BS1D - THE GENEOLOGY OF THE MESSIAH

For thousands of years men have written about someone outside this planet coming because it’s an ongoing “ache” within us to know why this world exists, and what WE in particular are here for.  In many ways we’re all like goldfish swimming in the same bowl. We want answers as to where the bowl came from and how we came to be swimming in it! Unless we hear from someone OUTSIDE of our own existence we will never know.

Did such a superhuman life ever exist? The answer to this question was answered back in the first century by a man worthy of our investigation.

Yes, it’s been over 2,000 years since he came, but the evidence for his existence was documented carefully. Today, if we are from the Western world, genealogies have been mainly ignored. But in ancient times and even today in Eastern countries, genealogies were very important and documented carefully.

We are fortunate to have two genealogies to look at for this man (the Messiah). One was written by Matthew who was one of the Messiah’s 12 disciples and a direct eye-witness of what Jesus said and did for 3 years.  Matthew wrote his book for a Jewish audience. One of the distinctive characteristics of his writing is that he repeatedly refers to fulfilled prophecy from the Old Testament. He wanted to show his fellow Jews (and anyone who would read his book) that the man called Jesus Christ was indeed the predicted Messiah and no other person fit all of the prophecies like Jesus did.

The second genealogy was written by a medical doctor and historian named Luke. Very likely Luke was a converted Gentile (non-Jew) from Antioch in Syria. Luke became associated with the Apostle Paul and joined him on his second missionary journey. He was a man of high literary ability, very educated, and wrote from a Greek background and perspective.

Now I know that reading genealogies are terribly boring….so and so was the son of another so and so…. and on it goes through the centuries. But let’s look at these 2 genealogies as though we were detectives looking for the clues to the Messiah’s identity. Open to Matthew chapter 1 and then put a bookmark in Luke, chapter 3.

Every Jew knew from the prophecies that the Messiah must be two things:
a) a descendant of Abraham (father of the Jewish race) and
b) a descendant of King David (king after God’s own heart)

Therefore, it was important to trace his line back to the two most important people in the Jewish world. And that’s where Matthew starts.
Matthew 1:1-2

Verse 1 is pregnant with meaning. Jesus was the Greek form of Joshua and meant savior. “Christ”, as already mentioned, was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word messiah and meant “anointed” or “the anointed one”. Therefore, when Jesus is called either the Messiah or the Christ, it means the same thing.

“To anoint” meant to consecrate or to be set apart for an office – much like the kings and priests that were anointed with oil. To be anointed meant that person would be influenced by the Spirit of God. Therefore, Jesus Christ was sometimes called “The anointed of God”.

To be “a son of” meant that Jesus was to be from the family or a descendent of Abraham AND King David.

Now look at Luke’s genealogy and read:
Luke 3:31, 34

Here Luke also traces Jesus’ family line back to David and Abraham.

By now in scanning these 2 genealogies you’ll have noticed that they don’t seem to match. Here is a chart to help us get more clues about Jesus’ family line.

Albert Barnes in his commentary has this to say about the differences in the 2 genealogies:

1. No enemies of Christianity ever adduced any contradictions in the two. These enemies were often very learned and looked for all the errors they could. The fact that it wasn’t done is clear evidence that what Matthew and Luke have both spelled out are correct.
2. Matthew and Luke’s main object was to prove to the satisfaction of the Jews that Jesus was a descendant of David as prophesied. They had the public records at their disposal to relay this information.

Let’s look at a few more interesting clues that we can pick up from these 2 genealogies that account for some of the differences.

Matthew used a memory technique that helped the Jewish people to remember their ancestry. We find the technique in:
Matthew 1:17

The 14:14:14 formula:

There were 3 leading persons and events. Therefore, their history was divided into equal portions:
A. From Abraham to the establishment of royalty (David)
B. From King David to the Babylonian Captivity (Josias = the last good king of Judah prior to the Babylonian captivity)
C. From the captivity to Jesus

From one to another there were 14 generations. Notice that David and Josias are used twice so that there are an equal 14 generations between each period of their history. To use this formula Matthew leaves out some of the lesser individuals along the way.

Here is another interesting difference that explains a Jewish custom. Who does Matthew say was the father of Joseph?
Matthew 1:16

Who does Luke say was the father of Joseph?
Luke 3:23

So, which is right? The Jews had a law called the Law of Levirate Marriage. If a man died without children, then his brother was to marry his widow and have children by her so that his brother’s family line would not be lost.

Jacob and Heli were children of the same mother. Heli died without children and therefore Jacob (his brother) married Heli’s widow and they had Joseph. Joseph was thus the legal son of Heli. He was reckoned by law to be Heli’s son even though his brother Jacob actually fathered him. It’s complicated, but it accounts for the difference. Both Matthew and Luke were correct.

Let’s look at one more interesting fact given in Matthew. Matthew lists 4 women in his genealogy while Luke doesn’t list any. Except to produce babies, women had no legal status or importance as far as genealogies go. So, this was unusual to include women. These women are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah” who was Bathsheba.
Matthew 1:3,5,6

All but one of these women (Ruth) were stained with sin and 2 of the women (Rahab and Ruth) weren’t even from Israel. But their circumstances were unusual and therefore Matthew felt it important to mention these women. Perhaps it shows us today that Jesus is a kinsman of sinners and Jesus as Savior is offered to Gentiles as well as Jews – to women as well as men.

In our next study we’re going to look at one more genealogy by Christ’s disciple John which is different yet from Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies but just as important.

Next Study: BS1E-The Very Beginning

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