A Fascinating Genealogy

Well, last Sunday we took up the familiar account of the birth of Jesus Christ from Matthew chapter 1 in verses 18 through 25. That's the place we usually begin when we open the Gospel of Matthew, but it's not the beginning.

Something else comes first. What comes first is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, first in the Gospel of Matthew, first in the New Testament Scriptures. A very prominent placement by the Spirit of God. And so today we're going to look at a fascinating genealogy and learn something of the significance of this genealogy at the beginning of our New Testament Scriptures. But for many people, I don't think those two words, fascinating genealogy, go together very often. When we think of genealogies, we more likely think of words like tedious and boring and uninteresting. Yet here we have one that God has placed at the very beginning of the New Testament Scriptures. If it's your own genealogy, you may have a little more interest in it than somebody else's, but I've discovered that even many Americans aren't that interested in their own genealogy.

It may be something about our heritage and the fact that we put that sort of thing behind us when our forefathers left Europe to come to these shores. They had a rather negative opinion of bloodlines and privileges that came by way of birth, and so we may have a little less interest in genealogies than even other people in this world. And yet again, here it is at the very beginning of the book of Matthew, the very beginning of the New Testament Scriptures. Obviously, God considers this to be important, and God put it here so that we would look at it and not just skip over it as we are inclined to do. But what is it that makes this genealogy so important? And that's what we want to discover.

And in short, it's simply this. It is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the one that we're focusing on hopefully every day of the year and particularly during this Christmas season of the Incarnation. And that alone should make this genealogy of great interest to every born-again believer.

So, gird up the loins of your mind, wrestle with some of these words, many of these names which are unfamiliar, and let us consider together what God has for us. I'm going to examine this in four parts, beginning with the introduction found in verse 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The opening statement says, this is the book of the genealogy, Biblos Geneseos. It can be translated various ways, the record of the origin, the book of the story.

Biblos is most commonly translated book, but it does have other possible translations as well. The book of the genealogy, the origins, the beginning, the human origins of Jesus Christ. And the main subject of this genealogy, though it has a lot of names, a lot of words, and some of them, our tongues tend to stumble over a bit, but the main subject is clearly Jesus Christ, which makes this genealogy of interest to God's people.

The book of the genealogy, the record of the origin of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a very familiar term to us, but interestingly, Matthew doesn't use that particular designation very often. But here he does, and for that reason, it deserves a little examination at least, and so we see first of all Jesus, the human name, and Christ, the messianic title of this one. Jesus, that's what they called him at his birth. You shall call his name Jesus, the angel said, both to Mary and to Joseph, because he shall save his people from their sins. And so just like every one of us were given a name at our birth, often which was known prior to our birth, you don't usually want to wait until the child is born and say, what shall we call it?

You usually have that figured out ahead of time, at least that's been my experience. And that was true of this one, but this is his human name. When he was born to Mary, this little baby was picked up in her arms and named Jesus.

And as we know, Joseph, who was the legal father, manifested his authority over, his responsibility for, his adoption of this child by taking the father's place and officially giving this one his name. His name is Jesus. But he's also the Christ, though in our practice today, Christ is almost like the second name, the middle name. My name is Gregory Norris, and we generally think of Jesus' name as Jesus Christ.

But that's not exactly the same. Christ is actually the title. And more significantly, more accurately, the article goes before this name. It is Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the sent one, Jesus the one that God sent into this world. And so putting these two names together, you have a lot that is communicated.

But as much as anything, you have this. Number one, Jesus, he was human because he was born of a woman. And Christ, he is divine because he was sent from above. His origin of his total being certainly didn't begin in a virgin's womb. It had no beginning, and he came from heaven above, the anointed one, the sent one.

But he wrapped himself in human flesh and was born in a manger. And so this genealogy is significant both to the humanity of this one and to the mission of this one, as we shall see. Now in looking at the introduction, we also notice there are some very significant connections. And again, every name in the genealogy is a connection. And every name in the genealogy could be studied carefully. And every name in the genealogy can be found elsewhere in scripture. You go back to the Old Testament, primarily to the Book of Chronicles, and you can trace a genealogy that will tell you at least something more about every name that is found in this genealogy. But it is particularly significant in reference to two names.

And for that reason, these two names are put in the introduction. It is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ who? The son of David, the son of Abraham. Two of the most significant names in that long list of names in this genealogy. The son of David, the son of Abraham.

Let's consider them in reverse order. The son of Abraham. Abraham, of course, is the one that God called out of the Ur of the Chaldees, out of, as we learn elsewhere in scripture, this isn't so clear in the book of Genesis, but it becomes clear in other parts of scripture, out of idolatrous worship, out of paganism, out of a background of false worship. And God called him, Abraham, to himself, revealed himself to Abraham, called him out of his birthplace and his hometown, told him to travel to a place that he had no understanding of, no clarity about. And in faith Abraham obeyed, and God made promises to Abraham, and God used Abraham to father a new nation that we, of course, know as the nation of Israel, and often think of the nation of Israel as God's chosen people. That's true.

That's true. God's chosen people. But as scripture unfolds, we learn that even that designation has more than one layer to it. And for one instance, we looked at that last week where the angel told Joseph to call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. But clearly that doesn't mean the nation of Israel, because he didn't save all of them from their sins, just a remnant. But he saved all of his people from their sins, those that were called, those who were chosen to be his people from the foundation of the world, and then called into union with him in the passing of time. But Abraham was the father of the nation of Israel. And so this tells us that Jesus comes to that nation.

He comes from that line of descent. He comes from Abraham. In other words, Jesus is in his humanity a Jew, obviously, but some people seem to miss that or don't understand the importance of it, but it's very important. Furthermore, it is also important because Jesus comes in fulfillment to promises that were made to Abraham. And one of the most important ones, I suppose, is this, where God said to Abraham, and you shall, all the nations of the earth, be blessed. Yes, I'm making a special nation out of you, a Jewish nation, as we call it sometimes, out of you.

I'm making you a nation that will be distinct from the other nations of the world, but the purpose for this is not simply to bestow blessings upon your progeny, this nation. That's not the purpose, as many of the Jews erroneously thought, but the purpose is to use you to bless all of the nations of the world. And Jesus in his coming fulfills that promise to Abraham. So this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham, the son of David. And of course, special promises were also made to David, and they are fulfilled in Christ. But as much as anything, what this indicates is that Jesus is heir to David's throne.

David the king had promises about a future king, about an eternal king, about a king and a kingdom that would never end, and the fulfillment of those promises is found in this one. And so we read about the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And in this manner, the old covenant and the new covenant are tied together, aren't they? They're linked together. Sometimes we separate them perhaps more than we should, and there obviously are distinctions and important distinctions, but we also need to recognize there is a connection.

You can't totally separate one from the other. And the inaugurator of the new covenant, namely Jesus Christ, came in fulfillment to promises made in the old covenant. Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

So that's what we learn in the introduction, but let's jump from the introduction to the conclusion in verse 17. So, after giving this long list of names, so all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations, and from David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ, notice there the definite article, the Christ are 14 generations. This genealogy, therefore, is divided into three sections, from Abraham to David, from David to Babylonian captivity, and from Babylonian captivity to the coming of Christ.

You might think of it this way. Section 1, the kingdom established. Section 2, the kingdom dissolved. Section 3, the kingdom restored.

You see that? Section 1, the kingdom established. And that's the history of, from the beginning of the nation and Abraham, all of the things, and this is just touched upon lightly by giving the names, by giving the genealogy, but all of the people and the events that God used to bring in the kingdom. Eventually, we come to a place where there is actually a kingdom. And so, section 1, Abraham to David, the kingdom is established.

But section number 2, David to Babylonian captivity, what happens? The kingdom falls apart. The kingdom dissolves. The kingdom is destroyed.

It gets worse and worse. Of course, it became divided right after Solomon between northern kingdom and southern kingdom, and things even went down from there until the northern kingdom first was dissolved, and then the southern kingdom was dissolved. And when they are carried away into Babylonian captivity, there's no more kingdom. There's no Jewish king sitting upon a throne in Jerusalem.

They don't rule Jerusalem. In fact, the city has been destroyed. The temple has been destroyed. The kingdom is destroyed. That wonderful kingdom established in the first section has now been dissolved and destroyed in the second section. But thank God there is a third section.

What happens in that section? Well, the kingdom is restored, but it doesn't seem obvious or apparent, does it? But the genealogy goes on and on and on and on until eventually this promise is fulfilled, the promise of a son to sit upon David's throne. And so here he is. His name is Jesus.

He is the Christ sent by God. He's come to sit upon David's throne, and the genealogy establishes that royal line. And now we realize that with the coming of Jesus Christ, this kingdom, once destroyed, is now being reestablished, and yet we look around and we don't see a capital. We don't see a throne. We don't see the Jews ruling upon their territory in Israel.

We don't see the Romans who are there, and we wonder what is going on here. This is the king. This is David's royal son, and this is the one who will establish the kingdom.

And we're left puzzled, aren't we? And we hear the words of Jesus when he was asked about the kingdom. He said, the kingdom is within you. That's not all that he said. I'm not suggesting that the spiritual kingdom within believers is all there is to the promises of the kingdom, but we have to at least recognize that the kingdom is reestablished, not in the way that we expected. It's in an entirely different way.

It is in a way that's invisible to the eyes of those who don't know the Scriptures or won't believe them, and it's a way that's even opaque to many of God's people. That's not it. That can't be it. Well, here it is. Here it is, if you have eyes to see it. Yes, certainly there's more to come, but we're not, listen to me, what I'm saying to you, we're not waiting for the kingdom to be established.

When the king came, it was established. It has been established. We are waiting for a greater fulfillment of it. There is more to come. We do pray accurately, as Jesus taught us to pray, thy kingdom come.

It's not here in its full development, but please don't overlook the fact that nevertheless it is here. And the last third of this genealogy is the restoration of the kingdom, but in a way that we did not expect and would not have anticipated, but that's the way God works so many times, and there it is, the kingdom reestablished at the end of the third section. But in this conclusion, there is unusual symmetry. Fourteen, what in the world is that? All the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen, generations from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. Clearly there is intentional symmetry, intentional balance here, but it's hard to figure out exactly what that is, and particularly why the number fourteen is so significant.

And especially when we look at this more carefully, when we realize for Matthew to arrive at fourteen and fourteen and fourteen, he had to do a little manipulation. He left a good many names out. Not all the names of the genealogy are here. If he'd listed them all, it wouldn't have been fourteen, fourteen, fourteen.

It would have been numbers that were not symmetrical. That shouldn't bother us either because the Jews would have understood what he was doing. The actual wording of this genealogy is not really that so and so begot so and so. It is more literally that so and so was the father of so and so, and in Jewish understanding, father can mean father, it can mean grandfather, it can mean great grandfather, it can mean distant ancestor. We talk that way in biblical terms, and we talk about Jesus being the son of David. Was David his immediate father or his grandfather or his great grandfather?

No, it goes way back farther than that. David was his ancestor. He is in the line of David.

There is a direct connection, and that's really what the wording of the genealogy indicates, and Jews would have understood that, and now we can understand that as well. So Matthew is not being, what should I say, he's not being difficult, he's not being unclear when he says fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. What he means is I have arranged this in groups of fourteen, fourteen, fourteen.

I've done this deliberately, and anybody who pays attention would know that. If you know the Old Testament chronologies, you'd know immediately that I've left names out, and I did that to make this beautiful balance, this beautiful symmetry. Fourteen, fourteen, fourteen is not because that means there are exactly fourteen generations in this section and fourteen in that one. It means because I selected this number to be of special significance to you. But the problem is we're not told what the significance is, and that's not one of the numbers that usually comes up in our numerology, our study of biblical numerology. We know something of the importance of the number three, and the number six, and the number seven, and even twelve, but fourteen? What does that mean? We're not told.

So I will offer, of the things that I have read and considered as possibilities, I'll offer the one that I think is most likely, and just have to leave it at that because I don't know for sure, and neither do you. But it probably relates to the number of high priests. And it turns out that from the first high priest Aaron until the high priest in the days when Solomon established the temple, there were fourteen.

You can count them if you go back and study the record. And from the establishment of Solomon's temple, you can count exactly fourteen high priests until the carrying away into Babylon, until the last recorded high priest, and there aren't any more after that in the Old Testament. Now we come to the New Testament, we read about this high priest or that high priest, but we also realize that those high priests were after the order of Levi. They were really more political appointments from Rome. And they didn't serve for a lifetime as the Levitical high priests did. They served at the pleasure of Rome and they'd get deposed and reimposed and back and forth. So that there were, in the New Testament, at times as many as three or more high priests present and alive, though not all of them the high priest, but this one the former high priest, and this one the present high priest, and this one the next high priest, and this one the one that the high priest that got deposed but that's going to be brought back. Almost like, those of you who know the history, almost like some of the popes of Rome.

There were more than one at a time, which shouldn't be if they were what Rome claims for them to be, but we won't get into that at this time. But there is unusual cemetery and it has significance and we'll find out more about that when we get to heaven. But now I must hurry on. Section number three is an overview of the entire genealogy. And let me just touch on a few things. This genealogy, what does it record? Well it records historical figures, real people, real history, all the names can be confirmed from Old Testament records.

That's what it records. Where does it begin? Well as we've seen it begins with Abraham, not Adam. Now actually you'll find another genealogy in Luke chapter three.

There goes the opposite direction. In Matthew's genealogy it starts in the ancient world, in his case Abraham, and moves forward up to the birth of Jesus Christ. In Luke's genealogy it starts with the birth of Jesus Christ and moves backwards all the way to Adam.

It has a little bit different emphasis. It shows that Jesus Christ is born of Adam, but not really because we'll get into that in a moment, but the humanity, the human side of Jesus, he's part of the human race, in fact as we know from scripture, he turns out to be the second Adam. Now that Luke genealogy is an interesting one and I've never attempted to preach from that one. I've preached from this one before. I've never attempted to preach from that one because there's some elements in that that are puzzling that I haven't got figured out yet.

So over lunch today I'm going to ask my brother Renato Giuliani to fill me in on that and explain. I need a scholar to help me with that. But the point here is that it starts with Abraham, not Adam, and it begins therefore with the founding of the nation of Israel because that's the focus here, that Jesus was a Jew and he fulfilled promises made to Abraham and to others in the nation of Israel. That's where it begins.

Where it ends of course is with Jesus Christ. He's the reason for this record. He's the reason for the nation of Israel if we have eyes to see it. In other words, the only reason there is a nation of Israel is because they produced Jesus the Christ.

That was their whole purpose. If it wasn't for that, there didn't need to be a nation of Israel. That's why God called Abraham. That's why God established this nation. That's why God separated his nation from the other peoples of the world, protecting that nation, keeping that nation from dissolving and from their line being so diluted and spoiled and intermingled with the pagan peoples of the world that there was no line left.

God did all that to bring Jesus into the world. And the sad thing about it is that the majority of the Jews missed their reason for existing. Here they are so proud of being Jews, so proud of their heritage to Abraham and the only reason that there is a special promise to Abraham and a special nation from Abraham is to bring this one into the world. That's their only reason for being Jews. That's the only reason they have any reason to be proud of being Jews and most of them missed it completely. You say, what a shame.

What a bunch of knuckleheads, yes? Just like a lot of people in our day whose reason for existence is to bring honor and glory to God and up until now, you're missing it. You're a knucklehead and worse if you don't come to terms with why you're here. Why are you in this world? Why did God give you life? Why has God brought you into contact with the gospel and with Christian people? What is your reason for being? It is to love Christ, to believe in Christ, to honor Christ, to serve Christ.

If you don't fulfill that purpose, you're not fulfilling the purpose for which God created you any more than the Jews who don't recognize Jesus Christ are fulfilling the purpose for which God created the Jewish nation. But this genealogy is here to trace David's royal line from Abraham to David, from David to Christ. It's interesting.

It's very focused on that. It doesn't record the other sons of Jacob, for example, only Judah, verse 2. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.

Now, we make a lot of the 12 tribes of Israel. Matthew just skips over that here, Judah, because Judah is the one that's important. For the line, Jesus is born of the tribe of Judah. David comes from the tribe of Judah. Jesus comes from the tribe of Judah. And so Judah and his brothers, you know, what's their names? You know, those old what's the names? You know, Benjamin and Ephraim and Manasseh and so forth.

Yeah, yeah, you know about them, but what are they as far as this is concerned? Verse 3, Judah begat Perez, Perez begat Ezra and Ezra begat Ram. In other words, it goes through Judah and goes on from there. That's what's important. There's no record of the other sons of Jacob. No mention of Saul, the first king of Israel. You say, well, that's part of Israel's history. That's important.

Why did that get left out? Because that's not important for this genealogy. That's not important for the bringing of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ didn't come in the line of Saul. Jesus Christ isn't going to sit upon the throne of Saul. Jesus Christ came in the line of David.

He sits in the throne of David. So the genealogy focuses on that. But now number four, let's finally consider some notable features of this genealogy. And I start with a significant wording of verse 16. And Jacob begot Joseph.

And if the same pattern were followed that we have read throughout this entire genealogy from the beginning down to this point, we should read next. And Joseph begot Jesus. But it doesn't say that. If it did, that would be wrong.

If it did, that would be untrue. The wording is very carefully guarded. Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. You see how carefully the Holy Spirit, who is inspiring Matthew, words this so that we'll understand exactly what's going on here. This is the legal line of Jesus because he is the adopted son of Joseph. And Joseph is in the line of David. If Israel had a king at this time, I think it's pretty clear Joseph would have been the king. Can you imagine that?

This man in the carpenter shop making farming utensils and furniture. If Israel had a kingdom, he'd be the king. But they don't, and he's not. But he adopted Jesus as his legal son. But he's not the biological father of Jesus, is he? Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom is born Jesus, born of a virgin, born without paternity, without human paternity of any kind, and therefore without inheriting the sinfulness that comes down from Adam in every generation, father to son, father to son, father to son, father to son. But this one is born without that sinful nature.

He is the sinless one. He is virgin born to avoid that Adamic pollution that every other individual in the world has inherited, but not this one, because Joseph is the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus. The fuller explanation of what this means, that Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, follows in the account we looked at last Sunday. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, and there you have the account of the virgin conception and birth.

Significant wording, verse 16. And then some significant inclusions, and I don't have as much time for these as I would like. But surprisingly, to those who know anything about genealogies, there are four women in this genealogy, and that's not normal. Now in our day and time, you'd have people lobbying to have half and half. You've got to have half men, half women.

That's not the way they did it then. And they were tracing from father to son, from father to son, from father to son, the royal line, and yet there is a special detour four times to include four women. And all four of these have significant problems. Three of them are clearly Gentiles, and possibly all four. Three had serious moral failures, and the other one had her own problems, had a significant ancestral impediment. And yet they're all included in the genealogy of Christ, contrary to customary expectations, when normally women would not be listed at all. And they certainly wouldn't have been considered significant, and here they are.

They are included, and they are significant, and oh, what lessons we can learn. So let's look quickly at each of these notable four. Number one, Tamar. We read in verse three, Judah begot Peraz and Zerah. Those were twins that were born to Tamar, and it turned out Peraz was the older.

Interesting story there, but we don't have time for it. But Judah begot Peraz and Zerah by Tamar, and it goes on from there. Who was Tamar? You can read about this in Genesis 38.

It's a sordid tale. Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, the forefather of the tribe of Judah. Judah acquired what appears to be a Canaanite woman to become his wife. That was the first recorded indiscretion by Judah.

We get the impression from what we read that probably his life was full of indiscretions, but that's the first one that we see that's pretty obvious. To his wife were born three sons. And as they grew older, it became Judah's responsibility to find them wives.

So what did he do? He went to his wife's family, to his wife's community, to his wife's people, back to the people of Canaan and picked out a wife for his oldest. Tamar was her name, and she married the oldest, and God killed him because of his sinfulness. Whoops, she's a widow real quick. So, according to the custom of that day and the law of Levirate marriage, she became the wife of the second son.

And almost immediately, God killed him too, judgment for sin. Now she's been widowed twice. Now the third son isn't really old enough yet to have a wife, but the expectation is that when he's old enough, he'll be given his brother's widow to be his wife.

That was the custom of the day. And so she waits, and she's never given to him, to wife. Time goes by, and it's clear that she has been shunted to the sideline. So what did she do? Some of you know what she did. One day when Judah was in the area, she dressed herself as a prostitute, and he took the bait.

That tells you something about the character of Judah. And he went into her, and she conceived. And it turns out she had twins.

Some time went by, and the report came to Judah. Your daughter-in-law is pregnant. She's not married, and she's pregnant. He says, bring her out. We'll burn her.

So they have the public trial. And she says, I forgot this part of the story, and she says, I'm pregnant by the man to whom these things belong. She had taken Judah's staff and some things that identified him to hold until he sent payment, because those prostitutes get paid. And he didn't have the payment, so she said, well, give me those things until you send the payment. And then she disappeared so that when he sent the payment, they couldn't find her, and she kept these things, because I think she knew exactly what she was doing. And so she said, I'm pregnant by the man to whom these belong, and now Judah's uncovered.

Uh-oh, these belong to me. And interestingly, I find this one of the most fascinating statements in Scripture. He says, she has been more righteous than I. Now, I can't find a whole lot of righteousness in either of them here. But he acknowledges that he has been exceedingly sinful, because he didn't keep his promise.

He didn't keep his word. And so she gives birth to twins, and they're Judah's sons, and the first one is recorded here in the genealogy of Jesus. That's Tamar. Rahab, you know who she was, don't you? When the Jews came into the Promised Land, they first came to Jericho. This is the story of Jericho. They sent spies into Jericho. And the spies went to a prostitute by the name of Rahab and got some information from her. And in the mysterious way that only God can do, he somehow caused Rahab to want to take sides with the Jews instead of with their own people. Now, these are clearly the enemies of her people.

They've clearly come to destroy Jericho. And why would she do that? There's no explanation except the work of the Spirit of God in her heart. So she takes sides with Israel. She hides the spies and helps them out and elicits a promise from them that for this, they will spare her life and that of her family when they come to attack Jericho. And they keep their promise, and she is spared. And of course, she has no more nation to be a part of.

She has destroyed her city and her nation. And so she comes into the nation of Israel and becomes, what is it, the great, great grandmother of David? Verse 5, Salman begat Boaz by Rahab.

Well, you know who Boaz is. He's the godly man in the book of Ruth. You say, how did that happen? His mother had been a prostitute in Jericho.

Yes, but you see what the grace of God can do? He forgave her. He cleansed her. He changed her and evidently made her into a godly mother who raised a godly son by the name of Boaz. Who's the third woman? Ruth.

She shows up here. Salman begat Boaz, verse 5, by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. And Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. You know the book of Ruth, and that's a long story.

And all I point out is that Ruth came into the nation of Israel, again, through means that were not prescribed by God. Malon, or was it Kelly, and I forget which of the two were her husband, shouldn't have been marrying a gentile anyway. They married this Moabite woman. One of them did. And the Moabites had their own special problems, according to Deuteronomy 23.

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. And it goes on to explain why. And she's of that line. And the time comes when her mother-in-law, her husband's dead, her husband's brother's dead. Her husband's brother married Orpah.

Orpah has no desire to go back to go to Israel with her mother-in-law. She stays with her people. But again, for some unexplainable reason, Ruth desires to stick with her mother-in-law and go to a land where she's never been, to a people she does not know, complete strangers to her. But she does so because she has come to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And this is the people that worship Jehovah, and I need to be with them. And she goes with them and she marries Boaz. And she's in the line of David. And then finally, there's Bathsheba. Verse 5, And Jesse begot David the king, and David the king begot Solomon, with her who had been the wife of Uriah.

She's not even named so shameful, so shameful. There's a story of how she got into this line, that adultery of David with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. Uriah the, do you know what he was?

Was he a Jew? No, Uriah the Hittite, but who had come into the nation of Israel and apparently worshiped the God of Israel. He was loyal and faithful to David. And David was such a scoundrel that he killed him to try to cover his sin. And Bathsheba shows up. Her first child died as a judgment for their sin, but her second son was Solomon.

Out of all the sons of David, and he had a bunch of them, out of all the sons of David, God shows Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, to sit upon the throne. Well, I've got to wrap this up. What do we learn from all of this? Well, two things I'll emphasize in closing. Number one, the sinfulness of humanity, and number two, the grace of God. The sinfulness of humanity. You can't find any really outstanding people anywhere in this genealogy, even including the principal ones, Abraham and David. Abraham was a stinker in some ways, and David was certainly a sinner in some ways. And so many of them in this line were sinful in recorded ways.

They're all a bunch of sinful scoundrels, like me, and like you, and like all of us. Thank God there's a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Drawn from, think about that, drawn from Emmanuel's. What does Emmanuel mean?

God with us. Drawn from Emmanuel's. Does Emmanuel, God, have veins? Oh, yes. Yes, in the Incarnation. Drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Thank God.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. I got to thinking about that phrase this week in a way that I hadn't really thought about it before. I have formally, without giving it a lot of thought, thought something like this. There may I, even should I be as vile as he, though of course I'm not, self-righteous rascal that I am.

That's not what he's saying. There may I, though I am as vile as he, because I am. And so are you and every one of us. And there may I, even though I'm as vile as he, even though, like I, I like the apostle Paul and the chief of sinners, there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. The sinfulness of humanity, the grace of God, the grace of God that brought glory out of the shame of Tamar, that brought glory out of the shame of Rahab, that brought grace out of the prohibition that was upon the race, the nation from which Ruth came. The grace of God that brought glory out of the shame of Bathsheba and of so many others. The grace of God who is able to cleanse our sins and to make us new and to bring honor and glory to His Son. And that's why Jesus came and that's why we need Him and that's why we better run to Him as fast as we can and bow before His cross and lay hold of Him by faith. May God help us to do it, shall we pray. Oh Lord God, help us to take the sinner's place and to see ourselves as vile, wicked sinners so that we may receive such wondrous grace, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.