The punctuation of this verse is critical to its exegesis. The punctuation functions to either conjoin the expression ο ων επι παντων θεος ευλογητος εις τους αιωνας (“the one being over all God blessed forever”) with ο Χριστος το κατα σαρκα (“the Christ according to the flesh”) or to separate it. Depending upon which punctuation is employed, Christ is said to be God or not to be God—obviously a crucial difference. One of the following two renderings represents the original thought:
“whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God[,] blessed forever. Amen.” (KJV NKJV RSVmg NRSV ESV NASB NIV TNIV NEBmg REBmg NJB NABmg NLT HCSB NET).
“whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh. God, who is over all, be blessed forever. Amen.” (RSV NRSVmg NIVmg TNIVmg NEB REB NAB NLTmg HCSBmg NETmg)
In the first rendering the comma following “flesh” signals that the following words constitute appositional expressions; hence, “Christ” is (1) “over all,” (2) “God,” and (3) “blessed forever.” This is rendered quite well in the RSVmg as “Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” In the second rendering, the period following “flesh” separates “the Christ” from these expressions—which are, instead, turned into a sentence of their own by inserting a predicate: “God, who is over all, be blessed forever!” (A slight modification on the second rendering is “whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all. God be blessed forever! Amen.”)
When we look to the ancient authorities for some help on this matter, we discover that the earliest witness, ?46, has a lacuna
[hole] after σαρκα, so we cannot be certain if it was punctuated or not; but it seems that the allotted space could not allow for a punctuation mark by the hand of the original scribe. There is no punctuation mark in ℵ and D. A midpoint colon follows σαρκα [p. 456] in F G Ψ 049 056. A high point colon occurs after σαρκα in L 0142 0151. A space is left following the point in 0151 and following σαρκα in C. It is also reported that B2 (second corrector) added a midpoint after σαρκα (see Harris 1992, 149). This data tells us that some of the earliest scribes left the text ambiguous, and that later ones did not. The upshot is that it is the task of interpreters to determine whether Christ was being called God or God was being praised.
Westcott and Hort (1882, 109–110) indicated that most of the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene fathers understood the expression “God over all” to describe “Christ.” The primary reason for this is that it naturally follows the syntax of the Greek, whereas the doxology (“God be praised!”) is asyndetic and non-Pauline. It is highly unlikely that Paul would abruptly, even sporadically, insert a praise to God the Father at the end of his enumeration of the divine privileges and promises given to the Jews. To the contrary, he was culminating that list with the greatest blessing of all—that the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, would come from the Jewish race! How could the Jews then reject him? This created anguish in Paul’s heart, which was all the more intensified by the fact that the Jews were rejecting God himself in the person of Christ. As John said, the Word who was God came to his very own people, but his very people did not recognize him—and, worse yet, did not receive him (see John 1:1, 10-11).
The conjecture proposed by some scholars (see NA27) that the text originally read ων ο instead of ο ων provides for an easy way out of the exegetical dilemma inasmuch as ων ο produces the translation, “whose are the fathers, and whose is the Christ according to the flesh, and whose is the God over all blessed forever. Amen.” In this rendering Christ and God, as separate entities, are two possessions of the Israelites. But the conjecture is suspect as a means of obviating one of the few Pauline affirmations of Christ’s deity. The other affirmations occur in Phil 2:6 (which says that Christ lives in the form of God, equal with God in all things); Col 2:9 (which says that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Christ); and Titus 2:13 (wherein Christ is called God and Savior). (For a complete review of this issue, see Harris 1992, 143–172, who concludes that Paul was affirming Jesus’ deity in this verse. Also see TCGNT for a lengthy discussion by Metzger).
As for English versions, several affirm the interpretation that Christ is God over all, eternally blessed (KJV NKJV NRSV ESV NASB NIV TNIV NJB NLT HCSB NET). And most of the versions that do not present this in the text do note it as an alternative (RSVmg NEBmg REBmg NABmg).
