(which he had before promised by his prophets in holy writings,)
God's good news did not begin with Paul, and this second verse says so. Paul says the message he was set apart to preach came first through God's own prophets, in writings God calls holy.
The gospel arrived far along in human history, but it had been in God's heart the whole time.
The fullness of God's spontaneous and active love toward man may be a truth that always feels new to us, because human thoughts prevail so constantly even in the saints. Yet it was no new thing to God. This gospel went out late in the world's history. But He had promised it beforehand through His prophets in holy writings. Those prophets always appear in the past, when everything on man's part was hopeless.
The verse looks back at promise. Paul stands on the other side of it. Notice too who owns the writings and the prophets.
The prophets had already promised this gospel beforehand in holy scripture. But now the announcement was no longer a promise. We do have precious promises for the path we must walk through this world, but the gospel is no promise. Instead, it is the fulfilment of the promises of God, so far as they relate to the Lord's incarnation, His finished work and His resurrection (1 Peter 1:11-12), and to His being glorified — though the Epistle to the Romans does not deal with that last point. Notice here that the "holy scriptures" are the promises of God, and that the prophets who gave them are God's prophets.
If God promised the gospel, we can go and read the promises. They run right across the Old Testament, and some are types — pictures that point ahead.
This Gospel was promised by God's prophets in the Old Testament Scriptures. The announcement came in many ways — in types, in the sacrifices, in direct predictions. Jewish believers looked forward to its accomplishment. You find the promises and predictions of the Gospel throughout the Old Testament, from Genesis 3 to the prophet Malachi. The Old Testament is the foundation of the Gospel. The rejection of the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God is therefore a very serious matter.
The message stood in writing before anyone preached it, so a preacher has something to point at. Paul did just that.
The glad tidings announced by Paul are also confirmed by Holy Scriptures. God's prophets promised them in past days. God's servants proclaim them now, in this day of grace. When they are preached, they carry the authority of the Holy Writings and confirm the promise made there. So in preaching the gospel, the apostle constantly appeals to the Scriptures.
The prophets did not announce everything Paul teaches. One writer draws a line between the gospel, which they foretold, and the mystery, which God kept secret.
But the Gospel, to which Paul says he was separated, had been "promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures." So the Gospel was not a secret hidden in the heart of the Creator. The prophets witnessed to it in the Holy Scriptures, right from the beginning of the fall of man until the end of Malachi. These Scriptures make a clear distinction between the Gospel and the mystery. The prophets witnessed to the Gospel during the whole time of man's testing. The mystery stayed the secret of God while that testing lasted.
The prophets spoke of things still to come. But what held all that prophecy together?
But this had been the subject of earlier promise. The prophets had spoken of these things. All prophecy had been the utterance of the Spirit of Christ; and all the promises found their object in His most blessed Person. So the "glad message of God" is simply the announcement that He has come — and in Him all the promises of God are yes and amen.
- Promised — God announced the gospel beforehand through His prophets. It is not a late idea.
- Person — every promise pointed to one object, God's Son, in whom the promises are yes and amen.
- Fulfilled — the prophets held out a promise. Paul announces it as done in Christ's incarnation, finished work and resurrection.
- Founded — types, sacrifices and direct predictions run from Genesis 3 to Malachi. The Old Testament is the foundation of the gospel, so Paul kept appealing to the Scriptures when he preached.
- Beyond promise — the prophets foretold the gospel. The mystery stayed God's secret, and the Scriptures themselves draw that line.
concerning his Son (come of David's seed according to flesh,
Paul opens his letter by naming what his gospel is about. The answer is not a doctrine or a benefit but a Person: God's own Son, born into David's family line. One short phrase holds two things together — who He already was, and what He became.
(The ESV says Jesus was "descended from David." Older translations say "made of the seed of David." Several writers below build on that older wording.)
Paul first says who the good news is about. Only later does he speak of sin, forgiveness, and righteousness. One writer warns that readers often reverse that order:
The first subject of the gospel is the person of the Lord Himself, before you have anything done for us — "concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 1:3); not — concerning "us." Too often the claim of Christ's person gets lost behind the thought of an individual being forgiven.
Nothing in this good news stands apart from Him:
"The gospel of God" is "concerning His Son Jesus Christ." If God is its source, Christ is what fills it through and through. Every single feature of it is joined to the Person of Christ by a living, vital link. The good news is the news that concerns Him. You will find it nowhere else, but you find it fully in Him.
The order of the words matters. Paul does not say that a man of David's line became the Son of God. He says the Son came of David's line.
It was the Son of God who became David's seed by becoming man. Though He was rejected as Son of David, He was declared "the Son of God with power … by the resurrection from the dead." … The idea that a Person in the Godhead, who cannot be described, became the Son of God by becoming man is a false theory, given a fresh lease of life in our day. That the Son of God became the Son of David by becoming man is the truth presented in the Gospel of God.
David's other descendants began to exist when they were born. Scripture uses different words for Christ. One writer sets the two side by side:
Scripture says He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. What does that mean, when it speaks of our Lord being made of the seed of David? Solomon was of the seed of David. But he did not exist until he was born. He was the seed of David. He was not made of the seed of David. But here Scripture tells us of a Divine Person, who was made of the seed of David, who came of David's seed according to the flesh. Is not the Deity of our Lord implied, His Manhood stated?
David's line is not a background detail. By coming from it, the Son fulfilled God's promise.
The first 17 verses of Romans 1 serve as a preface. In them the person of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, comes first as the primary subject of the gospel. He is seed of David according to the flesh, and so the fulfilment of the promise. He is proved Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness. His life was according to that power, and His resurrection was the proof of it.
How could David call his own descendant "Lord"? Writers point to this verse for the answer:
He was the Son of David, and David called Him Lord by the Holy Spirit, so there was no mistake. The explanation is that it was the Son of God who became the Son of David according to the flesh, as Romans 1:3 states so plainly. Once we fully acknowledge the Deity of Christ, everything is clear.
The same truth is the ground of the blessings Romans goes on to unfold:
The great Gospel letter, written to the believers at Rome, begins by showing that this is the foundation of all the rich blessings unfolded later for faith. Here, then, lies open before us the revealed secret of the believer's blessings now, and of Israel's blessings by and by. This also explains many passages that seem obscure. Some speak of Him as Man, others of Him as God, and sometimes one verse involves both.
- Person — The gospel's first subject is not what happens to us. It is who Christ is. Forgiveness follows; it does not lead.
- Son — He is called God's Son before the phrase about David's line; He did not become the Son by being born.
- Made — Solomon was David's seed; Christ was made of it. The word assumes Someone who already existed.
- Flesh — His entry into David's family line is God's promise kept in fact, not just in word.
- Key — Hold the two together and David's puzzle is solved. His Son is also his Lord. Verses that once looked contradictory now fit, and the letter's blessings rest here.
marked out Son of God in power, according to [the] Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of [the] dead) Jesus Christ our Lord;
Paul opens his letter by summing up the gospel in a description of Christ. He is a real man born into David's family, and the Son of God marked out in power. Two questions follow: what did the resurrection prove, and what does "Spirit of holiness" mean?
The verse names four glories of Christ, and the order matters.
First, Paul presents Christ as the Son. This speaks of His divine and eternal Personality, unchanged by anything He became. Second, he presents Christ in His incarnation, "come of David's seed according to flesh". This speaks not of His inherent Personal glory, but of what He became as a perfect Man. He was the Son before He came of the seed of David. He did not become the Son by becoming incarnate. Third, He became flesh, and the glory of His Person is guarded here: as a Man He is marked out from all others as the Son of God, in divine power. Fourth, Christ is acknowledged to be Jesus Christ, our Lord. Those who believe God's testimony about Him gladly come under His rule by owning Him as their Lord and Master.
Israel's teachers got as far as "the son of David" and stopped there.
When the blessed Lord asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" the scribes answer, "The son of David." They had no greater conception of their Messiah than this. And truly He was the son of David… But He had a greater glory than that of son of David; He was also Son of God. A mere son of David could have been no better than his father.
Raw power is not the point here.
Power raised Him, but it was not simply power — power will raise the wicked, yet will not declare them sons of God in any sense. This raising is according to the Spirit of holiness. It is according to the nature and character of God, glorified in all Christ's ways, and sealed and marked out in resurrection.
Commentators differ over what the phrase names. One writer sets out the common view, then rejects it:
Many take "a Spirit of holiness" (there is no article before "Spirit") to be the Lord's divine nature. That, they argue, is the proper contrast here: "according to the flesh," "according to the spirit." But Scripture uses no similar language anywhere else for the divine nature of our Lord.
Another writer ties the phrase to how Christ lived:
The Spirit of holiness that marked Him as He passed through this defiled world was the power by which He rose from the dead, having broken the power of death.
The phrase reaches wider than Easter morning.
Romans 1:4 does not limit the meaning to His own resurrection determining Him to be the Son of God with power. That is not what the verse says. It says that resurrection of the dead — the raising of dead persons — was the great proof that defined Him to be the Son of God with power. His own resurrection was the most astonishing instance of it, no doubt. But His raising of dead persons during His ministry was a witness too, and the resurrection of His saints later on will be the display of it.
Power and its proof belong together here, and one writer illustrates it simply:
If I lift up this table, I do it by power. At the same time, the act of lifting the table is what proves this power.
The world had already passed sentence on Him. God reversed it publicly.
The resurrection justified Jesus. It declared Him "Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness" when the world had crucified Him as an impostor.
The risen Christ is not only proof of who He is. He also shapes how believers now stand before God.
The cross, the death, and the blood-shedding of Jesus are now past. He was raised from among the dead, and the same Spirit of holiness now sets Him before us in risen life, with not a trace of the sin for which He suffered… This is what the letter opens out to us as the measure and pattern of our new standing and state before God.
- Person first. He was Son before He was David's descendant. Becoming man added what He became. It took nothing from what He was.
- Proof, not promotion. "Declared" means marked out or determined. The resurrection defined a Sonship already His. It did not create it.
- Power with a character. Bare power will raise the wicked too. Christ was raised according to the Spirit of holiness, which matches the nature of God.
- Proof at full reach. Not only His own rising, but every dead person He raised, and the raising of His people still to come.
- Pattern for us. The world called Him an impostor, and God vindicated Him. Believers own Him as Lord, and His risen life is the measure of their new standing.