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The Genealogy of Jesus; the Son of David, the Son of Abraham
The Genealogy of Jesus; the Son of David, the Son of Abraham Matthew 1:1-17 Key Verse: 1:1 “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:” The first of the four gospel is attributed to one of Jesus’ disciples named Matthew. The name Matthew means “Gift of the Lord,” but the other gospel writers refer to him as Levi. Matthew could have been another given name or a name that he took after conversion. Whatever the case, Matthew was a tax collector who Jesus call and immediately left his profession and followed Jesus. Matthew was Jewish and the purpose in his writing of the gospel seems to be to show that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah of the Old Testament and true king of Israel. He traces the genealogy of Jesus’ back only to Abraham whereas Luke, who wanted to show that Jesus was the Messiah and redeemer of all humankind, traces Jesus’ genealogy all the way back to Adam. Matthew was writing largely to the Jewish community in the early Christian church and this can be seen in the fact that he commonly refers to Jewish traditions and feasts without any explanation of them – if he we writing for a mostly Gentile audience he would have provided additional explanations of these. Matthew also quotes extensively from Old Testament prophets (more than 60 times) in order to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of those Old Testament promises. Some scholars suggest that the intended audience was the church in Antioch, Syria. This was a prominent church of the time and contained both Jewish and Gentile believers. (Acts 11:19-26; 13:1-3) This Gospel quickly spread throughout the early churches. The time of writing of this gospel is generally thought to be sometime between AD 50 – AD 70 before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Three points that suggest that Matthew was writing to a largely Jewish audience: 1) He references many customs and traditions without explaining them (suggesting that the audience would be familiar with them). 2) He consistently refers to Jesus as the “Son of David,” a distinctly Jewish term emphasizing that Jesus is the true and rightful king of the Jews. 3) Matthew is very conscious of the Jews respect and honor for the name of God, so unlike the other gospel writers, he refers to the “Kingdom of heaven,” instead of the “Kingdom of God.” In fact, the actual reference to the ‘Kingdom of heaven” is found nowhere else in the Bible but it occurs 31 times in this book. There are five major discourses in this book and each addresses one specific question. 1) The Sermon on the Mount (5-7) How are the citizens of the kingdom to live? 2) The commissioning of the apostles (10) How are traveling disciples to conduct themselves on their evangelistic journeys? 3) Parables about the Kingdom (13) How did Jesus describe the kingdom? What parables did he use and why? 4) Discourse about the childlike nature of a believer (18) What did Jesus teach about forgiveness and hindering people from entering the kingdom? 5) Discourse about the end times and his second coming (24-25) How will human history end? Part I: The genealogy of Jesus (1-17) The Greek word translated genealogy is the word ‘genesis.’ This word has the meaning of birth, origin or beginning. This is the word that we use to name the first book of the Bible and we often talk of that book as the book of beginnings. Here, Matthew is using the same word to begin his gospel which implies that Matthew is writing a book about a new beginning in Jesus. In the very first verse we have the names of King David and Abraham, two very prominent and important names in the history of Israel. Abraham was chosen by God, called to be set apart. He is considered to be the physical and spiritual father of the Israelite nation. At the time God called him, God promised Abraham that he would make him into a great nation and that all nations on earth would be blessed through him. By connected Jesus genealogy to Abraham, Matthew is indicating that Jesus is the fulfillment of these promises of God. Jesus was the means by which God was going to bless all nations through Abraham. By showing that Jesus was also a direct descendant of King David, Matthew was emphasizing Jesus’ claim as the true king of Israel. God had promised David that, because of his faithfulness, one of his descendants would always be on the throne of Israel. In 1 Chronicles 17: 11-14 God makes a very specific promise to David when David had it in mind to build a house for God. These verses say, “11 When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.” Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise as well. Jesus is the true king who will rule for all eternity. All of the people listed in the genealogy of Jesus were ordinary, flawed human beings. Some of them gave their hearts to seeking God, but others of them didn’t seek God at all. They were just like other ordinary people you find anywhere in the world – even though a lot of them were kings. The fact that they were so ordinary and many of them were even downright godless shows us that nothing can stop God’s plan from succeeding. At one point, God even cursed on of Jesus descendants so that his descendants would never again sit on the throne of Israel. Yet, God brought Jesus into the world as the true king of Israel who will reign for all eternity. The ordinary nature and the flaws of all these people should give us great hope and vision that God can use us as well to carry out His world salvation work in this generation. Among the ordinary and flawed people listed in the genealogy there are five women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (not listed by name) and Mary. This is truly amazing because Jewish women were not included in genealogies. What is even more amazing is that three of these women were not even Jewish and three of them also had very interesting background stories. Tamar was a Canaanite woman who married the oldest of Judah’s sons, Er. Er was wicked in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD put him to death before he had any children. His younger brother Onan then took Tamar as his wife to fulfill his role as a younger brother and produce an heir for his older brother, but because he knew the child would not be counted as his own, he did what was evil in God’s sight and would not allow Tamar to get pregnant by him. God put him to death also. Judah had one other son who could fulfill the role of a younger brother and produce an heir for Er. However, when Shelah became of age, Judah would not give him in marriage to Tamar for fear that he too would die. Tamar took matters into her own hands and disguised herself as a prostitute. Judah saw her and hired her to sleep with him. She became pregnant by her own father-in-law disguised as a prostitute and kept Jesus’ genealogical line going. Her story is not pretty, but it shows how God can use even the most unusual people in the most unusual circumstances to keep his work going. Let’s think a moment about the four other women mentioned in this genealogy. The next two women are mentioned in verse 5, Rahab and Ruth. Neither of these women were Israelites. Rahab was a Gentile prostitute living in the walls of Jericho. She sided with the Israelites when they sent spies into her city. She hid the spies and made sure that they could get back to their camp and report on what they saw. Rahab risked her life because she knew in her heart that God was going to give the land of her people to the Israelites. God used this Gentile prostitute’s faith to continue His work of fulfilling His promise to bring the Israelites into this land. God rewarded Rahab by not only sparing her life, but by including her in His son’s genealogy. Ruth also was not an Israelite. She was a Moabite who had married an Israelite who had died young. When she was given the opportunity to return to her own people she chose to stay with her mother-in-law and identify herself as an Israelite. Her choice was not an easy one. By staying with Naomi she was probably going to have to live out her life as an outcast in a foreign society. God, however, saw and honored her great faith and rewarded her by making her the great grandmother of King David. Her faithfulness and willingness to be identified with God’s people should be a great inspiration to us all. The next woman mentioned is Bathsheba. Bathsheba is not even mentioned by name, she is only referred to as the woman who had been Uriah’s wife. Although Bathsheba was an Israelite, she was far being a role model. She had a husband, but instead of remaining faithful to him, she had an affair with King David. This led to an illegitimate son who would die and it also led to the death of her honorable husband. Nevertheless, God demonstrated His great mercy and compassion by including her in His son’s genealogy. We cannot even conceive of God’s great mercy and compassion or understand how God can use any situation to carry out His great plan. The final woman mentioned in this genealogy is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although Mary was blameless among women, she still had to deal with a terrible situation in order to be included in God’s world salvation work. She had to deal with the stigma being pregnant out of wedlock. In today’s society this is not a great problem, but at that time it could have resulted in her being stoned to death. Knowing this, Mary still simply humbled herself before God and let Him do as He pleased with her life. We need to learn Mary’s simple, humble obedience to God’s plan. The next several people listed in the genealogy were all kings of Judah. They may have been kings, but they still had the same weaknesses and flaws of ordinary men. We know of David’s great sin with Bathsheba. Those that followed him also failed in many ways. We know that Solomon was one of the greatest and wisest kings to ever rule on earth, but his lust for foreign women ultimately led him astray from God’s true path. I was interested in what the Bible had to say about the other kings in Jesus’ genealogy. I was surprised to find that Bible declared that more of these kings were good than bad, though many of them slipped up in their lives of faith toward the end of their lives. The following is a synopsis of what I found. 1) Rehoboam – Good – walked is n the ways of David and Solomon (2 Chronicles 11:17) 2) Abijah – Good – rebuked Jeroboam, presented burnt offerings every morning and evening, the country was at peace for 10 years during his reign. (2 Chronicles 13) 3) Asa – Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. (2 Chronicles 14:2) In his final years he made a treaty with Damascus and depended on them instead of God. He became arrogant and oppressed the people. He got a disease in his feet and although it was very severe he didn’t turn to God for help but depended only on his physicians. 4) Jehosaphat – in his early years the LORD was with him because he walked in the ways of his father David (2 Chronicles 17:3-4) His heart was devoted to the ways of the LORD (2 Chron 17:6) Made a treaty with Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead – God protected him in the battle but rebuked him later through Jehu the seer. He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD (2 Chron 20:32). He did make treaties with two wicked kings of northern Israel. 5) Jehoram walked in the ways of the kings of Israel – He did evil in the eyes of the LORD (2 Chron. 21:6) 6) Ahaziah also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in God’s sight (2 Chron 22:3-4) His mother Athaliah tried to kill the entire royal family, but Joash was hidden away for six years while that wicked woman reigned. 7) Joash began his reign when he was only 7 years old. He did what was right in the Eyes of the LORD (2 Chron 24:2) He repaired the temple. Later in his life (after his mentor and protector Jehoiada died he turned against God and abandoned the temple – He died an evil king 8) Amaziah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD but not wholeheartedly (2 Chron 25:2). Amaziah attacked and defeated the Edomites. He had hired a thousand soldiers from northern Israel but he sent them back when a man of God told him not to take them into battle. This was good, but when he won the battle he set up the Edomite gods as his own and offered sacrifices to them. He also died as an evil king. 9) Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. He sought God and God gave him success (2 Chron 26:5) After he became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He entered the temple and offered incense by himself. The priest warned him not to do this but he just mad at them, raged at them and God struck him with leprosy. 10) Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the LORD (2 Chron 27:2) 11) Ahaz did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD – He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made cast idols and worship Baal. In his time of trouble he became even more unfaithful to the LORD (2 Chron 28:22) 12) Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD (2 Chron 29:2) In the first year of his reign he repaired and purified the temple. He celebrated the Passover in the way it was supposed to be celebrated. He trusted in God when Sennacherib came to attack Jerusalem and God saved him. In his old age he got sick and God saved him from that, but after that he became proud. The LORD’s wrath came upon him and he repented of his pride and God relented 13) Manasseh did evil in the eyes of the LORD – he even sacrificed his sons in the fire and practiced sorcery and divination. He led the people astray for 55 years. God punished him by bringing the army of the Assyrians against him – the put a hook in his nose and shackles on his feet and led him away to Babylon. There he turned to God and God answered him. When he got back to Jerusalem He got rid of all the foreign gods and restored the alter of the LORD. He told the people to serve God alone, but they continued to sacrifice at the high place but only to the LORD their God. 14) Ammon did evil in the eyes of the LORD, but he did not repent like his father. 15) Josiah was only eight years old when he took the throne but the Bible says that when he was still young he began to seek the LORD and he was a very good king in God’s sight. In fact 2 Kings 23:25 says of him, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.” Unfortunately, Josiah’s sons were very bad kings and they presided over the destruction of Jerusalem and the taking of Israel into captivity in Babylon. We know almost nothing about the remaining men in the genealogy because the Bible has almost nothing to say about the period from the exile until Jesus. However, we can imagine that these men were just like the others - some probably sought God with all their hearts, while others fell into sin and idolatry like their forefathers. The point is that no matter what the men were like, God was carrying out His plan and nothing was going to stop it. God eventually brought His son into the world. Jesus is God’s new beginning. Just as the men and women of Jesus’ genealogy were all flawed and had their own weaknesses, so too do we. Yet this does not mean that God cannot or will not accomplish His plan through us. God will accomplish His plan in spite of all of our weaknesses, but the really great thing is that God wants to use us to accomplish that plan. May God bless our study of Matthew’s gospel and help each of us to make a new beginning in God’s work in history through learning from Jesus. |
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