About Genealogies

[Mt 1:1-17; Lk 3:23-38]

About 20 or 30 years after Jesus had gone back to heaven, a Jewish disciple named Matthew was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write a book. The published work is what we know as The Gospel According to Matthew.

Matthew is a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. If a Bible reader were to jump from Malachi to Mark, Acts, or Romans it would be confusing. Matthew’s gospel is the bridge that leads us out of the Old Testament and into the New Testament.

The theme of the Old Testament is given in Genesis 5:1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam….” All the stories seem to be sad – all about sin and death. So-and-so begat so-and-so, he had sons, he lived x number of years, and he died, etc, etc. Genesis 5 they all had children and died, except for Enoch – God has never had anyone qualified working for Him yet, and we won’t be the first. The history of God’s dealings with man reveal that He has always used less than perfect vessels. (Gen 5:24).

The New Testament is “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1). Jesus is the last Adam (1Cor 15:45), and He came to earth to save the generations of Adam. By no choice, you and I we were born into this “generation of Adam,” which made us sinners. But now by a choice of faith, we can be born into the generation of Jesus Christ and become the children of God! How cool is that? Matthew brings us this good news in his gospel. It is proven in this genealogy passage that often gets skipped over by most readers today.

The message of the New Testament is the gift of God. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23).

The Old Testament is a book of promise, while the New Testament is the book of fulfillment. Beginning with Gen 3:15, God promised a Redeemer; and Jesus Christ fulfilled that promise. Fulfilled is one of the keywords in the Gospel of Matthew, used about 15 times.

Even the genealogies are “inspired by God, and profitable” (2Tim 3:16).

The genealogy in Matthew is from Abraham to Jesus, while the book of Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry from Jesus all the way back to Adam. The genealogies are the same from Abraham to David, but from David to Jesus, they are totally different. Both these genealogies were accepted by the early church despite their differences, which is proof enough of their accuracy.

Matthew traced David’s line through Solomon (Mt 1:6), while Luke traced the royal lineage through Nathan (Lk 3:31), another son of David (2Sam 5:14). This would bypass the curse on Jechonias’ seed (Jer 22:24-30), which Jesus also avoided by being born of a virgin.

The justification for two genealogies is that Matthew recorded Joseph’s line, while Luke recorded Mary’s line. Luke did say Joseph was the son of Heli, making it appear that Luke was also tracing Joseph’s lineage, but that would not have to be the case.

There is scriptural precedent for a man’s son-in-law to be reckoned to the daughter’s genealogy if her father had no sons (Numbers 27:1-11; 36:1-12; Ruth 4:6). This could explain the substitution of Joseph’s name for Mary’s in Luke’s account. This is especially appropriate, since Jesus was the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15) and not the seed of man.

Another interesting fact about Matthew’s genealogy is the inclusion of four Old Testament women; Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba. All of these women (as well as most of the men) were questionable in some way. Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes (Gen 38:24; Josh 2:1). Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitess (Ruth 1:4), and Bathsheba committed adultery (2Sam 11:2-5).

When the fifth woman, Mary, was mentioned in the genealogy, an important change occurred. The genealogy consistently repeated, the father of, and until it came to Mary. At that point Matthew changed and said of whom was born Jesus. The “of whom” is a feminine pronoun, clearly indicating that Jesus was the physical child of Mary but that Joseph was not His physical father. This miraculous conception and birth are explained in Matthew 1:18-25.

Royal bloodlines are very important. Matthew possibly used his systematic summary of 3 segments of Israel’s history (each having 14 generations) as a memory aid for calculations (Mt 1:17). It is also interesting that the numeric value for the name of David is 14.

These genealogies show the infinite wisdom of God in fulfilling His promises despite the tactics of the devil and the corruption of man. In fact these genealogies are full of murderers, adulterers, and every sort of pervert known to man, and yet these same people were used of God, not because of their actions but in spite of them. This means there is still hope for us.

It is a good thing God is not prejudice, like so many who judge and criticize a person on shortcomings, while being completely blind to what God is doing through that person.

God has never had anyone qualified working for Him yet, and we won’t be the first. The history of God’s dealings with man reveal that He has always used less than perfect vessels. We can rejoice and take comfort in the fact that God uses us because of our faith and not our holiness.

God bless you my friend,

— Dwight Hammond