The Book of Romans Part 3 (1:3,4) Son of God with Power

Once more, we continue our study
with the knowledge that we are leaning on the Lord Jesus for
understanding and guidance. Blessed Lord, speak what you will…I know
that the readers are immensely well versed in the subject we are
undertaking and pray that I merely can have some fruit among them.
Amen.

In my zeal, I realized too late that in my previous post
I dove right into verse 3. Today, we touch on the first (and a
comparatively minor) difficulty in the book of Romans, found in verse
4.

Speaking of Jesus Christ, verse 4 tells us that He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:"

What is the verse saying? Is it saying, perhaps, that Jesus Christ
was declared, by means of the Holy Spirit, to be the Son of God by the
very powerful event of his resurrection from the dead?

After all, Acts 10:38 points out that Jesus of Nazareth was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power or 2 Corinthians 13:4 explaining that Jesus Christ was crucified because of weakness, yet He lives because of the power of God. Elsewhere (1 Cor 6:14 ) we see how God has both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power.

The resurrection was indeed a powerful event, and made that much
more powerful that the triune God was working in that moment in finite
time to perform an event that would ripple through time…and yet, is
this what the verse is talking about?

Remember the examples that Paul is using here to illustrate the
importance of this good news of God, promised afore, which concerns
Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul highlighted the fleshly, earthly descent of
Jesus (as well as the prophetic fulfillment therein) by pointing out
that He was of the seed of David. What an amazing thing it is to
consider that the second person of the trinity, eternal and all
powerful intervened in humanity and became weak flesh. God walked among
men and was subsequently tortured and killed by men!

Thank be to God that his earthly credentials were not the end of His
descent. Jesus Christ our Lord was declared to be not only the Son of
David, but also the Son of God. Although He was the Son of David
without a throne and without authority among men, He was the Son of God
with power, and not only the authority aspect. His very spirit of
holiness declared this?not so much the Holy Spirit?but the very spirit
of Jesus, the second person of the trinity attested to Him being the
eternal, Son of God with power by means of the very fact that the dead
resurrect!

The verse is pointing out, not only His own resurrection but the
resurrection of anyone from the dead. Be it Lazarus, a young girl,
various saints during the crucifixion, a young man falling out of a
window, any of those events even reaching into the future where the
very dead in Christ will rally to the trump of the Lord, Jesus Christ
declared to be the Son of God by the fact of the resurrection of The
Dead.

This is what makes the gospel of God so utterly amazing. Paul points
out that it is this very person of the trinity (this very Son of David
AND Son of God, forever eternal, became flesh, died, rose again,
declared by the fact that the dead actually rise up) is the one who
doles out both grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among
all nations, for His name (v5). This same person being the very one who
calls the Roman saints (v6)?how easily they can understand that they
are beloved of God, called to be saints. With such a calling, they most
assuredly, have Grace and peace from God our Father AND the Lord Jesus
Christ (v.7).

What an astounding gospel we have here. This is not man-made or
man-reliant, but God-reliant. If the eternal God can show such grace
and mercy toward us, wretched sinners who have pinned His Son to the
tree, let us shudder with the understanding that yes, Grace and Peace
are towards us from God our Father AND the Lord Jesus Christ.

Next we'll touch on a group of verses from 1:8 – 1:17.