The Lineage of the Messiah

Introduction

· Christmas is a time of wonder, to be sure. We are wowed by the sights, sounds, and smells.

· It’s a time of wonder for the curious as well, as the birth of Jesus invites all kinds of questions.

o How was Jesus born?

o Why was He born?

o When and where was He born?

· But the question that occupies the most important place in Matthew’s gospel, and in the life of the church, is who is Jesus?

o We see this in the ways that people respond to Jesus in the gospels.

§ Who is this child, born with such signs?

“And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”” (Mark 4:41)

Mark 4:41 ESV

41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

“Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”” (Luke 7:49)

Luke 7:49 ESV

49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”

“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!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”” (Matthew 21:9–10)

Matthew 21:9–10 ESV

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!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”

“But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”” (Matthew 26:63)

Matthew 26:63 ESV

63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

· For Matthew, the events don’t make sense unless we know who the characters are.

o He will ask and tell us who Jesus is.

· We will spend this Christmas season examining Matthew’s answer to this question.

o He is Jesus, who saves His people from their sins.

o He is the Christ, the Anointed One of God.

o He is the son of David, born King of the Jews.

o He is the son of Abraham, bringer of blessings.

o He is born of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin.

o He is Immanuel, “God with Us.”

· Each one of these titles carries great significance for us.

o Who is leads naturally to the question, why is He so important?

· The genealogy of Jesus Christ is so important to answering this question because it links Jesus Christ to the broader history of the Old Testament and Israel.

o It serves to connect His incarnation to the bigger picture of God’s redemption of His people.

Jesus is Born to Be Our Savior

· Verse one serves as both an introduction to the genealogy of Jesus, and as an introduction to the gospel as a whole.

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1)

Matthew 1:1 ESV

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

· Four titles given to him each carry important meaning.

· The first is perhaps the most wonderful. He is Jesus, the Savior.

· Jesus is the Greek name for Joshua, which means “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is Salvation.”

· This name would bring to the mind the great hero and deliverer of Israel’s history, Joshua son of Nun.

o He delivered them from the wilderness into the promised land. (A physical/material deliverance).

o Matthew is drawing our attention to the ways in which Jesus should be compared to Joshua.

§ He is not this kind of savior.

§ He was not a great military leader.

§ He did not come to save people physically (though healings were a part of his ministry).

o Joshua pointed toward a greater deliverance that was to come; we see this in Psalm 130.

“O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” (Psalm 130:7–8)

Psalm 130:7–8 ESV

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. 8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

· The kind of saving Jesus came to bring was salvation from our deeper sickness, our sins.

· The need for salvation from our sins is one of the things we see in the genealogy of the Savior.

o It’s a veritable rogues gallery of famous and infamous figures.

· The first section demonstrates God’s superintending of history.

o Abraham, who became a father in extreme old age.

o Jacob, the second born son.

o Judah, the fourth son.

God often chooses the weak things in the world to shame the strong and bring about his purposes.

· David alone is called “king,” indicating his place as the ideal king.

o He is the climax of the first section, marking the completion of Israel’s first epoch—a theocracy (God is the king).

o He also begins the second section, which marks the beginning of the second period of Israel’s history—the monarchy.

· 15 kings are named in the genealogy of Jesus.

o While this does point to the noble lineage of Jesus, we can’t say that it is particularly righteous.

o Half the kings were truly wicked men, engaging in all sorts of the worst sinfulness.

§ Rehoboam

§ Ahaz

§ Manasseh

§ Amon

o Even those kings which were faithful men struggled at times with grievous sins.

§ David and Bathsheba

§ Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Ahab.

§ Hezekiah’s opulence.

§ Uzziah’s prideful idolatry.

· That Jesus’s genealogy includes great kings of Israel and wicked sinners doesn’t say anything about Jesus’s character.

He came to redeem His forbears, not to praise them.

· Further, we see that there are four women named amongst Jesus’s ancestors, and this makes an important point about Jesus’s saving work.

o Each of these women was from outside of the family of promise.

§ Tamar, a Canaanite who played prostitute.

§ Rahab, a prostitute from Jericho who helped Israel’s spies.

§ Ruth, a Moabitess commonly belived by Jewish traditions to be the daughter of the king of Moab.

§ Bathsheba, the wife of a Hittite.

o Each of these women would have been considered Gentiles.

· That they are listed among Jesus’s family tree to demonstrate the universal scope of the salvation that He brought.

o He came to save all who put their trust in Him, blemishes, scandals, and all.

· The third section of the genealogy demonstrates a people in peril, suffering the consequences of sin.

o Israel’s sinfulness came with dire consequences…they failed to keep the land of the covenant.

§ Assyria would destroy the northern kingdom and its people.

§ Babylon would destroy Judah and carry off its people into exile.

o Jesus’s ancestors had lost their throne, their status, and their land…Jesus’s father Joseph was descended from kings, yet he labored in obscurity as a carpenter.

§ Israel and its Davidic kings had nearly lost their identity.

o Jesus came to save them too.

Jesus is the Christ, Anointed Our Deliverer

· Next, we see that Jesus is called the Christ, not a familial name, but the title of one set apart for a special work.

o Christ was the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah.” The Anointed One.

o Anointing was common for those who took up an office.

§ Kings, Priests, and Prophets were often anointed before they took up their work.

· Many looked forward with hope to a promised anointed one who would come to deliver Israel.

o Many looked for a Messiah who would deliver Israel from her oppression an restore the Davidic Kingdom.

§ They hoped for armed deliverance from Rome.

· What Mathew sets out to reveal is that Jesus was anointed for a far greater victory.

o Jesus took up all three covenantal offices for our sake.

§ He is the prophet, greater than Moses, who revealed the truth about humanity and about Himself.

§ He is the Great High Priest, who offered up a perfect sacrifice to remove the guilt of our sin.

§ He is the King, who defeated our greatest enemies: sin and death.

o Moreover, Jesus is anointed for even greater service.

§ He is our sabbath rest.

§ He is our temple: through Him we have fellowship with God.

§ He is our just judge.

· Unfortunately, people have always had misguided expectations about the Messiah. And there is a common thread amongst those who reject Jesus as the Messiah.

o He isn’t who we want him to be. He isn’t who we think He should be.

§ This is the root of man’s rejection of God from the beginning.

· We do not trust that God, in His providence, has our best and highest good in mind.

WE are in for a shock if we are putting our faith in the wrong things, and expecting Jesus to deliver us according to our will.

He taught us to build our house, build our faith, upon the rock. The confession that Jesus is Lord and Savior and putting all our hope in Him.

If we try to build our house on a false Jesus, made in our own image, we may find that our rock is sand.

Jesus is the Son of David, Our Healer and King

· Jesus, is called the son of David.

o According to Joseph, His father, He is descended from the line of Judah and the Davidic kings.

· Matthew is proclaiming that Jesus is the inheritor of all of the promises made to David.

o Further, he is the heir of the godly kings of Israel, who did what is right in the eyes of God.

· “Son of David” was a title rich with meaning. It points to the great hope associated with the promises made to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-15.

“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.” (2 Samuel 7:12–15)

2 Samuel 7:12–15 ESV

12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

o Israel had longed to see this king sitting on the throne.

o It was this king whom the psalmist spoke of in Psalm 2:

““As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lordsaid 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.”” (Psalm 2:6–9)

Psalm 2:6–9 ESV

6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” 7 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

· What is the importance of Jesus being called the “Son of David?”

o First, that He is the long-awaited, promised heir of David–the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.

§ The Son of David would be a mighty deliverer.

o Second, He was expected to heal the land.

§ The Son of David would purge the foreign and pagan influence from Israel once and for all.

§ He would lead Israel back to true covenant faithfulness.

o This is why the blind men cried out to Him as the “Son of David” for healing.

Jesus is the Son of David for us because He offers His strength to the weak and wounded and lifts them up.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Matthew 11:28 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

““The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”” (Luke 4:18–19)

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

If anyone thinks they are strong, they will not see their need.

This is why the blind cried out, but the people doubted and the authorities blasphemed. They did not see their need.

· Perhaps the greatest way that Matthew seeks to link Jesus to David is the particular construction of the genealogy.

o He divides it into three sections of 14, all linked to David in some way shape or form.

“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.” (Matthew 1:17)

Matthew 1:17 ESV

17 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.

o This is a literary device common in Jewish literature—Gematria(numerology)

§ In gematria, each letter is assigned a numeric value.

· Matthew’s use of fourteen is not accidental.

· In Hebrew David is spelled dalet (4) vav (6) dalet (4)=14.

§ Matthew’s genealogy is not meant just to chart Jesus’s descent, but to cry “David! David! David!” to a people who have been awaiting the return of the Davidic king.

Jesus is the Son of Abraham, The Blessing for the Nations

· Finally, we see that Jesus is called the Son of Abraham for He came to be a blessing not just for the Jews, but for all the nations…all of them.

· Matthew expects us to remember that before God called him out of Ur, Abraham was a Gentile pagan like all the rest of the earth.

o It is so important to see God’s redemptive work in this way.

o The father of the covenant people was born outside the covenant until God brought him in. Abraham was a recipient of God’s grace.

o Abraham was chosen to establish God’s chosen people, but that promise was meant to someday be given back to the nations.

“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.” (Genesis 12:2–3)

Genesis 12:2–3 ESV

2 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. 3 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.”

· Matthew announces through the genealogy of Jesus Christ that this promised blessing has come to pass.

· The four women mentioned also speak to this blessing.

· Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba played an important role, even though they were outsiders to the covenant.

o Through their inclusion into the line of Jesus, we see God’s gracious intention to bless every nation of the earth through faith in the promise of Abraham.

Conclusion

· Matthew’s genealogy introduces us to Jesus as the pinnacle and climax of Israel’s history.

o The Davidic kingdom had fallen—everything seemed lost in darkness.

§ Yet God had not forgotten his people in darkness.

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lordas the waters cover the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.” (Isaiah 11:1–10)

Isaiah 11:1–10 ESV

1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

· We need to remember at Christmas that we are outsiders to the promises of God.

o Nearly all of us are Gentiles and therefore aliens of the covenant promises to Israel.

§ Paul has told us in Ephesians that we were once without God and without hope in the world.

o The genealogy of Jesus reveals that people who are far off from God have been brought near.

§ We have received grace, inclusion in the promise, adoption into God’s family, the salvation of our souls, and an inheritance in His kingdom.

· In light of this wonderful advent, what shall be our response?

o Jesus is the Savior, so let us respond by receiving the salvation He has offered by faith.

o Jesus is the anointed One who came to restore us who have fallen.

When we stumble and fall, let us look to him by faith to lift us back up and heal us.

o Jesus is the Son of David—He is our healer.

§ We are reminded at this dark time of year of our need for relief from the oppression of our enemies.

The great hope of this season is that in His coming, Jesus is our relief.

o Jesus is the Son of Abraham—

§ Abraham is the father of all the faithful because he trusted in the promises of God. Those promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the savior of all the world.

§ He fulfills the hopes of Jew and Gentile alike.

§ In Him, we are made one.

Let us follow after Him in welcoming all freely into the family of God.