Sometimes I wish that our Bible translators watched more soccer. There’s a verse in the opening paragraph of Paul’s famous letter to the Romans, where he makes the point that Jesus’ resurrection is demonstrative proof of his divinity. My NIV puts it this way: ‘… and through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead.’ But that word, ‘appointed’, has always seemed to me to be insufficient and lacking clarity.

Does it mean that Jesus was promoted to godhood when he rose from the dead, or that his divinity was plainly revealed by his resurrection from the dead? Surely it’s the latter. The word Paul uses is ‘horizó’, from which we get our English word ‘horizon’, that clear marker between heaven and earth. The concept therefore is not one of promotion to some new status, but one of demarcation. Some more helpful English translations have used terms like declared, designated, proved, shown, etc.

There is an image in soccer that shows it well. Some referees, in their seriousness, carry not just a whistle, notebook, and series of penalty cards, but can of spray-foam to mark the line where a penalty may be taken, or to mark a line that a defender cannot cross. It’s horizó. And so is it in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ descent from David marks out his full humanity, while his resurrection on Easter Sunday marks out his full divinity. Olé!