Matthew presents the story of the Messiah who came to Israel and the promises God fulfilled. God the Son was not known by the name Jesus in the Old Testament; that name was not revealed there. Names that were revealed include Emmanuel, God with us, a name He will take when He returns and sets up His kingdom. At His first coming He is known as Jesus. The Old Testament indicates that the first coming would be humble and that He would die for the sins of the people. The second coming will not be humble. He comes to set up His kingdom with extreme violence because the Gentiles will attack Him, and He will destroy them.
Matthew refers to Israel. The Church is not to be read into the book until the Church is revealed. If something in Matthew relates to the Church, it may be received as such; otherwise He is speaking to the Jews.
The author is Matthew, one of the disciples from the beginning, also known as Levi. Matthew 9:9 records that Jesus saw Matthew sitting at the tax office and said, “Follow Me,” and he rose and followed Him. Tax collectors were classed with sinners and regarded as traitors to Israel. Luke 5:27 uses the name Levi. Jews commonly had a name tied to their Jewish history and a Gentile name, as with Saul and Paul. Paul did not become Paul at conversion; that Gentile name already existed. Mark 2:14 identifies Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office and called to follow. The call is to follow Christ as Messiah. Acts 1:13 lists Matthew among the eleven who remained. Only Christ appoints an apostle. He says, “I chose you; you did not choose Me.” Peter’s later appointment of another apostle was presumption and influenced the church in Jerusalem to keep appointing apostles when one was lost.
Matthew 1:1 begins with the genealogy of Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Genealogies disclose how God continues His work. Two genealogies are given: Matthew from Joseph’s lineage and Luke from Mary’s side. Together they show that Christ has the right to sit on the throne as the Son of David and that this also relates to His priesthood.
The genealogy concerns Christ in His human nature, not His divine nature. John 1:1 states that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The original is stronger: in any quality of a beginning, the Word already was. Wherever the beginning is placed—Genesis 1 or earlier, when spirit beings were created—the Word already existed. He was facing with the God, a reference to God the Father, and the Word was, as to character and quality, deity. John 1:14 states that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and they beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. “Beheld” is to watch as one watches a theater. Glory is holding a proper opinion. They could look at Christ and see how God acts, because He is God in the flesh. “Only begotten” is not one who is birthed; it is only of a kind, one of a kind. His body was made for Him in the womb of a virgin, so He has no connection to the male. The death penalty comes from the male, not the female. Adam passed on physical death and spiritual death. The body did not create a new being. God the Son joined that human nature and provided the person for it. He is full of grace and truth. Grace is God’s attitude of giving a benefit without consideration of merit. Truth is seeing things as they really are.
The genealogy proceeds with the father begetting the son until Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, out from whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ, the Messiah (Matthew 1:16). There is a shift. “Begot” belongs to father-to-son lineage. Joseph was the husband of Mary, but Joseph did not beget Jesus. Jesus came out from the womb of Mary.
The line must go back to Abraham, through whom God gave the promises that relate to the coming of the Messiah. His name was first Abram. God called him out of his country, family, and father’s house to a land God would show him (Genesis 12:1). God promised to make of him a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great, to bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him, and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. This is a personal promise, not the covenant. God protected Abraham in keeping with that promise.
Genesis 15:18–21 is the land covenant. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram to give his descendants the land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, through the listed tribes. The river Euphrates here reaches to the headwaters. The land promised is far larger than the sliver often pictured beside the Dead Sea.
Genesis 17:5–9 gives another covenant. His name is no longer Abram but Abraham, for God has made him a father of many nations. Nations and kings shall come from him. God will establish His covenant with Abraham and his descendants for an everlasting covenant, olam, that which relates to eternity. This is not an addition to the Genesis 15 covenant. Once a covenant is made, it cannot be added to or annulled. In verse 8 the land given is the land of Canaan, the land of the merchants, which in context relates to the earth as a possession that relates to eternity.
Genesis 22:17 relates to Christ. Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac because Isaac was the son of promise, and he accounted that God would raise him from the ashes (Hebrews 11). God said He would bless Abraham and multiply his descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore, and “your descendant shall possess the gate of his enemies.” The Hebrew is singular, “his,” not “their.” Some translations change the word. Paul in Galatians identifies this descendant as Christ.
Abraham died at 175 years (Genesis 25:7). After he was 100 years old he received Isaac. Sarah brought in Hagar to produce a son, but God would not take Ishmael. God said Sarah would have the child. Sarah was 90 and past childbearing. The Lord restored to her the time of life, and she began her cycle again. He also restored Abraham, who later had many children. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5). Sarah was ten years younger than Abraham. Isaac’s name is from the term to laugh, because the Lord made Sarah laugh.
Isaac married Rebekah at age 40 (Genesis 25:20). He fathered Esau and Jacob at age 60. When the twins were born, the first came out red and hairy, and he was called Esau. Esau means the hairy one. Afterward his brother came out holding Esau’s heel, and he was called Jacob, a usurper, one who takes hold of the heel. Isaac died at 180 years (Genesis 35:28) and was buried by Esau and Jacob.
Matthew 1:2 has Abraham begetting Isaac, and Isaac Jacob. Jacob is not Isaac’s only son and is not the firstborn. The line does not run in the ordinary firstborn course. Romans 9:10–13 states that when Rebekah conceived from one man, Isaac, the children not yet being born, and not having done good or evil, God’s purpose according to His choice might stand, not out from works. The choice was made before they came out of the womb, not before they existed. This is God’s choice of the line of promise given to Abraham, not a text by which to justify predestination as commonly used. Salvation is not by works. The means God has chosen today is believing that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. Adding confessing sins, repenting of sins as remorse, or making Jesus Lord of one’s life as a requirement for salvation is work-based. “Hate” toward Esau is not hatred as the word is used today. God was indifferent to Esau regarding the line. He would not bring the line through Esau. He loved Jacob in that He gave him the line.
Esau sold his birthright for a stew of red lentils. The birthright was the promise to Abraham, the land. He saw no value in it. He did not want to give up the blessing of the firstborn. Jacob, by his mother’s advice, took the blessing (Genesis 27). He put goat skins on himself so that Isaac, who could not see, would feel a hairy man, and he said, “I am Esau, your firstborn.” Jacob the usurper lived up to his name. God’s choice stood in time. It was not Esau’s or Jacob’s choice.
Jacob wrestled with a man until daybreak (Genesis 32:24–28). The man touched the socket of Jacob’s hip. Jacob would not let him go until he blessed him. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, the prince of God. When God later refers to Israel as Jacob, He refers to them as usurpers. Jacob was not a good man until God corrected him. With his sons he migrated to Egypt because of extreme famine (Genesis 46). His twelve sons make up the twelve tribes of Israel. He lived 147 years.
From this point the recorded years of life begin to drop away. The significance of those who follow is how they connect back to the promise of Abraham. The genealogy will be carried through to David. From David the split between the two genealogies shows why Joseph’s line is given in one place and Mary’s in another, and how that connects to Jesus as the Messiah who has the right to the throne.
