Strathalbyn Church of Christ

Sermon Mt 1:1-17. Theme: Family connections. Sermon by Pastor David Williams. Strathalbyn Church of Christ. 19 Dec 2021.

Do you have any famous relatives? I met a lady who had spent years researching our family tree. It doesn’t start well – to being with mum’s maiden name is … Battye! It seems we have a very remote connection to King George III. But that is nothing to be proud of. For he really was batty. He was the mad king who lost the American colonies. Also, it was an illegitimate connection, for a Battye servant girl had an affair with the King.

Jesus’ family tree is a bit like that. Some notable though flawed characters, and some questionable relationships. But it is also very different. And it can give us great hope. Jesus’ genealogy is in three parts – 3 lots of 14 generations. It throws up 3 key themes of the OT - three great promises. Promises that are fulfilled in Jesus. These are promises that we share in too.

Part 1 – Abraham – God’s promise of blessing to the nations

Part 2 – David – God’s promise of Israel’s Messiah

Part 3 – The Exile – God’s promise to deliver the exiles.

Notice how the genealogy is structured. Abraham and David are there at the beginning and end and they also introduce the first two sections.

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac …

6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon …

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations,

and from the exile to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations

How passages begin and end are often important in understanding the Bible. How a book begins and ends often highlights key themes, and this is so in Matthew. So, the genealogy is about promises – three promises that are all fulfilled in Christ. Matthew contains many OT promises. The first occurs a few verses after the genealogy where Joseph is reminded, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son”, 1:23, Isa. 7:14.

But some Christians think the OT is redundant. That there is nothing worth looking at in it. This was not Jesus’ teaching. Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount, Don’t think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them, Mt 5:14. The OT is full of God’s promises, promises that Jesus would fulfill. It is no wonder that the church is in such a sorry state, for too long it has neglected over ¾ of God’s word.

Matthew ends on the themes that he began on: he ends with Jesus’ final message – the Great Commission – where we see these initial promises being played out. More on that later.

The promises: 1. Abraham

Abraham was promised that in him all nations would be blessed.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” Gen 12:2-3.

The idea was that Abraham’s children, the people of Israel, would be a light to the Gentiles. I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth”, Is 49:6.

(A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish, a foreigner). As a light to the Gentiles, Israel would show their hope as they lived in faith and obedience to the true God, and Gentiles would turn from their idols to Israel’s true God. This was the plan, but Israel blew it. Their behaviour and idolatry often were as bad if not worse than that of the godless nations surrounding them. But then one of Abraham’s children would bring blessing to the nations. Paul points out that the promise was to Abraham’s offspring, singular.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ, Gal 3:16.

Paul said that Christ – Abraham’s offspring - fulfilled the promise to Abraham. Jesus was the true son of Abraham; he was the true Israel who by his life and death was a light to the Gentiles. And this light was carried on by his followers. Jesus commanded them, Go and make disciples of all nations. Last week, we had one of those disciples with us – Frances Cook, a CMS missionary who is making new disciples in Chile. In doing so, the promise to Abraham is being fulfilled. The nations of the world are being blessed.

Christianity is beyond race, beyond family background, beyond culture. In terms of world religions it is unique in its international appeal and reach. Hinduism and Buddhism are primarily Asian; Islam still centres around the Middle East. But look at the history of Christianity. It was first seen as a Jewish cult, later as Roman, then as European. Though many today see it as Western, the typical Christian is now a Chinese peasant, or an office worker in Nigeria. Missionaries are now being sent in great numbers from South Korea and Africa to the West. As Christ’s Great Commission is being fulfilled, the nations are being blessed with the message of his salvation. This great task is one not just for the Frances Cooks. It is a charge that Jesus gives to the whole church, to every one of his followers. This is one reason why events like the CMS summer conference are not just for those who are mission enthusiasts – who are into that sort of thing. Concern for reaching the nations should be at the heart of every Christian, for this is where God’s heart is. For God so loved … not Israel, not just Australia or America, but God so loved Korea, China, Afghanistan. God so loved the world that he gave his only son …

There are further hints in the passage about the importance of the nations. There are lots of genealogies in the Bible, but this one is different. For a Jewish genealogy it is surprising. It is a very mixed pedigree with lots of Gentiles included. Of the 5 women mentioned, four are Gentiles. Tamar and Rahab were both Canaanites. Ruth was a Moabite. Bathsheba by being the wife of Uriah the Hittite, was effectively seen as a Hittite too.

The nations get a mixed press in the OT. It can be confusing, certainly discomforting as God seems to relish punishing the nations. A tip worth remembering. The nations are usually portrayed as God’s enemies – they show man in full rebellion against his maker. But God would send his son, Israel’s Messiah, to die for his enemies. So, in the OT, the nations represent both God’s enemies, and those who are part of his salvation plan.

2. David

King David was promised a son. A son who was the Messiah or Christ.

I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever, 2 Sam 7:12, 13.

The word “Christ” in Jesus Christ can simply be used as a sort of surname. Mostly, it is used as a title as in, Jesus who is called the Christ, v16. The term, Christ, is used three times in this genealogy. The Christ or Messiah was a great king, a son of David, who would bring salvation to Israel. Just as David defeated his enemies, and brought a time of peace, so David’s son would conquer all and bring eternal peace. But Christ’s enemies were not the Roman occupiers, and the peace he brought was not a political peace. No, Christ conquered sin and even death itself. He conquered death by dying himself. In his death he defeated death. In his death, he won eternal life for us all.

Christ’s kingdom would be like nothing ever seen before. His authority would be complete. This note of authority keeps appearing in Matthew. Jesus staggered listeners for he taught not as the scribes but as one with authority, Mt 7:29. Jesus’ claims were so over the top – this untutored carpenter’s son (cf., Lk 2:47) – claiming he would judge everyone who has ever lived (Mt 25:31-32), that he was greater than all those sacred God given institutions: the Temple, the Law, the Sabbath (Mt 12:6,8), that in him the word of God in its entirety was fulfilled (Mt 5:17-20; Lk 24:27, 44), that heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away, Mt 24:35. In the Great Commission, he made the universal claim, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Such claims to absolute authority were so extravagant that only a madman would make them unless they are true.

As we go out, we go in the authority of the great King. As you speak to your sceptical grand children or uninterested neighbour, you are not speaking in the strength of your own feeble words or weak faith or forgetfulness. You are speaking with the authority of King Jesus himself. He is with you for he promised, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”. Remember that next time you speak. Remember that every time you speak. Whoever speaks, let him speak as one who speaks oracles of God, 1 Pet 4:11.

The genealogy lists the kings in David’s line. Each time a king had a son, all Israel would wonder, can this one be the Messiah? For centuries they had been waiting. But there were some very unsavoury characters in this list. Kings like Ahaz who even offered up a son by fire to the god Molech, 2 Ki 16:3. Even the better ones failed. David murdered to cover up his adultery, Abraham lied, Judah sold his brother into slavery. And then there were the women. What could Matthew have been thinking when he included women? There were 3 problems here:

a. That they were women. A woman’s testimony had no weight in a Jewish court (a concept that is based not in scripture but in Jewish law, Josephus Antiquities 4:219). Women didn’t appear in proper genealogies, except on rare occasions to show the purity of the Jewish lineage. But Matthew includes five women.

b. And these were not the great matriarchs like Sarah, Rachael and Leah but Gentiles – the untouchables. Jews were forbidden to intermarry with Canaanites.

c. To make matters worse, they weren’t even noble Gentiles like the Queen of Sheba. Rather they were prostitutes and others in questionable sexual alliances. King David’s great grandmother was – horror of horrors, a Moabite. Their origin lay in Lot’s incest.

This genealogy sums up Israel’s problem. They had so often failed to live in trust and obedience to God’s law, and instead got mixed up with the idolatry of other nations. God gave warnings and promises to the Jews in Deuteronomy. He promised in Dt 28:1-14, if you obey, you will be blessed. But if you reject me, I will reject you – Dt 28:15-29:29. Israel would be sent into exile. And yet some will remain faithful. God will preserve a faithful remnant and this remnant will be restored, Dt 30. They will return from exile. Then God will live in their midst, and they will obey his law with all their heart and soul.

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live, Dt 30:6

And this happened. Israel rejected God and he rejected them. They lost their temple, their land and their king and were carted off as exiles in chains to Babylon. They had been in such a plight before when they were in slavery to Egypt. Then God delivered them by a great Exodus. Israel was promised a new exodus, a restoration from slavery in Babylon. But what then took place was a pale reflection of the glorious restoration that had been promised. The exiles who returned were still slaves in their own land, Ezra 9:8-9, Neh 9:36-37. The restored temple was a paltry copy of the once glorious temple of King Solomon (Ezra 3:12, Hag 2:3). Where was the fulfilment of God’s promises?

3. Exile & Return

This third section starts not with “the return from exile” but simply “after the exile to Babylon”, v12. It doesn’t say the exile had ended. So, when did it really end? The exile ends in Christ (v 16 & 17). He completes the third part of the genealogy.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the exile to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

For Christ released them from an exile and a slavery far worse than slavery to their pagan overlords. He released them and us from the slavery to sin and death. He took captivity captive, Eph 4:8.

As we wrap up, let’s hear the final words of Jesus, the Great Commission. First, he picks up the promise to David: As the Son of David, the Messiah, Jesus had all authority:

18 And Jesus said to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

With this authority, Jesus commanded his disciples, and us, to fulfil the promise to Abraham: the promise of blessing the nations. We are not to get side-tracked or deflected from this command but rather to:

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …

All nations, without fear or favour or partiality.

And the third promise: to the exiles. By proclaiming the message of Christ, he is releasing exiles from the captivity of death. We proclaim this salvation by baptising and teaching -

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And this we do, not in our strength, but in his power and authority:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Sources

- O’Donnell, D.S. (2013). Matthew - All Authority on Heaven and Earth (Preaching the Word Series). Crossway Books

- Carson, D.A. (1984). “Matthew”. In Gaebelein, Frank E. (ed.). Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.