The Subject of the Gospel

Romans 1:3

3concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,

 (Verse 3) - Concerning his Son - This is connected with the first verse, with the word “gospel.” The gospel of God concerning his Son. The design of the gospel was to make a communication relative to his Son Jesus Christ. This is the whole of it. There is no “good news” to man respecting salvation except what comes by Jesus Christ. The Gospel, at its root is about Jesus Christ and His finished work.  It is not about man, or the benefits we reap from it.  They are worthy subjects, but they are not a part of the Gospel.  We must be careful to be sure that we are both as exclusive and as inclusive as the bible is in regard to the content of the Gospel.  We ought to make sure that we both include all that is a part of the Biblical Gospel and that we exclude all that is not a part of it.  There is a proper time and setting for the discussion of the other matters, but the time for preaching the Gospel must be reserved for just that and that alone.  This is not to say that the Gospel is not detailed and comprehensive in what it declares about Jesus Christ – but it is to say that we need to show proper care that we are both including what the Bible includes, and not including that which the Bible does not include.

Both of the next two verses emphasize the divine sonship of Christ. There is a great mystery in the concept of Jesus as God’s Son. Although He is Himself God and Lord, He is yet the Son of God. Because Scripture plainly teaches both of those truths, the issue has to do not with whether He is the Son of God but in what sense He is God’s Son.

Clearly in His humanness Jesus was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh. Both Mary (Luke 3:23, 31), Jesus’ natural mother, and Joseph (Matt. 1:6, 16; Luke 1:27), Jesus’ legal father, were descendants of David.

Which was made - The word translated “was made” means usually “to be,” or “to become.” It is used, however, in the sense of being born (Gal. 4:4, John 8:58). In this sense it seems to be used here, who was born, or descended from the seed of David. It is not meant to imply that Jesus came into being, or that there was a time when He was not existent.  Rather, it is asserting that the Gospel has to do with the time that Jesus walked the earth, beginning with His birth.

Of the seed of David - Of the posterity or lineage of David. He was a descendant of David. David was perhaps the most illustrious of the kings of Israel. The promise to him was that there should not fail a man to sit on this throne; (1 Kings 2:4; 8:25; 9:5; 2 Chr. 6:16). This ancient promise was understood as referring to the Messiah, and hence, in the New Testament He is called the descendant of David, and so much pains is taken to show that he was of his line; (Luke 1:27; Matt. 9:27; 15:22; 12:23; 21:9, 15; 22:42, 45; John 7:42; 2 Tim. 2:8). As the Jews universally believed that the Messiah would be descended from David (John 7:42), it was of great importance for the sacred writers to make it out clearly that Jesus of Nazareth was of that line and family. Hence, it happened, that though our Savior was humble, and poor, and obscure, yet he had that on which no small part of the world have been accustomed so much to pride themselves, an illustrious ancestry. To a Jew there could be scarcely any honor so high as to be descended from the best of their kings; and it shows how little the Lord Jesus esteemed the honors of this world, that he could always evince his deep humility in circumstances where people are usually proud; and that when he spoke of the honors of this world, and told how little they were worth, he was not denouncing what was not within his reach.

In order to fulfill prophecy (see, e.g., 2 Sam. 7:12-13; Ps. 89:3-4, 19, 24; Isa. 11:1-5; Jer. 23:5-6), the Messiah had to be a descendant of David. Jesus fulfilled those messianic predictions just as He fulfilled all others. As the descendant of David, Jesus inherited the right to restore and to rule David’s kingdom, the promised kingdom that would be without end (Isa 9:7).

The second Person of the Trinity was born into a human family and shared human life with all other humanity, identifying Himself with fallen mankind, yet living without sin (Phil. 2:4-8). He thereby became the perfect high priest, wholly God yet also wholly man, in order that He (could “sympathize with our weaknesses,… one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). That is the gospel, the great good news, that in Jesus Christ God became a Man who could die for all men, a substitute sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (Rom. 5:18-19).

Even secular history is replete with reports of Jesus’ life and work. Writing about a.d. 114, the ancient Roman historian Tacitus reported that Jesus was founder of the Christian religion and that He was put to death by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (Annals 15.44). Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan on the subject of Jesus Christ and His followers (Letters 10.96-97). Jesus is even mentioned in the Jewish Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a, Abodah Zerah 16b-17a).

Writing in a.d. 90, before the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation, the familiar Jewish historian Josephus wrote a brief biographical sketch of Jesus of Nazareth. In it he said,

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man: for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third day as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning Him. And the tribe of Christians so named from Him are not extinct at this day (Antiquities, vol. 2, book 18, chap. 3)

An even more reliable witness was the apostle John, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus, is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:2-3).

John was not speaking of merely recognizing the fact of Jesus’ humanity. Countless unbelievers throughout history have been quite willing to concede that a man named Jesus lived in the first century and that He lived an exemplary life and generated a large following. The deist Thomas Jefferson believed in Jesus’ existence as a man and in His importance to human history, but he did not believe in Jesus’ divinity. He produced an edition of the Bible that eliminated all references to the supernatural. Consequently, the accounts of Jesus in Jefferson’s “gospels” pertained to purely physical facts and events.

That is hardly the kind of recognition God’s Word demands. The apostle was referring to believing and accepting the truth that Jesus was the Christ, the promised divine Messiah, and that He came from God and lived as a God-man among men.

According to the flesh - The word “flesh,” is used in the Scriptures in a great variety of significations.

(1) It denotes, as with us, the flesh literally of any living being; (Luke 24:39), “A spirit hath not flesh and bones,” etc.

(2) The animal system, the body, including flesh and bones, the visible part of man, in distinction from the invisible, or the soul; (Acts 2:31, 1 Cor. 5:5; 15:39).

(3) The man, the whole animated system, body and soul; (Rom. 8:3, 1 Cor. 15:50; Matt. 16:17; Luke 3:6).

(4) Human nature. As a man. (Acts 2:30, Rom. 9:5) The same is its meaning here. He was a descendant of David in his human nature, or as a man. This implies, of course, that he had another nature besides his human, or that while he was a man he was also something else; that there was a nature in which he was not descended from David. As such this is a very important verse.  The clear implication here is that Jesus has another nature to be considered – the Divine nature we find from other passages of Scripture.

That this is its meaning will still further appear by the following observations.

(1) The apostle expressly makes a contrast between his condition according to the flesh, and that according to the spirit of holiness.

(2) The expression “according to the flesh” is applied to no other one in the New Testament but to Jesus Christ. Though the word “flesh” often occurs, and is often used to denote man, yet the special expression, “according to the flesh” occurs in no other connection.

In all the Scriptures it is never said of any prophet or apostle, any lawgiver or king, or any man in any capacity, that he came in the flesh, or that he was descended from certain ancestors according to the flesh. Nor is such an expression ever used any where else. If it were applied to a mere man, we should instantly ask in what other way could he come than in the flesh? Has he a higher nature? Is he an angel, or a seraph? The expression would be meaningless or redundant. And when, therefore, it is applied to Jesus Christ, it implies, if language has any meaning, that there was a sense in which Jesus was not descended from David. What that was, appears in the next verse.

The gospel is about the time that Jesus as here in the flesh.  It is not about anything more or less than that.  It is about what He was, and what He came to do, how he went about doing it and whether or not he actually accomplished his mission before God or not.  The gospel is not about what happened before, or after the time Christ spent here on earth.  That is not to say that those events are not significant or important.  Nor is it to say that these other issues in theology and doctrine are not essential parts of Christian belief.  It is simply to say that they are not an essential part of the Gospel needful to be believed to be saved. 

The hallmarks of the Gospel message concern the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is this message that we must preach and teach to the world – and which we must call them to obedience and submission to.