"_He was born_" of David's seed. Literally, the Greek may be rendered, "_He became, He came to be_." Under either rendering we have the wonderful fact that He who in His higher Nature eternally _is_, above time and including it, did in His other Nature, by the door of _becoming_, enter time, and thus indeed "fill all things." This He did, and thus He is, "_according to the flesh_." "Flesh" is, indeed, but a part of Manhood. But a part can represent the whole; and "flesh" is the part most antithetical to the Divine Nature, with which here Manhood is collocated and in a sense contrasted. So it is again below, ix. 5.
[Sidenote: Ver. 4.] And now, of this blessed Son of David, we hear further:--=who was designated to be Son of God;= literally, "_defined as Son of God_" betokened to be such by "infallible proof." Never for an hour had he ceased to be, in fact, Son of God. To the man healed of birth-blindness He had said (John ix. 35), "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" But there was an hour when He became openly and so to speak officially what He always is naturally; somewhat as a born king is "made" king by coronation. Historical act then affirmed independent fact, and as it were gathered it into a point for use. This affirmation took place =in power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, as a result of resurrection from the dead.= "Sown in weakness," Jesus was indeed "raised in" majestic, tranquil "power." Without an effort He stepped from out of the depth of death, from under the load of sin. It was no flickering life, crucified but not quite killed, creeping back in a convalescence mis-called resurrection; it was the rising of the sun. That it was indeed day-light, and not day-dream, was shown not only in His mastery of matter, but in the transfiguration of His followers. No moral change was ever at once more complete and more perfectly healthful than what His return wrought in that large and various group, when they learnt to say, "We have seen the Lord." The man who wrote this Epistle had "seen Him last of all" (1 Cor. xv. 8). That was indeed a sight "in power," and working a transfiguration.
So was the Son of the Father affirmed to be what He is; so was He "made" to be, for us His Church, the Son, in whom we are sons. And all this was, "_according to the Spirit of holiness_"; answerably to the foreshadowing and foretelling of that Holy Spirit who, in the prophets, "testified of the sufferings destined for the Christ, and of the glories that should follow" (1 Pet. i. 11).
Now lastly, in the Greek of the sentence, as if pausing for a solemn entrance, comes in the whole blessed Name; =even Jesus Christ our Lord.= Word by word the Apostle dictates, and the scribe obeys. JESUS, the human Name; CHRIST, the mystic Title; OUR LORD, the term of royalty and loyalty which binds us to Him, and Him to us. Let those four words be ours for ever. If everything else falls in ruins from the memory, let this remain, "the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever."
[Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =Through whom,= the Apostle's voice goes on, =we received grace and apostleship.= The Son was the Channel "through" which the Father's choice and call took effect. He "grasped" Paul (Phil. iii. 12), and, joined him to Himself, and in Himself to the Father; and now through that Union the motions of the Eternal will move Paul. They move him, to give him "_grace and apostleship_"; that is, in effect, grace for apostleship, and apostleship as grace; the boon of the Lord's presence in him for the work, and the Lord's work as a spiritual boon. He often thus links the word "_grace_" with his great mission; for example, in Gal. ii. 9, Eph. iii. 2, 8, and perhaps Phil. i. 7. Alike the enabling peace and power for service, and then the service itself, are to the Christian a free, loving, beatifying gift.