Romans 9:5 - CARM discussion of Christ as God blessed for ever.

[Steven Avery]

Ideas of Barry Hofstetter and Brian, and my posts.

One goal is simply to find out if the Greek has any obstacles to Christ as God blessed for ever.

Trinitarian confusion at Romans 9:5
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/

Anomalous relative pronoun in Rom 9:5
https://forums.carm.org/threads/anomalous-relative-pronoun-in-rom-9-5.7867/

 

[Steven Avery]

https://forums.carm.org/threads/anomalous-relative-pronoun-in-rom-9-5.7867/page-4#post-575673

Romans 9:5 (AV)
Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came,
who is over all,
God blessed for ever.
Amen.

The AV is following the Greek word order.

“God blesses Christ” (or Israel through Christ) is the most natural reading of the AV.
It definitely deserves careful consideration, even if generally bypassed in commentaries.

It seems to me that it is not usually considered because it does not please either of the two main sides in the doctrinal divide.

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The “Christ is God” crew miss their claimed apposition. Anything less causes them pain, even though it is not a natural reading. And the New Testament writing emphasizes dual addressing in dozens of verses as the natural apostolic writing. And also the NT generally uses God for God the Father. “Christ is God" is actually unacceptable if God is "God the Father", to all but the Sabellians, who are considered heretics. This comes out in Hippolytus contra Noetus, without resolving the intrinsic difficulty of claiming the text says Christ is God. If not God the Father, what God is being expressed?

The “God is over all” crew do not like the high Christology of Christ over all and blessed for ever. The Unitarian/Socinian attempts are strained and awkward. They are reactive to the strained "Christ is God" reading.

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And a bandwagon fallacy comes into play.

There is some irony in how a natural understanding is bypassed due to doctrinal shibboleths on opposite sides.

They get you coming and going, everybody must get stoned.

This won't work and shows that you depend on the English, not the Greek (although I think the English does not bear this interpretation either). "Blessed, " εὐλογητός, is passive in sense and must refer to nominative subject.

Above I wrote “God blesses Christ” not to show an active verb, which appears to be your critique. The sense would be more precisely, “Christ is blessed by God” == “Christ is God blessed”. Then you have your passive blessed.

Feel free to explain why you believe God/Christ (I.e. God who is Christ) must be blessed rather than simply Christ.
Thanks!

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Presumably you are defending:
“God (who is Christ) (is) blessed for ever (by his people, or Paul, or creation, et al).

Is that correct?

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As for the AV English, I think anyone who simply reads the text without brain-clutter will see “Christ is God blessed” as the cleanest interpretation. I’ve seen claims like the supposed need for a hyphen, but on closer examination that simply was not correct.

Well, the text doesn't exactly say that, does it? And remember I'm a member of the God squad -- I think the more natural reading is that all the nominatives have the same referent, who is Christ.

The English of the AV clearly does bear that interpretation, very smoothly.

Christ ... who is over all,
(Christ who is) God blessed for ever.

Romans 9:5 (KJV)
Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came,
who is over all,
God blessed for ever.
Amen.

In this understanding, It looks to me that "God blessed" does refer to the nominative subject Christ.

If you feel that does not work, please share away more excellently.

Thanks!

Gryllus also shot down that reading of yours earlier on, but you seem to have missed that:

https://forums.carm.org/threads/anomalous-relative-pronoun-in-rom-9-5.7867/page-13#post-654050
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-18#post-653526
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-18#post-654290

Murray J. Harris referred to the “natural association”, which you see in the English AV text. Harris actually drifted away from that idea in his final preferences ignoring the association.

Another gentleman pointed out how both words are nominative singular masculine.

https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-9#post-626059

The term "natural association" without further clarification is meaningless. Whoever the other nameless gentleman is is correct, both are, but that suggests to me apposition and both having the same referent.

https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-9#post-626096

Why would God and blessed being nominative, singular, masculine have anything to do with apposition of God and Christ?

Were you thinking of God and Christ when you wrote the above?

https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-18#post-654295

 

[Steven Avery]

CARM
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/page-23#post-664079
cjab said:

If we ask ourselves point blank, whether Paul, as we know his mind from his epistles, would express his sense of Christ's greatness by calling Him God blessed forever, it seems to me almost impossible to answer in the affirmative. Such an assertion is not on the same plane with the conception of Christ which meets us everywhere in the Apostle's writings ;

Notice the ambiguity.

If we call Christ “God blessed forever” it is akin to the doxologies to Christ mentioned by Meyer (who got tripped up by thinking of books as non-authentic and/or non-Pauline.). There is really nothing unusual.

Robertson-Nicoll is not writing about Christ who has these two separate attributes:
“God,
blessed forever.”