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Matthew Chapter One — Christ Jesus the King

(Overcomer Wu)

The gospel of Matthew presents to us the aspect of the Lord Jesus Christ as King. With the kingship of Christ as the main burden of this book, Matthew’s genealogy sets forth a descending lineage from Abraham through king David, through Joseph, to Jesus, who is called Christ. Thus Christ Jesus is shown to be in the proper lineage to inherit the throne of David. Luke’s genealogy presents an ascending line, starting from Jesus and going back through David, Abraham, and even to “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:23-38). Luke’s record is apparently traced from Mary’s side, the Eli of Luke 3:23 probably being Joseph’s father-in-law (often referred to as a father) and therefore Mary’s natural father. Matthew’s intent is to validate Jesus’ royal claim by showing His legal descent from David through Joseph, who was Jesus’ legal, though not natural, father. Luke’s intent is to trace Jesus’ actual royal blood ancestry through his mother, thereby establishing His racial lineage from David. Matthew follows the royal line through David and Solomon, David’s son and successor to the throne. Luke follows the royal line through Nathan, another son of David. Jesus was therefore the blood descendant of David through Mary and the legal descendant of David through Joseph. Genealogically, Jesus was perfectly qualified to take the throne of David.

It is essential to note that in His virgin birth Jesus not only was divinely conceived but through that miracle was protected from regal disqualification because of Joseph’s being a descendant of Jeconiah (v. 12). Because of that king’s wickedness, God had declared of Jeconiah (also called Jehoiachin or Coniah) that, though he was in David’s line, “no man of his descendants will prosper, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah” (Jer. 22:30). That curse would have precluded Jesus’ right to kingship had He been the natural son of Joseph, who was in Jeconiah’s line. Jesus’ legal descent from David, which was always traced through the father, came through Jeconiah to Joseph. But His blood descent, and His human right to rule, came through Mary, who was not in Jeconiah’s lineage. Thus the curse on Jeconiah’s offspring was circumvented, while still maintaining the royal privilege.

1:1. From the very first words of his Gospel, Matthew recorded his central theme and character. Jesus Christ is the main character in Matthew’s presentation, and the opening verse connected Him back to two great covenants in Jewish history: the Davidic (2 Sam. 7) and the Abrahamic (Gen 12; 15). If Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of these two great covenants, is He related to the rightful line? This is a question the Jews would have asked, so Matthew traced Jesus’ lineage in detail.

Biblos (book) can also refer to a record or account, as is the case here. Matthew is giving a brief record of the genealogy (genesis, “beginning, origin”) of Jesus Christ. Jesus is from the Greek equivalent of Jeshua, or Jehoshua, which means “Jehovah (Yahweh) saves.” It was the name the angel told Joseph to give to the Son who had been miraculously conceived in his betrothed, Mary, because this One who would soon be born would indeed “save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). Christos (Christ) is the Greek form of the Hebrew maôshŒòah (Eng., messiah), which means “anointed one.” Israel’s prophets, priests, and kings were anointed, and Jesus was anointed as all three. He was the Anointed One, the Messiah, whom the Jews had long expected to come as their great deliverer and monarch.

Yet because of their unbelief and misunderstanding of Scripture, many Jews refused to recognize Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. Some rejected Him for the very reason that His parents were known to them. When He went back to His hometown of Nazareth He “began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they became astonished, and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom, and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?’” (Matt 13:54-56). On another occasion, others in Jerusalem said of Jesus, “The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they? However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where He is from” (Jn 7:26-27). A short while later, “Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, ‘This certainly is the Prophet.’ Others were saying, ‘This is the Christ.’ Still others were saying, ‘Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He?’” (Jn 7:40-41). Still others, better taught in the Scriptures but unaware of Jesus’ lineage and birthplace, said, “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” (v. 42).

The genealogy establishes the Messiah’s royal lineage. Matthew’s intent is not to have the reader digress into a study of each person listed, but is to show that all of these persons point to the royalty of Christ.

1:2-17. Matthew gave Jesus’ lineage through His legal father, Joseph (v. 16).
Thus this genealogy traced Jesus’ right to the throne of David, which must come through Solomon and his descendants (v. 6). Of particular interest is the inclusion of Jeconiah (v. 11) of whom Jeremiah said, “Record this man as if childless” (Jer. 22:30). Jeremiah’s prophecy related to the actual occupation of the throne and the reception of blessing while on the throne. Though Jeconiah’s sons never occupied the throne, the line of rulership did pass through them. If Jesus had been a physical descendant of Jeconiah, He would not have been able to occupy David’s throne. Luke’s genealogy made it clear that Jesus was a physical descendant of David through another son named Nathan (Luke 3:31). But Joseph, a descendant of Solomon, was Jesus’ legal father, so Jesus’ right to the throne was traced through Joseph.

Matthew traced Joseph’s line from Jeconiah through the latter’s son Shealtiel and grandson Zerubbabel (Matt 1:12). Luke (3:27) also refers to Shealtiel, the father of Zerubbabel, in Mary’s line. Does Luke’s account, then, mean that Jesus was a physical descendant of Jeconiah, after all? No, because Luke’s Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were probably different persons from those two in Matthew. In Luke Shealtiel was the son of Neri, but Matthew’s Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah.

Another interesting fact about Matthew’s genealogy is the inclusion of four Old Testament women: Tamar (Matt 1:3), Rahab (v. 5), Ruth (v. 5), and Solomon’s mother (v. 6), Bathsheba. All of these women (as well as most of the men) were questionable in some way. Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes (Gen 8:24; Josh 2:1), Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitess (Ruth 1:4), and Bathsheba committed adultery (2 Sam 11:2-5). Matthew may have included these women in order to emphasize that God’s choices in dealing with people are all of His grace. Perhaps also he included these women in order to put Jewish pride in its place.

When the fifth woman, Mary (Matt. 1:16), was mentioned in the genealogy, an important change occurred. The genealogy consistently repeated, the father of, until it came to Mary. At that point Matthew changed and said of whom was born Jesus. The “of whom” is a feminine relative pronoun (ex heôs), clearly indicating that Jesus was the physical Child of Mary but that Joseph was not His physical father. This miraculous conception and birth are explained in 1:18-25.

Matthew obviously did not list every individual in the genealogy between Abraham and David (vv. 2-6), between David and the Exile (vv. 6-11), and between the Exile and Jesus (vv. 12-16). Instead he listed only 14 generations in each of these time periods (v. 17). Jewish reckoning did not require every name in order to satisfy a genealogy. But why did Matthew select 14 names in each period? Perhaps the best solution is that the name “David” in Hebrew numerology added up to 14. It should be noted that in the period from the Exile to the birth of Jesus (vv. 12-16) 13 new names appeared. Many scholars feel that Jeconiah (v. 12), though repeated from verse 11, provides the 14th name in this final period.

Matthew’s genealogy answered the important question a Jew would rightfully ask about anyone who claimed to be King of the Jews. Is He a descendant of David through the rightful line of succession? Matthew answered yes!

The Grace of God Seen in the Inclusion of Four Outcasts

Matthew’s genealogy also shows us the work of God’s grace in His choosing four former outcasts, each of them women (the only women listed until the mention of Mary), through whom the Messiah and great King would descend. These women are exceptional illustrations of God’s grace and are included for that reason in the genealogy that otherwise is all men.

The first outcast was Tamar, the Canaanite daughter-in-law of Judah. God had taken the lives of her husband, Er, and of his next oldest brother, Onan, because of their wickedness. Judah then promised the young, childless widow that his third son, Shelab, would become her husband and raise up children in his brother’s name when he grew up. After Judah failed to keep that promise, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and tricked him into having sexual relations with her. From that illicit union were born twin sons, Perez and Zerah. The sordid story is found in Genesis 38. As we learn from the genealogy, Tamar and Perez joined Judah in the messianic line. Despite prostitution and incest, God’s grace fell on all three of those undeserving persons, including a desperate and deceptive Gentile harlot.

The second outcast also was a woman and a Gentile. She, too, was guilty of prostitution, but for her, unlike Tamar, it was a profession. Rahab, an inhabitant of Jericho, protected the two Israelite men Joshua sent to spy out the city. She lied to the messengers of the king of Jericho in order to save the spies; but because of her fear of Him and her kind act toward His people, God spared her life and the lives of her family when Jericho was besieged and destroyed (Josh 2:1-21; 6:22-25). God’s grace not only spared her life but brought her into the messianic line, as the wife of Salmon and the mother of the godly Boaz, who was David’s great-grandfather.

The third outcast was Ruth, the wife of Boaz. Like Tamar and Rahab, Ruth was a Gentile. After her first husband, an Israelite, had died, she returned to Israel with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth was a godly, loving, and sensitive woman who had accepted the Lord as her own God. Her people, the pagan Moabites, were the product of the incestuous relations of Lot with his two unmarried daughters. In order to preserve the family line, because they had no husbands or brothers, each of the daughters got their father drunk and caused him to unknowingly have sexual relations with them. The son produced by Lot’s union with his oldest daughter was Moab, father of a people who became one of Israel’s most implacable enemies. Mahlon, the Israelite man who married Ruth, did so in violation of the Mosaic law (Deut 7:3; cf. 23:3; Ezra 9:2; Neh 13:23) and many Jewish writers say his early death, and that of his brother, were a divine judgment on their disobedience. Though she was a Moabite and former pagan, with no right to marry an Israelite, God’s grace not only brought Ruth into the family of Israel, but later, through Boaz, into the royal line. She became the grandmother of Israel’s great King David.

The fourth outcast was Bathsheba. She is not identified in the genealogy by name, but is mentioned simply as the wife of David and the former wife of Uriah. As already mentioned, David committed adultery with her, had her husband sent to the battlefront to be killed, and then took her as his own wife. The son produced by the adultery died in infancy but the next son born to them was Solomon (2 Sam 11:1-27; 12:14, 24), successor to David’s throne and continuer of the messianic line. By God’s grace, Bathsheba became the wife of David, the mother of Solomon, and an ancestor of the Messiah.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ is immeasurably more than a list of ancient names; it is even more than a list of Jesus’ human forebears. It is a beautiful testimony to God’s grace and to the ministry of His Son, Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, who “did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt 9:13). If He has called sinners by grace to be His forefathers, should we be surprised when He calls them by grace to be His descendants? The King presented here is truly the King of grace!

General Outline:

The King’s ancestry—His genealogy (1:1-17)

The King’s arrival—His virgin birth (1:18-25)

The King’s adoration—the worship of the magi (2:1-12)

The King’s anticipation—the fulfilled prophecies of His coming (2:13-23)

The King’s announcer—John the Baptist (3:1-12)

The King’s affirmation—His baptism; His sonship affirmed by the Father (3:13-17)

The King’s advantage—His defeat of Satan (4:1-11)

The King’s activity—His ministry and miracles (4:12-25)

The King’s address—His manifesto: The Sermon on the Mount (5-7)

Righteousness and happiness (5:1-12)

Righteousness and discipleship (5:13-16)

Righteousness and the Scriptures (5:17-20)

Righteousness and morality (5:21-48)

Righteousness and practical religion (6:1-18)

Righteousness and mundane things (6:19-34)

Righteousness and human relations (7:1-12)

Righteousness and salvation (7:13-29)