An Examination of Romans 9:5

Did Paul declare to believers in Rome that Jesus is God?  Some Christians believe he did based on the following passage:

Romans 9:3-5 (NASB) For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, ⁴  who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, ⁵  whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

Is Jesus the God who is blessed forever?  Or was Paul offering a doxology to God the Father?  The translation of verse five is disputed because of its ambiguity.[1]   At the time of Paul’s writing, the Greek language did not use punctuation, and there no were spaces added to separate words.  Moreover, all letters were written uniformly in size, making it difficult at times for translators to know where one sentence ends and another begins.  Such is the case with Romans 9:5.  What’s more, the meaning of the text changes depending on the placement of punctuation.   While some translators interpret verse 5 as the New American Standard Bible does above, there are also numerous translators who punctuate the sentence differently:

J.B. Phillips (1972): The patriarchs are theirs, and so too, as far as human descent goes, is Christ himself, Christ who is over all.  May God be blessed forever.  Amen.

Revised English Version: Theirs are the Fathers, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ. (God, who is over all, be blessed forever.  Amen.)

Revised Standard Version …according to the flesh, is the Christ.  God who is over all be blessed forever.  Amen.

Moffatt …(so far as natural descent goes) is the Christ. (Blessed for evermore be the God who is over all!  Amen!)

The Living Bible: Great men of God were your fathers, and Christ himself was one of you, a Jew so far as his human nature is concerned, he who now rules over all things.  Praise God forever!

Goodspeed:  and the patriarchs, and from them physically Christ came–God who is over all be blessed forever!

For these translators and others, the last phrase is a declaration of praise to God, and not to the Christ. 

Paul’s Christology

While it may be difficult to translate the text grammatically, there are a number of reasons to believe that Paul was not saying that Jesus is God.  For one thing, Paul was a Jew and, as such, was a devoted monotheist.  He never taught, nor did any other New Testament writer, that Jesus is God or that God is a triune being.  Indeed, Paul makes a distinction between God and Jesus in all of his letters.  For example, in the opening remarks of this same letter, Paul writes:

Romans 1:7-8 (NASB) …Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. (emphasis added)

For Paul, God is the Father, while Jesus is the Christ (Messiah).  Notice that Paul thanks his God through Jesus.  In other words, Jesus is not Paul’s God, but the mediator through whom Paul has access to God.[2]  Furthermore, Paul instructs believers in the same letter to be of one accord that they might glorify the God of Jesus:

Romans 15:6 (NASB) so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (emphasis added)

Scripture emphatically says at least twenty times that Jesus has a God, eight of those times are declarations of Jesus, himself.  How can Jesus have a God if he is God?  It is a contradictory and illogical concept.  On the other hand, it is both Biblical and reasonable to say that the human Messiah followed and served the God of the Jews. 

It is also important to note that Paul closes his letter to the saints in Rome with a robust doxology to the only wise God:

Romans 16:27 (NASB) to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

In these two passages (15:6 and 16:27), Paul gives God, not Jesus, the glory, a strange thing to do if Jesus is also God.  But Paul doesn’t believe in the deity of Christ.  On the contrary, Paul declares that God the Father is the only God while Jesus is the Christ.  The apostle’s Christology is consistent throughout all of his writings.  For example, in his letter to Timothy, he writes:

1 Timothy 2:5 (NASB) For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, (emphasis added)

Jesus is not the one God, but the human mediator.  And again, this time to the church in Corinth, Paul affirms that the one God is the Father while designating Jesus as the Christ:

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 (NASB) For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, ⁶  yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.  (emphasis added)

Therefore, to translate Paul’s comment in Romans 9:5 in a way that says Jesus is God is to violate his often repeated Christology and to distort Scripture, a serious error, indeed. 

God the Father is over all

Another clue that tells us that Paul was not identifying Jesus as God in Romans 9:5 is his use of the phrase over all:

Romans 9:5 (NASB) whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

Paul never uses the phrase over all to refer to Jesus.  Rather, he uses the phrase or other comparable wording to refer only to God who is the Father.  For instance:

Ephesians 4:4-6 (NASB)  There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵  one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶  one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.  (emphasis added)

1 Corinthians 15:28 (NASB) When all things are subjected to Him [Jesus], then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.  (emphasis added)

God the Father is blessed

Another reason we can deduce that Paul isn’t designating Jesus as God in the passage under review is because of his use of the word blessed: 

Romans 9:5 (NASB) whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

Paul, like other New Testament authors, only uses the word blessed to describe God and never Jesus.[3]  For instance, in Romans, Paul says that God, the Creator, is blessed forever: 

Romans 1:25 (NASB) For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

You’ll recall that in verses 7 and 8 of the same chapter that Paul clearly identifies his God as the Father.  In addition, Paul calls God the Father blessed in his letter to the Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 1:3 (NASB) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort (emphasis added)

Not only does Paul bless God the Father, we see, once again, that he identifies Him as the God of Jesus. 

According to the Flesh

But what about the fact that Paul uses the phrase according to the flesh?  Isn’t this a reference to the incarnation?

Romans 9:5 (NASB) whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (emphasis added)

Let’s allow Paul to interpret Paul.  Again, in the opening remarks to the Romans, Paul uses the same phrase: 

Romans 1:3-4 (NASB) concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, ⁴  who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord. (emphasis added)

Paul’s use of these contrasting statements: according to the flesh and according to the Spirit, represents a major theme in this epistle.  (See this article for more on Romans 1:3-4.) Some might say these statements prove that Jesus had a human nature and a divine nature.  However, Paul uses the same phrase (according to the flesh) seventeen times in his epistles, eight times in Romans alone.  Paul never uses the phrase to denote an incarnation–an idea that is rooted in Platonic philosophy, and which is completely foreign to traditional Hebraic thought.  Rather, Paul applies this common phrase to the likes of Abraham, Paul’s relatives and to Christ-followers.  Knowing this, surely, we would not suggest that according to the flesh is a reference to a heavenly pre-existence and subsequent incarnation. Instead, Paul uses the phrase according to the flesh primarily in one of two ways.  First, to refer to one’s heritage or ancestry.  For example:

Romans 4:1 (NASB) What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?

This is how Paul used the phrase with regard to his own relatives [4] ​ and with regard to Jesus in Romans 9:5.  The second way Paul uses the phrase is as a reference to human desires that are not in keeping with God’s will: 

Romans 8:4-5 (NASB) so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵  For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.    (emphasis added)

We must be consistent in our interpretations.  If according to the flesh means that Jesus pre-existed, then so did Abraham and so did we.  

Scholars have demonstrated that the ambiguous nature of Romans 9:5 makes it a difficult passage to translate grammatically.  However, in order for the interpretation to align with Paul’s beliefs, especially as stated in Romans, we must conclude that Paul was offering up praise to God the Father and not declaring Jesus to be deity.  Going forward, wisdom would dictate that we base our theology and Christology on clear, unambiguous passages and not obscure ones that are difficult to translate.  

[1] Bruce Metzger, “The Punctuation of Romans 9:5,” Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, Barnabas Lindars, ed. (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 97ff. 

[2] John 14:6; Ephesians 2:18; 3:11-12; Hebrews 4:14-16.

[3] Mark 14:61; Luke 1:68; Romans 1:25; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 11:31; Ephesians 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3.

[4] Romans 9:3.