Why Is The Lineage of Jesus So Important?

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment— we are beginning with the gospels.We have gone through, for many, many, many weeks the Book of Acts, and now we’re turning to Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, and we’re going to pick right up with Matthew chapter l, verse 1.

Now Dave, normally I would ask you to just make a comment whenever you feel led to do that as I’m reading through these, but this is the genealogy, these are the begets.So, here’s what you can do for my sake, if I make a wrong pronunciation, jump in and correct my pronunciation.Sometimes that can be the biggest struggle in going through the genealogies.

Dave:

I’m sure my pronunciation would be no better than yours, Tom.

Tom:

So we want you folks to know, who are following along with us, and we hope you do, we hope you, as we have the Scriptures, that you have your Bible open, not if you’re driving your car, obviously, but if you’re athome listening to the program, it would be great for you to follow along with us.So this is Matthew chapter 1, beginning with verse 1:“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Pharez and Zerah of Tamar; and Pharaz begat Hezron; and Hezron begat Ram; And Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon and Nahshon begat Salmon; And Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah; And Solomon begat Rehoboam; and Rehoboam begat Abijah; and Abijah begat Asa; And Asa begat Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begat Jehoram; and Jehoram begat Uzziah; And Uzziah begat Jotham; and Jotham begat Ahaz; and Ahaz begat Hezekiah; And Hezekiah begat Manasseh; and Manasseh begat Amon; and Amon begat Josiah; And Josiah begat Jechoniah and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon;And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechoniah begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel; And Zerubbabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; And Azor begatSadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.Now Dave, it’s easier for me when I read those not out loud, okay.

Dave:

Yeah, I’m sure.

Tom:

Here’s my question, why the genealogies? What’s the value of this in Scripture do you believe?

Dave:

Well, Tom, you’ve probably heard me say it a few times.Jesus doesn’t step off of UFO and say voila! Here I am, I’m the Messiah!He comes with a pedigree.He comes with a history.He comes with a genealogy, very, very important.Now, this is amazing, Matthew the writer has all of this at hand!Do each one of these—it’s all in the right order— now scholars today can search the ancient records, and they are not going to improve on this.So, number one: it is an indication of the accuracy of the Bible.The Bible pays attention to details.You get something similar in Luke chapter 3.Luke says it was in the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, and so forth.Now that sounds like the begats and the begottens—you’ve got all the details—but here you have technical names of Caesar, governor, tetrarch, and so forth.You’ve got the date and you’ve got the place where they had this office.The date is in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar.Now they used to say that Tiberius Caesar began ruling in 14 AD.So, if you add 15 years to 14, that brings you to 29 AD, and that’s when it says, verse 23:And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, in other words, 29 going on 30.So that’s where they got the calendar from.But that’s not right, because we know that the Scripture tells us, Matthew, in the days of Herod the king that the wise men came from the East, and that’s when Jesus was born, in the days of Herod the king.But wait a minute!Herod died in 4 BC, so now we’ve got a problem.You can’t say Jesus was born in 0 and that’s where the calendar begins.No, that’s a mistake.Anyway, Tom, it takes a little more time than we have at the moment, but the Bible is accurate and when you check it out, our calendar is off by about 5 years.Somehow the Pope didn’t know that, the Catholic Church didn’t know it because they had a big celebration in the year 2000, for what they called the 2000^th birthday of Jesus.

Tom:

Well, again Dave, this is where tradition fits in.

Dave:

Right, but anyway, Tom, I did a whole study on this and anyone who wants it can call The Berean Call and I’m sure we will send them a free copy.*But why is this here, why is what I just read from Luke here?To show that this was not written centuries—you know, you’ve got the critics, the Jesus seminar so-called scholars—oh well, the New Testament was written centuries later.You couldn’t have all these details, there was no library you could go to and find out that Tiberius succeeded Augustus, or you could find out that Philip was the tetrarch of Ituraea, and so forth and so on.You couldn’t find that out, but the historians can check it out now as we dig up archeological evidence.So I think part of it is to show that the Bible is true, it’s accurate, it gives you some detailsnow and then, also to show that Jesus was not some mysterious spirit being who came to this earth, he is a real man.He is literally a man but he is God, he the God-man, God and man in one person.It is very important that we understand that.He comes with genealogy and it was in fulfillment of promises to David that he would not cease to have someone to rule on is throne and that the Messiah would be descended from David.It establishes his legal right to the throne.But that’s a little bit mysterious too, because this is through Joseph the father, and he’s not the son of Joseph, but the legal line passed through the father.But when you get to Luke it’s now through Joseph’s father-in-law, it’s through Mary.So, on both sides Jesus was descended from King David.His mother and His father, who was not really His father, but you could say the one through which His legal title came.