Long Promised and Firmly Held

Text: Matthew 1:1–17 ESV

INTRODUCTION (Genesis to Matthew)

This morning marks the first Sunday of Advent. For those of you who, like me, didn’t grow up celebrating Advent, Advent is a season of waiting and preparation for the “arrival” (that is the meaning of advent) of Jesus Christ. It is usually celebrated the four Sundays prior to Christmas. It is a season where we purposefully look at who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus as a way to ready our hearts for Christmas. 

Christmas is worth that sort of preparation—it is a moment in time that is like a rock thrown in a pond—the ripples go all the way back to the beginning, and they extend all the way to the end of the story. The incarnation of God—Jesus coming to earth as a baby, born of a virgin—both changes everything and fulfills many of God’s promises from the very beginning.

This Advent we are turning to Matthew, which is a great pairing with our current series of Genesis. In his own ways, Matthew is trying to demonstrate to us how the birth of Jesus is both a new beginning and a beginning that reaches all the way back to Genesis. In fact, the first two words of Matthew 1:1 are “biblos geneseos.” We translate this as “the book of genealogy” but you can hear the word you are familiar with—the Greek word genesis. It is the word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament in multiple places and especially in the book of Genesis, including the genealogies used there in places like Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 5:1. It appears again in Matthew 1:18 when he talks about the “birth” of Jesus. Matthew wants you to be thinking about the beginning of our Bible—Genesis—when you are thinking about this new beginning here in Matthew. It is sweetly provident that we are turning here right after looking at Genesis chapters 1–3 together. 

Matthew is, in fact, a master at allusions—imagery. He intends for us to see many connections not only within the book of Genesis, but with much of what God has promised and done for his people throughout time and as recorded in Scripture. That is much of what we will see in our passage this morning. 

WROUGHT IN WISDOM AND WONDER

For Advent, we are going to be looking at the first two chapters in Matthew, which shows us four distinct accounts that Matthew connects with the birth of Jesus. In looking at these four accounts, we chose to title this series “Christmas: Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder”. 

Wrought

Wrought. That is not a word we use very often. The more common word used today is work. We work and produce an outcome, which is a very productive and American way to look at the world. Work doesn’t tell us anything about the process—it could have been fast or slow—but that doesn’t usually worry us because the process is often considered less important than the results. Many of us worry about the results the most, not the process. I’m sure you can see it in how we all ride a bike. Do you often mount your bike for the sake of enjoying the breeze in your face, the sweet smells of fall, the joy of feeling your muscles move and knowing you are alive? Or do you get on it with a destination in mind, a goal of certain calories burned, pleasing your child who wants to ride their bike, or cardiovascular activity accomplished? I think most adults fall into that last category when it comes to riding a bike.  

We often think of Christmas the same way—we think of it as only this one moment in time, a night, in a manger, with angels proclaiming the glory of God to shepherds. It isn’t less than that, but it is much, much more than that. In Christmas we are meant to see both the results of what God has been working, but also the process.

Wrought speaks to a process. It is a word that we still use today when we talk about metal work or other objects that take time and skill to produce. It is what made us think to use a snowflake in our image. Snowflakes are not made immediately. They are a result of a long process of water moving up and down in the air at the right temperature such that water molecules will freeze and collect in a lattice structure, creating beautiful miniature works of art. Wrought made me think of people like Maddy (in our church body) who does sculptures—hours and hours of work go into making a sculpture that we all get to simply see and appreciate in a moment.

In the first two chapters of Matthew’s gospel account, he is demonstrating to us again and again how much work God has put into this night, this moment, and he wants us to treasure that process as much as we treasure the result. Matthew wants us to see that Christmas is not a one-time event, but a moment set before the beginning of time in God’s own mind. It was not plan B, but plan A in his wonderful creation and in the ways he wanted to astound you and me and all of his peoples with his glory, grace, and mercy. We should walk away from this Advent season seeing that God has truly wrought Christmas in amazing ways!

Wisdom

Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder. God is definitely not working this all out as he goes along. There is wisdom, which he knew from the foundations of the earth, that is being revealed here in his plan in Jesus Christ. Romans 11:33 says:     

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33 ESV)

But this wisdom, while being unsearchable, has been revealed to us. Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 1:30:

“And because of him [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.””(1 Corinthians 1:30–31 ESV)

That is one of the great joys in looking at God’s plan unfolding in the Christmas story. We will always see more of his wisdom, and in doing so, more of God himself, when we look at what he has done. 

Wonder

Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder. Lastly, Matthew is trying to elicit an emotion from me and you. We are going to see each Sunday of Advent that God has definitely wrought this great moment in wisdom, and that should make us wonder! It should make us marvel! We should find God incredibly amazing for his steadfast love for me and you, shown to us through a baby born in a manger. 

Christmas: Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder. We are going to see those pieces again and again. The ways God has wrought this mighty work, the wisdom he has used to put his plan together and to reveal himself to us, and the wonder we should have when we see his wisdom in Jesus Christ.

Application

Even though we are just in the introduction of our Advent series, that brings me to our first application point today. I pray that throughout this Advent you ask yourself the question, “Do I wonder—marvel—at what God has done in Jesus Christ?” It is such a familiar part of the story that we can forget how unique and amazing it is. It gets mixed in with our feelings about family gatherings, presents, and time off work. But this Christmas, do you truly wonder and realize what God has done for you in Jesus Christ? Have you thought about the extent of what God is doing in the Christmas story and how much it demonstrates his wisdom and work wrought for us over generations of people?

If you have never thought about this before, if you haven’t yet trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, I pray you hear and see this morning and over the next several Sundays a God who has so wisely laid out a plan for you that you might come back into relationship with him through this baby born on Christmas, the very son of God, Jesus Christ. 

LONG PROMISED AND FIRMLY HELD

This morning’s passage is a genealogical record. If you were honest, you would likely say what one of my kids said when we looked at this passage, “I skim right over these.” I can understand that. In the Old Testament, most of the genealogical records are meant to ask us the same question again and again, “Has the promised seed of the woman come?” That is why they all record the men…each generation of so and so begat so and so is meant to remind us that each man passed over was not the promised Messiah. Each time the story slows down, and we get a new detailed story, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, we are meant to wonder if this one will fulfill the promises and be the Messiah. But alas, they all sin and fall short in some way or another, and we move on. 

For Matthew’s audience, this type of record was normal to hear as proof of the person’s identity you were talking about, and it was verifiable. The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived during Jesus’s lifetime (and wrote just after his death), mentions how Jerusalem still housed the genealogical records for all Jews going back through all of Israel’s history. They are lost now, so no current-day Jewish person could tell you if they were descended from the tribe of Judah, but that was not hard back when Matthew was writing. 

As we look at this genealogy this morning, I pray you see a specific aspect of how God wrought Christmas. If our series title is Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder, I pray you see in this passage this morning God wrought Christmas in Wisdom and Wonder by making Christmas—making Jesus—long promised and firmly held.Long promised and firmly held. God was steadfast! We are going to see how this passage points us to this reality, God’s steadfastness in promising this particular outcome again and again and making sure it came to pass through many difficulties and odd twists. 

The Old Testament has a phrase for this kind of steadfastness—the Hebrew word hesed. We can’t translate it with one word so we use the phrase “steadfast love.” That is exactly the God we see here this morning. His love is steadfast for us and revealed through this genealogy. 

As we look at this genealogy we will look at it several different ways in order to examine the different aspects of God’s steadfastness, how he has long promised this outcome and how he has firmly held it. We will look at the passage through these six lenses:

Long Promised and Firmly Held

• As A King

• Through Sin

• Through Unexpected Means

• Through Gentile Inclusion

• Through the Unknown

• As A High Priest

A KING

Luke writes a similar genealogy in his gospel, but it has different names. Scholars say that Luke is trying to demonstrate Jesus’s Jewishness by tracing his lineage all the way back to Adam. That is why Luke starts at Jesus and goes backward. Matthew has a different goal. His genealogy appears to be ordered to prove that Jesus was in the right lineage to inherit the throne of David. This was a kingly lineage. 

We see that right from the first sentence: 

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1 ESV)

Jesus Christ. The word Christ, to the surprise of many children, is not Jesus’s last name. It is a title, the equivalent of the Old Testament word Messiah. It is speaking of Jesus’s role as the chosen one of God who would come to save his people. By the time Matthew is writing it has become common to simply call him Jesus Christ, not Jesus the Christ (though Matthew does it both ways). That is who he is, Jesus the Messiah! Jesus Messiah.

This idea of Messiah was very closely linked to the phrase “son of David,” especially for Jewish listeners. It is said there are more than 127 prophecies that speak of a personal Messiah in Scripture.[1] One place this comes from is God’s promise about the kingdom of David, like in 2 Samuel 7:12:

“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12–13 ESV)

The Messiah became synonymous with this forever King. Matthew knows this, and it is one of his major themes throughout his gospel. In fact, he uses the phrase “son of David” nine other times throughout his gospel [2]. When he uses it, he is wanting us to think of passages like Isaiah 9:6–7 that say:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” (Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV)

A wonderful prince, whose government is forever, sitting on the throne of David. Or of passages like Isaiah 11:1–5:

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.” (Isaiah 11:1–5 ESV)

After having been in exile and now living without a king over their people, Israel definitely felt like it was a stump of a once great tree. They longed for this new branch to come that would govern rightly and care for his people.  

Matthew brings this imagery to the front of his gospel again and again whenever he says, “son of David”, or when later in Matthew 21:9 he gives us the triumphal entry of Jesus—a very kingly moment in his life. 

The phrase “son of Abraham” also came with Messianic and Kingly hopes. It was through Abraham that God’s covenant was first made with the people of Israel (Genesis 12:13; 17:7; 22:18), and we know as Christians that this covenant is very important to our salvation today as well, for many reasons. This is also why Matthew goes back to Abraham in his genealogy, so that he can show Judah—“Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah.” Judah, the tribe from whom the King would come (Genesis 49:9–12). This King—King Jesus!

Long promised and firmly held. A king that would come one day and solve God’s people’s problem by changing their heart and bringing them back into relationship with God. Over generations and through many lives, God has been working to create this Christmas story that we might all see his wisdom more clearly.

We may have expected all of this from a genealogy of Jesus that points to his Kingship, but Matthew is doing much more.

THROUGH SIN

As we continue on from Judah, look at what Matthew says next:

“and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar,” (Matthew 1:3 ESV)

For those of you who haven’t read the story of Tamar, or don’t remember it, she was Judah’s daughter-in-law, she was married to his son Er (Genesis 38:6–30). Long story short, Er was wicked and died, and Judah’s second son, Onan, wouldn’t do his part in helping Tamar have a son to take care of her, so he died as well. Judah promised Tamar he would give her his youngest son, Shelah, in marriage, but he failed to do that as well.

Now Judah’s wife had died, and he went out to his sheepshearers (a business trip to see how much money he was going to make that year) and decided to visit a prostitute along the way. Only he didn’t know that the prostitute was Tamar, she had come to the roadside in her veil and he “went in to her” as the Bible says. When Judah becomes indignant that Tamar is pregnant, she reveals his staff and his ring that he left with her as a down-payment for the goat he was to send to pay her. Judah is embarrassed, and Tamar has twins. 

Matthew is airing the family dirty laundry, and that is not normal for genealogies! Genealogies were meant to make you look good. They often skipped over torrid and bad stories. It was not a problem to say, “Judah was the father of Hezron” and skip the whole Tamar and Perez and Zarah incident. Genealogies often did that for simplicity and to gloss over problems. But not Matthew. In fact, he mentions several others. 

Rahab is mentioned—“Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab.” She was the prostitute who saved the spies when they were in Canaan and eventually becomes part of the nation of Israel (Joshua 2, 5), and we are encouraged when we read in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 that she fully adopted a new life in Israel as a believer and follower of Yahweh. 

When we get to David it says, “And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Even though it doesn’t say Bathsheba’s name, this is her, and in case you forgot, Matthew makes sure you remember that she was first the wife of Uriah. David had an adulterous relationship with her and then has Uriah killed when she is found pregnant to try to hide what he has done, only to be called out by God through his prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1–15). 

Even though Matthew leaves out some of the worst kings that could have been in this lineage (think Ahab and Jezebel [2 Kings 8:27], or Athaliah [2 Kings 8:26]), we still have King Manasseh, a very wicked king in Israel’s history. 

Long promised and firmly held. God was able to keep his promises throughout generations, even though sin abounded. He kept his promises through sin—not because of sin but in spite of sin. Incest. Prostitutes. Adultery and murder. God’s faithfulness is not thwarted by sin! Scripture is clear that we are not to pursue sin (Romans 6:2), but we know we do sin (Romans 3:23). And God is not thwarted—he will turn all things to good (Romans 8:28). 

Application

Do you believe God can, and will, continue to work through you even though you are a sinner? I have to admit this is probably the lie I can listen to the most. When I see my own sin, it can be discouraging and can make me wonder how God could ever use me. I forget that I am told that it was when I was still a sinner that Christ died for me (Romans 5:8), so he is not surprised by what I do. I still have the responsibility to repent, but God has chosen to love me, has chosen to love you, even while you are still a sinner. Do you believe that is true for you as well? That God has loved you in your sin, and will still use you—a repentant and repenting sinner—for his purposes? 

THROUGH UNEXPECTED MEANS

It is through many of these same stories that Matthew is pointing out another important aspect in this genealogy—God is moving in unexpected ways. He does that first by including women. It was abnormal to use women in genealogies. And if you were going to use women you would have included women like Sarah, Rachel, or Leah. Not Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.

In this sense, we are not meant to notice the sin but the extraordinary circumstances that brought these women into the story. None of these women is portrayed as having done anything wrong, rather brought into a story by means that were incredibly abnormal. And in doing so, God brought them into the story of Jesus. This is setting us up for one of the most incredible stories involving a woman—that of Mary and her immaculate conception. Matthew wants us to be ready to accept that God could use even that kind of means to bring about his Messiah. 

We even see this in the story of David, the smallest of his brothers, the shepherd-boy-made-king. Or think of Abraham, an old man, and his wife promised to bear children.

Application

Perhaps you feel that way today. Perhaps you feel like the odd piece in the puzzle. Not fitting, not normal, and you wonder do you really fit into this family? Oh, yes you do! If some of these pieces of the puzzle don’t give you encouragement, I don’t know what will. We are the oddest conglomeration of people that God has ever assembled. Just look at this room—look at this stage—and see what a testament God’s people are that he is faithful to his plans in Jesus Christ, especially if you are in Jesus Christ. 

THROUGH GENTILES

And you and me, and many of these women, again point to one of the most wonderful aspects of this story—that God has included Gentiles. We see it right at the beginning. “Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Paul points out again and again that Abraham was saved by faith before he was circumcised—before he had the sign of “Jewishness” (Romans 4:3, 22). This is not just a promise that was for Israel, but it was a promise for every Gentile. 

God had long promised the Gentiles would be included. He promised it to Abraham. He promised it when Isaiah said that the sons and daughters of God would come from the north and the south, from the ends of the earth to their father. In Hosea 2:23 God says that he will call those who are “not my people” “sons [and daughters] of the living God.”

We see this in Rahab, the Canaanite, brought into the family of God. We see this in Ruth, the Moabitess who shouldn’t have been allowed into the assembly of Israel unto the tenth generation, saved by her Kinsman Redeemer Boaz. We see this even in Bathsheba, who though she was an Israelite, is described here as the “wife of Uriah”, who was a Hittite, which mean she was likely viewed as a Hittite as well. 

Matthew is pointing out in this Kingly genealogy that it is not only through Israel but also through and for Gentiles that this Messiah has come! In fact, Matthew is bookending his gospel with this idea. He starts with a great statement about the importance of the Gentiles here in this genealogy, and he ends with Jesus’s statement about Gentile importance in Matthew 28:19 when he quotes Jesus as commissioning his disciples to go to all the nations—all the Gentiles. As Gentiles we should be so thankful for that truth. 

THROUGH THE UNKNOWN

Yet, probably the one aspect of this genealogy that is most pertinent to all of us is the aspect that is the easiest to miss. You also may have noticed some of these names and remembered the Bible stories associated with them. Yet there are other names here. We know very little about Hezron (Genesis 46:12; 1 Chronicles 2:5), Ram (1 Chronicles 2:9), Amminadab (Exodus 6:23, Numbers 1:7, 1 Chronicles 2:10), Nahshon (Numbers 2:3; 7:12; 1 Chron 2:10), and Salmon (Ruth 4;18–21; 1 Chronicles 2:11) even though they are listed elsewhere quickly in Scripture. We know pretty much nothing about these people: Abiud the Father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan. 

Add to this the fact that there are many, many names missing from this genealogy. Again, that wasn’t abnormal, but from Perez to Amminadab there are 400 years, so many names are skipped over. 

God is not just the God who works through the big stories and the miraculous events, he is also the God who uses the ordinary and the often unnamed and forgotten people. 

Application

This is us. This is you and me. For all those names I might as well have been saying Katie, and Sarah, and Andrew, and John (I tried to think of names where we have multiple of you here at Table Rock so no one felt like I was singling them out). We are not going to be written about in Scripture and having seen some of the stories that are remembered in this genealogy, perhaps that is a very good thing! We would probably do well to pray that we will be forgotten, and that Jesus Christ will be remembered through our lives in some way. 

Do you believe that you fulfill a wonderful part in God’s wise and wondrous plan even if you are not personally remembered in the history books? The sweet truth is that even if you are not remembered in our history books, You are remembered! First by your God, and secondly your name as a believer is written in the book of life and you will have the joy of being at the wedding feast of the lamb and celebrating with him in the new heavens and the new earth. That is definitely not someone who is forgotten. Can you and I trust that even when we don’t see it, that God is using us. Perhaps it is for our great, great, great, great grandchild someday. Perhaps it is for the acquaintance of a friend who finally believes. It is very faithful of God to use all those actions he has in between the stories we know for his purposes. 

A HIGH PRIEST

Matthew started this genealogy with a statement about the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ the messiah, and he ends with a statement about a promise as well. This is a super odd ending to this genealogy:

“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:1–17 ESV)

We know it isn’t literally true that there were only 14 generations in each of those sections. As we mentioned, Matthew left out names, but that wasn’t odd. But why would he 1) create it with only 14 names in each section, and 2) point out that there are fourteen? 

This is probably a little like when pastors bring out Greek or Hebrew words. We try to do that sparingly here at Table Rock, only when it seems it will help us understand our English Bibles a little better, since we want everyone to have confidence that our Bibles are amazing translations. Here, Matthew is aware of a special tradition. Intellectual Jews had made much about the fact that there were 14 high priests from Aaron to Solomon’s temple, and another 14 high priests from Solomon’s temple to Jaddua, the last high priest mentioned in Scripture. Also, it was common to turn names into numbers, and “David” in Greek makes the number 14. 

Matthew seems to be saying that Jesus is both the coming Messiah and the High Priest of God. The Messiah has come! He is trying to pull out all the stops to point out all the amazing ways God’s actions were long promised and firmly held—even using Jewish folklore of the day to say, “This. Is. Him!”

It is funny, but if you count, it doesn’t actually work. The last set of names only has 13 people. I love what one commentator said about that:

And if the third set of fourteen is short one member, perhaps it will suggest to some readers that just as God cuts short the time of distress for the sake of his elect (24:22), so also he mercifully shortens the period from the Exile to Jesus the Messiah.[3] 

CONCLUSION: MESSIAH

Christmas: Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder and Long Promised and Firmly Held. The long-promised king, the long-promised great high priest of God, firmly held promises through sin, unexpected means, bringing in Gentiles and through unknown peoples. All of this should scream to me and you—the Messiah! This is God’s promised one. Wrought in Wisdom and Wonder and Long Promised and Firmly Held.

All of this gives us confidence in the gospel message and its truthfulness and certainty. It gives us confidence in our place in this journey, and it shows us our God’s wondrous future that he has in store for all of us in Jesus Christ. 

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[1] J. Barton Payne, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy

[2] Matthew 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30–31; 21:9, 15; 22:42, 45

[3] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein; vol. 8; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 869.