Matthew, Part 1 Lesson 1
THE KING AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN David Arthur
Exploring the “Theology” in Christ’s Genealogy
400 years of silence. The people of God in Matthew 1 must have been asking, “Where is God? Why haven't You spoken? Why haven't You sent Your prophets to us? Where are You?”
I wonder if we're asking the same questions in our own life today. Where is God? Perhaps as you’ve been in this study, you're in a valley. You're in a dry spell wanting to hear from God. So how does God answer this question, “Where are You? Why are You silent?”
How does God open up the New Testament, the book of Matthew? He opens it up with these Greek words: “Biblos”…. it's the “Bible”, or the “book”… of beginnings. The New American Standard translates it the “record of genealogy”. And then what follows that? A list of names. Interesting way to answer. Interesting way to break the silence. Here I am. I have now decided to break the silence after 400 years of silence. “Prophets aren’t coming. Here are My first words to you. So-and-so begot so-and-so.” Doesn't it confuse you?
What is it with genealogy? Why does He open up with this book of genesis? This book of origin. Why start here? Recently I had to go through that horrible exercise of writing my last will and testament. I had written one years and years ago, but now I have a child who is now an adult so I had to kind of rework some things and move some things around. One of my daughters, my youngest one, walked into my office, and she said, “Hey Dad, what are you doing?” I said, “Well, this is going to freak you out a little bit, but I'm working on my last will and testament.” “Well, what's a –“ “You know, if I die this is what you get.”
Her eyes perked up. It was interesting. She started to scan my book shelves and scan my room, and she started looking around, and there on a high bookshelf is a signed baseball in a little trophy case. She looked at that baseball and she said, “Who gets that? Could you put me in there for that?”
A last will and testament is something you say you are going to give to those who follow you. And who normally receives your inheritance? Your children, right? Those who follow you. Well, in a very similar way, the genealogy is one who tells us who gets the inheritance. Who is going to receive it?
Let me make a couple of comments just about genealogy to set us up. First, I want you to note about a genealogy is that it is very, very important in the Bible. Genesis has them. Chronicles has them. So it is something that we might as westerners or modern readers might think is boring. Perhaps it's one of those things. You can actually admit it that you are trying to read through the Bible. You ever try this, read through the Bible in a year, right? January 1, you are going to do it. Genesis is going well. A couple of sticky points in there. Leviticus, oh, that was rough. Right? But then you get to the book of Numbers. I wonder if we could take some statistics. How many people stop reading the Bible through somewhere in Numbers? And if they get through there, of course, they get into places like Chronicles where it is so-and-so and this name and that name. I can't pronounce them or understand them. Why are these names here?
Well, a genealogy tells us who is to receive the inheritance. Well, perhaps you studied the book of Joshua with us. You get into Joshua, and Joshua is a great book. It is full of battle scenes. It is full of great stories. But you get to chapter 14 or somewhere around 12, 13, 14, and it gets kind of boring. Doesn't it? It says well this land from right here to right here, this land or this mountain or this river, it belongs to the tribe of so-and-so. And the tribe of so-and-so gets this piece from here to here, and it's chapter after chapter after chapter. We might think this is boring stuff, but if you are the tribe of Reuben, it's not boring stuff. Right? You are the tribe of Dan. you are the tribe of Manasseh. You're finding out these are the promises that were made way back to Abraham are now coming to fruition. This is it. This is my inheritance. So genealogies let us know who owns what. It tells us what our inheritances are.
It also tells us our identity. In the Bible whenever they describe or introduce you to someone, they often tell you who his father is. Sometimes, if the father is not so good, they'll tell you who the grandfather was. Sometimes, if the grandfather wasn't so good to you, the great grandfather. We read this in Kings and Chronicles. Often times, it says “his father, David”. We know he wasn't his direct father. He was a couple lines up, but they're trying to associate with someone good in the family. And a genealogy was important to know who you were. It was part of your identity. It described who you were in this world, but also, and I just found this out the other day, also in Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible, which is different from the Bible that we have, different order. In the Hebrew Bible -- the way they lay it out -- the Bible ends. The Old Testament in their Bible ends with Chronicles. You remember how first Chronicles starts off? It is with a genealogy. So-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so, but why it is just a matter of records? A who's who? No, no, it's describing who gets the throne. The genealogy, the purpose of the genealogy in Chronicles tells us that when you come out of exile, the people of God had been sent into exile because of their disobedience, because of their rebellion to God. But it says when you are returned, when you come back into the land, here is the list you need to bring with you. It is the Chronicles, and it tells you who will sit on the throne. Would you say that is an important thing to the people of Israel? Yes, of course.
So genealogies, they tell us our inheritance, our identity, they tell us who will sit on the throne. I want to, though, make the case this morning that genealogy is a close cousin of theology. Genealogy is a close cousin, a kissing cousin, of theology.
Let's go back to the beginning of the Bible, let's go back to Genesis. Don't panic. I won't take you too far, but let's go back to Genesis, chapter three. Okay, in Genesis, chapter three, we have the low of the lowest. Right? This was where man was walking in perfect righteousness in the garden with God. Everything was absolutely perfect and sinless. But Adam and Eve decided to eat from the tree that was forbidden, and thus mankind fell. The rest of the Bible from Genesis three is how God is going to fix that problem. It's return to Eden. So, if you think about Genesis, chapters one and two, you can draw a tree right here, and this would be Eden. The rest of the Bible is to somehow get us back to Eden. I say that because when we get to the end of the Bible, we see the tree again. The tree is here in the beginning, and the tree is at the end of Revelation. So in a sense, the Bible is a journey back to Eden. So, I want to show you Genesis, chapter three, and I want to specifically take you to the curse that God gives to the serpent. Here God is laying out the curses because of what they have done, and he speaks to the serpent in verse 14. Hear the Word of God:
The LORD God said to the serpent "Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go and dust you will eat all the days of your life.
Okay for those of us who hate snakes. We kind of like this one. Good for you. Eat some dust. But look at verse 15. Speaking still to the serpent which we know to be the devil, he says:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman--
I'm going to put trouble. I'm going to put strife. I'm going to put battle. I'm going to put danger in between you and the woman. There's going to be conflict. And look how he describes it:
And between your seed and her seed--
Who’s seed? The serpent’s seed and her seed. Who is she? The woman, or Eve. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. In other words, those who will follow in your line will be against those who follow in her line. And... He--
And if you’ve got a New American Standard it is capitalized because it is going to tell us -- it's going to let us know who this is.
He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel."
Okay. What do we have here? In Genesis 3:15 we have this term I picked up a long time ago. We have “Seed Theology”. That's a sign for theology, a circle with a line through it. “Seed Theology”. Now, what do I mean by “Seed Theology”? Well, we have in Genesis 3:15, it is described that Satan, here, I will draw a serpent. That's a pretty bad serpent. A serpent and the woman, right? Between your seed, the serpent's seed, and the woman's seed, there will be conflict. There will be enmity. This is very interesting. You can track your way through the Bible, and you can see this going on. For example, who are the first two kids in the Bible? Cain and Abel. What happens to Cain and Abel? Well, they are making an offering, and Cain doesn't like the way this is going down. So what does he do to his brother Abel? He kills him. Now, this is interesting. Cain would be the seed here who is the first murderer, and Abel would fit into this column. So the first round, let's call it a battle. The first round in this battle it happens that Cain does what to Abel? He kills him. Abel is out. Who is winning in the “Seed Theology”? Who thinks they are winning in the “Seed Theology”? Satan thinks he is winning. Abel's name by the way, meant “mere breath”. Kind of a vapor. But who follows? It says in Genesis, chapter five who follows. Who is the next son? Right exactly good. So Cain kills Abel, but Eve has another son, and his name is Seth, which can be translated as “the appointed one” in the Hebrew. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? There's this battle going on between the seed of Satan and the seed of Eve. It seems like the very first, right out of the gate Satan takes an advantage. This goes on throughout Scripture. For example, we have Jacob and Esau. Remember Jacob and Esau? Esau, what column would you put Esau? You'd put him over here under the bad column. Why? What was Esau about? Esau was about Esau. Right? Esau was about taking care of himself. Jacob, although he's not a great guy sometimes in the story, but we'll put Jacob over here. Now what happens between Esau and Jacob? They come out of the womb doing what? Right. They are fighting from day zero. There is this battle going on. We see this all throughout Scripture. In fact if you were to take it into a nation stand point, Esau is the father of the Edomites. Now who was Jacob the father of? Isaac. Right? He was the one -- his name actually is “Israel”. So, we have Esau follows the Edomites. Jacob follows the Israelites. Let me ask you something. Do you know anything about the relationship between them? It's still that strife. Isn't that interesting? We see throughout the Bible this seed theology. This idea of bad seed versus good seed. The woman is barren. You know the woman is -- she can't have children. And so there is the sense of the bad seed is winning. The line has stopped, but then Sarah becomes pregnant as an old woman. The womb is opened supernaturally, and the promised one, Isaac, comes. It's just over and over. You can see it all throughout the Old Testament. This idea of “Seed Theology”. So, there is a sense in which when we think about the Bible, we get down all the way to the very end. I love this. I don't want to steal your thunder for you in Matthew, but we get down to Satan versus who? Right, Jesus. What happens to Jesus? You've already noted when he was a baby, what happened? Where did his parents have to go? They had to flee. They had to run. Why? Because the “bad seed” was after them. Herod wanted to kill baby Jesus. So, all male children two years and younger were slaughtered. There is this -- he is pursuing. Don't you know when we get to the cross, what happens to Jesus? He's pinned to the tree. He's tried as a criminal. In great shame, he is nailed to the cross of cavalry. Can't you see Satan? Yes, yes, I did it. I finally beat the seed. Crush my head? He will NOT. Right?
A couple days later, here comes our champion. Right? Isn’t it great? You see this all the way through. So genealogy is that “Seed Theology”. So, genealogy is something you need to pay attention to.
Let's go to Matthew and let's start by looking at the end of Matthew. Matthew 28. How does this gospel end? Matthew chapter 28 and let's pick up on verse 16:
16But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.
Now He is being crucified. He has resurrected. He has spent time with them. So verse 17 it says:
17When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; --
I can imagine. We saw you on the cross. We saw you were dead. And now we see you in living color. You are alive!!!!
--but some were doubtful. 8And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
So, we get to the end of this gospel, and what do we find out? Is the story over? Doesn't it feel like it is actually beginning? We have Jesus. He's now in his resurrected form. He's about to ascend to heaven. We find out later in Acts he's about to ascend to heaven, and he has a message for us. A message for those who follow him, his disciples. He says I want you to be about My business. I want you to make disciples. That's the main verb there, and it is added to by the participles of going, in other words in your lifestyle. Going, baptizing them, and teaching them to observe. So, there's a sense at the very end of Matthew. It's like the story is just beginning. Now, let's go to the beginning of Matthew. Go with me to chapter one, and let's look at verse 21. Oh, I love it that you've done your homework and you've studied. I can't tell you, as a teacher, it is such a joy to teach people who are diligent and hungry for the Word. All right. Let's look at verse 21. Here we have Joseph being spoken to, and it says the Lord appeared to him in a dream and it says this in verse 21 speaking of his wife, his virgin wife: