When I lived in Ireland, I had a long conversation with a fellow worker in the ministry that I interned with about American’s obsession with where they come from. I do not remember if this was specifically around St. Patrick’s Day where a bunch of drunk Americans, who actually outnumbered the Irish on the streets, were making fools of themselves. But this would have been the mentality behind the question. He asked me something along the lines of “why do Americans claim to be Irish or English or German or whatever? You were born in America your Americans.”
Though I know he was motivated out of annoyance more than anything else, his question did make me think. Why do we as Americans always talk about the different countries “that we came from?” I have had that conversation with many of you already. The dominant heritage in this area is German and Russian. I know that I am part German, English, Irish, and Swedish. I claim that in conversation and yet I have never been to Germany or Sweden and only visited England for a week and a half, and lived in Ireland for only a year.
The best answer I could give him, and I think is the truth for the majority of people, is that we all like to know our history. Where we came from, the cultures from which our ancestors immigrated. We like to understand the origins some of the traditions we grew up with that may be different from the people around us. What defines our families. Our ancestors define us in some way and as Americans we have a unique ability to pull from so many different cultures because of how our country developed.
To the Jewish people of the Old Testament and in Jesus’s day, genealogies were extremely important. Throughout the Bible there are about 25 genealogical lists of individuals. To the Jewish people these lists were kept fastidiously and for multiple reasons.
Looking all the way back to the book of Numbers, the Jewish people had to know their tribe, their family and their pedigree so that they could identify themselves in order to possess the land. When the land of Israel was first conquered and distributed to the 12 tribes, it was done so in a very specific way and the laws that governed the land and its distribution required an individual to know his pedigree. Land disputes and borders were settled based on those pedigrees and which area had been given to which family and who had rightful claim to it all the way back to the conquest in Joshua.
Land had to be passed down in a certain way and would be returned to a particular family if someone died without an heir there was a specific way in which land was to be returned to the rightful relative. This sort of event was described in the book of Ruth. Consequently, who we see at the end of the first section of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus in verse five.
Last week, as I was going over the different aspects of the little “m” messiahs, I mentioned in the priesthood that an individual could only claim the right to be a priest if they were able to prove their genealogy.
The importance of the genealogies remained all the way to the time of Jesus’s birth and that we see Mary and Joseph in the book of Luke going to be registered in the Roman census according to their ancestry and the historical location of their ancestors.
Josephus, who was a first century Jewish historian wrote about the use of ancestral files as a part of Jewish culture during the time of Jesus. The Jews were very intentional about their pedigrees and would memorize them as well as having files stored either in the Temple in Jerusalem or in their local synagogue for reference.
Now that has all changed today. The Jewish people today have no absolute record of their tribal ancestry. They cannot trace it to any of the original 12 tribes. There is some work that has been done tracing particular family names back through history, but none of them can be directly linked to any of the 12 tribes with certainty. This would mean that if anybody comes along claiming to be the Messiah today, he will never be able to prove it.
There are some Orthodox Jews who still believe that the Messiah is going to come, but the problem is that they will never be any way to prove that that individual is a direct descendent of David. Matthew is making the point here that Jesus is the verifiable claimant to the Davidic throne and we know that today, there is no way anyone could prove that same claim.
Again, last week I promise that we weren’t going to spend a great deal of time going over all the names in this genealogy. Just looking at some of the names we know, we could spend several weeks going with the stories of each of these individual people and the amazing way in which God incorporated their story into this genealogy of grace. But the name I want to focus on this morning is that of Jeconiah. And I am going to do this is I want to show how a list like this can show the amazing work of God through the course of history.
There are two different genealogies given in the Gospels connecting Jesus back to his ancestry. In Luke 3:23-37, Luke gives the genealogy of Jesus through his mother Mary back to David, through Abraham, and all the way back to Adam. Matthew here gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph his legal father.
Why is there a difference? What is the importance of having these two different genealogies? As I mentioned last week, Matthews primary focus throughout this whole Gospel is presenting Jesus as the promised messianic king. The difference in Joseph’s line is that it is the royal line. The royal line was always to be passed through the father. But Jesus had no human father so in order to have the bloodline to reign He had to be a descendent of David through His mother as well.
Now this is going to be some confusing legal jargon but pay attention because it shows an amazing act of God. Through Mary, as we see in the genealogy given by Luke, Jesus carries the bloodline of David and is therefore a direct descendent of David as was promised the Messiah would be.
Now we look at verse 16 and we see a break in the chain of the genealogy in Matthew. Up until this very last section we see so-and-so fathered so-and-so but at verse 16, in taking the last step from Joseph to Jesus, Matthew changes the wording in a very significant way. We read in verse 16 “Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” Each of the references of parentage is masculine, “so-and-so fathered so-and-so. In verse 16 is a very distinct change in that we see Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary. This is the important part, “by whom Jesus was born.” The “by whom” in English does not show a gender but in Greek is feminine. Even in the genealogy Matthew is making the point that Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus.
Why is it important that Joseph is referenced as Mary’s husband? In Jewish culture, if a woman was engaged to a man and she became pregnant, even if it was not physically his child, that man could accept the child as his own, a type of adoption, and that child would bear all of the legal responsibilities and privileges of a legitimate son of the husband of his mother.
That is why in verses 18- 25, Matthew spends more time detailing the virgin birth and how it was described to Joseph. Next week we are going to take some time to look at the virgin birth and its importance to Christianity in defining orthodoxy, but that is going to have to wait. But we need to understand the legal ramifications of Joseph accepting this child as his own who was not actually conceived by him.
If Jesus was a descendent of David through Mary as Luke describes, why is it necessary to give Joseph’s genealogy here? Matthew follows the royal line through David and Solomon David son all the way down to Joseph. But if you look at Luke’s genealogy, he traces Mary’s line not through Solomon, but through another of David’s sons, Nathan.
Why is this important? It all goes back to Jeconiah, the last name in the time period of the Kings, before the deportation to Babylon. Jeremiah was the prophet speaking in Judah during the time of Jerusalem’s final fall to Babylon and the beginning of the 70 years of exile. The reason for the exile was to fulfill God’s wrath against the people of Israel for their rejection of him. Jeconiah was a particularly evil king and so God cursed his children and all who would come after him. We read in Jeremiah 22:30, “thus says the Lord, right this man down as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.”
Because of his evil, Jeconiah’s children were cursed, and so if Jesus had been the real son of Joseph, He never could have sat on the throne of David, He would have been under the curse. On the other hand, He hadto be the legal son of Joseph to have that right.
So, in order for God to fulfill both His promises that He made to David as well as the curses that He had proclaimed against Jeconiah, he had to devise a plan through which Jesus would be the legal heir to the throne but not through the direct line to sending through Jeconiah, but also by passing through the actual bloodline of David.
When God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus, it was not a random choice. It was not because she was a particularly good person. She was not, as presented by Catholic doctrine immaculately born herself nor sinless. She was, however, chosen by God because she fit specifically in His plan that would fulfill every promise and curse that He had made hundreds of years before.
That is an awe-inspiring thing to see. God laid out every detail. Adhering to both His promises and His punishments. Culminating in both a miraculous sign of the coming of the Messiah in the virgin birth along with the absolute necessity of that virgin birth.
To the Jews who are reading this genealogy, they would understand the importance of this right away. They knew the curse on Jeconiah. They knew their genealogies and of Matthew established Jesus is the ultimate right to be the Messiah King that the people were looking for.
As we look at this picture, we can see the planning of God across generations of history. Matthew starts this gospel with an incredible proclamation of hope. God has kept His promises across the span of history and they find their fulfillment in Jesus. He is the center point of history and the fulcrum for the promises of God.
Jesus is the focus of all the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of all that the people of God had been waiting on for generations and generations. He is the fulfillment of the promises of salvation. He is the promised seed of Eve who would crush the head of Satan. He is the promised sacrifice on behalf of sinful people as we saw from Isaiah 53 last week. He is the center of the promise of eternal life which is granted through the grace of God and which was established before the foundation of the world.
Looking at the sovereignty of God in the fulfillment of these promises, we can feel secure in the promises that he has made in choosing His elect before the foundation of the world. Paul says in Titus 1:1-3 that believers are “chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.”
The joy that believers can have in the recognition that these promises have been fulfilled in Jesus does not come only from looking back to what he has accomplished but also forward to the yet to be fulfilled promises that are also based on Him.
We can feel secure knowing that Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection that has been promised to us. That we are not going to be left to the ravages of death and decay but will reign with Christ. We can look forward to all the promises of spiritual restoration because they are based on the continuing intercession of Christ before the throne of God. We can look forward to all the promises of the millennial reign of Christ upon this earth as well as the new heaven and the new earth that will exist as a place with none of the effects of sin.
As we look at the sovereignty of God in all things we can be assured that nothing exists outside of the direct control of God. Isaiah 46:10 tells us that God, “declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying my purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.”
God has planned out every action, every event, every outcome of history before creation even began. Everything that exists in the universe exists because God allowed it, because He called it into existence and there is nothing that can interfere with His decrees. Psalm 135:6 tells us that He “works all things after the counsel of his will.”
Before Adam and Eve walked in the Garden of Eden, the Trinity decided on the fate of the world and all who would walk upon it. It was decided that the second person of the Trinity would empty Himself, as we are told in Philippians 2, that He would take the form of a man and humble Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross.
It was decided that He would be raised again in order to be those first fruits of the resurrection. It was decided that He would intercede before the Father on behalf of the elect as the faithful high priest. And it was decided that He would return after a specific period of time in order to reign over the earth alongside the elect until he returned authority back to the Father and the new heaven and the new earth would be brought in.
In order to make all of these events happen exactly as planned, God has maintained control over all things. We can know that in every instance, every moment in life, every good thing and every bad, times of illness and times of health, times of trial and times of peace, we can know that God is sovereign and that all things are happening according to that eternal plan.
It is what gives us confidence in passages like Romans 8:28-30. Verse 28 begins “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” This is a promise to the elect that because of God’s sovereign control over all things, He uses every event in our lives for our spiritual benefit. As we see in verse 29, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Nothing lays outside of His control and we can have confidence that He will finish what He starts when He tells us then in verse 30, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
This is called the unbreakable chain of salvation. It begins with predestination of all man before the foundation of the world. If you were predestined before the foundation of the world then you are also called, justified, and you will be glorified.
The promise of God choosing the elect from before creation is stated over and over again in the New Testament. We see it in Romans, first Corinthians, second Corinthians, Ephesians Titus, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation.
We can have confidence in the plans of God because we have seen them begin to be fulfilled in Christ’s first coming and we can know that they will be fulfilled completely at his second coming. That is the joy we have in looking to the fulfilled prophecies of Scripture and our hope for the future.