THE GENEALOGY OF JESUS THROUGH THE GOSPELS

THE GENEALOGY OF JESUS THROUGH THE GOSPELS

(The Teaching Ministry of Dr Joel Dabbas)

The most important birth was the birth of Jesus. If the world could correctly read the script of prophecy the best hospitals would want to have Him delivered in there. Probably they would've been so proud that the doctor who took His delivery would have it engraved on his epitaph. Imagine today, it would have become a sight for pilgrimage and tourism.

The value of Christ's birth is so great that it affects both time and eternity. His birth was the factor for the restoration of man back to God. His birth showed that God is God of love, mercy and forgiveness. His birth shows the power of God and that there is no impossibility in God.

So, that is why both the old testament and new testament spoke about Jesus and the four Gospels never started until they introduced Jesus. The four Gospels wrote remarkably about Jesus and presented diverse dimensions to the person of the Christ.

Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah, the coming King.  Jesus’ genealogy is recorded from Abraham to Joseph, making Jesus a legal heir to the throne of David.

Mark presents Jesus as the Suffering Servant, prophesied in Isaiah.  There is no genealogy provided because a slave’s genealogy was insignificant and not worthy of being recorded.

Luke presents Jesus as the Son of Man, a messianic title from the prophecy of Daniel. Luke presents Jesus as 100% man, a son of David.  The genealogy begins with Joseph, as the husband of Mary, and traces Jesus’ ancestry through Mary’s bloodline all the way back to the first man, Adam.

John presents Jesus as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.  Jesus’ genealogy is recorded as the eternal God, co-existant with God the Father from everlasting.

All of this was prophesied, more than a half a century earlier, by the prophet Micah:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little [Mark’s humble servant] among the thousands of Judah [Luke’s Son of Man from the Tribe of Judah], yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel [Matthew’s coming King]; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting [John’s Son of God]. (Micah 5:2)

Now, one part of Christ's live that is important to study is His genealogy.
Genealogy is the study of the ancestry of a person.

A breakdown on how the Gospels wrote about Christ's ancestry. It is noteworthy that not all the gospel wrote about the genealogy of Jesus. This in my own view is what I call the "writers prerogative." Every Scripture was written by Divine inspiration, so everything written by the four writers of the Gospels were based on the dimension the Holy Spirit inspired them to write.

Now, the New Testament provides two accounts of the biological Genealogy of Jesus, one in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 1:1-17) and another in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3:23-38).

The Family Tree of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew starts with Abraham, and mentions that there are 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus. The lineage of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke gives the same lineage, but it includes His ancestors all the way to Adam.

WHAT TO LEARN FROM  MATTHEW AND LUKE'S APPROACH TO CHRIST'S GENEALOGY:

1. That God is the God of records, He has all the details of all your links on earth.

2. That God is transgenerational in what He does and His dealings with us. We could see the trajectory of God's dealings through Adam to Abraham down to David and then to Jesus

3. That God is not a man that He should lie. God kept speaking by prophecy about the coming if the Messiah all through the old testament and He eventually brought it to pass.

4. That God works His plans through imperfect people to bring out His perfection out of our imperfections.
In the lineage of Jesus we see people whose lifestyle does not befitting to be a part of Christ's family line but yet they were there. That shows to us the work of salvation. That Jesus was born for the salvation of men bound in sin.

4. The kingly dimension of Christ was revealed in the this biological genealogy of Christ. This gives us a peep into His authority and rulership above all.

JOHN revealed the spiritual origin of Jesus.
John traces the Lord’s divine genealogy back to “the beginning” (John 1:1). John is purposely recalling the words of Genesis 1:1 here to let us know that the Lord’s origins go back to eternity past. He is “Alpha and Omega” (Rev.1:8; 1:11; 21:6; 22:13), the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In other words, He was there in the beginning, and He’ll be there in the end!

But why does John call Him “the Word”? Well, the Lord has many names in Scripture, and all are needed to express who He is. But “the Word” reminds us that He is the expression of who the Father is, for just as our words express who we are, so Christ expresses who the Father is.

John then called Jesus "the Light" that lights everyone that comes into this world. That means that no life outside Christ. No wonder John speaks of Jesus as the "word of life." Eternal life is only made possible in Christ.


WHAT TO LEARN FROM  JOHN'S APPROACH TO CHRIST'S GENEALOGY:

1. It helps us to understand that the One who came in the flesh was the One in the very beginning of all things

2. It shows us the impact of the life of God in Christ Jesus upon our lives and how we are transmogrified into the nature of God by His Word

3. It reveals to us the excellency of the Word and how the Word took on flesh to exist amongst men so that man can behold God's glory and encounter God's manifold grace.