Posted on 12/12/2007 6:34:27 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
“The Genealogy of Jesus Christ: From David to the Deportation” (Matthew 1:1, 6b-11)
Last week we began looking at how Matthew begins his gospel--for that matter, the whole New Testament. He begins with a genealogy, a genealogy that takes in much of Old Testament history. It is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. But Jesus was, first of all, the Savior of Israel, the promised Messiah, the one who fulfilled the promises given to Israel’s forefathers. It was as the fulfillment of those promises that Jesus came into the world--as the culmination, the climax, of Israel’s history. And so Matthew writes: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. . . .”
Last week we looked at how Jesus was the son of Abraham--that Jesus was the fulfillment of the covenant the Lord made with Abraham: “I will bless you and make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and all those who curse you I will curse. I will make of you a great nation. And in you--and in your seed--all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” That line of blessing would pass through Abraham’s seed, his offspring. And from Abraham came Isaac, and from Isaac came Jacob. And the covenant was renewed with each generation.
But the Lord added something into the mix when he gave those promises. To Abraham at one point he said: “I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.” Likewise to Jacob, the Lord said, “A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.” And then out of Jacob’s twelve sons, it was to Judah that this promise came: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.”
So a king would come from the line of Judah! A royal ruler with a scepter--indeed, a whole line of kings, until finally there would come one great king for whom it all was meant. The promise of royalty and of one great king--that was the thing added to the mix, added to the covenant the Lord made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and specifically, that these kings would come from the tribe of Judah.
Well, the centuries went along, and guess what? No king. Now the Israelites wanted a king, but not because the Lord had promised them one. No, it was that when they looked at the nations around them, they wanted to be like those nations, they wanted to fit in. The other nations had kings, but they didn’t. All they had was the Lord and his prophets. They kept pressing God’s prophet Samuel for a king, till finally the Lord let them have what they wanted. And they ended up with King Saul--only he was not from the tribe of Judah, and he did not follow the voice of the Lord. So Saul was rejected by God. The Lord then told Samuel to go to the house of Jesse, and out of Jesse’s sons, the Lord had Samuel anoint Jesse’s young son David as the future king to replace Saul. Now David was from the tribe of Judah, and this was the king who would do the job, and through whom would come the promise of the even greater king.
Well, the Lord blessed King David mightily. David was a man after the Lord’s own heart. He was a good and righteous king. He wrote many of the psalms and was concerned for the worship life of Israel. David unified and solidified the nation of Israel. He established Jerusalem as the capital, brought the tabernacle there, and began preliminary work on building the temple. David was a great and glorious king.
Then one night the word of the Lord came to David’s pastor, Pastor Nathan, and Nathan gave David the message we heard a few minutes ago: “I will establish a house for you. I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” So an even greater king will come from the house of David. This son of David will bring in God’s ultimate kingdom, his everlasting kingdom. Wow, what a promise! What a hope!
For as great as David was, there were still problems in his kingdom. There were still problems in the king himself. We can see that reflected in the genealogy in our text. Indeed, Matthew seems to make a special point of it, by mentioning a fact he didn’t need to mention, namely this: “And David was the father of Solomon . . . by the wife of Uriah.” Now as we heard last week, when Matthew brings in extra information into this genealogy, he’s doing it for a purpose. And here, this is extra information. He didn’t have to mention Solomon’s mother. It wasn’t normally done in this type of a genealogy. But here it reminds us of the whole story that goes with it. “By the wife of Uriah.” Even the way it’s phrased casts it a certain way. Matthew could have just said, “Bathsheba,” but instead he says, “the wife of Uriah.”
So here is the fatal flaw with all of these kings--their sinfulness, no matter how good as kings they may have been otherwise. Take Solomon, for example. Would he be the one to fulfill the promise? After all, he was THE son, literally, the son of David. And he started out with so much promise. The Lord gave Solomon an unbelievable amount of wisdom--the wisest man in the world. The glory and the grandeur of Solomon’s kingdom reached unprecedented heights--even greater than that of his father, David. Solomon built the temple that his father David could only dream about. So was Solomon “it”? Was he the one? Sadly, no. Solomon, although wise, became a fool of sorts. His greed and his lust led him to compromise his faith and the faith of Israel, by marrying foreign wives and thus introducing foreign gods. Solomon, as promising as he started out, would not be the one to fulfill the promise to David.
Nor would it be Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. In fact, under Rehoboam, the kingdom split in two, into north and south--Israel in the north, Judah in the south. But the promise to David was still alive. The royal line of Judah, the royal line of David, was still going. King after king came, and with each birth of a new royal son, you have to wonder if they wondered, “Is he the one?” Is this little boy going to grow up to be the promised Son of David, the great Messiah king?
Well, some of the kings were good and some were bad. Manasseh, for example, was a very wicked king. Hezekiah and Josiah, on the other hand, were very good and faithful kings. They led the nation to renewed devotion to the Lord. They walked in his ways. But even the best of these kings died without fulfilling the promise given to David. When would that one come? When would he come?!
Meanwhile, the nation kept going downhill spiritually. Oh, there would be brief revivals, but generally, it was a downward spiral spiritually. God’s prophets kept warning them of the coming judgment. Finally, it came. In 597 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took a group of captives in exile, out of Judah and into captivity in Babylon. He took Jeconiah, the heir to the throne. Now there was no son of David ruling on the throne in Jerusalem! This was shocking! What would happen to the promise made to David? And a few years later, in 586 B.C., more captives were taken away and Jerusalem was destroyed, even the temple was destroyed.
From the heights of David and Solomon, now the nation had sunk to defeat and exile. No king, no son of David, ruling on the throne. But the royal line was still alive. A royal heir was still living, albeit off in exile for the time being.
You see, the Lord does not forget his promises. He did not forget his promise given to David, that there would be one great king come from his royal line, to usher in the everlasting kingdom. And as dark as Israel’s fortunes had turned, that hope was still alive. The royal line had not been snuffed out. A son of David--the son of David--would come one day.
The prophet Isaiah told of this promise yet to be fulfilled: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”
And the angel Gabriel was thinking of that same long-ago promise to David when he told a young girl named Mary: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Jesus is that king. Jesus is the son of David. When he came to Israel, he announced, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He went about, preaching and teaching and healing, bringing the blessings of the kingdom to men. Where those other kings failed, flawed and sinful as they were, this king did not. Jesus is the one great king, the son of David, promised from of old.
But his kingdom came in a surprising way. Not in glory and grandeur. But in meekness and lowliness. In rejection and suffering. Suffering for the sins of his people, for the sins of all people, you and me included. His crown was a crown of thorns. His throne was a cross, just outside Jerusalem. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
This king Jesus Christ is the great and promised son of David, “great David’s greater son.” Jesus is the one who brings his people out of their lonely exile of sin and death and brings us safely into his kingdom of peace and life. Now he reigns, forever and ever. He comes to us now in his Word and sacraments, giving us the gifts of his kingdom of grace. And he will come one more time, when we will finally see all that is in store for us in his kingdom of glory. “Jesus Christ, the son of David.” “Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation.”
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. . . .
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
Ping.
Amen bump.
A blessed Advent season to you.
In 1999 she claimed Jewish roots through a distant relative in her family, albeit not blood kin.
Can someone slip her in between Jehoshaphat and Amos?
Leni
Thanks Pastor.
Actually, I think Hillary is descended from Ahab and Jezebel. Jezebel, you know, made a killing investing in vineyard futures.
Leni
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.