["_Who is over all, God blessed for ever._] The Greek may, with more or less facility, be translated (1) as in A.V.; or (2) '=who is God over all,=' etc.; or (3) '=blessed for ever be He who is God over all=' (_i.e._, the Eternal Father).... If we adopt (3) we take the Apostle to be led, by the mention of the Incarnation, to utter a sudden and solemn doxology to the God who gave that crowning mercy. In favour of this it is urged (by some entirely orthodox commentators, as H. A. W. Meyer) that St Paul nowhere else styles the Lord simply 'God,' but rather 'the Son of God,' etc. By this they do not mean to detract from the Lord's Deity; but they maintain that St Paul always so states that Deity, under divine guidance, as to mark the 'Subordination of the Son'--that Subordination which is not a difference of Nature, Power, or Eternity, but of Order; just such as is marked by the simple but profound words FATHER and SON. "But on the other hand there is Tit. ii. 13, where the Greek is (at least) _perfectly capable_ of the rendering, 'our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' [There is Acts xx. 28, where the evidence is very strong for the reading, retained by the R.V. (text), '_the Church of God_, which He purchased with His own blood.' And if St John is to be taken to report words exactly, in his narrative of the Resurrection, in an incident whose point is deeply connected with verbal precision, we have one of the first Apostles, within eight days of the Resurrection, addressing the Risen Lord (John xx. 28) as '_my God_.' (We call attention to this as against the contention that only the latest developments of inspiration, represented in _e.g._ St John's Preamble to his Gospel, shew us Christ called explicitly God.)] "If ... it is divinely true that 'the WORD IS GOD,' it is surely far from wonderful if here and there, in peculiar connexions, [St Paul] should so speak of Christ, even though guided to keep another phase of the truth _habitually_ in view. "Now, beyond all fair question, the Greek here is quite naturally rendered as in the A.V.; had it not been for historical controversy, probably, no other rendering would have been suggested. And lastly, and what is important, the context far rather suggests _a lament_ (over the fall of Israel) than an ascription of praise. And what is most significant of all, it pointedly suggests _some explicit allusion to the super_-human Nature of Christ, by the words '_according to the flesh_.' But if there is such an allusion, then it must lie in the words, '_over all, God_.'" It may be interesting to add the following note from Franz Delitzsch (_Brief an die Römer in das Hebräische übersetzt und aus Talmud und Midrasch erläutert_, Leipzig, 1870, p. 89):