Geneology of Christ
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Matthew 1
Matthew 1
Who has ever looked at or done a family tree?
What types of people are typically included?
Siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents
Who wants to volunteer to do one? (brief one)
What does this list of names tell us about this person?
Not much, perhaps some helpful names but it doesn't tell us much of anything about this person or that person
Be honest, how many people in here have opened up your bible and skipped over Matthew 1? Its a long list of names, it can be boring and confusing and I don’t know how to pronounce half of them anyway.
I will raise my hand.
We have to ask why is this included in the gospel of Matthew and why is it included in this way.
My wife and I are going through this advent devotional by Sinclair Ferguson and he spends a couple chapters on the family tree. It was so helpful and enlightening to me about why these names.
We have been in the gospel of John this year and the gospel of John is all about Jesus is the Son of God
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Matthew is about Jesus as sovereign King.
“From the very beginning of the book, Matthew makes clear that Jesus is the King, coming from the line of King David, and He is the messiah, the promised One from the Line of Abraham. In descending order, Matthew traces the legal lineage of Jesus from Abraham. Matthew shows us that Jesus came not simply from Adam, but more specifically from the line of the kings in Israel. He is the promised King!”
So we know Jesus is the long expected King, but that doesn’t help us still with why this long list of names.
I want to point out some notes or thoughts about this list of names:
these 16 verses cover over 2,000 years of history, over 100 years per verse
This list is not complete, how do we know that? Well it doesn’t include Adam so generations are clearly missing before Abraham but if you cross reference the entire bible you find there are actually 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus, so there are generations missing even after Abraham.
This moves forward from Abraham ending in Jesus rather than backwards from Jesus to Abraham like most lists do.
The very first name we come across in verse 1 is Jesus Christ. Jesus being the Greek form of the word Yeshua or Joshua which means “The Lord is salvation” “Yehweh saves”. Were half a verse into the new testament and the foundation is laid, this Jesus has come to save his people. (We will come back to “son of David”
Abraham-the promised patriarch of all of this.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
6. Whats the next notable name: Isaac. What do we know about Isaac? He was the miracle baby, born to Sarah. Never thought they could have a kid want waited for years and years and years and they unexpectantly and supernaturally have a baby boy. Where else do we see a story of someone unexpectantly and supernaturally having a baby boy? Mary
7. Next we see Judah and his brothers mentioned. What is so special about “his brothers” which would include who? Joseph
8. For the most part the flow is pretty consistent—this person was the father of this person who was the father of this person. But there are some breaks to that flow and these breaks tell us a lot about this line.
Sinclair says, “Why only these five women? After all, every man listed had a mother. The question to ask is what do the following women have in common? Tamar v.3, Rahab v.5, Ruth v.5, the wife of Uriah the Hittite v.6” (Mary being the 5th women mentioned)
“For one thing they were probably all non-Israelites. They didn’t naturally belong. For another, there were question marks over their lives: Tamar have birth to the twin sons of her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was a Jericho prostitute, Ruth was a Moabite (Moabites and their descendents were permantly barred from the congregation of Israel), Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittie, was the object of King David’s adultery. Luke doesn’t mention these women in his genealogy of Jesus. So why did Matthew draw attention to these skeletons in the cupboard? I suspect he is giving us hints of three important biblical principles:
God extends his grace beyond the chosen people and brings Gentiles into his covenant.
God overcomes the effects of sin and shame as he works out his purposes and
God keeps his promises in ways we could have never anticipated.
9. Finally we come to David. David is mentioned 5 times in this genealogy. David is not the only king in this list of names, but he is the only one referred to as King. So what is so special about David?
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
From the line of David is coming the King who will rule and reign.
The entire list of names is centered around David.
Let me show you something cool. From Abraham to David 14 generations are listed. David is the 14th name given if you list them out. Form David to deportation there are 14 generations. From deportation to Christ there are 14 generations.
Lots of numbers lining up here. But its cool when you consider this:
David in Hebrew is written D-V-D. This isn’t a video to watch but actually dalet-vav-dalet.
Okay, track with me now. Who in here is familiar with Roman numerals? You use letters to represent numbers and a combination of letters mean different numbers.
a V equals 5 and an X is 10 so XV is 15
Well the Hebrew language had its own “roman numeral” system and D=4 and V=6 which means D (4) V (6) D (4) would equal what?
14—the number of David.
So whats the point of all this?
If you were to draw this list of names out you would have this long line with all sorts of branches coming off of it that would represent all the major events of the Old Testament. We have seen the inclusion of these various women who were blotted spots on this family tree and yet they were part of the story. And yet all of leads to King Jesus, born of Mary at Christmas.
This King Jesus that connected from Abraham to David to Joseph this line of prophecy and promise that was fulfilled. The rightful heir did come. The one who is worthy of the throne, the one who has redeemed his people.
He came into a fallen world, and into a family that had blots in its history. He came to do all that was promised he would do.
Matthew 1 takes the entire OT and sums it up for what it is, the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan for mankind through his Son Jesus to save a people for himself.