Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Avery
A comma after God does in fact make a radical change in meaning.
a) it creates the definite apposition, Christ == God.
b) it separates God from blessed, which is a natural association
You might claim (a) without the comma, but you have to work with a double or triple ellipsis. It is an awkward claim at best.
Thus without the comma leads to different interpretations. In fact, many writers who discuss this verse simply quietly add the comma.
Early Greek manuscripts often do have punctuation, as do some dozens of cursives. This is not really relevant, since we are studying the AV text, but I want to correct what you say above.
You are right that most all commentators fall into that dichotomy. And many early church writers like the Christ is God understanding. There seems to be a bandwagon effect, with the taking of sides.
My side is whatever the pure Bible, the AV, tells me  . We should let the Bible text inform our doctrine, and not change the text to match our doctrines. |
Well yes, but the pure Bible text is the Greek Textus Receptus not English.
The theological dichotomy is between Christ according to the flesh and its necessary corrolary "according to the spirit", which is supplied by "who is over all, God blessed for ever". God is by nature "over all", thus Christ is God by nature. And of course God is "blessed unto the ages" which is a brief doxological statement as was and is common to devout Judeans (like Paul).
Apparently this verse was assumed by practically everyone except the Arians to be a direct and uncontroversial statement of Christ's deity. I believe it was also contested between trinitarians and so called "Sabellians" as to what exactly it signified (centering on the definite article - or lack thereof). Those who tried to deflect from the verse's statement of Christ's deity resorted to serious eisegesis in trying to make it read "Blessed be God forever who is over all" or some variation thereof. (This is the "doxology" interpretation JFB referenced in Pressing On's posts above.) Needless to say, such an approach is a wrangling not only of the Greek but the English of the AV as well.