Not a few scholars who find a reference to Christ in Romans 9:5b, construe θεὸς with ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων,79 “(Christ,) who is God over all.” Alternatively, θεὸς could be taken as being in apposition to ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων (Pr
ümm 140) “(Christ,) who, as God, is/rules over all.”80 Both of these constructions
sever the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς and cohere better with the word order ὁ ὢν θεὸς ἐπὶ πάντων. Also, as Cranfield notes (
Romans 469), if Paul had said that Christ is “God over all,” he could have been misunderstood to suggest “that Christ is God to the exclusion of, or in superiority over, the Father."
79. Olshausen 326; Philippi 68; B. Weiss,
Theology 1:393 and n. 5; Alford 2:405; Schlatter,
Gerechtigkeit 295; Nygren 358; Faccio 110, 135; O. Michel,
Römer 229. See also table 4, no. 6.
80. Cf. Cassirer: “(Christ...,) he who rules as God over all things.”