Matthew 1

When God sent a Messiah King to atone for our sins and to be our everlasting Lord, He sent someone with a heritage. Consider for a moment all of the preparation that went into this new start for humanity. The Lord prepared us for Him through ceremonial law, performed by many priests over a number of centuries. He also gave us prophets, several of whom left a written record with important information concerning the coming Redeemer. But especially as we start Matthew’s gospel, we are captured by the fact that God sent His Son as our King, and as a man who came from a line of kings. Jesus Christ is not only the Man who fulfilled the important promises that God gave to Abraham two thousand years before the Messiah was born. He was especially the descendant of David the King of Israel, the fulfillment of a specific promise that the Lord gave to this man, that one of David’s descendants would reign forever.

This important fact is communicated to us in the organization of the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth. Like the great majority of those who called themselves Jews, Jesus was descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This Jacob had his name changed by God to “Israel.” The offspring of his twelve sons formed the tribes of Israel. Jesus was a descendant of one of those sons, Judah. At the end of Jacob’s life, when he was giving his blessings to his sons, he gave this cryptic message to Judah: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” That was spoken long before God had even authorized the existence of a king in Israel. Not only is it an amazing revelation that the line of the kings would go through this one son, there is also an indication that there would be some terminus to the line, some final king who would receive tribute and the obedience of the peoples. The Hebrew expression in Genesis 49:10 is challenging, but there is no doubt about the use of the word “until.” There would be a line of kings until that final king who was the focus of that ancient message.

It would be several generations later in the genealogy when the great King David was given by the Lord’s own mysterious choice. We should notice that the tribe of Judah in the day of Jacob would not have been an obvious one for the ruler over his brothers. He was neither the first son nor the favorite son. The Lord chose Judah. Then centuries later, the Lord chose David. This young man was such an unlikely choice compared to his older brothers that they did not even bother to call him when the great Samuel came to anoint a king. David was God’s choice, but he had to be summoned to the occasion because he was tending the sheep. The story of David’s sons was not entirely positive. In the line between David and the deportation of the southern kingdom to Babylon, we have the amazingly capable and successful Solomon, and two especially faithful men, Hezekiah and Josiah. And yet many of the descendants in this genealogy were not said to be good kings.

After their return from exile, the Israelites longed for another king in this line, but their hopes were frustrated. None of the men in the genealogy from Shealtiel to Joseph were kings. We know so little about these individuals. It would be understandable if the people of God had lost all hope that there would yet be a descendant of Judah, a descendant of David, who would be that great king who would deliver us from our enemies, rule over us in righteousness, and subdue all potential future foes. But of all the possible descendants of David, it should be most evident that Jesus of Nazareth was a very unlikely choice, and that He was a King given at a time when no one might have been looking for any king to come at all.

To Joseph and Mary, two unknown descendents of David, a child was born. The events which led to this seem designed to end in humiliation and shame, rather than in exaltation and praise. Before they were married, Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant. Joseph knew that he was not the father of this child. The truth of this child had to be revealed to him by an angel, a messenger from heaven itself. Naturally, everyone would have assumed that this child was the illegitimate offspring of an immoral woman and an unknown father, born into a family of poverty from a part of the world that was not respected by anyone.

The truth was that this Son of Mary, who would seem to borrow the genealogy of His stepfather Joseph, was actually the long expected child of promise. This descendant of Judah, this son of David was the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah the prophet, who long ago had written that a virgin would conceive and bear a son who would be God with us—Immanuel.

This great Son of David is our Prophet and our Priest, but especially here we remember that, though He was born in such a low condition, He is our King. It was necessary for this King to be born in a low condition and then to die on a cross. Yet no one should come to the erroneous conclusion that He is someone less than a King. He has come to reign over us not only for a season, but for an eternity, and not in such an insignificant place as the capital of some worldly empire, but as the sovereign over a renewed heaven and earth. He has come to save His people from their sins through His atoning death, and He has come to reign over us with perfect wisdom, power, and love as the eternal King of kings. There is a connection between these two ideas of salvation from sin and everlasting life. Remember that death entered the world through sin. When sin is truly forgiven by our Savior, we should expect that the result would be everlasting life. This is what Christ our Lord has done for us, and He shall reign forever and ever.