Saturday, January 6, 2018

Matthew 1:17


Commentary
In Matthews Gospel there are 42 generations that divide up into three fourteen generation segments, each one then to represent a perfect arrangement, for our God and Father who is the Author of the Holy Scriptures had a very deliberate plan in just how and when He would bring forth His Son into the world. And so from Abraham to David there are listed fourteen generations which cover the establishment of God’s Covenant, Nation, and Christ’s Future Throne. The next fourteen generations then cover Israel as a divided nation, whose kings largely led them into apostasy (consider Ezekiel 43:6-9), and ultimately into their 70 year captivity in Babylon (historically recorded for us in the Books of I and II Kings/Chronicles. Now in spite of this God’s timing and redemption plans for both His people and all of believing humanity was neither subverted nor thwarted. For the Sovereign God of all things in all places and at all times is never taken by surprise by what we do or don’t do. The final phase then tracts the Israelites who came up from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple (according to the Word of the Lord; historically recorded for us in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah), who unknown to them at that time were preparing the way for Christ’s arrival, which as the prophet Daniel also foretold would take place after several nations had first risen and fallen. And so Matthew in this last section of the genealogical record of the birth of Christ brings us to what would have been their present day, and thus to God fulfilling His Word about His Son the Lord Jesus Christ who came into the world according to it. Joseph and Marry then being the last listed as the humble and obscure family chosen by God through whom the Lord Jesus Christ would come into the world (Vs. 16). And so Matthew in the first seventeen verses of his Gospel has recorded for us the principal genealogical lineage that the Lord Jesus Christ chose in becoming a Man, the Son of Man; whose right and privilege as the Heir of all that God has prepared and established for Him to inherit through His own Word has become through His own obedience to the Word of God not only our Savior, Judge and King, but also He is the Lord God Almighty from Everlasting to Everlasting.

Scripture Quotations
The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.



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