Genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17)

[Stephan Choe]

Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38

Key Verse 1:   “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

Both Matthew and Luke presented the genealogy of Jesus Christ to illustrate his origins and explain the circumstances of his birth. Let us examine Jesus' genealogy more closely. Matthew's genealogy of Christ differs slightly from Luke's. Up to David, the two genealogies are identical, but from David to Joseph, they diverge. There are two possible explanations for this:

– Matthew describes Joseph's legitimate, i.e., royal, lineage; Luke, on the other hand, describes his biological lineage.

– Matthew lists Joseph's lineage, Luke that of Mary. (The Talmud names Eli as Mary's father.)

Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, in his Church History, recounts the first possible explanation according to Afrikanus [1]:

“The enumeration of names in the genealogical tables in Israel was either physical or legal; physically, if the biological son succeeded, it was legal; if a stranger was accepted as a child instead of the name of the brother who died without children. Since the hope of the resurrection was not yet clear, a substitute for the future, promised resurrection was sought in the mortal resurrection (i.e., in the creations), so that the name of the departed person would not be erased. Since, of the persons named in our sex registers, some followed their fathers as biological children, while others were named after men by whom they were not created, the men listed are partly fathers by nature, partly fathers by form. Because the Gospels took natural conception into account in one case and a legal habit in the other, neither of them is wrong. The families descended from Solomon and the families descended from Nathan were so closely linked through the revivals of the childless and the second marriages, respectively, as well as through natural conception, that one can rightly claim that the same people are descended from different sides at the same time, which in reality they are. The two accounts are therefore completely correct; although under different connections, they truthfully lead to Joseph.”

Thomas Kinker offers a second possible explanation for why the New Testament contains two different genealogies of Jesus [2]:

“These are different in many respects, as they indicate not one but two lineages of Jesus: one is the line of Joseph - the official royal line with the kings of Judah, and the other is the lineage of Mary - a collateral line of the Jewish royal house.

The key to our above problem of why Jesus could hold the throne of David despite Jeremiah's prophecy [3] in Jer. 22:30 is to be found in David: Here is found in Mt. 1:6 Solomon (the successor of David) as the son of David, but in Luke 3:31 the line continues through Nathan. This means that Jesus is a descendant of David in two ways: legally through Joseph and Solomon (but not physically!), but physically through Mary and Nathan. Nathan and Solomon have the same mother, Bathsheba (1. Chr. 3.5). Thus, Jehoiachin is really not a direct ancestor of Jesus; no biological descendant of Jehoiachin came to the throne of David, just as Jeremiah had predicted.”

Another comment from Kinker: “The two family trees go together in Scheatiel. This may have been done through what is known as brother-in-law marriage: If a man died childless, his brother was to marry his widow, and the first son was considered the son of the deceased.”

So: The two family trees of Jesus are correct.

But what does Matthew or Luke want to teach us by means of Christ's family tree? The family tree of Jesus according to Matthew or Luke teaches us something important about Christ:

Luke emphasizes that the origin of Jesus Christ was originally due to God, the Creator. God created the first man, Adam, and from this Adam both Jesus Christ and all people descend. Luke thus emphasizes that God sent Jesus Christ as the Savior of all people.

Matthew, on the other hand, emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham and the son of David. Matthew says in verse 1, „This is the book of the story of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.“ In doing so, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the promised Christ that God promised to Abraham and David. God had promised Abraham, „In you shall all nations on earth be blessed“ (Genesis 12:3). God wanted to bless all nations through Christ, a descendant of Abraham. According to the accounts of Genesis (chapters 1-11), God's blessing in Jesus Christ does not only consist of minor things such as physical well-being. People had lost, through the fall of Adam, eternal life, paradise, and communion with God and had fallen into the power of sin and death. Therefore, God wanted to give people salvation from the power of sin and death, eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, and fellowship with God as a blessing. Jesus Christ is the Savior, and he is the true blessing for all people. All people can experience salvation and true blessing through faith in Jesus Christ.

King David had built a great kingdom and also built a palace for himself. But he had a bad feeling because God only had a simple tent as a tabernacle. Therefore, he wanted to build God a magnificent temple, a palace of God. But Nathan the prophet executed God's word, “The Lord God announces to you that the Lord will build you a house. Now when your time is up, and you lie down to sleep with your fathers, I will raise up for you a descendant who will come from your womb; to him I will confirm‎ his kingship. He shall build a house for my name, and I will confirm‎ his throne forever” (2. Samuel 7:11b-13). King David had already built a large, powerful kingdom. But God promised him to give the kingdom to his descendant until eternity. The descendant of David means Christ. The kingdom that God gives to Christ lasts until eternity. No one can destroy Christ's kingdom. Even death cannot take away Christ's kingdom. Jesus Christ is the God who became man, thus the true King for us. He gives us the kingdom of God.

Matthew divided the period from Abraham to Christ into three ages: from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian captivity, and from the Babylonian captivity to Christ. The development of the spiritual situation during the three ages points to the character of Christ.

God had promised Abraham, “in you”, that is, in the Christ, all nations will be blessed. The ancestors of Jesus Christ lived with the hope of fulfilling this promise. They lived as devout believers. God made good on his promise: He made of one man, Abraham, a people of Israel, and gave them an eminently good king, David. David was a good king, and his kingdom was glorious. However, he could not give paradise to the people. He was only a man, and there were scandals and tragedies; for example, there was an outrageous adultery by David and a sad rebellion by Absalom, his own son. After David, almost all of David's heirs to the throne were evil, and their sin and wickedness only increased. Finally, the kingdom ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and with the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites. Most of Jesus Christ's ancestors had been such sinful, evil kings. They had to suffer as prisoners of war since their Babylonian captivity and then perish as nameless private citizens. 

The story of Jesus Christ's ancestors shows that sin is the true cause of human misfortune, and no worldly messiah can properly solve people's misfortune. But people, if they truly want to be blissful, must absolutely be redeemed from sin and death and have back the paradise lost by the fall of Adam. God loved us people and sent Jesus Christ into the world so that we would be saved from sin and death and have eternal life and the kingdom of God.

So Jesus Christ is a much better king than David. Today, people hope that an outstanding man, whether chancellor or president, will enliven the world's economy and provide peace and justice. Of course, we should work to revitalize the economy and ensure peace and justice. Nevertheless, under no circumstances should we forget that only Jesus Christ can truly give us peace and justice and true happiness. Only Jesus Christ can redeem us from sin and death and give us true peace, eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven. We are to trust Jesus Christ as the true King and Shepherd. We are to make Jesus Christ known to other people so that they may receive true peace and eternal life.

Matthew has mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus some of the great-grandmothers of Jesus Christ: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

Tamar was a Canaanite woman and the first daughter-in-law of Judah. When her husband died, she disguised herself as a whore, seduced Judah, her father-in-law, and bore a son through her father-in-law. So she desperately wanted to have a descendant. Rahab was a Canaanite whore. When the 12 spies of Israel remained in her house to inquire about the land of Canaan, she granted the 12 spies hiding against the royal police of her country. So she was a traitor to her country. She then explained to the Israelite spies why she had hidden despite the danger to her life: “Ever since we heard this, our hearts have despaired, and no one dares to breathe before you anymore; for the Lord your God is God above in heaven and below on earth. So now swear to me by the Lord, because I have done mercy to you, that you also will do mercy to my father's house, and give me a sure sign” (Joshua 2:11-12).

Ruth was not a Jew either, but a Moabite. She had married a guest worker from Israel. But her husband died early, and she became a widow. Her mother-in-law wanted to leave Ruth in her land and return to Israel. Rut said to her mother-in-law, „Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people are my people, and your God is my God“ (Rut 1:16-17). So Ruth followed her mother-in-law and came to Israel. There she married Boaz, David's great-grandfather. 

Bathsheba was actually the wife of Uriah, a loyal general of David. But David committed adultery with Bathsheba, while Uriah fought to the death on the battlefield in defense against the enemies. David also caused Uriah to die by a deliberate trap in the enemy's act of war. After that, he took Uriah as his wife. The prophet Nathan rebuked David harshly for this sin, and David then repented. From this Bathsheba come both Solomon and Nathan, one of the great-grandfathers of Christ according to Luke.

The great-grandmothers of Christ cited were either foreigners or sinners. If God accepts such foreigners and sinners as great-grandparents of Christ, how much more will God accept sinners and all peoples of the world, save them, and bless them?

In summary, based on Christ's family tree, we can say the following about Christ:

Jesus Christ loves all people and wants to save and bless them all. For example, he also loves all weaklings and sinners. He understands the incompetence and sorrow of weak people, the outsiders. Above all, he knows the severe suffering of sinners and wants to help them.

Jesus Christ wants to redeem people from sin and death and give them eternal life and the kingdom of heaven. Of course, he knows our needs, our hunger, our everyday sorrow, and is happy to help us. Above all, he knows our despair because of the tyranny of sin and the power of death.

He wants to give us the kingdom of God and blessed fellowship with God. He frees us from the curse of sin and gives us the Holy Spirit, so that through the Holy Spirit we have blessed spiritual fellowship with God.

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[1] Eusebius von Caesarea, Kirchengeschichte  I  7,2-5

[2] Thomas Kinker, „Bibel Auslegen...“ S. 537

[3]The prophet Jeremiah had prophesied about Jehoiachin, the penultimate king of Judah (three months in 597 BC, shortly after which Judah ended), that Jehoiachin would remain childless and consequently none of his descendants would be king (Je 22:30). His successor Zedekiah (the last king of Judah, 598-586 BC) was not his son, but his uncle.