Since the days of Abraham, the Jews had been looking for the One through whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). God’s promise to the patriarch was foundational to all the Jews were, to all they hoped to be.
Since the days of King David, the nation of Israel had been waiting for his heir, the One who would restore the kingly throne and establish a kingdom God promised would endure forever (2 Sam. 7:16).
Every day, righteous Jews prayed for the coming of “the Anointed One” — Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek.
Two thousand years ago, the nearly 2 million Jews living in what is now known as the Holy Land and about an equal number living in other parts of the known world prayed for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
It was to these Jews the writer of the Gospel of Matthew made the dramatic announcement that Jesus was “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). Some refer to the first 17 verses of Matthew as the key to understanding the entire book. If Jesus were not “the Son of Abraham,” then He could not fulfill the promise of being a blessing to all the families of the earth. If He were not “the Son of David,” then He would not be entitled to sit on David’s throne.
But Jesus was “the Son of Abraham” and “the Son of David.” Matthew went to great lengths to document that fact. He provided a genealogy for Jesus dating back to Abraham himself. Genealogies were important to Jews for a number of reasons, but at the time of Jesus’ birth, no one could prove his or her genealogy. Herod the Great, a half-Jew who was king of Israel, had all the genealogy records destroyed so he could make whatever claim he chose about his own lineage. Without genealogy records, no one could disprove him or attack him as an illegitimate king.
Matthew divided Jesus’ genealogy into three epochs. The first traces the time from Abraham to David. The second runs from David to the Babylonian captivity and the third from the captivity to Jesus’ birth. The genealogy goes from Abraham to David to Joseph, the adoptive-father of Jesus, as proof of Jesus’ lineage.
Matthew’s purpose for writing the genealogy was not to provide a complete account of Jesus’ ancestors. W.A. Criswell, the late legendary pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, cautioned against taking the “14 generations” in each epoch in “an arithmetical sense.” Perhaps that is because a reading of 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles reveals several omissions from Matthew’s list. Also the genealogy the writer provided from the Babylonian captivity to Jesus’ birth lists only 13 names.
Instead Matthew wrote to tell his Jewish readers that Jesus was related to Abraham and David. And as such, Jesus was both heir to the promise and heir to the throne.
Matthew’s genealogical epochs provide another insight. From a human viewpoint, the ascension of Israel from a wandering clan to a mighty nation must have been viewed as fulfillment of God’s promise to the patriarch. David led Israel to the zenith of worldly power. It was a heady time. It was a time of promise. But the promise made to Abraham had not yet been fulfilled.
All that had been gloriously gained over centuries was hopelessly lost. The second epoch marks the decline of the nation from Solomon to the division of the nation into two kingdoms to disobedience to captivity. Babylon laid waste to the last vestiges of David’s kingdom. It was a time of utter despair, a time of complete failure.
Epoch three climaxes with the birth of Jesus. It is an account of God acting to prepare the nation for the coming of “the Anointed One.” It is a testimony of God’s faithfulness to keep His promises to Abraham and David and to fulfill those promises in Jesus.
Promise. Failure. Fulfillment. It is all right there in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.
The intervening time between the promise and the fulfillment did not keep God from accomplishing His original purpose. Man’s failure to understand and obey did not keep God from accomplishing His purpose. God fulfilled His promise and purpose in Jesus, who was “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” That was the Gospel writer’s message.
One cannot miss the similarity between the story of Israel and the story of every individual. At creation, God purposed man for fellowship with Himself. God even shared His own image with humankind. But Adam and Eve failed to live out God’s purpose for them because of sin. They failed God and themselves when they sinned. Unfortunately that pattern has been followed by all their offspring ever since, even by you and me. As a result, our sin separates us from the love of God, from God Himself. We are mired in failure just like the Jews in the captivity.
But thanks be to God. He dealt with our sin through Jesus, the Anointed One, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David. Hebrews 2 says because Jesus is the Son of Abraham, He can be the Great High Priest who offers the sacrifice of Himself to take away the sins of the world.
As Son of David, Jesus could stand before Pilate and acknowledge Himself a king (John 18:37), not of an earthly kingdom but an eternal kingdom of all who believe in Him as Savior and Lord.
In Jesus, all the families of the earth can be blessed. That is fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. And Jesus is “the only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). That is fulfillment of David’s eternal kingdom.
God’s purpose for Israel and for individuals could only be fulfilled by His initiative through Jesus, who is both “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
As we celebrate Christmas, we claim God’s promise of blessing, acknowledge our failure and celebrate God’s fulfillment through the birth of the long expected Anointed One — Jesus, the Christ.
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