The Genesis of Jesus

David Poland

Matthew: Kingdom Authority • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

Matthew 1:1–17

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Sermon on the genealogy of Jesus found in Matthew 1

Notes

Transcript

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 91.

Scripture reading: Psalm 2:7-9

Psalm 2:7–9 ESV

I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Sermon:

FCF/Intro:

GMC! I was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well, if you would turn with me in your bibles, for the first time in THIS series, if you would turn with me in your bibles to Matthew Chapter 1 we will be starting our way through the book of Matthew. So gone are the sermons of looking at whole books of the bible and we will focus now on individual passages and our passage for today is Matthew 1:1-17. And it is a fun one. It is probably everyone favorite passage in Matthew. It is riveting and exciting and I know we are all looking forward to it.

But having whetted your appetite, before we dive in, lets PRAY

Pray

So in case you did not pick up there that I was being fairly sarcastic about the excitement in this passage I was being a bit sarcastic. Because we open Matthew with what is for us probably the least appealing and least exciting portion for us. We open with a genealogy.

I often joke that when people read through the bible, so like in January when people make a resolution to read through the bible this year. and so they start at the beginning and it goes like this: Genesis! OK Exodus! OK Lev…it…a… cus… that was hard Number.. I’m done here… Matt… nope… Romans! right it goes like this Genesis.. this is fun exciting there is the creation of the world, Noah Abraham and then it ends on every ones favorite Joseph. Its fun and existing. then we go to Exodus and again it moses and plagues and wandering in the desert so you get to Leviticus and you are like this is tedious law. this is rough but you might make it through and you get to numbers and you are rewarded with… numbers in some parts it feels like reading a math book its hard and so many people give up. and so as you give up you flip to the New Teastament, and the foiret verse in the NT is Matthew 1:1 and you read: MATTHEW 1.1

Matthew 1:1 ESV

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

and then you immediately flip to Romans, that's a letter that's Paul, that's exciting i can do that.

and when we do that we miss out on a lot of beauty. we miss out on a beautiful story not just the Old testament in its beauty, but on the beauty of things like genealogies. we miss the story that is communicated through these things. and here in Matthew we miss whole whole lot that is communicated through this short genealogy. now, I say short, I will let you be the judge, lets read our passage, Matthew 1:1-17 today.

READ

Matthew here says that he just gave us 14+14+14 that's 42 generations from Abraham to Christ, so why in the world would I call that short? that is 42 names long! because this covers the entire history of God’s people, in some sense this is the whole Old testament all 39 books down to 39 names! its sort compared to if I were to sit up here and say for the first sermon in Matthew we are reading Genesis through Malachi, but that is in some sense what Matthew is doing. so that's pretty impressive. but now we are left with another problem. this is not a 1 for 1 this person fathered this person fathered this person, which at face value seems to be what Matthew is saying. so is he lying? no!

the word that is in the ESV “was the father of directly translated could mean “was the ancestor of” he fathers someone in that he was descended directly from them, even if we miss a generation or two or even more. and so Matthew has carefully and beautifully selected certain names from certain times to paint for us a picture:

In one short genealogy, Matthew communicates:

and he shows us what he is trying to communicate in Matthew 1:17

Matthew 1:17 ESV

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

He is communicating something. In a global holistic sense he is communicating what we could call the “N” of History. and I mean this by looking at the letter “N”. So we start done then up then down then up again. So we start down with the story of Abraham. he was just one man. if we really want to get into his story, here was one man, an old man with no children, no descendants whats gonna happen with him? it is a low point, but then from Abraham to David builds from one man to a nation and in David we build specifically to the greatest king of that nation. we have a growth form one man to a powerful worldwide power. We grow from Abraham to a seeming fulfillment of many of the promises of God coming true. Good things are happening at David. But then Matthew takes us from the high point of David to the lowest of low places in the history of God’s people, the deportation to Babylon, what we would call the exile. This was the terrible fate that Isaiah spent his whole book telling us about, this is the time that gave Jeremiah the nickname the weeping prophet as he lamented over how awful this was. so as we pain this “n” we have low point Abraham, high point David low point Exile but what Matthew wants us to see is that from this low point we move up to the highest of all high points in not just a local history, but the highest of high points in Human history, to the advent the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

so in short he is communicating a story of history in a “n” from high point to low point to high point, but there is something else incredible going on here. I was reading one of my commentaries and they said:

-The fact that it is only with difficulty that the actual history can be made to fit into this pattern [14/14/14] indicates that for the author this is not so much a statistical observation as a theological reflection on the working out of God’s purpose for his people. Frame, 29.

So what Matthew is communicating is some theological truths that will impact our lives fully. As he communicates God’s plan and God’s purpose for his people. As a final note as we talk about verse 17 and the 14 generations. If you were to sit down and count them you might think this doest fully feel like 14/14/14 and so some people have accused Matthew of being wrong or foolish or both. some thoughts on that: 1) come on Thursday to grace groups, we might be talking about that, hint hint. but 2) how arrogant do we have to be to think that we are so much smarter than people who lived 2000 years ago that we would accuse a specifically here Matthew a man who was a tax collector and dealt with numbers his whole life of being unable to count to the number 14? that is very bold and foolishly arrogant of us! so we should, at a minimum give him the benefit of the doubt. there are answer as to how we can make this fit the 14/14/14 framework but that is outside the scope of what I would like to talk about today.

Today what I would like to talk about is what each of these three epochs of history communicate about our savior to us. and so we will start with the fist major section from Abraham to David and what this tells us is that Jesus comes from the PERFECT LINE

The perfect LINE

Jesus has the perfect lineage to claim all the things that he claims. We mentioned this Sunday last week, that being the son of David and the son of Abraham means that he was the fulfillment of the promises to both men. So he is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham to be a blessing to the whole world. that in Jesus we will see the descendant of Abraham grow and multiply and become a blessing to the whole wold. If you have heard the kids song “father Abraham” it is a silly song with the “Left arm, right arm, nod your head” stuff, but it is communicating this greatly deep theological truth, that because Jesus is the son of Abraham, and we are in christ, we have access to that claim.

And because he is the son of David we see in Jesus the promise fulfilled that there will always be a descendant king on the throne. Jesus had to be descended from both these men for him to fulfill the promises made to them both!. so we can say that jesus comes from the perfect line because it traces through both these men, but more than that today there is a thought I would like to look at. The perfect line is perfect in spite of, and dare i say because of, its imperfections! What are the imperfections in this first section? it is the people.

Lets start at the beginning. Abraham did a lot of good things. He lived by faith, he trusted God, but guess what he was a sinner. He lied about the identity of his wife to almost tragic consequences. He decided to take God’s promises into his own hands and so he slept with his wife’s handmaiden so that he could produce an heir… that's a really big problem. But if we keep reading it gets worse. Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. We might not be intimately familiar with that story, but here is the short short short version: this is a incestuous relationship, it is inherently sinful, it is a problem. If we keep going most of us are not familiar with a lot of these names but then we get to Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab. the only Rahab we have recorded for us in Scripture that would fit this timeline is Rahab the harlot of Jericho. So not just a prostitute, but a foreign prostitute! that's an issue. then Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. Ruth was a moabite-ess, and the moabites were again foreigners and they were not allowed into temple worship for generations after becoming a part of the people because of their uncleaness. Again a real problem. and yet I would say it proves the perfect line of Jesus. and Matthew was painting this picture in a particular way.

We often hear, how incredible, that Matthew would include women in his genealogy, and in some sense this is strange, but not unheard of. What makes this incredible is that he would include THESE women. Tamar, and Rahab and Ruth over Leah, Rachel, and the “hero’s” of theses stories. To quote Spurgeon in his sermon on this passage:

-Jesus is heir of a line in which flows the blood of the harlot Rahab, and of the rustic Ruth; he is akin to the fallen and to the lowly, and he will show his love even to the poorest and most obscure. I too, may have part and lot in him!

That Jesus comes from a rag-tag line of fallen sinners is hope and joy for us! it is not that Jesus is form some crazy set apart we can’t even think or fathom how high and great this line is. And Matthew highlights and intentionally picks out names that make it even more so. What he is communicating is in one sense that Jesus is the perfect decedent of Abraham and David, and there is joy for us. But what he is also communicating in this line (and it gets worse later) but even here we see communicating hope for broken sinful people, because that is where Jesus comes from. It is the perfect line, but in our next set of names we see that he is the perfect KING!

The perfect KING

In this portion, what is highlighted is both his kingship, but also his closeness with humanity. As I mentioned before we start with David who is the pinnacle and the peak of the nation of Isreal. That happened with David with his conquests he purchases peace through his fighting for the whole land, it was good it was incredible, the ark of the covenant came back the only thing missing was a temple, David wanted to build it God said wait your son will do that. Everything was great in the time of David. and yet. It is interesting to see how Matthew chooses to communicate even with David where the genealogy will go.

David was the father of Solomon. .. that is how the rest might end. all the rest we have read. this person was the father of that person. but here,: David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. not his wife. the wife of Uriah that he had adultery with. he then killed Uriah because he wanted to somehow make right, it didn’t work, he tried to make right somehow his adulteress affair with another mans wife. Matthew could have said David was the father of Solomon, full stop. he could have even said David the father of Solomon by Bathsheba. Instead he chooses to highlight that even great David was a sinner. from here it gets worse.

Solomon the father of Rehoboam. if we are familiar at all with Solomon we know of his wives and Rehoboam if we read kings and chronicles was the beginning of the end. and here is a long string of civil war, bloodshed fighting, idolatry, bad kings. our only sort of hope and light for a good king comes at the end, with Josiah son of Amos. Josiah, if you are not familiar he was one of the very very few good kings in the nations history. he became king at 8 years old and we read that he was a young man who did good in the eyes of the Lord. this is why that is Jayden’s middle name that is our hope and prayer for him, but them we get his son Jechoniah and he is back to just as bad if not worse than before. and so in this list of Kings we find failure after failure, after failure after failure which leads to and culminates in the deportation.

And so Jesus will be the king who will come and fix all of the wrongs of these kings. He is the one who will bring the people together. he is the one who will do justice. he will love mercy. he will fulfil all the request of the perfect king. The reason that for our scripture readings last week and this wee is because Psalm 2 talks about the one who should be the perfect king. this should be a picture of the Lord’s anointed. he conquers he rules. we read this week he rules with a rod of iron. and the kings before jesus failed miserably at this. So enter king jesus the perfect king. Who, in one sense is king high above. but also with this rat-tag list of kings shows us he is close to humanity. Right in Jesus family tree are grandparents that he might rather not talk about. We joke about having the aunt we don’t talk about there are the “black sheep” of the family. well Matthew has painted a picture of pretty much nothing BUT black sheep, and then we have Jesus, he is the hope.

and so the perfect line brings us to Jesus who is the perfect king, who comes at, our last set of 14 names, the perfect time.

The perfect TIME

here we have the 14 generations from the deportation to Babylon, to the Christ, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is, in some ways the most interesting list in some sense the least interesting list because we really don’t know about a lot about any of these people. These names come from what we would call the intertestamental time, the time from the deportation to Jesus is the time period that we don’t have recorded for us. and so it is interesting that Matthew would comb through, look though records, would scour history to show that Jesus would fill this perfect line that he could be the perfect king. But what I would like us to see is that there is an aim in all of time and all of history that Matthew is trying to get us to see. That is the time when Jesus would come. For Matthew this thought of 14/14/14 isn’t important for a reasons like 14 is a magical lucky number. What he was communicating was that this was a full and complete and perfect time. He would communicate this just like Paul would. Gal.4.4-5

Galatians 4:4–5 ESV

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

When Paul looks at history he says here it is, the fullness of time has come the most perfect time, the most wonderful holy time was when Christ entered into creation. And so what Matthew wants us to see is all of history, all of time has prepared us for THIS moment. and If I may hop onto one of my theological show ponies here for just a second he drives us to the time when Joseph, the husband of Mary, would adopt Jesus. you might be thinking, that's not really what this passage is fully about, but I would say you are reading it wrong. in verse 16 the entire pattern of what has been said is broken.

Matthew 1:16 ESV

and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

In this one short and simple half a verse so much weight and beauty is communicated. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, he was conceived by the Holy Spirit (that is the entire point of next week’s sermon) and yet. and yet. don’t miss this church and yet the lineage that gets Jesus to be in the perfect line, the lineage that makes him the perfect king he traces through his ADOPTED FATHER. And so in the story of Christ we see that all the rights and privileges that go with being a son are given to Jesus through his adoption. The adoption of Jesus by Joseph maid him an heir, full and completely with no reservations or caveats. If there are any reservations then we loose all hope. Because if adoption isn’t a tie to the line then We loose everything up to this point we have said about jesus. So why is this important? because lets go back to Galatians again for a second. Because through the work of Christ who came, again at the perfect time, we have recieved ADOPTION AS SONS. we have access to every hope and every blessing our position is sure in him. Why do I have a passion for adoption? because we have all been adopted!

and so we have all the full rights, all the full privileges, all the full access to all the full blessings of being a son are ours in Christ. for he came for us at the perfect time. we can’t miss this.

Most of us, when we read Matthew, we want to skip to Matthew 1:18 (read) that’s the Christmas story and we love that, but to do so we miss a whole lot of the beauty of the argument that Matthew is making. It is that Jesus could make all sorts of claims to fulfil certain roles because of where he came from. Without this genealogy all of scripture falls apart. without this genealogy we have no hope. without these thoughts: that Jesus the son of David the son of Abraham, this hodgepodge collection of people, including prostitutes and horrible sinful kings and people we know nothing about, if that does not get us to jesus we are hopeless. and yet, because this is true, we have all the hope in the world. I jokes in the beginning and said the most exciting and riveting portion of Matthew was this. an while it may not be exciting and riveting, it is chalk full of beauty, for it gives us the genesis of Jesus. his beginning, where he comes form, and communicates to us hope and life.