fact that God was incarnate was proved, and his claims vindicated by the divine nature, which exhibited its power and glory in so many ways, in the words and works of Christ. In 1 Pet. 3 : 18, Christ is saitd to have been put to death as to thejlesk, but to have remained alive as to the Spirit^ by which Spirit he preached to the spirits in prison. If this preaching refers to the times before the flood, then does Spirit here also mean the divine nature of Christ. 3. The antithesis obviously demands this inter- pretation— as to thejlesh, Christ was the Son of David, as to the Spirit, the Son of God : if the flesh means his human, the Spirit must mean his iivine nature. 4. It is confirmed by a comparison with ch. 9 : 5 ; there ^he two natures of Christ are also brought into view and contrasted ; as to the flesh he was an Israelite, but as to his higher nature he is God over all and blessed for ever. So the latter clause of that passage answers to the latter clause of this ; to be the Son of God, is equivalent to being God over all.
By the resurrection from the dead. That is, the resurrection of Christ was the great decisive evidence that he was the Son of God ; it was the pub- lic acknowledgment by God of the validity of all the claims which Christ had made. Hence the apostles were appointed as witnesses of that fact, Acts 1 : 22. see on v. 1. This, of course, does not at all imply that the resurrection of Christ in itself was any proof that he was the Son of God, any further than it was a proof that he was all that he had claimed to be, and as, in its attending circumstances, it was a display of his divine power. He had power to lay down his life, and he had power to take it again. This clause is sometimes rendered " after the resurrection from the dead." The preposition used in the Greek admits of either render- ing ; but the former is better suited to the context, and more in accordance with the manner in which Paul speaks elsewhere of the resurrection. See the passages cited above.
The expression ' Son of God' is used in scripture almost exclusively in reference to Jesus Christ. Adam, indeed, is so called in the genea- logical table given in Luke ch. 3. to express the idea of his immediate creation by God. But the expression is applied to Christ in a sense in which it is applicable to no other being. It appears from this and other passages that it implies that Christ is of the same nature with God, par- taker of the same essence and attributes. Thus in John 5 : 17, Christ calls God his father in such a sense as thereby to claim equality with God. Compare John 1 : 14. 10 : 30—39. Heb. 1 : 4—7.
(5) By whom we have received grace and apostleship, &c. Having in the preceding verses set forth the character of Jesus Christ, as at once the Son of David and the Son of God, Paul says it was from him, and not from any inferior source, that he received his authority. This point he often insists upon. Gal. 1 : 1. 1 Cor. 1 : 1, &c. The word grace means favour, kindness, and is often metonymically used for any gift proceeding from kindness, especially unmerited kindness. Hence all the gifts of the Spirit are graces^ unmerited favours. The greatest of God's