According to 1:3-4, the One who is the seed of David and the Son of God is “Jesus Christ our Lord.” His name is Jesus, His title is Christ, and He is our Lord. Jesus, a name given by God, is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua (Num. 13:16), which means “Jehovah the Savior,” or “the salvation of Jehovah.” Hence, Jesus is not only a man but Jehovah, and not only Jehovah but Jehovah becoming our salvation. Thus, He is our Savior. He is also our Joshua, the One who brings us into rest (Heb. 4:8; Matt. 11:28-29), which is Himself as the good land to us (Col. 1:12).
Christ is the title of the Lord according to His office, His mission. Christ is the anglicized form of the Greek word Christos , which is equivalent to the Hebrew Messiah. Both Messiah in Hebrew and Christos in Greek mean “the anointed One.” Christ is God’s Anointed, the One appointed by God to accomplish God’s purpose, His eternal plan. His appointment is related to the Lord’s commission. His commission is to accomplish God’s eternal purpose through His crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and second advent. When this anointed One was crucified, He was carrying out His function as the Christ. Not only His death but also His resurrection and ascension were part of His function. Therefore, Christ, the anointed One, carried out His function through crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension so that God may dispense Himself into us for the producing of the church.
Our Lord refers to His lordship. Jesus became the Lord after His ascension to the heavens (Acts 2:36). This means that a man from Nazareth named Jesus has been made the Lord of all (10:36). Thus, the man Jesus Christ is our Lord. This lordship is now in the Spirit. In the Lord Spirit we have the elements of ascension and lordship (2 Cor. 3:18). Whenever we turn to our spirit and call upon the name of the Lord, we should enthrone the Lord, giving Him the lordship in us. We must repent to the Lord and say, “Lord, forgive me. I am not under Your lordship, Your authority. Lord, I confess that I have been ruled only by myself.” We need to allow the Lord to be on the throne within us, honoring Him as our Lord.
Regarding the status of Christ, we should note that the phrase according to is used twice in Romans 1:3-4: He was the seed of David according to the flesh, and He was the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. The two occurrences of according to in 1:3-4 show that the Lord has two essences—the human essence and the divine essence. For this reason, Christ could be of two natures; He could be at the same time divine and human as well as human and divine. Hence, He is a wonderful person. He is not only God but also man; He is not only man but also God. He is the complete God plus the perfect man. Therefore, many great Bible teachers through the centuries have considered Christ to be the God-man.
Christ is the seed of David according to the flesh and in His humanity (v. 3). Here flesh refers not to created man—man as originally created by God—but to fallen man—man who became flesh through the fall. When God first created man, man was not flesh. However, man’s fall brought sin into man’s nature, changing created man into fallen man. Genesis 6:3 indicates that by the time of the flood, the entire human race had become flesh. When Christ became flesh as the seed of David, He became a man in the likeness, the form, of fallen man but without the sinful nature. Romans 8:3 says that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” Christ does not possess any sin; He has nothing to do with sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5). Hence, when Christ became flesh, He was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin and did not have the sin of the flesh. This is typified by the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses for the sinful Israelites (Num. 21:9; John 3:14). The bronze serpent was in the form, the likeness, of the actual serpent but did not have its poison. Christ was made in “the likeness of the flesh of sin,” but He did not participate in any way in the sin of the flesh.