Excerpts from the CNT:

Romans 9:5 presents Christ as God over all, blessed forever. We need to ponder and experience this aspect of Christ so that we may enter into a rich enjoyment of Him. Christ as a God-man became the life-giving Spirit, and we as men are one spirit with Him and thus may always enjoy Him (1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17). Yet it is easy for us to neglect or even forget that Christ is nothing less than God Himself. According to Paul’s word in Romans 9:5, the Christ into whom we believe, whom we have received, and to whom we are joined as one spirit is “God over all, blessed forever.” When Paul came to this point in his writing, he was so filled with the glorious person of Christ that he poured out what was in his heart and declared that Christ is God over all, blessed forever. We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ is the very God who is over all and blessed forever. Though He came out of the Jewish race in the flesh, He is the infinite God. Concerning Him Isaiah 9:6 says, “For a child is born to us /...His name will be called... / Mighty God.” We praise Christ for His deity, and we worship Him as God, the complete God, blessed forever.

a. Out of the Fathers according to Flesh in His Humanity

Christ is out of the fathers of Israel according to flesh in His humanity. Romans 9:5 says, “Whose are the fathers, and out of whom, as regards what is according to flesh, is the [3088] Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” This verse tells us that Christ came out of the fathers. The fathers here refers to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others; according to His human nature, Christ came out of the children of Israel. Christ was a man with flesh who came out of the tribe of Judah, a tribe of Israel. It is according to His humanity that Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, could come from the fathers of Israel.

b. Over All in His Godhead

Although in His humanity Christ came out of the fathers of Israel according to flesh, in His Godhead He is God over all, blessed forever. The Christ who is our Savior and our life is the complete God. In Romans 9:5 three matters are covered. First, Christ is God. Since Christ Himself actually is God, there is no difference between Him and God. John 1:1 says that the Word, which is Christ, was with God and was God. Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, was God over all and blessed forever. The only way for us to contact God and enjoy Him today is through Christ and in Christ.

Second, Christ is God over all; this refers to His headship which is unique and eternal. As God, Christ is over all things: man, angels, the heavens, and the earth. Christ is God who has been and will be, over all, blessed forever.

Some heretical teachers argue that there are different ranks within the Godhead and that Jesus Christ as God occupies a lower rank in the Godhead. They contend that according to Psalm 82:6, angels are gods. They say that this means that the angels are gods on a lower level in the Godhead, and that like the angels, Jesus Christ as God occupies a lower rank in the Godhead. However, according to Romans 9:5, Jesus Christ is God over all, blessed forever. Certainly, this cannot be said of the angels, for they are neither over all nor blessed forever. Jesus Christ is God over all, including the angels.

Third, Christ is not only God over all but also God blessed forever. In the universe only God Himself is worthy of being blessed. As God, Christ is blessed forever, that is, eternally. Christ is God over all, blessed for eternity. No one can deny [3089] the truth that although Christ was incarnated to be a man, Christ is God Himself over all, blessed forever.

It is a shame that certain so-called Christians argue about the deity of Christ and debate whether or not Christ is God. In Christian history there have been so-called Christian teachers who deny the deity of Christ. For instance, modernists do not believe in the deity of Christ, thereby denying His Godhead. Twisting the Holy Scriptures, some believe that although Christ was a perfectly good man, He was not the complete God. They deny the deity of Christ and do not enjoy His headship because they do not realize that the trinity of the Godhead is not merely for people to understand as theological knowledge but for the Triune God to dispense Himself into us for our enjoyment. Conversely, if we see that the trinity of the Godhead is not mainly for theological understanding but for the divine dispensing, we will never doubt that Christ is God. We must hold the truth that Christ is God.

Christ is not only God but also the embodiment of God. God is mysterious, abstract, and invisible, yet He is embodied in Christ. Whatever God is, has, has done, has obtained, has attained, is doing, will do, will obtain, and will attain are all embodied in Christ. In Christ we see creation, incarnation, redemption, resurrection, ascension, and the dispensing of the Triune God into us for our enjoyment. It is in Christ that we can enjoy the Triune God through His divine dispensing. If we see this revelation, we cannot deny the deity of Christ. If we deny the deity of Christ, we deny the entirety of God’s divine economy.

In keeping with this thought, the apostle John in 1 John 2:22 says, “Who is the liar if not he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.” To deny that Jesus is the Christ is the heresy of Cerinthus, a first century Syrian heresiarch of Jewish descent educated at Alexandria. His heresy was a mixture of Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. He separated the maker (creator) of the world from God and represented that maker as a subordinate power. He taught adoptionism, saying that Jesus was merely God’s adopted Son and had become the Son of God by being exalted to a status [3090] that was not His by birth; thus, he denied that Jesus had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. In his heresy he separated the earthly man Jesus, regarded as the son of Joseph and Mary, from the heavenly Christ and taught that after Jesus was baptized, Christ as a dove descended upon Him, and then He announced the unknown Father and did miracles. Further, he taught that at the end of His ministry Christ departed from Jesus, and Jesus suffered death on the cross and rose from the dead, while Christ remained separate as a spiritual being, and, finally, that Christ will rejoin the man Jesus at the coming of the Messianic kingdom of glory.

To confess that Jesus is the Christ is to confess that He is the Son of God (Matt. 16:16; John 20:31). Hence, to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. Whoever so denies the divine person of Christ is an antichrist.

In 1 John 2:23 John goes on to say, “Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.” Since the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30; Isa. 9:6), to deny the Son is to be without the Father, and to confess the Son is to have the Father. Here to deny the Son is to deny the deity of Christ, to deny that the man Jesus is God. This is a great heresy.

In 1 John 2:24, John continues, “As for you, that which you heard from the beginning, let it abide in you. If that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.” In this verse, that which you heard from the beginning is the Word of life, that is, the Word of the eternal life that the believers heard from the beginning (1:1-2). Not to deny but to confess that the man Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (2:22), is to let the Word of the eternal life abide in us. In so doing we abide in the Son and in the Father and are not led astray by the heretical teachings concerning Christ’s person (v. 26). This indicates that the Son and the Father are the eternal life for our regeneration and enjoyment. In this eternal life we have fellowship with God and with one another (1:2-3, 6-7) and have our being in our daily walk (2:6; 1:7).

In summary, 1 John 2:22-24 reveals that if you deny that the man Jesus is Christ as God, you will have neither the Father [3091] nor the Son. Consequently, you will not have eternal life, which is in the Son (5:11-12), and you will not have any experience and enjoyment of Christ. If you deny Christ’s deity, you will have no way to experience and enjoy Him.

The reason many heretical teachers deny the deity of Christ is that they have never enjoyed Christ. But we who have experienced and enjoyed Christ cannot deny His deity. We know that Christ is God, not by mere theological doctrines but by our personal experience. Since we have experienced Christ as God, we know Him as our Redeemer (Gal. 3:13); we know that His death is all-inclusive and eternally effective (Heb. 9:14); we know that as the infinite God mingled with a genuine man, He died for all men, especially for all His believers (1 Tim. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:14-15); and we know that He is God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). Because we have experienced and enjoyed Christ, we can and must testify of our rich enjoyment of Christ as the mighty God who is our righteousness, our holiness, our meekness, our wisdom, our way, and our everything.