Romans 1:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

With power— See on Romans 1:16. He who will read in the original what St. Paul says, Ephesians 1:19-20 concerning the power which God exerted in raisingChrist from the dead, will hardly avoid thinking that he there sees St. Paul labouring for words to express the greatness of it. The word declared does not exactly answer the original, nor is it perhaps easy to find a word in English which perfectly answers to the Greek word ορισθεντος, in the sense the Apostle uses it here. The original word 'Οριζειν signifies properly to bound, terminate, or circumscribe; by which termination the figure of things sensible is made,—and they are known to be of this or that species, and so distinguished from others. Thus St. Paul takes Christ's resurrection from the dead and entering into immortality to be the most eminent and characteristical mark whereby Christ is certainly known, and as it were determined, to be the Son of God; and undoubtedly his resurrection amply rolled away all the reproach of his cross, and intitled him to the honour of the first-born among many brethren. The phrase according to the Spirit of holiness, says Mr. Locke, is here manifestly opposed to according to the flesh in the foregoing verse, and so must mean his divine nature; unless this be understood, the antithesis is lost. Dr. Doddridge, however, and others think, that it appears little agreeable to the style of Scripture in general, to call the divine nature of Christ the Spirit of holiness, and therefore they rather refer it to the operation of the Spirit of God, in the production of Christ's body; by which means the opposition between the flesh and the Spirit will be preserved, the one referring to the materials acted upon, the other to the divine and miraculous agent. Compare Luke 1:35. The sense of the verse maybe expressed thus: "But determinately and in the most convincing manner marked out to be the Son of God, as to that spiritual part in him, which remained perfectly holy and spotless under all temptations, by his being raised from the dead to universal dominion."