I have been challenged to stop my current chronological Bible study and study only what Jesus said. Although I feel like God gave us the entire Bible for a reason, and those who pick and choose only the parts they like are "...according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The argument was that Jesus fulfilled the law, meaning there is no more law, and the letters can't be trusted because they were just written by men who were only writing their interpretation of what it was to follow Christ. Only Jesus's words mattered, and Jesus never said anything about homosexuality or abortion or transgenderism or much of any of today's cultural issues. (Never mind the fact that men wrote down what Jesus said.) However, I accepted the challenge. I know that regardless of any arguments, I will learn a lot from the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(Matthew 1:1) The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:
The first verse of Matthew acts as a sort of title for what was to follow: The genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, and Son of Abraham. Jesus came from the line of David and Abraham. It had been promised to Abraham that the Christ should descend from him, "...in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3), and, "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice" (Genesis 22:18). There is only One who could bless every family of every nation on earth, and that is Jesus Christ. The prophecy was also made to David and by David, "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish His kingdom" (2 Samuel 7:12), and, "The LORD has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it, 'I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body'" (Psalm 132:11).
(2) Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brothers.
Abraham's son was Isaac, and from Isaac came Jacob, and from Jacob came Judah. There were also prophecies about Jesus (Shiloh) being descended from Judah, one being, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (Genesis 49:10). The meaning of Shiloh was "tranquility, safety" and both of those describe the Messiah who would make peace between God and men, and would save men from their sins. Another prophecy is, "Yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the chief ruler, although the birthright was Joseph’s" (1 Chronicles 5:2). Jesus is called the Lion of Judah: "And one of the elders said to me, 'Weep not; behold, the Lion of the
tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the book, and
to loose its seven seals'" (Revelation 5:5). Also of note about Judah, as well as other of Jesus's ancestors like Jacob, David, and others, the ancestor was often a younger brother, demonstrating that the preeminence of Christ did not come from the primogeniture of His ancestors, as earthly princes did, but from the will of God.
(3) Judah begat Pharez and Zerah by Tamar, Pharez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Aram.
Judah had twins Pharez and Zerah by Tamar, his daughter-in-law, and Jesus descended from Pharez through his son Hezron, and Hezron's son Aram, called Ram in the Old Testament. It is interesting to note that Tamar was actually an adulteress and played a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law, although when you read her entire story, she was deemed more righteous than Judah. Bathsheba, also in the line of Christ, as David's wife, was an adulteress. Rahab, also an ancestor of Christ, was a Canaanite harlot. In Deuteronomy 23, we just learned that descendants of an illegitimate child were forbidden from ever entering "into the congregation of the Lord", yet God sent "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3). Additionally, Ruth, also in the line of Christ, was a Moabitess, and we were also told in Deuteronomy 23 that a Moabite was forbidden from entering into the congregation of the Lord. However, there came Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as prophesied in Isaiah 56, through whom God would give to all such imperfect sinful people in His house and within His walls "a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters."
(4) And Aram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon; and Nahshon begat Salmon.
Aram's son was Amminadab, and Amminadab's son was Nahshon, who was named prince of the tribe of Judah in the book of Numbers. Nahshon fathered Salmon.
Salmon and Rahab, the Canaanite harlot who was justified by works when she received the Israelite spies into her house and sent them out a secret way (Joshua 2, James 2:25), brought forth Boaz. Boaz married Ruth, the Moabitess, and they begat Obed, who was the father of Jesse. John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, pointed out that "Salmon, Boaz, and Obed, must each of them have been near a hundred years old, at the birth of his son here recorded." Wesley suggested that it was owing to "the providence of God (that) was peculiarly shown in this." However, Dr. John Gill, in his Exposition of the Entire Bible, wrote that "Jesse is thought to be, not the immediate son of Obed, but to be of the fourth generation from him; though no others are mentioned between them in Ruth, any more than here. A Jewish writer observes, that 'the wise men of the Gentiles say, that there were other generations between them; perhaps,' says he, 'they have taken this from the wise men of Israel, and so it is thought.'" Even if this were true, Jesse may be said to be begotten by Obed, just as others in scripture are said to be sons when in fact they might have been grandsons or great-grandsons. We can be sure that Jesse was a direct descendant of Obed.
I will stop this post with this, as Blogger only allows twenty labels per post, and all these names of Jesus's direct ancestors are important to note. The genealogy of Jesus is continued in the next post:
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