While we usually spend our Christmas’s talking about the birth of our Savior Lord Jesus Christ and how angel Gabriel, Mother Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and the Wise Men were involved in his birth, let’s take this opportunity to discuss about something which is rarely read and seldom preached.
We are going to discuss about Names and Genealogies. Whether we know or not, we all have a family genealogy whom we came from. Most of our family genealogies are explained to us by our parents and grandparents. Where we came from? What’s our native place? Who is our grandparents and great grandparents? What kind of people were they? How did they live? What were the great things they did? And we also have few old pictures of them which tells us a lot about our family at that time. If I try to explain my family genealogy to you, you would not be interested and you would be bored. It would be the same, if you try to explain me your family genealogy. But for those who are in the family genealogy, it’s very precious.
In the Gospel of Luke, we find a family record/genealogy of Jesus Christ. In the 3rd Chapter of Luke, you will find a list of names which are hard to pronounce and read. In fact if you have ever came across this chapter in your daily devotion, you would have just noticed it, glanced over it or you may have even ignored it, because of these names. Sometimes what appears to be the driest part of the scriptures, yield some of the greatest truths about our Lord. And I think we have that in this genealogy.
Let’s have a word about this portion (Luke 3:23-38) of the scripture. It’s a part of the scripture. It’s as much as a scripture as “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It’s in the Bible. And what Paul told Timothy in 2Tim 3:16, 17 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
What’s important about the genealogy of Jesus Christ and the list of names is that, it shows us that Jesus was part of history. It cover certain parts of the OT history and leads us to Jesus being born in Bethlehem. The Gospels appeal to history. It’s not a story about a person who floated out of heaven and has no historical background. The Bible appeals to history.
The focal point of all history is the birth of Jesus Christ. This is 2017AD. Historical dates after the birth of Christ are classified as AD, short for the Latin phrase Anno Domini, or "in the year of our Lord". We have divided the history based on the birth of Christ. Everything before Christ is BC – Before Christ and everything after Christ is AD - Anno Domini – “In the year of our Lord”. You can’t write a bank cheque that is valid unless you attest to the birth of Christ. No document is legal unless it has a date which is attested to the birth of Jesus.
The genealogy also tells that the birth of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of prophecies. So many of the OT scriptures predicted about Jesus Christ. Where he would be born? What lineage he would be from? After he was born he and his family would go to Egypt and so on. So this makes Jesus Christ unique. We are dealing with a person from history, who has prophecy of how he would be born, what he would do, how he would die and so on. This makes him unique. Your birth was not prophesized. We never had a prophecy of our birth. But Jesus had several of those. So he is a fulfilment of prophecy. All the prophecies that deal with Jesus Christ are one hundred percent accurate.
Many of the predictions that were made about Jesus Christ were made to the very people that are mentioned in this genealogy. Abraham is one of them, God said "in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed". That’s a prophecy about Jesus Christ, who would be born and bless the world with salvation. There is a promise God made to David that his family and his kingdom would endure forever. That’s a prophecy of Jesus Christ ruling and reigning forever and ever. So Jesus is part of history, it tells us Jesus is fulfillment of prophecy. It also tell us something else.
The genealogy found in the book of Luke, tells us that Jesus Christ had the right pedigree. Now let me explain. Genealogies were important to Jewish people. If you wanted to sell or buy land you had to prove, produce a genealogical record. Why? The land had to stay within your tribal allotment. It couldn’t go to another tribe. The way that the Lord preserved the different tribal allotments of the 12 tribes was through genealogy and genealogical records. So to buy or sell land you had to produce a genealogical record.
It was important to the Jews if you were in the priesthood. You could not serve in the priesthood, unless you could prove your direct lineage all the way back to Aaron. You had to prove through successive generations that you were directly related to Aaron. Moreover if you were a priest and you married a wife, she had to prove her generations, five generations back. So it was very important.
Another reason why this was important to Jewish people and that brings to bare what we are dealing with in Luke. Anybody claiming to be the Messiah, had to prove it by a genealogical record. If someone comes and say that I am the Messiah (by the way thousands of people have done that), the Jewish person would say “Really!” “What family do you come from?” “Who were your parents and grandparents?” “What tribe are you from?” Because there are predictions that he would be from the tribe of Jude, of the lineage of King David, would be born at Bethlehem and so on. Many people claimed to be Jesus but did not have any genealogical proof. So genealogies are important and Jesus’s shows he has the right pedigree. This is the family album of the King of Kings.
So it begins in Luke 3:23 “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli…” If you are familiar with the gospels, you know that this is not the only genealogical record of Jesus. The other one is found in Matthew chapter 1. It’s a little bit different from this one and here are the differences.
The one in Matthew is a descending genealogy. It starts from Abraham and descends. The one in Luke is an ascending genealogy. It starts from Joseph and Heli and goes backwards. So it’s different in the way it’s stated. The names mentioned in both the generations between Abraham and King David are identical, but once we get to King David, there is a difference between Matthew’s record and Luke’s record. Different names are used. Because we have two different family trees that are mentioned in these two genealogies.
The gospel of Matthew is Joseph’s genealogy, the gospel of Luke, most of the Bible scholars believe it’s Mary's genealogy.
But you say Im confused. Why does it say "Joseph, the son of Heli"? Let me explain to you why it is that way.
We know that the genealogy in Matthew is Joseph's genealogy because it says it is. That is Joseph's heritage. And we know that Joseph's father name was Yaqub/Jacob as stated in chapter one of Matthew. It plainly says that.
The second reason we believe this is Mary's genealogy in Luke, because Luke emphasis on Mary and not much emphasis on Joseph. However Matthew emphasizes Joseph and doesn’t puts much emphasis on Mary. So we believe that, just as it says in Matthew, Matthew is Joseph's genealogy and Luke is Mary's genealogy.
There is a third reason. Women were not named in genealogical records, usually. In Luke there is no women name. There are women named in Matthew but typically you don’t name them. It’s just the male lineage “The son of the son of... the father of”. That’s how genealogical record typically are presented. So because that is true, we would expect then to find Joseph’s name in the genealogical record. Why? This is where I need your attention.
In chapter 27 of Numbers, there were the daughters of Zelophehad, who went to Moses and said there are no males in our family to get the land. I think we should not lose our land allotment just because there is no male whose name can be in the genealogical records.
So we have here, in Luke, an application of that OT principle. Where Joseph is mentioned because, Heli who is the father of Mary, in a sense adopts Joseph as his own son because of land purposes because there were no males in the family. It’s based on that chapter 27 of Numbers that “the request of the daughters of Zelophehad” is justified.
Here's the fourth reason. When it says “the son of the son of....” the word "son" has a broader term (meaning) than the actual blood son of somebody. For instance, if you were a Jewish male and at age 13 you become a son of the commandment, "Bar Mitzvah". That means "Son of the Commandment". You’re not literally born of a commandment, the commandment isn’t your dad. It’s a broad term. The term has been used and is used here and could mean "Son in law" as well, as a direct descendant. It’s a broad term.
Im going to give you one more reason, because I just want to nail this down. In the Greek language, there is a little word that would be spelled "Tou" and its means "Of". It’s in the genitive case. That means ownership. And so all through this genealogical record, you have the son of this, the son of this... and that little word "Tou" is used. It’s used for every single name except one. And that’s the name of Joseph, in the original. So all of that to say to you, we could safely say Matthew is a record of the genealogy of Joseph all the way back to Abraham. Luke is a genealogy of Mary, all the way back to Abraham and all the way back to Adam.
What does that gives us then? We have the legal record in Matthew and we have the racial record in Luke.
Now follow me carefully here. For Jesus to ever lay claim to the throne of David (that’s the promise God gave to David that someone from your lineage will rule and reign forever.) that son of David, which Jesus is called "The Son of David" has to show that he has the legal right to the throne of David and he does through Joseph. But we know that Joseph was not the literal father but Jesus would have the legal right to reign because he is the legal son of Joseph.
But when is come to racial purity, that’s when we come to Mary. Ok now, hopefully all of you are asking this question. So what? You spent a lot of time talking about a lot of names, genealogies, genealogical records.... who cares?
Let me tell you why this is important. That’s why I say, Sometimes what appears to be the driest part of the scriptures, yield some of the greatest truths about our Lord. Because it solves for us the biggest problem in the OT. Did you know that there was a problem in the OT? Did you know that the line of the King David has been cursed? The Blood Lineage of King David had been cursed, which poses a problem for God. How is his son going to be the son of David who rules over the world, if the blood line is cursed? That’s the problem.
Ok. Im going to answer that question. Let’s read the genealogical record. Verse 23. "When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son [by marriage] of Eli....the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." Adam the direct creation of God - Ex nihilo.
Now, Jesus had no human father. How is he going to be a direct blood descendant through his father? He can’t be. Because he had no human father. He has to have it through his mother. So there are 2 genealogies. One is the legal right. The other one is the biological blood line. Now I said it solves a problem.
Let’s turn to Jeremiah 22 which shows us the biggest problem of the OT that these 2 genealogies solve. Verse 26. The Lord is predicting that the Jews will go into captivity by the Babylonian's by the Chaldeans. He says " 26 And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. 27 But to the land whereunto they desire to return, thither shall they not return. 28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? 29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. 30 Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah."
Who is Coniah? Another name for him is Jechoniah. Another name is Jehoachin. I know they are weird names. He was one of the kings of Judah, who was a direct bloodline descendant of King David. Here in Jeremiah, God places a curse on his bloodline, which poses a problem for God. If the bloodline, the royal line of David is now cursed with a blood curse, how can the Son of David, who will eventually come rule and reign, if the blood line is cursed.
Now you read the prophecy with me. It says none of his descendants will sit on the throne of David anymore. And that prophecy literally came true. After Jechoniah, also known as Coniah, also known as Jehoachin, after he was deposed from his throne, he had none of his own descendants sit on the throne. His uncle took the throne. And then couple of different other people until eventually they were taken captive.
So, in Matthew's genealogy, it follows the line all the way back to David through King Solomon, including Jechoniah, on whom the Blood curse was pronounced. What that shows is that, Jesus has the legal right to the throne, through the royal line of King David, Solomon, Rehoboam and all the rest, but that blood line is cursed. Right? When we come to Luke's gospel, the genealogy goes back to David, not through King Solomon, not through the royal line, the reigning line. It takes a bifurcation. It takes a turn. And it goes tracing the lineage of David not through Solomon but through the second surviving son of Bathsheba, named Nathan. That bloodline was not cursed. So what we have is, God getting around his own curse. How does he do that?
By having a son Virgin born. Because the fathers bloodline is cursed, so what, Joseph isn’t the father. Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit. But Mary's pure bloodline, uncursed bloodline traces all the way back to King David. So Jesus has the legal right to reign through Joseph, the bloodline is cursed, he still can maintain the legal right, but the bloodline is pure on Mary's side. God affectively curses the bloodline and gets around his own curse by having the Messiah be born to a Virgin. This is why a Virgin birth is absolutely essential, to salvation. Absolutely essential. Really everything in your life for heaven or earth depends on the Virgin birth. Everything. So Isaiah the prophet said this would be the sign, the Virgin would conceive and bare a son and you will call his name Emmanuel. And the very first hint of a Virgin birth is back in Genesis 3 “The seed of the women”. The seed of women would crush the head of the serpent (Satan’s head). Now that term "the seed of a women" is a Theological Oxymoron. Biologically and theologically women don’t have seed, men do. “The seed of the women”. Mary was the only women who ever lived, who carried in her pregnant child, the seed not of a human man, but of the Holy Spirit. So God cursed the bloodline, it had to be done. God got around his own curse, by a Virgin birth, and now we have two genealogies that bare that out. So he is perfectly man, holy man and as a man he can represent human kind, he can die like a human (only a human can). But as God, he is the perfect sinless sacrifice. So this genealogy solves the greatest problem that the OT has to offer.
I want to close with this thought. I mentioned that the genealogy shows us that, Jesus is a part of history, Jesus is fulfillment of prophecy, and Jesus has the right pedigree. But it also shows us that Jesus came to save humanity. Let me briefly explain this.
If you look at the genealogy that we just read, there are some names in there that are really a good representation of all human history and show why Jesus needed to come. The people that are listed in this genealogy are not like prefect people. Judah is mentioned in this, he committed incest and adultery. David is mentioned in this. He committed adultery and murder. Terah was mentioned in this. He was an idolater. It’s a perfect little microcosm picture of the problem of humanity in every generation and shows us that Jesus came to save sinners. We have a black history. We have a dark history of misdeeds and sinful deeds, generation after generation, every person is affected and infected. But light came into the world and Jesus is the light of the world. In him is the light of mankind. It’s my prayer that just through this simple little dry genealogy you would extract the kind of truth tonight that says "Gods plan is more profound than I originally thought” and allow the Lord's light to penetrate the darkest part of your life. Let him in. Let him penetrate that dark spot. That dark area that you have been struggling with. Let him in. Let the light penetrate and let his light be the life that carries you. Let’s bow our heads.
This sermon was delivered by Skip Heitzig, who is the founder and senior pastor of Calvary of Albuquerque, a Calvary Chapel fellowship located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This sermon can be searched on YouTube with the title - "The Genealogy of Jesus Christ - Luke 3:23-38 - Skip Heitzig".
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