Genealogy - Amazing Grace Series

INTRODUCTION

The Bible has much to say about grace. Grace is God’s unmerited favor given to us because God desires us to have it. Today, I want to talk about God’s grace in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The more you learn about grace the more you realize that grace is indeed amazing.

Amazing Grace

The Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew the tax collector. The Gospel according to Matthew is written to demonstrate the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the predicted Messiah, the King of the Jews, who was rejected by his own people, who was accepted by the Gentiles, and who someday will return to reign as King of kings and Lord of Lords. It is the story of the King who comes, the King who is rejected, and the King who will return.

The presentation of the King. If a king is to be heralded as a king, then it must start with the proof that he comes from the royal line. Matthew is doing that in Matthew 1:1-17. The Jews were tenacious about their pedigrees. And if anybody was going to be presented to them as a king, it was absolutely essential that he have the pedigree to prove it.

Matthew 1:1

This is the genealogy of Jesus (In Greek it is the book of Genesis of Jesus. Usually from ancestors the generations flow but here the genealogy ends in Jesus. Even Jesus’ ancestors depend on Jesus.) the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: This is the story of how Jesus Christ came to be. This is the record of his origin, the record of his ancestry. Iesous Christos is the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Yeshua which means “Jehovah saves.”

Matthew gives whole list of genealogy in:

Matthew 1:1-17 The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

1This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

2Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

3Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

Perez the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

4Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon,

5Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

6and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

7Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

Abijah the father of Asa,

8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

9Uzziah the father of Jotham,

Jotham the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh the father of Amon,

Amon the father of Josiah,

11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

12After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

13Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

Abihud the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor,

1 Azor the father of Zadok,

Zadok the father of Akim,

Akim the father of Elihud,

1 Elihud the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob,

16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

17Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

Where did Matthew get this Genealogy?

In the OT there are several such lists. In Ruth 4, you have genealogy of 10 names, Perez all the way to David. Matthew could have taken names from here. In 1 Chronicles 10:10-19 we have a whole list of names. 16 names could have been taken from there.

Sometimes the names are different from the OT

This is because some people had different names. For example king Uzziah is also called king Azariah.

Sometimes the line is not through the first born

We have Isaac and Jacob both are not the first born.

The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

Matthew 1:1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Matthew 1:17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

Three Prominent People in the Genealogy.

We have three prominent people here: Abraham, David, Jesus Christ

This genealogy is connecting there prominent people: Abraham, David, and Jesus Christ.

Abraham

Abraham is the father of Israel. God chose him in Genesis 12:1 to bless him. In Genesis 13:3, God chose Abraham be a blessing to the nations, a blessing to all the people of the world. God did not choose him because he was the best person, but God choose him because God wanted to bless the whole world through him.