THE GENEALOGY OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Matthew 1: 17
Advent Sermon by:
Rev. G.R. Procee
PUBLISHED BY THE
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
OF THE
FREE REFORMED CHURCHES OF NORTH AMERICA>
(November 2007)
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LITURGY:
Votum
Psalter 419: 1, 2, 3
Law of God
Psalter 332: 3, 4
Scripture Reading: Matthew 1: 1 – 17
Text: Matthew 1: 17
Congregational Prayer
Offerings
Psalter 140
Sermon
Psalter 187: 1, 2
Thanksgiving Prayer
Psalter 448: 4
Doxology: Psalter 241: 1
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Congregation,
In creation God made everything beautiful and with a purpose. The smallest insects and
the least mosses all have a purpose in nature. Now the same is also in the Word of God.
God inspired His Word so beautifully. Everything in God's Word have a purpose. The
elaborate sacrificial laws written in Leviticus have a purpose: to show us aspects of the
sacrificial work of Christ. Every text has a specific meaning. The whole Word of God is
inspired by the Holy Spirit with a certain purpose. Nothing is useless in the Bible. The
chapters and verses that at first may seem to be unprofitable, are all given for some good
purpose. That counts also for the genealogies recorded in Scripture. Especially the
genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ is edifying and instructive to study.
Boys and girls, a genealogy is a long list of your ancestors. The Jews were very careful to
know who their forefathers were. They kept long lists of the names of their parents, grand
parents and great grand parents and so on. Sometimes all the way back to Abraham. Such
a long list is called a genealogy. We find here in the portion of Scripture we read the
genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what we wish to meditate on in this Lord's Day leading up to Christmas. We
meditate on: The Genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see: 1. Divine faithfulness
2. Human defilement. 3. Christ’s humiliation.
1. Verse 1 tells us what this portion of Scripture deals with: The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. It explains to us the generation, in
Greek it reads genesis of Jesus, that is the beginning of the Saviour, Jesus. He is the long
promised Saviour of the world. Matthew explains His coming into this world. Jesus, you
know, means Saviour. He is the true Saviour. He delivers from sin and wrath.
This Jesus is also Christ. That means the Anointed One. He is anointed as Prophet, Priest
and King. In this capacity He brings about a perfect salvation for His people. He is the
Saviour of Jew and gentile and therefore His Name is Jesus, a Hebrew Name for Saviour
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and He is Christ, the Greek name for the anointed One. He is the long promised Saviour
of the world. That is why verse 1 calls him the son of David, the son of Abraham.
He is the Son of David for He is the fulfillment of the promise given to David, 2 Sam.
7:12, 13 I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will
establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne
of his kingdom for ever. He is also the son of Abraham for He is the fulfillment of the
promise once given to Abraham. Genesis 22:18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed. Jesus Christ lifts up a banner of love for both Jew and Greek. Now
Jews and gentiles may flee to Him for there is salvation in none other than in Him.
Now this Saviour, Christ, is introduced to us here through His genealogy. When we look
at this genealogy we see here a list of all the ancestors of Christ. We see here a list of
ancestors going through to Joseph the husband of Mary. In Luke 3 we also find a list of
ancestors of the Lord Jesus and then the line goes through Mary, His mother. That is why
there are differences in names between the two genealogies as we find them in Matthew 1
and Luke 3.
Joseph was considered to be the legal father of the Lord Jesus. But Matthew is very
careful here to show that Jesus was a not the natural father of the Lord Jesus, for he
writes in Matthew 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born
Jesus, who is called Christ. Where it says of all the other fathers, that he begat, that is he
brought forth, he conceived a son, this not said of Joseph, because Joseph did not
conceive Jesus. Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit. Matthew elaborates on that in verse 18
we read that Mary was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Again in verse 20, the angel
says to Joseph: Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for
that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
So Matthew is very clear to show that Joseph was the legal father but not the natural not
the biological father of the Lord Jesus.
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Another important aspect of this genealogy is that it is not intended to establish
chronological conclusions. This is a genealogy, it is not a strict chronology. It is not a
consecutive and exhaustive list of all the fathers between Abraham and Joseph. For
instance you read in verse 5 that Rahab the harlot from Jericho was a few generations
before David. Rahab brought forth Boaz and he brought forth Obed from Ruth the
Moabitess and Obed’s son was Jesse, the father of David. That is how we read it here in
verse 5, but in reality we know from the O.T. that there was a longer time elapse between
Rahab and David. 1 Kings 6:1 we read that in the four hundred and eightieth year after
the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's
reign over Israel, he began to build the house of the LORD. So there was a longer time
elapse that Matthew shows us.
Neither does Matthew deem it necessary to mention a representative of every generation.
For instance between kings Joram and Uzziah three names are omitted. These are the
kings Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah. We also must understand that the title father has in
Scripture a broader use than we are accustomed to. Sometimes a generation can be
skipped when saying that this man was the father of so and so. In 2 kings 18: 3 David is
called the father of king Hezekiah. But we know there were several generations in
between. Here in Matthew 1 we find in verse 11 that Josiah begat Jechoniah and his
brethren. But in reality it was a bit different. For we read in 1 Chronicles 3:15,16 And the
sons of Josiah were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the
fourth Shallum. And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son. So the
line is really: Josiah and his son Jehoiakim and his son Jeconiah also known as
Jehoiachin. Matthew leaves out Jehoiakim.
So is Matthew making errors here? Certainly not. Matthew wrote his gospel for the Jews
and his readers were well aware of these facts. Matthew is making another point here. He
is showing that the Lord Jesus is the long promised Messiah. Matthew is not interested in
chronology. He is interested in Christology. Matthew on purpose is depicting the
generations in such a way that it is clear that Jesus is the Christ, the long promised
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Messiah of the Jews, come to save His people from their sins. Matthew introduces Him
as Jesus, who is called Christ.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all the preceding generations. He came at the right time. In the
fullness of time God sent His Son in human flesh. The Son of David, the Son of God and
He came born of a woman. Then we see this even more in the conclusion Matthew draws
in verse 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and
from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the
carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. Matthew on purpose
manipulates the genealogies to come to the conclusion that after three times 14
generations Jesus came. What does this mean? Very clearly Matthew connects Jesus to
David. The first group of 14 generations shows the origin of David’s house. The second
group of 14 generations shows the rise and the decline of the house of David. It ends with
the Babylonian exile and the royal house of David is no longer on the throne. The third
group of 14 generations from the Babylonian exile to the birth of Jesus shows the eclipse,
or the disappearing of the royal house of David. It doesn’t even exist anymore. Not that it
is completely gone. There are still descendants of David but they have all become poor
and obscure, insignificant. There is nothing left of the royal house of David.
It is like a tree hewn down but it’s stump remains in the ground. Now out of this stump a
little twig starts to grow and that twig will become a great and glorious tree. Isaiah 11:1,2
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of
his roots: 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 of the fear of
the LORD.
When people say there is no hope, the God opens up a glorious future. Because God is
faithful. When the royal house of David is not in existence anymore and there is no hope
whatsoever, then God remembers His promises down to David and God shall raise up
One Who shall rule forever and His dominion shall be glorious.
In David the family of Abraham attained royalty. See in Matthew 1: 6a: David the king.
David is here at the center. David is king. This kingship was to be placed upon Jesus.
That is what Matthew is showing. At the deportation to Babylon the royal power of the
house of David was lost but in Christ it is restored, but only in a far more glorious sense.
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Matthew shows that Jesus is the climax of three times 14 generations. That is symbolic. It
means fullness, the absolute fullness. The Lord Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time,
at the God appointed time which was the fulfillment of Scripture. The number 14 is 2
times 7. The number 7 is 3 plus 4. Three is the number of fullness. The number three is
fullness, the beginning, the middle and the end. It is a fullness. It is often associated to
God. He is the Triune God, the fullness. The number 4 is also a fullness. That is often
connected to the earth, the 4 winds, the 4 corners of the earth. That also shows the
fullness.
Now when these two numbers 3 and 4 are added, it gives 7. That is the sum of fullness
and that is again fullness. The number 7 shows the totality ordained by God.
Now we have 3 x 14 and that is again 3 times a fullness. It is 6 x 7 giving a fullness until
the final seventh is initiated. That is the seven seventh, that is the ultimate fulfillment of
all fullness. That is Jesus. He is the fulfillment, He is the fullness. He is God. He brings
salvation. All the generations have waited for Him. He has come in the fullness of time
after 3 x 14 generations or after 6 x 7 fulnesses, then the final fullness enters in.
Jesus is not only the fulfillment of the generations but He is also ushering in the new and
final time elapse. The era of salvation.
In this all we see God's great faithfulness. God keeps His Word. God had promised that
in Abraham’s seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He had promised to raise
up a Saviour of the family of David. Now this genealogy shows that Jesus was the Son of
Abraham and He was the son of David. This shows that God's gracious promise was
fulfilled. God keeps His Word. Whatever you may think: God will keep His Word. That
is a warning to sinners. If you repent not you will surely perish. You may not live in sin.
God will bring you in to condemnation. Also children of God should remember this truth
that God is faithful and what He has spoken shall happen. Your Father in Heaven is
faithful to all his promises. He will save you fully in Christ. He will make all things new
in your life. You will inherit salvation. 2 Timothy 2:13 He abideth faithful: He cannot
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deny Himself. Nobody really the Messiah to be born. There were some in Jerusalem who
still expected the consolation of Israel, maybe some more, but there was no expectation,
all was in darkness.
Then God breaks through the darkness of our lost condition of our shattered hopes and of
our mortal condition. He sends His son into the darkness of this world. He sends His Son
into the darkness of our lives. God draws people to Himself. He saves them from all their
sins and from all their miseries. He is God. He is Saviour. The genealogy of the Lord
Jesus shows us Divine faithfulness, but it also shows us:
2. Human defilement. Because when we look at this genealogy we see remarkable
matters, even shocking matters. Names are recorded here of awful sinners. The ancestors
of the Lord Jesus numbered various wicked men. The names of Joram, Ahaz Ammon and
of Manasseh are mentioned. Their sins were terrible and are openly explained and
pointed out in Scripture. Joram was a terrible man. We find recorded that Elijah said to
him in 2 Chronicles 21:13 But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast
made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of
the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were
better than thyself. Or what about Ahaz who closed the temple down and said thereby:
Away with God and His service. You know of Manasseh who sacrificed his own sons to
Moloch.
Then we think not only of the wicked kings who reigned over Judah, but we also think
even of David himself.
Notice how the genealogy describes David in Matthew 1:6, and David the king begat
Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias. This wife was of course Bathsheba, but
her name is not even mentioned. She is designated here as the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
There we see the sinfulness of David’s deed exposed. He took the wife of his faithful
soldier and had him killed in battle so that he could take Uriah’s wife as his own wife. All
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emphasis here is upon David’s sin. He had stolen the wife of his neighbour. Shameful
deed.
But then we also see other children of God recorded in this genealogy. But they all had
their black pages. Abraham the friend of God he sinned. He had his unbelief and his lies.
We think of Isaac and his weakness and Jacob and his deceiving and unbelief. Think of
the sins of Judah and king Hezekiah, how he became proud and so we can go on. There is
human defilement.
But this becomes even more pronounced when we realize that names of women are
mentioned here in this genealogy. That was never the custom among the Jews. The
genealogy would always go from father to son. Four times we find the names of women
mentioned. Now Matthew does not mention the names of important women such as Sarah
and Rebekah but he mentions women who caused offense and who had sinful lives. We
think of Tamar in verse 3 who committed adultery with her own father-in-law. We think
of Rahab the harlot of Jericho in verse 5. Also in verse 5 Ruth the Moabitess, a heathen
and then the wife of Uriah the Hittite in verse 6. All these women had committed sins and
were all incorporated in the people of Israel. These 4 women are a symbol of the awful
power of sin and yet at the same time they are a symbol of the rich grace of God in Christ
Jesus.
If we know of wicked people among our ancestors we would not be so keen on making
that public. But the Lord Jesus has His ancestors publicly exposed in all their wickedness.
Jesus is not ashamed to call them His ancestors.
This all shows the great human defilement. We see the sinfulness of human nature. All
these generations were sinners. There is none righteous, no not one. All even the best
needed redemption by the Blood of the promised Saviour.
It is with deep shame that we see here the fathers and the mothers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a deep spots of shame on the ancestry of Jesus. But this is our background.
This is us. This is our people. We all come from the same stock. We have all sinned
against God. This evil is all within our flesh and blood. Who can break through this
continual circle? We have all been bitten by the serpent and wickedness is running
through our veins.
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We see here the great question of advent: Who shall bring forth a clean from an unclean
one? The answer from man’s side must be: None. Not one from all the billions of people,
not one can bring forth a clean person. Behind us are an unclean father and an unclean
mother and we are unclean. We cannot bring forth a clean one. We can only perpetuate
wickedness and brokenness and misery. We stand her before the massive brokenness of
mankind. This genealogy shows us our personal misery: I have sinned. This Adam, that is
me. These sinners, that is how I am by nature.
Have we wept because of this? Have we seen that we are unable people? We cannot do
that which is right in the sight of God. Wretched people that we are. Then you weep and
you see that you are lost and cannot work out righteousness before God. Then we all
stand here this morning with our broken cisterns that cannot contain water. We all stand
here with the guilt of our own lives. There is none righteous. We come from a broken
paradise, the poison of asps is under our lips but it runs also through our veins. We
cannot work any righteousness before God.
We are the sinner. Have you and have I confessed that? Have we wept about that? Have
we complained about ourselves before God, about sin and have we humbled ourselves in
the dust before a righteous God, Who made us perfect, but we have deliberately rebelled
against him. When God's Spirit open your eyes for this reality, you weep and your guilt
becomes a personal sorrow. That is also advent. In advent we see our own brokenness
and God's righteousness. We see human defilement but we also see:
3. Christ’s humiliation. That is the rich grace of the coming of Christ into this world.
That is such a miracle, that God has stooped down to such miserable people who can
never bring forth righteousness before God. The great and high God humbles Himself so
far that He Himself comes down into this world to pick up the mess of human life and to
take it upon Himself. He takes their guilt and misery upon Himself. He works a full and
perfect righteousness so that sinners are perfectly saved. He pays for their guilt. He earns
for them a full and perfect righteousness. He earns for them the life giving Spirit and this
Spirit is infused in them so that they receive a new Spirit and a new heart.
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They start to long and yearn to live for the Lord. What great mercy and compassion from
the Lord. see how defiled our nature is and how unclean and filthy. The think what a
great humiliation it was for Him to be born of a woman and to be made in the likeness of
men. He humbled Himself to become man, in order to provide salvation for sinners.
Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor. What a deep humiliation. He
wanted to leave heaven, to become human. He became such a Man that He was not
ashamed to call His people, His brethren, His unworthy defiled people, who all have a
past life, who all have shame upon them. He is not ashamed of them. He is not ashamed
to call them His brethren. He was willing to be listed in such a genealogy, in your and my
genealogy. He was not ashamed to say: I belong to such a shameful family.
He was from a very sinful pedigree, ancestry. Yet He was of Divine pedigree, ancestry.
He was equal to God in all things. He was God of God. He was made equal to people, to
lost children of Adam. He confessed: Adam is my father and Eve is my mother. He is not
ashamed to say what you and I are ashamed to say. That is why He was too low for
decent and self righteous people. They said of Him: He is a friend of harlots and
publicans.
His Name is at the beginning and it is at the end of this genealogy. He includes all people.
He is a Saviour offered to all sinners, everywhere. He is the beginning and the End. He is
a full Saviour from beginning to the end. There is grace from the beginning of mankind
to the end. There is grace in abundance in Christ Jesus.
Because He came down in their misery to undo the evil they had done. He came to pay
the price of sin and to open up heaven for unworthy sons and daughters of Adam and
Eve. We see here that there is no one who partakes of human nature can be beyond the
reach of Christ’s sympathy and compassion. He was not ashamed to call these people His
ancestors. He was not ashamed to call His foolish unworthy people His brethren. He will
not be ashamed to receive you, sinner as His child. You are ashamed of yourself, you
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accuse yourself of a thousand sins and yet He came down so low that He could receive
even a Manasseh and Rahab the harlot. He is willing to receive you. He shall in no wise
cast out those who come unto Him, pleading His finished work.
That is explained by His deep humiliation. He humbled Himself so far and so low in
order to pay for the sins of His people. We see Him then in His deep humiliation. In the
manger. But as you see Him lying in straw, he does not want your compassion. He would
later say to the weeping women of Jerusalem: Weep not for Me but for yourselves and for
your children. That is what the Lord says to us in this time of advent: Weep not for me
but for yourself so that you would realize your own fall and misery. I am humbling
Myself because of you. Realize that we have sinned. We see in the manger and we see
there our fall, my fall, my curse.
Then the manger of Bethlehem preaches to us that there is salvation for a generation that
has lost and spoiled all things. He came so low in order to be able to save us who had
fallen so low. Therefore people of God read that genealogy of Christ, no don’t skip it, but
read it. It will keep you small and humble. You will see your own picture. Then there
will be room made in your life for a pure and perfect Saviour. He saves fully. He pays.
He redeems. He does it all. Nobody helped Him. You won’t help Him either not with
your orthodoxy, not with your faithfulness, nothing of us. We can only spoil matters. We
have come from a ruined genealogy. Salvation comes from God. That is celebrating the
birth of Christ. He works full salvation. AMEN.
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