction; yet, by a forced construction and an unnatural punctuation, they have endeavored to turn away this testimony from its obvious import. Contrary to the genius and idiom of the Greek - contrary to all the usual rules of interpreting language, as had often been incontrovertibly shown - they substitute 'God be blessed'...Such tortuous explanations are not only rejected by a sound interpretation of the original, but manifest themselves to be unnatural, even to the most illiterate who exercises an unprejudiced judgment."
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 κατὰ σάρκα, or after πάντων. 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 512is 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 κατὰ σάρκα 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 κατὰ σάρκα He was the Son of David, but κατὰ πνεῦμα the Son of God; so here it is said, that κατὰ σάρκα 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 εἶναι omitted. This usage is strictly observed in the Septuagint, in the Apocrypha, and in the New Testament. We therefore always read in such doxologies εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεός, and never ὁ θεὸς εὐλογητός. In the Hebrew Scriptures, בָרוּךְ 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), κύριος ὁ θεὸς εὐλογητός 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 בָרוּךְ אֲדׁנָי אֲדֹנָי for which the LXX. have, Κύριος ὁ θεὸς εὐλογητός, cὐλογητὸς κύριος. 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.
—and of whom is Christ, so far as regards the flesh (the expression implies that He was not entirely sprung from them, but had another nature; 'on His human side,"—"as far as pertains to His human body"), who is God over all (this word all is of uncertain gender in the original, but must be probably taken as neuter: all things, not "all persons " compare ch. xi. 36), blessed for ever. Amen. — The punctuation and application of this doxology have been much disputed. By the early Church it was generally rendered as above, and applied to Christ. Passages, it is true, have been collected from the fathers to show that they applied the words "God over all" to the FATHER alone, and protested against their application to the SON; but these passages themselves protest only against the erroneous Noetian or Sabellian view of the identity of the Father and the Son, whereas in Eph. iv. 5, 6, "one Lord," "one God and Father of all, who is over all," are plainly distinguished. That our Lord is not, in the strict exclusive sense, "the God who is over all," every Christian will admit, that title being reserved for the Father : but that He is God over all" none of the above-mentioned passages goes to deny. — The first trace of a different interpretation, if it be one, is found in an assertion of the Emperor Julian, who says that our Lord is never called God by St. Paul, nor by St. Matthew, or St. Mark, but by St. John only. The next is in the punctuation of two of our later manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which arrange the sentence thus : "of whom as concerning the flesh is Christ. God over all [be] blessed for ever." This is followed by several among the moderns, and generally by Socinians. The objections to this rendering are, (1) ingenuously suggested by Socinus himself, and never yet obviated,—that without one exception in Hebrew or Greek, wherever an ascription of the blessing is found, the predicate blessed precedes the name of God. (2) That the words who is on this rendering, would be superfluous altogether (see below). (3) That the doxology would be unmeaning and frigid in the extreme. It is not the habit of the Apostle to break out into irrelevant ascriptions of praise; and certainly there is here nothing in the immediate context requiring one. If it be said that the survey of all these privileges bestowed on his people prompts the doxology,—surely such a view is most unnatural : for the sad subject of the Apostle's sympathy, to which he immediately recurs again, is the apparent inanity of all these privileges in the exclusion from life of those who were dignified with them. If it be said that the incarnation of Christ is the exciting cause, the words according to the flesh" come in most strangely, depreciating, as it would on that supposition, the greatness of the event, which then becomes a source of so lofty a thanksgiving. (4) That the expression "blessed for ever" is twice besides used by St. Paul, and each time unquestionably not in an ascription of praise, but in an assertion regarding the subject of the sentence. The places are, ch. i. 25, and 2 Cor. xi. 31 : whereas he uses the phrase "Blessed be God" as an ascription of praise, without joining "for ever." See the rest of the discussion in my Greek Test. I have shewn there, that the rendering given in the text is not only that most agreeable to the usage of the Apostle, but the only one admissible by the rules of grammar and arrangement. It also admirably suits the context : for, having enumerated the historic advantages of the Jewish people, he concludes by stating one which ranks far higher than all,—that from them sprung, according to the flesh, He who is God over all, blessed for ever.—Amen is the accustomed ending of such solemn declarations of the divine Majesty : compare ch. i. 25
The arguments in favor of seeing this passage as a reference to the deity of Christ are many. I will summarize them here.8
(1) It is the natural reading of the text to see the entire verse as referring to Christ. Breaking the sentence up into two parts leads to difficulties in translation and interpretation. Some words become superfluous,9 and the balance of the sentence is thrown off.10
(2) The phrase "who is" is used by Paul elsewhere to modify a word in the preceding context ( as in 2 Corinthians 11:31, a very close parallel), and would naturally do so here as well.
(3) The form of the doxology simply will not allow for it to be separated from the preceding context, Paul's consistent usage connects the doxology to the discussion of Christ. In his other doxologies11 he follows this pattern.
(4) In the Greek New Testament, and in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), the word "blessed" always12 comes before the word "God," but here in Romans 9:5 it follows, which would indicate that the "blessing" is tied to what came before (i.e., the discussion of Christ). So strong is this last point that Metzger said it is "altogether incredible that Paul, whose ear must have been perfectly familiar with this constantly recurring formula of praise, should in this solitary instance have departed from established usage."13
Add to these weighty considerations the testimony of many of the early [Church] Fathers as well,14 and the conclusion is inescapable: Paul breaks into praise at the majesty of the person of the Messiah who has come into the world through the Jewish race. The very God who is over all has entered into flesh, and for this, Paul gives glory and honor.
-James White, The Forgotten Trinity, pp. 73-74
Note # 8. For discussions of this passage and the various translational issues involved, see. C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), II:464–470; Henry Alford, The New Testament for English Readers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), II:920–921; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans in The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 565–568.
Note # 9. Specifically, there is no reason to include ὁ ὢν [this is the best I could reproduce the Greek - AP] in the final phrase if there is no direct connection to what has gone before.
Note # 10. Paul has spoken of the fleshly nature of the Messiah, and now speaks of the Messiah's spiritual nature as God. Breaking up the sentence leaves Paul speaking only of the Messiah "according to the flesh."
Note # 11. Romans 1:25; 11:36; 2 Corinthians 11:31; Galatians1:5; 2 Timothy 4:18.
Note # 12. There is one possible exception at Psalm 67:19, though the text seems questionable at that point.
Note # 13. B.M. Metzger, "The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5" in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: In Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule, ed. B. Lindars and S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1973), 107.
Note # 14. Metzger mentions Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, Augustine, Jerome, and Cyril of Alexandria, among others, as reading the passage in support of the deity of Christ.
tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.
Endnote:So too Jesus in Paul. One of the most debated verses in the Pauline letters is Romans 9:5. Scholars dispute how the verse is to be translated. What is clear is that Paul is talking about the advantages given to the Israelites, and he indicates that the “fathers” (that is, the Jewish patriarchs) belong to the Israelites, and “from them is the Christ according to the flesh, the one who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.” Here, Christ is “God over all.” This is a very exalted view.
But some translators prefer not to take the passage as indicating that Christ is God and do so by claiming that it should be translated differently, to say first something about Christ and then, second, to give a blessing to God. They translate the verse like this: “from them is the Christ according to the flesh. May the God who is over all be blessed forever, amen.” The issues of translation are highly complex, and different scholars have different opinions. The matter is crucial. If the first version is correct, then it is the one place in all of Paul’s letters where he explicitly calls Jesus God.
But is it correct? My view for many years was that the second translation was the right one and that the passage does not call Jesus God. My main reason for thinking so, though, was that I did not think that Paul ever called Jesus God anywhere else, so he probably wouldn’t do so here. But that, of course, is circular reasoning, and I think the first translation makes the best sense of the Greek, as other scholars have vigorously argued.13 It is worth stressing that Paul does indeed speak about Jesus as God, as we have seen. This does not mean that Christ is God the Father Almighty. Paul clearly thought Jesus was God in a certain sense—but he does not think that he was the Father. He was an angelic, divine being before coming into the world; he was the Angel of the Lord; he was eventually exalted to be equal with God and worthy of all of God’s honor and worship. And so I now have no trouble recognizing that in fact Paul could indeed flat-out call Jesus God, as he appears to do in Romans 9:5.
If someone as early in the Christian tradition as Paul can see Christ as an incarnate divine being, it is no surprise that the same view emerges later in the tradition. Nowhere does it emerge more clearly or forcefully than in the Gospel of John.
By the way, Ehrman has also stated publicly that he believes all authors of the 4 canonical Gospels personally believed that Jesus was "God" (in some sense and in different ways). See this video here at 18 minutes and 48 seconds:13.See the fuller discussions in Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), and Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Anchor Bible, 1997).
[Red highlighting and bolding above is by me, Annoyed Pinoy]
The following is note #2:5. To them belong the patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons, the primary recipients of the promises just mentioned.Of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. Compare the affirmation of Christ’s Davidic descent in 1:3, and the later statement that ‘Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs’ (15:8). In him all God’s promises to Israel reach their consummation.God who is over all be blessed for ever. The relation of these words to those which precede is disputed, RSV takes them as an independent ascription of praise to God, prompted by the mention of God’s crowning his many blessings on Israel by sending them the Messiah (similarly NEB, GNB). They may be taken, on the other hand, as in apposition to ‘the Christ’; so RSV margin: ‘who is God over all, blessed for ever’ (similarly AV, RV, NIV).The latter construction is more in keeping with the general structure of the sentence (cf. 1:25, where the words ‘who is blessed for ever! Amen’ are not an independent ascription of praise but the integral peroration of the sentence, standing in apposition to ‘the Creator’). It is further supported by the consideration that something is required to balance the phrase ‘according to the flesh’ (as in 1:3–4, where the same phrase is balanced by ‘according to the Spirit of holiness’). Here the Messiah is said, with regard to his human descent, to have come of a long line of Israelite ancestors; but as regards his eternal being, he is ‘God over all, blessed for ever’.It is true that Paul is not in the habit of calling Christ ‘God’; he reserves for him the title ‘Lord’: ‘for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist’ (1 Cor. 8:6). Yet for Paul Christ is the one in whom, through whom and for whom all things were created (Col. 1:16), in whom ‘the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2:9). ‘The judgment seat of God’ (14:10) is called in 2 Corinthians 5:10 ‘the judgment seat of Christ’. Moreover, when Paul gives Jesus the title ‘Lord’, he does so because God the Father has bestowed this title on him as ‘the name which is above every name’ (Phil. 2:9). This title ‘Lord’ is given to Jesus by Paul as the equivalent of Yahweh; his application of Isaiah 45:23 (cf. Rom. 14:11) to Jesus in Philippians 2:10–11 indicates that to him the confession ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is equivalent to ‘Jesus Christ is Yahweh’.It is, on the other hand, impermissible to charge those who prefer to treat the words as an independent doxology with Christological unorthodoxy. The words can indeed be so treated, and the decision about their construction involves a delicate assessment of the balance of probability this way and that.2[See Below For Note]
Amen. A proper conclusion to doxological language (cf. 1:25; 11:36; Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; 2 Tim. 4:18). In addition, it forms a fitting conclusion here to the very positive catalogue of Israel’s ancestral blessings (including, be it noted, ‘the giving of the law’)—a fuller answer to the question ‘what advantage has the Jew?’ (Rom. 3:1) than it received in its immediate context. Such a positive catalogue (which may also have been called for by the Jewish-Gentile situation in the Roman church) emphasizes the seriousness of the problem which Paul is about to propound.
For the construction preferred here see O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, E. T. (1959), pp. 312f.: J. Munck, Christ and Israel, E. T. (1967), pp. 32f.; B. M. Metzger, New Testament Studies (1980), pp. 57–74. For the other see V. Taylor, The Person of Christ in New Testament Teaching (1958), pp. 55–57; E. Käsemann, ad loc.-Romans: An Introduction and Commentary by F.F. Bruce [volume 6 in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries series with Leon Morris as General Editor]
Note #6:
The greatest blessing promised to Israel was the Messiah, that is, the Christ. From a strictly human point of view (“according to the flesh” here again; NIV “the human ancestry”), the Messiah was to arise from the people of Israel. But from the divine point of view, he is more; indeed, he is God. At least, this is the reading found in several English translations (NIV; KJV; NASB; JB; NRSV). Note, for instance, the NRSV: “From them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” Here the Messiah is identified as “God.”Other English translations do not make this identification. Note, for instance, the RSV: “Of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen” (see also NEB; TEV). As may be obvious from these conflicting renderings, the issue is how to punctuate the verse. Since most ancient manuscripts do not have punctuation, modern interpreters have to decide whether to put a comma or a period after “Messiah.” The issue is complicated, but both the syntax and the context favor the comma.6 [see below for Note] This verse, therefore, deserves to be numbered among those few in the New Testament that explicitly call Jesus “God.”
6. See esp. Bruce M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: In Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule (ed. B. Lindars and S. Smalley; Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973), 95–112; Murray J. Harris, Jesus as “God”: Theos as a Christological Title in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 144–72.-Romans: the NIV Application Commentary by Douglas Moo [in The NIV Application Commentary Series with Terry Muck as General Editor]
To account for various readings, the R.V. sometimes appeals in the margin to ancient authorities, meaning Greek MSS., &c., but here, and here only, modern interpreters are allowed to introduce, by varying punctuation, devices for destroying this emphatic testimony to the Deity of the Lord.- footnote for Rom. 9:5 in The Companion Bible
He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.- John 3:31In this verse Jesus describes Himself as the one who came down from heaven and then refers to Himself as "above all." This seems to parallel Rom. 9:5 which states that the Blessed God is "over all" (cf. Rom. 10:12; Acts 10:36). Therefore suggesting Jesus is either claiming (or hinting at) His full deity in John 3:31. Notice too that immediately after Rom. 10:12, which seems to refer to Jesus as "Lord of all," Paul quotes Joel 2:32 in verse 13 and applies it to Jesus even though the original context refers to Jehovah/Yahweh, the one true God.
above John, before whom he was preferred, for he was before him; above the prophets of the Old Testament, and even above Moses, the chief of them; yea, above all the angels in heaven, being God over all, blessed for ever: wherefore all glory is to be given him; no honour is to be envied him, or detracted from him.
19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."20 The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?"21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.- John 2:19-22Here we have Jesus referring to His physical body as a temple. In Mark 14:58 and Matt. 26:61 Jesus' accusers seem to be lying and/or confused about what Jesus claimed. Some accusers may have misquoted Jesus out of malice, while others misquoted Him because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying. Obviously, Jesus was comparing His physical body with the physical building of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Jesus may have made such claims multiple times. In John 2:19-22 the Jews clearly interpreted Jesus' statement as referring to the Jewish temple. They didn't understand He was comparing His physical body with the physical Jewish Temple/building in Jerusalem. They thought Jesus was referring only to the physical building of the Temple. In this comparison that Jesus makes we have a clear instance of Jesus claiming to be Almighty God incarnated. Otherwise, it would have been inappropriate for Jesus to compare Himself to the Jewish temple. If He weren't Almighty God incarnated, it would have been blasphemous for Jesus to compare Himself to the Jewish Temple since the Jews understood that even though God is omnipresent, God nevertheless dwells in the temple in Jerusalem in a special sense over and above His normal omnipresence.
[cf. ]
41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.- Matt. 12:41-42The only way Jesus could claim to be greater than the Jewish temple is if He's claiming to be God in the flesh (i.e. incarnate), since in Matt. 23:21 Jesus says, "...whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it." This is in agreement with the apostle Paul's theology in Col. 1:19; 2:9; Phil. 2:6-11.
Does not our Lord refer here to Mal. 3:1? Compare this with Heb. 3:3. The Jews esteemed nothing greater than the temple, except that God who was worshipped in it. Christ, by asserting he was greater than the temple, asserts that he was God; and this he does, in still more direct terms, Matt. 12:8, The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath - is Institutor and Governor of it. Compare this with Gen. 2:3 (note), and see the notes there.Clarke citations include Mal. 3:1 and Heb. 3:3:
"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.- Mal. 3:1
For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses---as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.- Heb. 3:3
"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."- Matt. 18:20 (NASB)This passage also implies the omnipresence of Jesus. An attribute that God alone possesses.
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."- Matt. 18:20 (ESV)
"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."- Matt. 18:20 (NKJV)
23 "Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.- Jer. 23:23-24 (ESV)
"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!"- 1 Kings 8:27 (ESV)
18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."- Matt. 28:18-20Unitarians who reject the full deity of Jesus have to argue around these evidences of Jesus' full deity. Unitarians have to ask themselves how they can account for the New Testament's repeated claims of Jesus being the temple of God or God in the flesh. If Jesus wasn't fully God, it would have been blasphemous for Jesus to refer to Himself as the true temple of God.
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.- Eph. 1:22-23
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities---all things were created through him and for him.17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.- Col. 1:15-20
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.- Col. 2:9-10
