Romans 1:3

‘Concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,'

This message was ‘concerning His Son'. The phrase ‘His own Son' contains within it the certainty of Christ's Godhood. Compare John 5:17 where Jesus, speaking of God as ‘His own Father', was seen as having thereby made a claim to be equal with God. This was thus no ordinary Good News. It was Good News concerning God's only co-equal Son.

And this Son was ‘born of the seed of David according to the flesh.' In other words He was born into the world as the promised, truly human, long anticipated, coming King of the house of David. That was His status humanwise. In Him the hopes of the nation of Israel were coming to fruition. In inter-testamental terms He was the Messiah, the Christ. The importance of this lay in the fact that it connected Him with all the promises concerning the coming Davidic king contained in the Scriptures, commencing with the promises first made to David himself (2 Samuel 7:16), and continuing throughout the prophets (Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 55:3; Jeremiah 30:9; Jeremiah 33:14; Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24; Micah 5:2; and so on).

But the addition of ‘according to the flesh' (it would normally have been enough to say ‘born of the seed of David') immediately draws our attention to the fact that a greater announcement is coming. For while the Gospel of God certainly reveals that He was truly human (‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us - John 1:14), that He was ‘born according to the flesh', it also prepares us for something more outstanding. He was not only just a human being. In His human nature He was born of the seed of David, but He is now to be revealed as a greater than David, and as having pre-existed David.