Jesus Christ our Lord in Romans 1:3

Q. Where do the words “…Jesus Christ, our Lord…” come from in Romans 1:3?

A. This is a confusing conundrum created when merely comparing verses to verses in various translations. In what are verses 1 through 7, the words ιησοῦ χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν (Jesus Christ the Lord of us, that is Jesus Christ our Lord) are found in the sentence, in what is verse 4 in the Greek once the sentence is divided into verses, but in verse 3 in some English translations and in verse 4 in other English translations.

This is an interesting question and find, and one that does not seem to have much discussion about it, either pro or con (as far as what I have been able to find). I had not noticed this before, and so had to take a careful look. “Jesus Christ our Lord” (or “our Lord Jesus Christ”) is also included in verse 3 in some translations outside of the King James line of texts, such as the CSB, CEV, ERV, NCV; so it is not just a King James Bible issue.

Observe: Verses 1-7 (in both KJV & ESV, from which I give excerpts below) are one long sentence. The words “Jesus Christ our Lord” are in the sentence in all versions – it is just placed differently in the sentence. This is best considered a translator’s decision as to how its reads best in English. Different decisions have been made by different translators. None of them delete “Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Here is the King James translation, where the words are in verse 3, and the ESV is used as a representative of the words being in verse 4.

• AKJV vs. 3-4: concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
• ESV, vs. 3-4: concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

There is a description or designation of how English and Greek differ syntactically. Much of our language is governed by word placement in the sentence (syntax), whereas in Greek it is governed more by inflection; it is much more flexible regarding word order. English is an analytic language, in which syntactic roles are assigned to words primarily by word order (the words change order and relationship to convey grammatical information). It may also be called or considered configurational. Greek is a synthetic language, in which syntactic relationship between the words is achieved or assigned via inflection (the words change form to convey grammatical information). It may also be called or considered non-configurational.

I have studied Esperanto some in the past. (I am not good at it, because I have never needed to use it.) Esperanto is a created language and is more extreme than Greek for non-configuration. It is designed so that word order has little or no input toward the meaning of the sentence – you just have to put the right endings on the words and they mean the right thing regardless of placement in the sentence.

All this to say, where to best put “Jesus Christ, our Lord” in this long sentence is a translational consideration. It is not a textual difference in the Greek. To me it reads more smoothly in the KJV, but obviously part of that is that I have been reading it that way all my life.

My conclusion is:

• that the words obviously belong somewhere in the long sentence
• that we should not think of the sentence just in terms of verses for the purpose of understanding the issue here
• that the difference is a translational choice
• that the King James placement is best

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Note: Seeing this as one long sentence will go a long way in understanding the problem. One can see below how that in the SBL Greek NT it is one sentence.

1 Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος, ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ 2 ὃ προεπηγγείλατο διὰ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις 3 περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, 4 τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, 5 δι’ οὗ ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολὴν εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ, 6 ἐν οἷς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς κλητοὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 7 πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἀγαπητοῖς θεοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις· χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.