As I mentioned earlier in the week there is a series called Who Do You Think You Are? The idea is a celebrity traces his / hers ancestry discovering secrets and surprises from the past.
I would like to continue on our Journey of Jesus. We have discovered John is not going to tell us the Christmas story in the way we celebrate. Instead, John has informed us about Jesus before He came to earth. Jesus is eternal and part of what we term the Trinity.
Nevertheless, Jesus did leave heaven and Philippians chapter 2 tells us something about that leaving by using the phrase Jesus humbled Himself and became human. Hebrews also relates to that fact telling us He partook of human flesh. So the early followers of Jesus all believed Jesus was God and yet became human so let us examine Jesus ancestry.
We do that by looking at Matthew chapter one. These verses are a genealogy—a list of names, most of them unpronounceable that traces Jesus family.
Genealogy” means the family record of descent. The phrase reflects the influence of Genesis. Genesis means Beginnings and that is what Matthew is saying. A new creation begins with Jesus Christ,(called the second Adam), just as the beginning of creation is recorded in Genesis concerning Adam (the first one).
The genealogy can be found in the gospels, Matthew and Luke. Luke looks at the genealogy by tracing it al the way back to Adam while Matthew is sufficed to trace it back to Abraham. Matthews’s purpose is to show that the messianic promises made to David’s line are fulfilled in Jesus Son of Abraham.
In the programme Who Do You Think You Are? the celebrity travels all around the world to trace its ancestors as far back as they can go,
So secondly Jesus is a fulfilment of the covenant promises to Abraham, the forefather of the Jews (cf. Gen. 12:3; 13:15; 22:18). Since Matthew is writing primarily to Jewish readers, he naturally begins by emphasising Jesus’ Jewish parentage.
Matthew 1:17 So there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David. And there were fourteen generations from David until the people were taken to Babylon. And there were fourteen generations from the time when the people were taken to Babylon until Christ was born.
This is important for several reasons.
Claiming property
When land was bought or sold, the genealogical records were consulted to ensure that land belonging to one tribe was not being sold to members of another tribe thus destroying the original family’s heritage.
So this is significant as I have said earlier in the week Jesus is our creator and as such we belong to Him whoever we are. All the human race are His. Christmas reminds me He has come to claim His heritage through being born and subsequently dying to buy back the land i.e. you and me.
We will discover more about this genealogy tomorrow,
Stay Safe and Blessed.