Jesus's Genealogy: One of Us

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from Straight to the Heart of Matthew by Phil Moore (Monarch Books).

One of Us (Matthew 1:1-17)

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1)

Celebrities on the TV series Who Do You Think You Are? Receive expert help in tracing their family tree. A wide range of people have appeared on the show, but they all have one thing in common: they all want to learn that their ancestors were good, worthy and noble. Jeremy Clarkson's face lights up when he discovers that his ancestor was the inventor of the Kilner jar. Jerry Springer says a silent prayer as he visits the place where his Jewish grandmother was gassed by the Nazis. Patsy Kensit weeps when she discovers that her granddad was a criminal who barely knew her father. People trace their family tree because they hope to find great ancestors and a fine lineage. 

Matthew starts his gospel with Jesus' family tree, and it's not pretty. More than that, Matthew seems to go out of his way to demonstrate that it's not pretty. He is descended from Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, who dressed up as a prostitute to trick her backslidden father-in-law into having sex with her. 

He is the descendant of Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho, who was saved when her city was destroyed because she hid two spies on the roof of her brothel and lied to protect their lives. He is descended from Ruth, the widowed migrant-worker from the Gentile nation of Moab, whose people were so corrupt that they were excluded from the presence of God. He is the descendant of Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, who committed adultery with David and became his queen even while her murdered husband's grave was still fresh. Matthew emphasizes this sin by referring to her as "Uriah's wife", and then adds to his list Rehoboam, Jehoram, Ahaz and Manasseh, the wickedest kings of Judah. Finally, he tells us that Jesus was the son of the Virgin Mary, conceived so miraculously that even her fiancé thought that she was guilty of illicit sex before marriage. When the actress Patsy Kensit discovered her own family tree, she told the BBC that "It hit me so hard, I stopped washing my hair and wearing make-up." She would not have coped with a sordid family tree like Jesus. 

So what is Matthew's point here? He wants us to grasp that Jesus is the Son of God, the promised Messiah who ushers in the Kingdom of God, so what possible benefit can he derive from starting with this terrible ancestry? Actually, he does so in order to make a very important point, and unless we grasp what he is saying we will misunderstand the very nature of "the kingdom of God". 

Every film-maker and novelist knows that the opening scene is the crucial moment in which they either win or lose their audience's attention. Matthew knew that. God knows that. And yet God inspired Matthew to begin his gospel, and the New Testament itself, with a genealogy that reads like a Who's Who? of the villains of ancient Israel. He knew that it would capture the attention of Matthew's original Jewish readership, but he also wants to use them to teach us two important principles that lie at the heart of his Kingdom Revolution. 

The first thing he wants us to grasp is that his Kingdom is about God coming down to save humankind. If that sounds obvious, remember that religion is not about this at all. Religion is always about humankind stepping up to reach God. Matthew reminds us in verse 23 that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is very different from religion. Isaiah prophesied that "‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' - which means ‘God with us'", and Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is God-With-Us, God really and truly with us. He did not come down reservedly, willing to become a man in a palace, or a Jewish nobleman with impeccable family credentials. He exchanged the highest glories of heaven for the lowest depths of humanity. He humbled himself all the way, to become God-With-Us and to pave a way for Us-With-God. 

Jesus' abject humanity is not incidental to the Gospel; it is essential to the Gospel. Because he became fully human (while remaining fully God), he was able to save the human race by undoing through his righteous life all that Adam lost through his sin.9 Hebrews 2:17 tells us that Jesus "had to be made like his brothers in every way" in order to deal with sin, and Paul tells us that we will only be raised from the dead and live forever with God because Jesus has been bodily raised as our human forerunner. The fact that God has stooped down to become the man Jesus is one of the reasons why he is not simply one way to God but the only way to God. "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 

The second thing that God wants us to grasp is that his Kingdom is about God's grace to people who deserve nothing but his anger and judgment. Jesus is the Seed of Abraham, the moon-worshipping Mesopotamian whom God chose to be his prophet and the ancestor of the Saviour of the World. Jesus is the Son of David, the shepherd-boy God chose and anointed to found a dynasty of kings - a man who sinned but who knew how to repent. Jesus is the descendant of Zerubbabel, the man who was next in line for David's throne but whose claim was now so defunct that his heir Joseph was working as a manual labourer in the building trade. Matthew wants us to grasp that Jesus came to a human race steeped in sin, so that he could outweigh our sin with even more of God's grace. 

So Matthew's opening words are not a dull series of names to endure, like a long list of credits before the real action begins. They are a clue, right from the outset, that God's Kingdom is different, and far better than, the one people were expecting. He was not born into a palace to rub shoulders with the rich and mighty, but into a dirty stable to rub shoulders with sinners, Gentiles, outcasts and rejects - anyone who is humble enough to cry out for a Saviour and believe that they have found him in the carpenter's boy from Galilee. 

He is God-With-Us, the humble Saviour who dived deep into the human problem as the divine infiltrator, and who worked God's solution from the inside out. 

Copyright 2010 Phil Moore
Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

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