The Gracious King

If a king is to be heralded as a king, if he is to be believed to be a king, if he is to have any credibility at all, if anybody is to accept the fact that he in fact is a king, then it must start with the proof that he comes from the royal line. As they once did, but interest in all things royal is still strong, particularly with England's monarchy. Why else would there be so many books on the British royal family alone, not to mention how the media seems to follow every move the royals make?

And yet, as notable as the House of Windsor may be, it can't compare to the royal family that John MacArthur examines today on Grace to You. Stay here for a fascinating look at a kingly line you may never have considered, as John continues his study from Matthew chapter 1, called The Birth of the King. And now, John, what we're about to look at, the step-by-step account of what took place that first Christmas, familiar territory for most listeners, but would you say maybe too familiar? People think they know the whole story when really they're missing some important details.

Well, let me just give you kind of a general principle. I have spent all my ministry life teaching the Word of God. One of the most common things that I hear is, after a message, wow, I've read that passage so many times, and I never saw any of that there. And I think that's pretty true about Christmas as well.

We know what we know, we're familiar with the basic things, and sometimes we think that's all there is. That's not only true about the Christmas story, that pretty much is true about all of Scripture. It's an inexhaustible treasure. But for now, we are thinking about Christmas, and it's a great place to make this point. You think you really understand Christmas. It is much deeper and richer and more profound and more transforming and more powerful than you ever imagined. And so, we're going to do a brand new study called The Birth of the King. But I promise you, as we go verse by verse through the book of Matthew, you're going to see the Christmas story in ways you've never seen it before. The virgin birth, the wise men, who they were, what role they play, the history of Bethlehem, the role of Herod, the significance of the Christmas star, the various responses in ancient Israel to Christ's birth, responses which are familiar to us even today. This study is a great opportunity to expand your Christmas celebration this year in truth, and therefore in gratitude. We know these days are busy, but listen as often as you can to the next two weeks. It will make your Christmas the best ever.

Yes, it will. And friend, again, don't let the shopping and cooking and decorating, all that comes with the Christmas season, pull your focus away from the most important thing about the holiday, and that is the reason Christ came to earth. To help with that, join John MacArthur now in the book of Matthew as John launches his Christmas series called The Birth of the King. Take your Bible and turn with me to the wonderful gospel according to Matthew.

Let's look at chapter 1. And Matthew starts by presenting the King. The King is revealed.

And it all begins with Jesus' family tree. If a king is to be heralded as a king, if he is to be believed to be a king, if he is to have any credibility at all, if anybody is to accept the fact that he in fact is a king, then it must start with the proof that he comes from the royal line. There was a royal line in Israel and it came through David. In 2 Samuel chapter 7, God said through the prophet Nathan to David that it would be through the loins of David that the king would come who would ultimately reign in Israel and set up an eternal kingdom. That was never fulfilled in Solomon and so they waited and waited for one born of the seed of David to fulfill the prophecy. And so if Jesus is to be the king, it must be established that he has the right to reign because he descends from the genealogy of royalty. Now that is precisely what verses 1 to 17 present. Let's read them.

Look at them. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Judah and his brethren. And Judah begot Perez and Zerah of Tamar and Perez begot Hezron and Hezron begot Ram and Ram begot Amenadab and Amenadab begot Nahshon and Nahshon begot Salmon and these names will be on the quiz. Verse 5, and Salmon begot Boaz of Rahab and Boaz begot Obed of Ruth and Obed begot Jesse and Jesse begot David, the king and David.

The king begot Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah. And Solomon begot Rehoboam and Rehoboam begot Abijah and Abijah begot Asa and Asa begot Jehoshaphat and Jehoshaphat begot Joram and Joram begot Aziah and Aziah begot Jotham and Jotham begot Ahaz and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. And Hezekiah begot Manasseh and Manasseh begot Ammon and Ammon begot Josiah and Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brethren about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel and Zerubbabel begot Abiud and Abiud begot Eliakim and Eliakim begot Azor and Azor begot Zadok and Zadok begot Achim and Achim begot Elihu and Elihu begot Eliezer and Eliezer begot Mathan and Mathan begot Jacob and Jacob begot Joseph.

The husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations. And from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations. And from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. We'll stop there. I'm not going to let you go now because you haven't got any practical information yet. You say, why in the world do we have all of this?

Well, let me tell you why. First of all, the Jews were tenacious about their pedigrees. And if anybody was going to be presented to them as a king, it was absolutely essential that he have the pedigree to prove it. Always, always was this important to the Jews.

For example, after the conquest of Canaan, you remember when they went into the land of Canaan and took the land flowing with milk and honey as God had promised them when they came out of Egypt? After the conquering of the land of Canaan, it was essential to determine what your tribe was and what your heritage was so that you knew where you were to live because the line of all the land was divided into tribes. And according to Numbers chapter 26 and chapter 35, you had to know your tribe, you had to know your family, and you had to know your father's house so that you could identify yourself in the right location in the land. So pedigree was very important, tribal identification essential. Under certain circumstances, according to the book of Ruth chapters 3 and 4, we won't take time to look at it all, but according to Ruth chapters 3 and 4, under certain circumstances, transfer of property required accurate knowledge of the family tree. God wanted to keep tribal land within the tribe and so there had to be pedigree in order to make some business transactions with land. Another interesting thing is indicated to us in Ezra 2.

I think it's verse...I think it's way at the end of Ezra 2. You can find it for yourself, but it tells us at the end of Ezra...let's see if I can spot the verse... Verse 62, these sought their registration among those who were reckoned by genealogy. And what it means is that when after the Babylonian captivity, the people started coming back to Israel, you remember at the end of the 70 years they started flowing back, many of them were claiming to be priests and they were claiming to be the tribe of Levi. And you know that God was very, very serious about who was a priest.

You know that. Anybody who tried to play the role of a priest and wasn't was in great, great danger. And so when these people came back and tried to claim the right to the priesthood, they had to be proven on the basis, it says in Ezra 2.62, of their genealogy. And if it wasn't found, they were put from the priesthood. So they needed to know their pedigree for the exchange of land for their tribal location and for their priestly identification when they returned from captivity. And in fact, it's most interesting to remember, and I'm sure you do remember this, that even when the New Testament begins, what is it that Joseph and Mary are doing? They're going down to be registered according to their own ancestry in their own place because they were still identifying people in that manner. And in Luke chapter 2 and the first four verses, it tells us simply that.

I'll read it to you very quickly. And it came to pass in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. And the registration was first made when Carinius was governor of Syria.

And everybody went to be registered into his own city. And Joseph also went from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth to Judea, which is the city of David because he was of the house and...what? And lineage of David. You see, those identifications were still in existence at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. By the way, the writings of Josephus, the ancient historian, support the use of ancestral files as a part of Jewish culture around the time of Jesus Christ.

So this was a very common thing. The Jews really were hep on everybody having their pedigree and knowing exactly to whom they belong. Now in the New Testament you have Paul saying something like this, Romans 11 and 1. I say then, hath God cast away His people?

God forbid. And then Paul says this, For I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of...what?...Benjamin. You see, he was still laying out his pedigree. So the Jewish people is very important. And this is why, you see, there are at least 50 genealogies in the Old Testament.

Because there were reasons for that. Not only the royal line, the priestly line, but in terms of property transfer and so forth. Now all of this has changed today. Jews today don't know this. They have absolutely...now watch this... They have absolutely no record of their tribal ancestry today.

None. They can't trace it at all. It has completely vanished. I mean it has totally vanished. No Jew existent in the world today could ever prove himself to be a son of David.

Now I want you to know something. If anybody comes along claiming to be the Messiah, they'll never be able to prove it. And there are some Orthodox Jews who still believe the Messiah is going to come. But the problem is there will never be any lineal way to prove that.

Which goes to say this. Jesus Christ is the last verifiable claimant to David's throne. If He is not the Messiah, nobody else can ever lay believable claim to it.

That's it. Now in this genealogy in Matthew, we're looking at it in a broad sense. We're not going to go through and tell you the story of every name so you can relax. But in this genealogy we have what we call a descending record leading through Joseph to Jesus. A descending record. It comes right on down from David and Abraham descending down through Joseph to Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus' genealogy is also recorded in the third chapter of Luke.

You don't need to turn to it. I'll just allude to it. But the genealogy in Luke is the reverse. It is an ascending genealogy. It starts with Jesus and goes back through Mary. So here you have a genealogy coming down through Joseph and there you have a genealogy going back through Mary. One begins with Jesus, the other ends with Jesus.

It just goes both ways and it all comes out the same in the end. It's as if the Spirit of God says any way you cut it, folks, this is the one. Now there are some other distinctions between this one and the Luke genealogy. Matthew is showing the legal...now watch this.

You're going to have to get this. Matthew is showing the legal descent of Jesus as the King of Israel. Luke is showing the lineal descent. In other words, Matthew shows us the royal line whereas Luke shows us the blood line. You say, what's the difference?

The difference is this. The royal line...now watch. The royal line always was passed through which parent? The Father. Always came through the Father. But Jesus had no human father. So in order to have the blood line to reign, he had to be a descendant of David through his mother as well.

Do you understand that? And so the line of Mary is also the line of David. So through Mary comes the line of David and through Joseph comes the line of David. Through Mary he has the blood of David and through Joseph he has the right to reign that belonged to David. Even though Joseph was not his father in terms of actuality, he was his legal father.

Now stay with me. We'll cover it another way. Matthew follows the royal line through David and Solomon, David's son. Matthew follows it all the way down. He gets to David and then the royal line went through Solomon. But David had another son.

He had several. But this other one was Nathan and Mary's line came through Nathan. So what you have is one line coming down through David and then it goes this way through Solomon and this way through Nathan. Through Nathan you come to Mary and through Solomon you come to Joseph, both of them of the seed of David, both of them passing on royal blood. So linearly bloodline he is of David, legally as heir to the throne he is of David, both by his mother and his father. He is the actual seed of David through Mary. He is the legal heir of David through Joseph. Look at verse 16. And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Isn't that interesting? What doesn't it say? The father of Jesus. Joseph was not the father of Jesus in a human way. He was the husband of Mary. The Bible never calls Joseph the father of Jesus.

By the way, look at verse 16 again. Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, of whom in the Greek is in the feminine gender. He was born not of Joseph. He was born of Mary. He was Joseph's child legally because if you were adopted into a family, you were the legal child with all the rights and privileges. He was Joseph's child legally. He was Mary's child linearly and by blood. And so every way possible, Jesus Christ had the right to rule. The father was the one who granted the royal line. The mother was the one who granted the royal blood to Jesus. It's interesting that in Luke, in his genealogy, verse 23 of chapter 3, it says, Jesus Himself began to be about 30 years of age, being the son of Joseph, the son of Haile, and so forth. He was considered by everybody.

Now watch this. He was considered by everybody. Though he was not the real son of Joseph, he was not the physical son of Joseph, he was considered by everybody to be the son of Joseph. Now most people thought, at least at the time of his birth, that he was the son of some illicit affair. But they called him the son of Joseph because Joseph was constituted his legal father. There was never really any question about that at all. In fact, through his life, he was known as the son of Joseph.

There was never any argument because they accepted what amounts to adoption in the legal sense with all the rights and privileges. In Luke 4.22, they bore witness and they said, Is not this Joseph's son? So they recognized that.

So, perfect...now listen, perfect fulfillment, perfect fulfillment. Look at verse 11. And Josiah...I want to just pull out one thought here.

It's very fascinating. And Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brethren about the time of Babylonian captivity, about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, watch this, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. Now I want you to know something very interesting. We read this name Jeconiah. Josiah begot Jeconiah and Jeconiah begot so-and-so.

Now there's something very interesting. Remember whose line is this in Matthew? Joseph's.

Joseph's. Okay? Now I want you to notice something. Jeremiah 22.30. Just listen.

Write it down. Jeremiah 22.30. Now listen to what it says. "'Thus saith the Lord, write this man down as childless.'" And the man to whom it refers is Jeconiah, the same man. "'A man who shall not succeed in his days, none of his offspring shall sit on the throne of David.'"

Did you get that? "'None of Jeconiah's offspring will ever sit on the throne of David.'" That was the curse on Jeconiah of Jeremiah 22.30. Now listen to me. If Jesus had been the real son of Joseph, he never could have sat on the throne of David.

Did you get that? He would be under the curse. And yet, he had to be the legal son of Joseph to have the right. So God had to devise a plan by which he would be the legal heir to the throne, but that he would not be in the line of David descending through Jeconiah. And so God did it by the virgin birth, bypassing the actual bloodline of Jeconiah and yet carrying the royal right to reign and descending the blood through the side of Mary.

It's a fantastic thing, isn't it? How God guarded every single detail and the virgin birth solved it. So you see, the reason for the genealogy is to present the fact that this is the one who has the right to reign. Listen, it may take me a long time to unscramble the significance of this, but all the Jewish people had to do was read it and they got the message. They knew their Old Testament. They knew the curse on Jeconiah. They knew this line. They knew their pedigrees. And Matthew is establishing that he has the right to be king.

Let's go back to verse 1 for a moment. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The book, biblos, it can mean a book or it could mean a list of names.

Here it means a list of names, a record. The book of the ginesias, Genesis, beginnings. The book of beginnings about Jesus Christ. This is the story of how Jesus Christ came to be.

This is the record of His origin, the record of His ancestry. Jesus Christas. Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament, Yeshua or Jehoshua, which simply means Jehovah saves.

That was to be His name. Matthew 1 21, it says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He will what? Save His people from their sins. Yeshua, Jehovah saves.

And the shortened form emphasizes the verbal action. And then there's Christas, which means the anointed. And He was anointed as a prophet, He was anointed as a priest, and He was also anointed as what? As a king. And so here you have the book about the beginnings of the one who will save, who was anointed as prophet, priest, and king.

Oh, it was so important to know this. Our dear Lord Jesus, pure and spotless, without sin, was mocked, maligned, slandered, and always, always the innuendos and the remarks about His origin. In the 13th of Matthew and the 54th, and when He was come into His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished. And they said, From where hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Matthew 13 and 54, where did He get this ability? Is not this the carpenter's son?

Is not His mother called Mary and His brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? From where then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in Him.

He doesn't have any right to this kind of stuff. Who's He? He's come out of a lowly bunch up in Nazareth. In the 7th chapter of John, again the kind of mockery about His origin, John 7, 27, Jesus comes down to the Feast of the Tabernacles and the Jews get upset at Him because of what He says. And in verse 27, Nevertheless, we know this man from where he is, but when Christ comes, no man knows from where He is. Listen, we know this Jesus. I mean, this is not the Christ. We know where He came from. He's a hayseed from Nazareth, up the hill, you know. I mean, you couldn't believe that the Messiah would come from any place other than Jerusalem.

Such a thought is intolerable. He's a nobody from nowhere. And in verse 40, Many of the people therefore when they heard this saying said of a truth, This is the prophet. This is the prophet prophesied by Moses back in the Pentateuch. This is the prophet. Another said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?

Are you kidding? In the 8th chapter in the 41st verse, You do the deeds of your Father, He says to the Pharisees, Jewish leaders. You do the deeds of your Father. Then said they to Him, We are not born of fornication.

What do you think they meant by that? That's slander. We're not born of fornication. We have one Father, even God. Verse 48, Then answered the Jews and said to Him, Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon.

You're a demon possessed result of fornication that came from a nowhere town and a nobody family. Don't lay us with any of your messianic credentials. So Matthew, you see, looks back on all this and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he writes down the book of the beginnings of Jesus Christ.

So there never needs to be a question about where he came from. That's John MacArthur looking at God's sovereign plan for salvation woven into the Christmas story. John calls the Christmas series that he began today the birth of the king. It's an in-depth look at Matthew chapter 1, and along with teaching each day on Grace To You, John serves as pastor of Grace Community Church, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and friend, as Christmas quickly approaches, let me remind you that our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible, is currently available at 25% off the normal price. If you're wondering what to get a loved one this year, the MacArthur Study Bible makes a great choice, with 25,000 footnotes that give you the original language, history, and cultural background of Scripture.

It makes virtually every passage clear. To order yours, available in several English and non-English translations, get in touch with us today. You can call us toll-free at 800-55-GRACE.

To ensure delivery in time for Christmas, you'll need to call between 730 and 4 o'clock Pacific time, Monday through Friday, and our staff will help you pick the best shipping option for timely delivery. Our number again, 800-55-GRACE. Or if you order online, I recommend using the second day shipping option, our web address, gty.org. And if you were encouraged by today's lesson, if our resources have helped you prepare for teaching in your church or your small group, or if you've come to Christ after hearing one of our broadcasts, we would love to hear your story. Let us know the details when you write to us at letters at gty.org. That's our email address, again, letters at gty.org. Or you can drop a note in the mail to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making Grace to You part of your day, and come back tomorrow when John shows you the reasons you have to celebrate the birth of Christ every day of the year. Don't miss our next 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.