That is what Matthew is proving. From Abraham down to the one who had a curse on him — Jeconiah. [None of his descendants will ever rule.]

Going down the list, we will see some names we recognize and some we do not. Zerubbabel is a name many of us recognize, and possibly Zadok, who was a priest. The Matthew text reads:

Look at how the pattern changes. We read begat, begat, begat… Now we read:

Notice how this patter of begats stops. Nobody begat Jesus, did they?

The genealogy in Matthew shows Joseph in the line leading back up to Jeconiah, Solomon and David; however, Jesus was not in the line.

To who does by whom refer? Mary

Jesus was not physically descended from Joseph; therefore, He was not physically descended from Jeconiah. He satisfies the first requirement for the Messiah. He was not in the royal line that was cursed.

No Problem Here!

Why? Messiah was to be the son of David; that is what Luke proves.

Here is the difference between the two genealogies:

That is why they look different, because they are different!

In Matthew, we have the begats— begat, begat, begat —until we come to Jesus. In Luke, we have the son of— the son of, the son of, the son of —until we come to Jesus; and then the pattern changes again—

Matthew gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, because:

What does that mean? Legally, Jesus was in the line that goes up through Jeconiah, Solomon and David. I repeat:

Jesus of Nazareth was not physically in that line, because He was the adopted son of Joseph. So He was legally in the line, meaning:

Why did Jesus not have a curse on Him from Jeconiah?

Conversely, how was Jesus a physical descendant of David?

Matthew presents the genealogy of Joseph (Jesus' legal father), who was a descendant of Solomon. Luke presents the genealogy of Jesus through Mary (Jesus' physical mother), who was a descendant of David through Nathan.

Do you still see a problem? At the very bottom of the listed genealogies, there appears to be a contradiction. Even if we [correctly] grant that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, and Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, there is still a problem. Who is the father of Joseph? Can you tell me? This is where there seems to be a contradiction.

Matthew seems to say:

But Luke seems to say:

So who was Joseph's father?

There was an early church father, named John Chrysostom, who wrote long commentaries. He wrote and extremely L-O-N-G commentary on the book of Matthew; it was a real sleeper (reading it induced sleep).

When Chrysostom came to this problem, he said I know exactly why it is written this way, but I do not want to take the time to tell you, because it would be too tedious and it would take us off the main point.

I thought That is a great answer; he just avoided the real issue.

Actually, it is really quite simple…

In the Orient, when genealogies were traced, women were not included except with the word by. For example:

• Jacob begat Judah, Judah begat Perez and Zerah by Tamar.
• Rahab begat Obed by Ruth.

Women were not included in the main genealogical record; instead, the husband would take her place in that genealogy.

In this case, Eli was the father of Mary. Luke replaced her name with:

Actually, God did the impossible, did He not? He produced Somebody who was both a descendant of that kingly line and who was not a descendant of that line. In fact, the genealogies give us three truths about Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah:

1. He was the legal descendant of David through Solomon and [yes] through Jeconiah.
2. He was not part of the curse because He was not physically descended from Jeconiah.
3. He was the physical descendant of David through His mother.

These genealogies take us back to Genesis 3. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God proclaimed a promise of hope for all time:

And why does that strike us as odd to hear seed of the woman? A woman does not have seed; it is the man who provides the seed.

From this point on, it was clear that there was to be something supernatural about the way Messiah was to come into the world. And now we know—

Jesus had a human mother, but He did not have a human father. In fact, at the virgin birth—

God crashed into the messianic line – Sovereignly.

We would be very wrong to stop at this point and say What a great feat God accomplished! Was that not impressive how He managed to arrange it so that Jesus could be a descendant of that kingly line and not a descendant of that kingly line?

Actually, it is more important than that because what God did physically in the messianic line is a picture of what He did spiritually.

Why did God have to crash into that messianic line with a virgin birth?

Let us look at that genealogy of the messianic line:

If I had been writing this genealogy, I do not think that I would have included by Tamar. I would have left that name out, because that is not a pretty picture on which to reflect:

Keep on going—

Who was Rahab?

Is this not a great genealogical line?

What about David?

We know that story, and it is not a pretty picture — one of adultery and murder. If we were to rank sins, I suppose adultery and murder would have to be two of the top five sins. That is ugly!

Continuing down, we come to Manasseh (see Matthew 1:10).

In his line is Jeconiah (see Matthew 1:11,12)—

I read a commentary this week where the author went through the genealogy and picked out all of the flagrant violators of God's law. He identified them as being the sinners in this line. His thinking was only partially right; however, it is a bigger problem than that. Everybody in that line is a sinner—

When Adam chose to sin, he plunged the entire human race into spiritual death. That includes you and me. However, there is Good News; God's righteousness is received by faith in Messiah Jesus as your Savior.

It is tempting for me to say there are some good people in this line and there are some bad people in this line. For example, I would pick out Ruth as a good person—

Ruth was not a vile sinner like the others that were previously mentioned. In fact, she was a real jewel in human terms. However, Ruth was a foreigner; she was from Moab. From where did the Moabites come? From Lot laying with his daughters when he was drunk! That is an ugly picture.

So Ruth was a good person as opposed to someone like Manasseh who was a bad person; however:

• Ruth was a sinner.

Beyond that:

• Her legacy was ugly,
• She was an outcast, and
• She was a foreigner.

In the whole line presented by Matthew, there was sin and there was a curse pronounced on it. And this is the line that was going to produce Messiah?

Let us think about it.

Why?

Today many people are compiling their genealogies, generation by generation. Some are finding good news and some are finding bad news. But no matter how far back they are able to trace, ultimately all lines go back to Adam.

All of us are in a line going back to Adam and it is an ugly line, one full of sin and one that is cursed.

Unfortunately, all of Adam's descendants inherited his fallen nature. You and I are descended from him; therefore, we inherited his sin nature as well. We are on that list of sinners.

We look at the list of sinners in that messianic line, and it is similar to the list that we are on. We are sinners. And it is not just that we sinned; it is not that we sinned a lot. We do not have any choice by our inherited sin nature. Just as a dog can only do dog stuff, sinners can only do sin stuff!

When I look at this list, I picture us as Ruths. Without a doubt, most of us studying this Matthew series are not gross sinners, though a few of us maybe. Regardless of whether we are fairly good, moral persons or not, we are separated from God because of our sin. We are outsiders who are, of course, cursed.

However, though Adam was spiritually dead, because of God's provision on his behalf, Adam was spiritually restored. And since the human race descended from Adam, we will want to see how.

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