Who is Jesus Christ?

Signs

wonders

miracles

teaching

Geneology:

Genesis

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John accounts

Jesus: The Savior

Jesus: the savior

Jesus is a Hebrew name. Hebrew = Joshua; translated into Greek = Jesus. Joshua means “The Lord (Yahweh) saves” or “The Lord is Salvation”. Or Messiah (Is 61:1)

What did Jesus come to save us from?

False gospels and functional saviors. It’s marketing and advertising. you’re in fat hell, lonely hell, hungry hell, or poor hell. Are you fat? Follow our exercise and diet plan and we’ll save you from hell! Are you lonely? Sign up here? We’ll connect you with others just like you so you can escape lonely hell together! Have you worked up an appetite getting out of fat hell so you can escape lonely hell? Then come eat here, we’re open 24/7 and you can have it your way on your way out of hungry hell! Are you broke because you spent all of your money getting out of fat hell, lonely hell, and hungry hell? Well have I got some good news for you, if you act now, you can get in on a once in a lifetime opportunity to get in before everyone else and build wealth by building your downline… Oh we don’t like the term pyramid, it has negative connotation, but you can get out of poor hell with this triangle! This is the air we breath!

I don’t mean to make light of your suffering. It is real! And the depth of some of your suffering is inexpressible. Your desires for healing are good and right. Your desires to reconcile estranged relationships when the other person want’s nothing to do with you are in line with the heart of God. That suffering is real and God cares about it.

What I do want to draw attention to is the source of your suffering: Sin. I’m not saying that all of your suffering is a result of your sin, but it is the result of someones sin. You see, we all sin against others and others sin agains us. when we are sinned against, we tend to respond in sinful ways which perpetuates the pain, and the cycle continues. And often times we sin without provocation. Because we are idolatrous and covetous people who’s hearts are polluted with stain, we sin agains others and we sin against God. This isolates us from God and one-another, fundamentally fracturing what God put together. And this sin is so heinous, that God says that the only just consequence is death.

What did Jesus come to save us from?

Sin. Our sin. My sin.

Psalm 130:7–8 says, “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”

First Century Jews were well aware that they needed saving from sin. That that saviour would have to come with the power of God himself. They new this because sin was always before them—and it was huge. They had been under Roman occupation for about 60 years when Jesus arrives. They lived under cruel oppression from a pagan nation that besieged them. They were burdened with taxes, treated as property of the Roman empire, and stuck in a system that they had not the strength or opportunity to escape or overthrow. It was not just, it was not right, it was not fair, and God had been silent for 400 years.

But they missed the savior because they were looking at the sin outside of them and thus looking for a savior to save them from the hell they were living in, not the hell that was in them.

Don’t miss Jesus in the expectation that he is coming to save you from your problems. Often times, isn’t our expectation that Jesus came to make things better—here and now? Like, right now! Then why am I suffering from chronic pain? Why is my marriage broken? Why are my kids rebelling? Why did I loose my job?

Israel’s mistake was to build an idea of a kingdom and look for a king to bring that to reality; and so they missed their king. Rather, look to the King, and ask him what his kingdom is like. As we move through Matthew, ask yourself: what is the Kingdom of God? If it is not the same as your kingdom, lay that down and submit to King Jesus. Another way to ask the question is, what is “the good life?”. Does your idea of the good life align with his? If not, lay it down.

“In the long run, God cares about salvation from enemies, disease, and death, but that part of his program lies in the future, when Jesus returns.

By his incarnation, Jesus began to address the problem that lies at the root of all pains and sorrows. He came to save his people from their sins”

The genealogy shows that Jesus descended from the line of Jewish kings. Matthew names fifteen of them, from David to Jeconiah, also known as Jehoiachin. So Jesus came from a noble line. But if we look hard, we see that this regal group was not especially righteous. About half of the kings were men of faith. Several, including David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, were great men. Still, even among the believers, some committed striking sins. Jehoshaphat entered into alliances with wicked men (2 Chron. 20:35–37). In foolish pride, Hezekiah showed the treasures of Israel to her powerful enemies, who later plundered them (2 Kings 20:12–18). After years of successful rule, Uzziah became proud and dared to usurp the role of a priest and entered the Lord’s temple to burn incense on the altar (2 Chron. 26:1–22).

About half the kings in the genealogy were truly wicked. Ahaz worshiped the pagan gods of Assyria. He practiced human sacrifice. He killed one of his own sons. He stripped the gold and silver from the temple and gave it to other kings. He defiled the Lord’s altar and installed pagan altars instead (2 Kings 16). Nor was Ahaz alone. Rehoboam and Jeconiah were almost as bad and Manasseh was worse. Indeed, Manasseh “did more evil than the nations” that the Lord drove out of Canaan. He promoted the worship of idols and murdered innocent people (2 Kings 21:9–18).

So Jesus’ genealogy includes great kings and sordid sinners. Regal as his lineage was, Jesus did not come to praise his forebears, but to save them. If you doubt this, consider the four women in the genealogy. People often wonder why we find women inserted, apparently at random, in the genealogy. The answer is clear if we notice that common threads appear in the foursome that is interwoven with the kings: “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife” (Matt. 1:5–6). Three women are listed here; the fourth, Tamar, gets a mere mention in 1:3. The four are:

• Tamar the daughter-in-law of Judah, who was the son of Jacob; she played the role of a prostitute (Gen. 38).

• Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho, who helped Israel’s spies (Josh. 2, 6).

• Ruth, the Moabitess who was adopted into the family of Boaz (Ruth 1–4).

• Bathsheba, the paramour of David and the wife of a Hittite (2 Sam. 11–12).

Within this quartet, all but Tamar came from foreign lands or families. They were outside the family of God. Moreover, of the four, three were either prostitutes or adulteresses. The point is clear: Jesus comes from the human line, pimples and all. His own people, his own family, needed him to save them from their sins.

J.M.

Matthew’s genealogy also shows us the work of God’s grace in His choosing four former outcasts, each of them women (the only women listed until the mention of Mary), through whom the Messiah and great King would descend. These women are exceptional illustrations of God’s grace and are included for that reason in the genealogy that otherwise is all men.

The first outcast was Tamar, the Canaanite daughter-in-law of Judah. God had taken the lives of her husband, Er, and of his next oldest brother, Onan, because of their wickedness. Judah then promised the young, childless widow that his third son, Shelah, would become her husband and raise up children in his brother’s name when he grew up. After Judah failed to keep that promise, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and tricked him into having sexual relations with her. From that illicit union were born twin sons, Perez and Zerah. The sordid story is found in Genesis 38. As we learn from the genealogy, Tamar and Perez joined Judah in the messianic line. Despite prostitution and incest, God’s grace fell on all three of those undeserving persons, including a desperate and deceptive Gentile harlot.

The second outcast also was a woman and a Gentile. She, too, was guilty of prostitution, but for her, unlike Tamar, it was a profession. Rahab, an inhabitant of Jericho, protected the two Israelite men Joshua sent to spy out the city. She lied to the messengers of the king of Jericho in order to save the spies; but because of her fear of Him and her kind act toward His people, God spared her life and the lives of her family when Jericho was besieged and destroyed (Josh. 2:1–21; 6:22–25). God’s grace not only spared her life but brought her into the messianic line, as the wife of Salmon and the mother of the godly Boaz, who was David’s great-grandfather.

The third outcast was Ruth, the wife of Boaz. Like Tamar and Rahab, Ruth was a Gentile. After her first husband, an Israelite, had died, she returned to Israel with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth was a godly, loving, and sensitive woman who had accepted the Lord as her own God. Her people, the pagan Moabites, were the product of the incestuous relations of Lot with his two unmarried daughters. In order to preserve the family line, because they had no husbands or brothers, each of the daughters got their father drunk and caused him to unknowingly have sexual relations with them. The son produced by Lot’s union with his oldest daughter was Moab, father of a people who became one of Israel’s most implacable enemies. Mahlon, the Israelite man who married Ruth, did so in violation of the Mosaic law (Deut. 7:3; cf. 23:3; Ezra 9:2; Neh. 13:23) and many Jewish writers say his early death, and that of his brother, were a divine judgment on their disobedience. Though she was a Moabite and former pagan, with no right to marry an Israelite, God’s grace not only brought Ruth into the family of Israel, but later, through Boaz, into the royal line. She became the grandmother of Israel’s great King David.

The fourth outcast was Bathsheba. She is not identified in the genealogy by name, but is mentioned simply as the wife of David and the former wife of Uriah. As already mentioned, David committed adultery with her, had her husband sent to the battlefront to be killed, and then took her as his own wife. The son produced by the adultery died in infancy, but the next son born to them was Solomon (2 Sam. 11:1–27; 12:14, 24), successor to David’s throne and continuer of the messianic line. By God’s grace, Bathsheba became the wife of David, the mother of Solomon, and an ancestor of the Messiah.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ is immeasurably more than a list of ancient names; it is even more than a list of Jesus’ human forebears. It is a beautiful testimony to God’s grace and to the ministry of His Son, Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, who “did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13). If He has called sinners by grace to be His forefathers, should we be surprised when He calls them by grace to be His descendants? The King presented here is truly the King of grace!

John F. MacArthur Jr., Matthew, vol. 1, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 7–9.The last part of Jesus’ genealogy shows that Israel was suffering the consequences of its sin (1:11–16). The borders of Israel had failed to hold. Assyria dethroned Israel’s king and Babylon conquered Judah, deported its leaders, and declared the pitiful remnant to be their vassals.

Jesus’ ancestors lost their rank as kings, lost their wealth and land, and nearly lost their identity. We could compare the family of Jesus to the last derelict scion of a once-great family. They were Roosevelts, Lincolns, or Jeffersons, but had fallen far over the years. In any shattered clan, some are drunks, gamblers, or wastrels; others are decent folk, perhaps, but lack any great skill or asset. Those are the people Jesus came to save, then and now. We too have lowlifes in our family, and we have done things that fit a lowlife-laden family.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 10–11.

Christ: The one anointed to restore His people

Christ: the one anointed to restore his people

Jesus is a given name. “Christ” eventually became Jesus’ second name in Christian usage, but originally it was a title for the Messiah. As a title, it simply means “anointed one.” To be anointed is to be set apart and empowered by God for a task he appoints. In Israel, priests were always anointed (Ex. 28–30), kings were always anointed (1 Sam. 9, 16), and prophets were sometimes anointed (1 Kings 19:16).

In Jesus’ day, “Christ” came to signify a specific king, one anointed with God’s strength to deliver the people. The people thought of the Christ as a king because they hoped for a military victory and release from Rome.

Matthew’s gospel gradually reveals that Jesus was anointed for a far greater victory, one that he accomplished by taking all three of the main leadership offices of Israel. He is the king, anointed to defeat our greatest foes—sin and death. He is the priest, anointed to offer a sacrifice to remove the guilt of sin. He is the prophet, anointed to tell the truth about humanity and himself. The greatest truth is that he defeated sin for us because we cannot defeat sin. He offered himself to remove our guilt because we cannot atone or compensate for our sin.

But Jesus is anointed to do more than fulfill the three main offices in Israel. He completes other tasks, as Matthew will show us. He fulfills the role of the Sabbath, by giving true rest to his people. He fulfills the role of the temple, for in him God and mankind meet. He judges mankind, knowing every thought and deed, and forgiving every misdeed if we ask for mercy, believing he can grant it.

The title “Christ” signifies a man who is anointed with oil to consecrate him for a special office. Jesus was commissioned by God for a special task. It is vital that we let God define that task. In Jesus’ day, most Israelites believed God’s Messiah would free them from Roman domination and, somehow, triumph over unrighteousness and purify the nation.

We now know that these hopes were partly right and partly wrong. Jesus did triumph over sin and purify the nation, but he did not liberate Israel from Rome. When Jesus failed to deliver the people the way they expected, some adjusted their expectations, but many others concluded that he must not be the Messiah.

The problem of misguided expectations is common to mankind. We regularly trust the wrong people or expect them to provide what they cannot or should not give. Some Americans expect our superior armed forces to keep us perfectly safe. Some expect their skills to make them prosperous and secure. Jesus says the wise man builds his house upon the rock—not “a” rock, but “the” rock, that is, Jesus, the Christ (Matt. 7:24).

Still, even those who try to build on the rock can suffer disappointment, if they remake Jesus in their image. How so? They may expect Jesus to make life easy. They may think they can know Jesus as Savior but not as Lord. But we must let him define himself: he is both Savior and Lord.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 11–13.

Son of David: The mighty yet tender healer

Son of David: the mighty yet tender healer

Mt 12:23 And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”

Mt 20:30–31 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”…

Mt 21:9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Mt 21:15–16 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,…

He is the offspring of the kingly line.

But Jesus is not just any king. He is the son of David (1:1). “Son of David” seems to organize the entire genealogy

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 13.Son of Abraham: The hope of Jews and gentiles

There was a strong hope, in Jesus’ day, for a king who would restore Israel to its former glory and liberate the nation from Roman oppression and degradation. Israel based this hope on a promise the Lord gave David: that David would one day have an heir, a son who would bring a golden age of strength and blessing (2 Sam. 7:12–15):

When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.… My love will never be taken away from him.

This anointed king, this son of David and Son of God, would subdue the kings of the earth and rule them with an iron scepter (Ps. 2:2–9).

Jesus is called “son of David” nine times in Matthew, and that underlines two points. First, he is the long-promised heir of David (1:1, 20). Through him Israel hoped for restoration. He is mighty to defeat the powers of Satan (12:23) and perhaps the powers of Rome.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 13–14.

Second, the people expected the king to heal the land, when he removed the Romans and other pagans who defiled it. They also expected healing for the people, one by one. They believed, to use J. R. R. Tolkein’s words, “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.” So the people asked Jesus for mercy and for healing. Early in his ministry, in Galilee, two blind men followed Jesus and called out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” (9:27). Even when Jesus traveled to neighboring regions, the people expected him to heal. Once a Canaanite woman approached him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession” (15:22). Again, just before Jesus entered Jerusalem, “Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’ The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’ ” (20:30–31).

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 14–15.

There is a pattern in these encounters. First, the outsiders of Jewish society and the occasional Gentile “appeal to Jesus as Son of David and are thereby healed.” Second, the crowds “generally respond to these healings with doubt.” For example, when Jesus cast demons out of a man who was blind and mute, so he could see and talk, the people asked, “Could this be the Son of David?” (12:23). Third, “the religious authorities respond with anger (21:15) and blasphemy” (12:22–32).

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 15.

The son of David offers his strength to the weak and wounded. He offers hope to the yearning heart, because the mighty king, the son of David, is a tender healer. To this day, “son of David” is a title of healing strength. In God’s economy, the strength of Jesus appeals especially to the weak—to the no-accounts. I

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 15.

Still, if anyone thinks he has no needs at all, if anyone thinks he has all the strength he needs, then the son of David will not be very appealing. But if this offer sounds appealing—“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28 esv)—then the strong son of David is for you.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 16.

Son of Abraham: The hope of Jews and Gentiles

Son of Abraham: the hope of Jews and Gentiles

The last title for Jesus in Matthew 1:1 is the son of Abraham. The genealogy in Matthew starts with Abraham, the father of Israel. By contrast, the genealogy in Luke starts with Adam, the father of mankind. Yet the point in Matthew is not that Jesus is only for the Jews, but that Jesus is for all the children of Abraham.

The common explanation of the difference between the genealogies runs this way: Luke starts with Adam to show that the Savior is descended from the first man. Luke wants to write a gospel for Gentiles, so he says Jesus is from mankind and for all mankind. People say Matthew is the gospel for the Jews, so he starts with Abraham, the father of the Jews. Every Israelite called himself a son of Abraham, but especially those who sought to live by faith and walk with God (Matt. 3:9; Luke 1:73; 19:9; John 8:39–58; Acts 7:2; Rom. 4:1, 12). Yet Matthew expects us to know that Abraham was a pagan, a Gentile, before God called him. He was the father of the covenant people, but he was born outside the covenant and stayed there until God brought him in.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 16.

Abraham began life as a pagan, chosen by God to establish his people, Israel. But from the beginning, God swore he would give Abraham back to the nations. God’s greatest promise to Abraham says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:2–3).

God also promised Abraham that through his offspring “all nations on earth will be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). The gospel of Matthew ends with this very idea: Jesus will bless the nations. He commands the apostles to make disciples of “all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 17.

Matthew mentions four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, who is called “the wife of Uriah.”

As we mentioned, three of the four are flagrant sinners. And three of them share something else—they are not Israelites. Rahab was a Canaanite, from Jericho. Ruth was a Moabitess. Bathsheba married a Hittite, ergo probably (not certainly) was a Hittite herself. So Jesus has Gentiles in the family line! If Matthew is the gospel for the Jews, it is for a certain kind of Jew: the Jewish believer who hopes all the nations will taste the blessings God offers through faith in Jesus.

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 17.

Application: Who is Jesus?

The Lord’s titles both tell us who Jesus is and suggest the proper responses to him. He is Jesus, the Savior. Therefore let us receive his salvation. He is the Christ, the one anointed to restore his people. Let us turn to him to restore us when we falter. He is the son of David, the mighty yet tender healer. Therefore, let us turn to him for healing. He is the son of Abraham, the father of all the faithful, sent to fulfill the hopes of Jews and Gentiles alike. Therefore, let us welcome all to the family of God

Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 19.The King

ADD:

Mother of Jesus