Theme: Holy power in a humble person

Exegetical note
In the longest of all of his epistolary salutations, Paul here provides the Roman Christians, whom he had not yet visited, with a concise compendium of his Christology. Its heart is the parallel construction in vv. 3 and 4, which sets Jesus' fleshly descendency from David over against his spiritual "designation" as Son of God "by his resurrection from the dead." The wording of the latter component of this parallel is especially ambiguous, and at least hints of "adoptionist" sentiments. But the real point …