From Abraham to Jesus

Introduction

When we began our way through the book of Genesis, we started by looking at the famous first words of the Bible “In the beginning.” Its no surprise that the first book in our new testament begins with the words “the book of the genealogy,” genealogy being the same word from which we get Genesis. Most commentators see a deliberate parallel in the way Matthew begins his Gospel with the way Genesis begins. While Genesis begins the story of the universe and of God’s people, Matthew begins the story of Jesus. This is such a majour event in the history of the people of God that Matthew aligns it to the beginning of the whole story.

For Matthew, there is a distinct beginning in the story of Jesus. His birth is the beginning of a new age. However, he is also quick to mention and go through the line of Kings in the OT from whom Christ came. From the first words of this Gospel, we can discern two important points about the coming of Christ. First, his coming signals the beginning of a new age that brings the OT age to an end. Second, his coming is the perfect continuation and fulfilment of all that the OT was about and looking to.

Jesus’ Human Heritage

The book of Matthew begins with what is either a title for the book or a description of the next sixteen verses. It it is a title, than the book we call the Gospel of Matthew is actually called ‘The Book of the History or Life of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham’. Either way, this sentence prepares us for what we are about to read. This is a book about Jesus who is the Christ. Christ is not a surname, it means Messiah, the Anointed King of Israel, the One who would reestablish the people of God into the Heavenly Kingdom they were meant to be.

Just a few words into the book and Matthew has already told us what the Disciple’s themselves will not realize until Peter’s confession in chapter 16: that Jesus is this promised King of God’s people. In the first sentence, we know exactly what this book is about and what to expect in its content. This is meant to prepare us for this weighty and most important message.

The great preacher of the early Church, John Crystostem, began his sermon on this text with a call for preparation from his congregation. As much as our flesh and the forces of Satan would entice your minds to be distracted during a sermon on the weekend, what we are uncovering in this Gospel is the story of God himself coming to earth, inserting himself into a human family, and giving his own blood to redeem us from our sins. If that prospect doesn’t cause us to sit up in our chairs and pay attention, we have a problem with our minds and hearts.

We may not see God as we ought in order to understand the gravity of his condescension.

We may not understand the Scriptures enough to see the coming of Christ as the most important event for a follower of God.

We may not take sin seriously enough to eagerly hear of his payment of it.

We may be too worldly to pull ourselves away from the distractions of this life to see and savour this glorious Gospel.

Whatever the case may be, let your goal today be to earnestly fight against all that would take your eyes off of Christ in this book and pray that your heart may be full of a zealous pursuit of God’s revelation of Christ.

Two Important Figures:

Also in the first verse we see two names mentioned that stand above the rest. Two important figures that stick out in the list, which Matthew immediately point out, are Abraham and David.

David

David’s name is an obvious reference, because it is to his family that the title of Christ is attached. It refers to God’s promise to David back in 2 Samuel 7 that God would establish David’s family line and that his descendant would reign forever over God’s people.

2 Samuel 7:16 ESV

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ”

It was this promise of eternal kingship from David’s house that the search for a Messiah came. They awaited God’s promise through this coming anointed one who would conquer Israel’s enemies and bring an eternal Kingdom of God.

Abraham

However, the promises of God concerning the Kingdom do not originate with David. Matthew goes back to the beginning of Israel’s history with Abraham.

Abraham has been given the promises of a Kingdom, numerous descendants, and the enduring blessing of God. These promises, as we saw when we went through Genesis, went beyond a promise of land and physical descendants, but Abraham was looking beyond them to a heavenly country. Likewise, he was looking ahead not to physical descendants but to the coming of Christ through his line. Paul describes Christ’s fulfilment of the promise of offspring for Abraham like this:

Galatians 3:16 ESV

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

Every promise God made to Abraham was ultimately being made to and fulfilled in Christ. It was to Jesus that God was promising a nation, it was to Jesus that God was promising a Kingdom. It was to Jesus that God promised “those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse.” Yes they were to Abraham, but their fulfilment was very seen in Abraham’s life, or Isaac, or Jacob, or David…not until the coming of the one at the end of this genealogy do we see the full expression of God’s purposes and promises. Jesus himself will claim,

Matthew 5:17 ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

The Law and the Prophets at the contents of the Old Testament, which Jesus makes clear he doesn’t abolish. He didn’t come to erase the OT from our Bibles. Instead, he came to show us that everything in the OT was always about him. So in this genealogy, we see that Matthew has no desire to separate the narrative of Jesus from the narrative of everything that has happened in the history of God’s people from Abraham through David until now. Jesus does not cancel out the OT any more than the end of a story cancels out the beginning and middle. The OT is a story of God’s relationship with human beings and Jesus is the grand conclusion of that story.

Babylon: The End of David’s Earthly Reign, but not his Spiritual Kingdom

This is seen clearly in the Babylonian exile. With the exile came the end of God’s people as an independent and self-governing society. It was the end of the Davidic Kingship as it was before the exile, and even after the return from exile life was never the same in Israel. This led the people of God to look forward to the reestablishment of the Davidic throne, something that the Messiah was supposed to do.

This gives us a clue as to why Matthew starts his account of the life of Christ, an account especially directed towards Jews looking forward to the coming Messiah, with a lists of Jesus’ ancestors.

In general, Jews appreciated these lists (see 1 Chronicles 1; Genesis 4; 10; ect.) and it was a way to tell that the following account is meant to be taken as a serious and true historical account.

Matthew’s goal is to connect Jesus to the Davidic Kingship, and thus show him to be the legitimate Messianic King. This is likely why his genealogy is different from Luke’s. While Matthew wants to trace a line of Kingship, Luke traces a line of ancestry. These are not always the same thing as a King may be succeeded by a relative other than their children. Indeed, Jesus himself is not biologically Joseph’s son and genealogies were never counted through the woman.

Thus, Matthew begins his book by entreating his Jewish listeners with a historical line that shows Christ to be a rightful King is Israel.

The Glory of the Genealogy of Christ

Although this list of names may be something you are tempted to skip over as meaningless to your reading of the story of Jesus, there is much of him to see here. Every word of Scripture serves to glorify Jesus Christ, and here we see Christ lifted up and glorified before our eyes even in a list of names. It is good and exciting for us, even in this text, to wonder and marvel at who Jesus is and what he has done. We can find Christ’s glory in this text in these ways:

That he should insert himself into humanity.

That he should share a heritage with the scandalous and sinner.

Jesus is not ashamed to share a heritage with historically scandalous people (Judah and Tamar vs 3; Rahab the Canaanite Prostitute vs 5; and evil kings such as Jehoiachin [here spelled Jechoniah vs 11]). Jesus not only willingly inserts himself into sinful humanity, but into a line and heritage riddled with shameful scandals and evil men.

This highlights for us an important aspect of Christ’s coming: his willingness to bear our shame while he himself was sinless. The great preacher in the early church, John Chrysostom, said about these scandals, “Yea, it was for this cause He came, not to escape our disgraces, but to bear them away.” What a glorious and beautiful truth. Jesus has no desire to hide your shame somewhere where it will continue to exist unspoken of. He bears it away and in doing so willingly takes your shame on himself. Why would you continue to hide your shame and guilt, covering yourself with a shell of being a good Christian while inside you are constantly conscious and even desperately depressed because of this sense of your own inability, shame, and guilt. Christ willingly and openly bears such shame, just as he bore such names as ancestors, in order to take them off of your shoulders and into the cross. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame.” That is, he endured the cross paying no heed or attention to the shame, not letting it have power over him so as to prevent him from what he had to do.

Some of you live in shame. You express it in different ways. You point out the sins of others, you become judgmental, you are never satisfied or happy, you are never content, you are constantly longing for control and fulfilment and you don’t find rest for your soul because although you have believed on Christ, you have not fully surrendered your shame to him. You have not exposed yourself to the depths of your sin and the reality of its crippling shame in order to urgently look to Christ for his mercy. His shoulder will bear your shame, but you must first experience a godly sorrow of it. In a sense you must become more miserable, like a child with a deep splinter must experience a sharper pain, before the shame can be removed. When it is exposed, Christ will bear it whatever it is. Trust in him whose shoulders bore the sins of the world to bear your shame as well.

This scandalous ancestry also reminds us that Christ was born into a sinful family and so born in sinful flesh though he himself never sinned. Romans 8:3 (ESV) “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.”

Just like his associations with the low in society, Christ’s ancestry is an association with the sinner. Jesus has truly come for the lowest and vilest of us. Luke 5:32 (ESV) “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Jesus condescension into a sinful family is in line with his condescension to sinner in need of a Saviour.

That he should humble his people by his coming being one of humility and condescension. To see one so glorious and mighty as we have seen him described in Revelation 1:12-16 to humble himself such, we are compelled to be humbled as well.

That he should prove God’s promises to David kept. While the family of David and the people of Israel did nothing to deserve God’s promises, God was faithful to himself and fulfilled them. Romans 3:3 “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?” and 2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.” Jesus is glorious because he has kept the promises of God, and thus showed himself to be faithful.

That he should vindicate the righteous faith of his ancestors. Not all of Jesus’ ancestors were evil, although all were sinners. Still many waited with faith for his coming, and God in love vindicated their faith and proved it to be well placed in the coming of Christ.

That he should faithfully fulfill the Old Covenant as he works to establish the New Covenant. God is not one who leaves plan A to move to plan B. Christ is glorified in picking up the pieces of a broken covenant and through it establishing a new a better one which the Old always looked forward to.

That he has the right to Kingship over God’s People. Who could be more glorious than a King? And what King could capture our attention more than the eternal King of God’s people? Christ’s glory displays itself in this list of name by showing us his earthly right as that King, while his heavenly right will be endorsed by God himself at his baptism, then his transfiguration and more fully in his resurrection and ascension. This will be perfectly proved when he does come again with the power of the divine King he is, a day for which we wait eagerly.

Conclusion

Cause for eager preparation.

Cause for adoration and worship.

Cause to make war on the flesh by walking in the Spirit of Christ, that we may behold him, have joy in him, and live contented Christian lives in his grace and sufficiency.