The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

Well, take your Bibles this morning and open them to Luke chapter 3 and find verse 23.

! Luke chapter 3, verse 23. I'm going to read verses 23 through to the end of the chapter, verse 38. Luke 3, 23, all the way to 38.

Bear with me as I try to pronounce some of these names, okay? Now, Jesus Himself began His ministry at about 30 years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Heli.

The son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janna, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathiah, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Ethli, the son of Nagai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathiah, the son of Semai, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah, the son of Joannas, the son of Ressa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, the son of Nerai, the son of Melchai, the son of Adai, the son of Chasam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joseph, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Methat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonah, the son of Eliakim, the son of Malia, the son of Manan, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, and the son of Nashon, the son of Abinadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Kira, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shalah.

the son of Canaan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

All right. You know, I really thought about earlier when Tom was up here reading the Scripture. Maybe it would be a good idea to have someone else read the text for the day for the sermon.

And I could have thrown all that on Tom. But I decided to go with it. Now, you don't have to tell me I know what you're thinking. I really do.

You're thinking, Pastor, really? Really, you're going to preach a sermon from the genealogy of Jesus? Honestly, some of you are thinking that, aren't you? In fact, maybe you would, if you were honest, you would probably say, you know, when I read the Bible, maybe you've been on one of these read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year kind of programs, and you get to Matthew, and you really kind of skip most of chapter 1.

All the begats, the begats, the begats. And when you get to Luke chapter 3, verses 23 to 38, you skip all the sons of, the son of, the son of, the son of. Now, just be honest.

You do, don't you? All right? Just skip over that. And so you're thinking, are you really going to preach an entire sermon on a genealogy? And yes, I am. I am.

I mean, it's part of the Bible. Now, that sounds very hyper-spiritual, you know. Do you expect that coming from your pastor? It's part of the Bible, right? It's God's Word, God's inspired Word.

And Paul, you do remember, said to Timothy that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. I wondered if you would remember that.

All Scripture is profitable. Even the genealogies are profitable. And I hope that you'll agree with that when I'm done here this morning.

But it's because of that that I'm committed to preaching God's Word using a particular method the Reformers called electio continua.

That's Latin for continuous reading. We call it today continuous expository preaching, or I really prefer the term consecutive expository preaching.

Do you know what that is? You should because your pastor does it. That is the systematic preaching through books of the Bible. Now, I would say to you that there are many benefits to that approach or that method to expository preaching.

And, by the way, I'll say to you, when you have some time to kill, you can borrow my Ph.D. dissertation and read what I wrote on the subject. And that might be advisable, especially if you're having trouble sleeping at night.

You know, just come by and pick up. But now, seriously, there are many benefits to this approach to preaching, this approach called consecutive expository preaching.

From the standpoint of a preacher, it benefits me because I don't have to wonder where I'm going for next Sunday's sermon. I already know. It's the next one in the book. And you also know that, unless I deviate from the schedule, which I do sometimes.

And because of that, this approach forces the preacher to preach on a particular text that he would be tempted to skip. And I'll just be honest with you.

I'm tempted to skip this, this genealogy. But if I'm going to preach the whole counsel of God's Word and be faithful to this, what I think is the right approach to preaching, if I'm going to be faithful to that, then I'm going to preach what comes next.

And the genealogy comes next. Now, my hope and prayer this morning is that you will appreciate what God has to say to us through this genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's something to learn here. This Savior's family tree, our Savior's family tree, there's something to learn here. And now, I've read and studied the genealogy.

I assure you, promise you, that I've spent quite a bit of time studying the genealogy. And so then, my approach this morning to preaching it would be what?

How do I approach that? Preach it. You know, I've read the names. I would say the majority of them we have never heard of, know little to nothing about.

And so, what do I do? You know, normally I would just go verse by verse or word by word, phrase by phrase, and preach the entire text. But it just really doesn't lend itself to that approach.

So, what's my approach? Well, my approach, I've decided, is to speak to the head and the heart. Now, that really ought to be true of every sermon. Preaching to the head and heart, we're instructing as well as engaging the heart, the emotion, the responses, and so forth.

But I really am going to speak to the head and the heart, all right? Information and inspiration, if you want to put it in those terms. And I want to do it by asking a series of questions and hopefully answering them to your satisfaction.

But they are questions that we might ask of the genealogy. That will help us understand what God is trying to say to us about it, through it.

So, here's the first question. Why are genealogies important? I mean, they're in the Bible and so forth. And we could just say, because they're in the Bible, they're important.

But why are genealogies, maybe even in the sense of the broader sense of the term, genealogies, why are they so important? And really, today, all you have to do is watch TV. And you realize that today, many people are very, very interested, intensely interested in discovering their genealogical records, their roots, aren't they?

I mean, the Mormons have been doing this for a number of years now. And they use it really, I don't know if you know this, but they use it as an evangelistic tool. And not only that, but as a discipleship tool as well.

But not just the Mormons. Surely, you have been seeing these commercials on TV from Ancestry.com. Have you seen some of those commercials? And it's kind of interesting, you know, and they show a person who, you know, traced their genealogy and found some interesting things in their families and so forth.

And so there are a number of other agencies and businesses that will do this for a fee and so forth. And they, of course, use census records that they can find that are a matter of public record.

They'll use the Internet. They'll use immigration records. They will use military records. They'll go back and check birth certificates and marriage certificates and death certificates and so forth.

Even if you're willing to pay the price, they'll use DNA. To try to ascertain your correct lineage, your genealogy.

And it's a big deal, isn't it? Has been for a number of years. And so why are people so interested in their genealogies? Well, I think we'd have to admit that for most people it's just a novelty.

I don't know. Some of you may have done this and tried this. You know, maybe Ancestry.com or maybe some other group. And for most people it's just a novel, kind of novelty.

Maybe just simply it's motivated by curiosity about your ancestors. You'd like to find out about them, where they came from and what things did they do and so forth.

Maybe you're connected to somebody really famous and so forth, you know. And so it's kind of a curiosity. And for others we'd have to admit that it's for self-esteem. That people would check their genealogy.

A kind of a placebo or, you know, not really a remedy but a placebo for feelings of insignificance, you know. So we check our genealogy to see if, you know, somebody, somewhere, sometime did something great and we're connected to them in some way, you know.

And so it kind of boosts us in our self-esteem column. In fact, someone has defined genealogies as a preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebearers were better people than they are.

Now, having said that, for the Jews, it's a different thing altogether. For the Jews, genealogies were much more than just a novelty, certainly not just curiosity.

For the Jews, the genealogies were of supreme significance and importance. For important matters such as land ownership.

If you had a claim to be the family that owns a certain piece of property, you would have to prove that by way of your lineage, your genealogy. Not just land or real estate, but even property, inheritance.

Big deal with the Jews in old and on into the New Testament times that the genealogies would help prove rights to inheritance and property and the preservation, also the preservation of family name.

The preservation of the lineage. You know, in fact, these three things I've just mentioned are part of what we learn in the book of Ruth. By the way, I'll give you a little advertisement.

I'm going to start preaching through the book of Ruth tonight, Sunday nights. And these three things I just mentioned, land ownership, property, inheritance, the continuation of a family name, and so forth, all that is a part of what takes place in Ruth through the kinsman redeemer.

And then, of course, beyond that, some very spiritual significance there. And we'll be dealing with that as we study through that book. Also, the genealogies were important for purposes of taxation. Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem so that they could be recorded and censused.

And they traveled back to Bethlehem for purposes of taxation because Bethlehem was the city of David, their lineage. So genealogy is very important on some of these kind of basic issues.

But even more importantly, any claim to the priesthood, any claim a person would have to the priesthood must be verified by one's genealogy.

And then we could go a step further. Even more importantly, any claim to royalty would have to be proven by one's genealogy.

And we'll take that a step further of supreme importance. And I would even venture to say that for the Jews, the keeping of genealogies was for this one thing before it was for anything else.

And it was to prove the claim to Messiahship. Any claim to be the Messiah, to be the Christ, would have to be verified by the genealogy.

And specifically speaking, it must be proved. I mean, if you claim to be the Messiah, or anyone claims or has any claim to be the Messiah, it must be proved that your lineage comes directly from King David.

Or you can't be the Messiah. The Messiah comes from David. And so the genealogies were kept and preserved for those purposes. And I would say that that's Luke's purpose for presenting to his readers this genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you know, of course, I've already mentioned it, that also Matthew provides a genealogy in his gospel. Now, this was important to the Jews. And this is one thing we need to understand so that we might then place, ascribe a little bit more importance to the genealogies than we have in the past.

This was important to the Jews. Very important to them. They kept hyper-accurate genealogical records, and they protected them, and they preserved them painstakingly.

And at all costs, they preserved these records over thousands of centuries. Even during those years when they were in the captivity, they preserved these records, and they were of supreme importance to them primarily to verify the Messiah when he came, when he would come.

Now, perhaps you're wondering, do they still have these records? And the answer is no, they don't. They don't have these records anymore. And that's kind of interesting. What happened to them?

Well, you remember, in 70 A.D., Titus, the Roman general, besieged Jerusalem and eventually destroyed Jerusalem, leveled it to the ground, and all of the genealogical records were destroyed.

The Jews today, who are still looking for their Messiah, think that is a tragedy, a paramount tragedy, that they no longer have these genealogical records.

But I think it was the providence of God. And why would that be? Because the two primary purposes for the genealogies were to verify the priesthood and to verify the Messiah.

Well, the Messiah has come. Right? He has. He's come. So we don't need a genealogy. Even the Jews, if they would embrace Him and accept Him as their Messiah, they would know.

We don't need the genealogical records any longer. What about the priesthood? Well, when Jesus died on the cross, guess what? The veil in the temple was rent from top to the bottom and effectively ended the priesthood for all time.

Well, now we are priests and kings of the Lord. No more need for genealogy. So that answers that question. Let me take it a step further with a second question.

Why then, today, all that's true about the genealogies and their supreme importance to the Jews, verifying the Messiah and so forth.

Why teach the genealogies today? Why, Pastor, could you not just simply pass over them here because, you know, we're not Jews?

These are Jewish genealogical records. We're not Jews. Why teach them? Why preach them? Why study them?

Why do we even need them in our Bibles? We're not looking for the Messiah today. He's come. And we certainly don't need to have genealogies to verify any messianic claims to the throne of Israel because the Messiah has come.

So why then do we need the genealogical records today? I read an interesting story about a Wycliffe Bible translator who had been assigned to New Guinea.

And he was to translate the New Testament into a new tribal language there in that part of the world. And the Wycliffe Bible translator, their method is not just simply to come on a scholarly basis.

And you have learned the language and then take the Bible and translate it into this new language. They would use a collaboration kind of technique where they would work with the people of the tribe, of this group.

And they would work with them to understand the various nuances of their language so that the Bible could be translated into their language in an understandable way, in a way that would make sense, in a way that would be true to the intent of Scripture and so forth.

So it's a very elaborate, very, very well done process. Actually, he's working with, about to work with all of these people from this tribe. And he logically decides that he's going to begin with the first book of the New Testament.

That would be a good place to begin. He began with Matthew. And when he got to chapter 1, what did he find? A genealogy. Of course, Matthew chapter 1.

And so he said to himself, he said, you know, I can't do this to these people. I can't have them get bogged down on a genealogy. Right here at the beginning would be very discouraging. And so he decided to start with Matthew 1.18 and move from there.

And so he did that and finished chapter 1, chapter 2, and all the way to chapter 28. And just left the genealogy off for the time being. And so when he finished the Gospel of Matthew, he was utterly disappointed that the people did not believe.

None of them believed. They didn't believe the Gospel. And feeling quite defeated, he said, well, I might as well just go ahead and finish the genealogy part of chapter 1 and get the thing done so I can go home.

And so he started on the genealogy. And by the time he got to the sixth begat, something strange began to happen. He noticed that the people, the men who were working with him and the women who were working with him from this tribe, they were starting to get very excited.

And their eyes were wide open and their faces all lit up and suddenly there was quite a commotion among them. And so they stopped the translator and they asked him, you mean to tell us that this Abraham was a real person?

You mean that this David was a real person? And that Jesus was a real person? You mean that all these people were not just simply stories that white men had made up, that they're real people?

And he said, yes, I've been trying to tell you that all throughout this time of translation. And they said, well, we believe you now. We believe you now. We know now that everything you have been telling us about Jesus is true because he has real ancestors and that they were real people and that God really did do all of these things and these were not just simply stories.

Isn't that interesting? All because of the genealogy. So are genealogies important? Yes, they are. Thank you, Wes. Let me ask a third question.

Why are there differences between Matthew's genealogy and Luke's genealogy? And do you know that there are differences? Some pretty major differences.

In fact, a good bit of the genealogies do not match. Matthew and Luke's do not match.

Why are there differences? Let me tell you some of the differences. Matthew, in his genealogy, and we're not going to go and look at it. You can read that on your own sometime.

But Matthew begins with Abraham and he moves up to Jesus from the past to the present. That's his approach. Luke begins with Jesus and he moves down to Abraham but he doesn't end with Abraham.

He goes all the way to Adam. Indeed, he goes all the way to God. And so he goes from the present to the past. Matthew goes from the past to the present.

Luke goes from the present to the past. That's one major difference. No problem with that difference. It all has to do with each one's intent for including a genealogy.

Matthew also, let me give you another difference, Matthew deliberately arranges his genealogy into three groups of 14 generations. In fact, he says so.

In Matthew 1.17, he says 14 generations with a total of 41 names. Luke has 77 names.

You heard me say all of them a moment ago. 77 names apparently arranged in 11 groups of 7. Now, why?

Why did Matthew and Luke do it in this way? Well, for purposes of memorization. I don't think necessarily we're required to memorize them. You can if you want to.

It's part of Scripture. But it's very important for the Jews to memorize their genealogies. And so they would do it, group them in this way for aids in memorization.

But those are two differences. Let me give you some very significant differences. Matthew traces the genealogy through David's son Solomon.

Luke traces the genealogy through David's son Nathan. And that's the reason why in Matthew's genealogy, he lists the same names as Luke's from Abraham to David.

All right, so if you look at Matthew's genealogy and Luke's genealogy from Abraham to David, they're the same names. But then when you get past David, the names are different.

Hmm. What's that telling me? This is also why Matthew lists the father of Joseph, Mary's husband, as Jacob.

But when you get to Luke, Luke appears to be listing him as a man by the name of Eli. Eli. Or Heli in some versions of the Bible.

Two different names. Also, I'll add this one to it. Matthew lists four women. You know that. That's the famous part of Matthew's genealogy that he lists four women in his genealogy, which is quite unusual.

The Jews just didn't do that. Women were not in the genealogy. But Matthew lists four, and there's a reason for that. We'll not get into that this morning. Luke, on the other hand, does not list any women.

Not even Mary, the mother of Jesus. Alright, so, here's some major differences. Major differences. The names being different, and so forth.

And so, what does this tell us? Is it, as some have supposed, for reasons that the Bible has errors in it? We have Matthew's genealogy, Luke's genealogy.

There must be some errors in the Bible because their names don't match up. Is that it? Well, absolutely not, of course. In fact, there are at least three theories put forth that explain the differences in the two genealogies, and I'm not going to get into those three differences, but to highlight one of them, the one that makes the most sense.

The one that makes the most sense, the most logical explanation is, of course, that Matthew is giving us Joseph's genealogy, and Luke is giving us Mary's genealogy.

Though he doesn't come out and say that. We have to dig pretty deep to discover that to be the case. Matthew is tracing Jesus' genealogy back through Joseph, his legal father, and Luke is tracing the genealogy of Jesus back through Mary, his biological mother.

The legal line as opposed to the blood line back to King David. Both of them take Jesus' genealogy back to David.

And by the way, both Matthew and Luke make it very clear that Joseph is not the real father of Jesus. All right. Now, here's another question.

How do we know that Luke is tracing Mary's genealogy when it doesn't seem to be all that apparent just initially as you read it? Well, first, as I've already said, Matthew traces Jesus' lineage back to David or King David's son through King David's son, Solomon.

I mentioned that a moment ago. All right. Son Solomon. And we know that son of David. Luke traces Jesus' lineage back to King David through David's son, Nathan.

All right. Two sons. Two different sons. And so what is this? It's two different lines coming out of David. That's what we have. Just if we don't understand anything else about it.

Matthew is tracing Jesus' lineage out of one son of David. Luke is tracing his lineage out of another son of David. Two different lines coming out of David. That's why we have different names from David on to Jesus with just one couple of exceptions.

We'll not worry about that this morning. All right. So we have one. Two different sons of David. We have one coming out of David's son, Solomon. That would be presumably David's lineage or excuse me, Joseph's lineage given to us in Matthew's Gospel.

And then we have the other coming out of David's son, Nathan. That would be Mary's lineage given to us in Luke coming out of that other son of David, the son of Nathan.

Very simple. Two different lines. Now, I would add to that, Matthew, again, as I've said before, Matthew names Jesus' grandfather as Jacob.

Now, I'm giving you a clue as to how I interpret this. He's giving us Jacob as Jesus' grandfather and Luke, on the other hand, gives us Eli or Heli as Jesus' grandfather.

Two different men. Two different names. Jacob, Eli, or Heli. Now, if this is Joseph's lineage, if both Matthew and Luke are giving us Joseph's lineage, then how could this be?

How could Joseph have two fathers? He can't. He can only have one. But did Jesus have two grandfathers?

Well, most people do. Don't they? Have two grandfathers. And so the simple explanation is that Jacob, listed in Matthew, is Joseph's father, Jesus' grandfather, and Heli in Luke's genealogy, is Mary's father, Jesus' other grandfather.

Okay? Here is a grammatical clue that points to this. It gets a little technical, but I want you to notice that there is a parenthesis in the verse.

In the Greek text, the name Joseph, you won't see this in the English, but in the Greek text, the name Joseph has no the in front of it, no definite article.

You say, well, I wouldn't expect it to say the Joseph. Well, we wouldn't in English, but in the Greek they do this. In fact, in front of nearly every personal noun and even most common nouns, the Greek text puts a the in front of it.

Now, we don't read it that way. It's not translated that way because we don't talk that way in English. But it's there for reason in the Greek grammar. And so, just know that in front of Joseph there is no definite article.

And yet, all the other pronouns in the list, the other 77 in the list, have the word the in front of them. the.

Now, why the difference? Why only with Joseph is the word the not there in front of his name? And the reason is because the author is pointing out a parenthesis.

It's a parenthesis. It's a parenthetical statement. Let me read the text in the New American Standard and kind of emphasize where the parenthesis is. When he began his ministry, Jesus himself was about 30 years of age being as it was supposed the son of Joseph, the son of Eli.

There's a parenthesis there. And all that Luke says about Joseph is the parenthesis. That is, you remove and you remove the parenthesis and you understand what his point is.

What's the parenthesis? The parenthesis is the supposed son of Joseph. That's the parenthesis. You take that out of the verse and what do you have? You have Jesus himself was about 30 years of age being the son of Eli.

Connecting Jesus with Eli. The parenthesis is he's the supposed son of Joseph. That is, everybody thought he was the son of Joseph. They looked at Jesus and said, well, he's the son of Joseph. But he really wasn't.

He was the supposed son of Joseph. That's a parenthesis. Because Luke is inserting that in there to let us know that Joseph is not the father of Jesus because Luke's desire is to trace Mary's lineage.

Mary is the focus in Luke. I mean, think about it. Even from the very beginning of the book, there's bare mention of Joseph. Joseph is just kind of there. He's the biological father.

But Mary is the focus. And so he's wanting to give a lineage, the lineage of Mary. But since no Jewish lineage ever starts with a woman's name, he's got to somehow present it in a way that helps people understand that we're covering the woman's side of the lineage, but we're just not going to mention her name.

And so there's a parenthesis there. Let's suppose son of Joseph. But Jesus is the son of Heli or Eli. You say, but he's not the son of Heli.

Well, you do need to understand that when we have the word son, it is a generic term that could mean grandson, great-grandson because the genealogies do not include everybody in the genealogies.

In fact, by the way, I would tell you that the word the son, the words the son are not even in the Greek text. In fact, every time you see the words the son all the way through the genealogy, they don't appear in the text.

It's just of Eli, of Mathat, of Levi, of Melchi, and so forth. And so this could mean the son of, the grandson of, the great-grandson of, the great-great-grandson of.

The genealogies don't list all the names. If it did, it would be a mile long. It's long enough as it is. And so it skips genealogy or generations and so forth.

And so the meaning here is that Jesus is the grandson of Heli and that is Mary's father, Heli.

Luke is tracing Jesus' lineage through his mother, Mary. He is tracing Jesus' maternal lineage back to King David, eventually all the way back to Adam and to God Himself.

but Matthew is tracing Jesus' paternal lineage through Joseph all the way back to Abraham. So we have the legal, Jesus' legal right to the throne of David through his adopted father, Joseph, and we have his blood right to the throne of David through Mary.

And so we have his paternal right and his maternal right. Both Matthew and Luke give us those two things together. It's interesting to note that there is an absence, absolute absence in the New Testament of any objection on the part of the Jewish leadership.

That's important. I mean, let's just think about it. I mean, let's just say you're one of the Pharisees back in Jesus' day or a Sadducee or maybe you're one of the high priests and your desire is, as it was with them, to discredit this would-be Messiah.

And so, what's the very first thing you do? Check the genealogy. That's the first thing you would do. The easiest thing you could do would be to check the pedigree, to check the genealogy.

You would go to the Hall of Records, whatever it was called there in Jerusalem where they kept all the genealogies for thousands of years and you would go there and you would pull out Joseph's genealogy and if it does not go back to David, then Jesus is done.

That's it. He's not the Messiah. And so, maybe you say, well, wait a minute. The Christians claim that Jesus was virgin-born. Joseph was not the real father of Jesus and so you might say, well, that's ridiculous.

I don't believe that but let's just say it's true for sake of argument. We'll check Mary's genealogy. And so, they pull out her genealogy and they say, if it does not go back to David, then Jesus is done.

He's an imposter. He is a fake. Now, let me ask you something. Do you think the Jewish leadership did that? Well, do you think they checked Jesus' lineage?

Both Joseph's and Mary's? You bet they did. You bet they did. It would have been the easiest, the simplest, the most accurate way to discredit Jesus and shut Him up but there is no record whatsoever in the New Testament that they ever put forth any objection based upon His lineage.

And so, what do we conclude? That both Matthew's and Luke's genealogies are correct. One verifies Jesus' right to the throne through Joseph, His legal father, and one verifies His right to the throne through Mary, His biological mother.

And so, Jesus is not only the rightful Messiah as King on the throne of Israel, but He is also the Messiah for all humanity through His mother, Mary, who traces all the way back to Adam and even God Himself.

Now, back to my first question then. Why is the genealogy important? It proves to people that Jesus was not some self-appointed Messiah.

There were many Messiahs who have come and gone. Jesus was not a self-appointed Messiah or Savior. Jesus did not have a Messiah complex, as it's been called, or caught up in some kind of movement and some people just grabbed Him as their spokesperson and you kind of got caught up in this kind of movement.

Not the case. Jesus is the culmination of all redemptive history. All of redemptive history culminates, comes together in the person of Jesus.

It started with God through Abraham, or through Adam, through Abraham, through David, and right on down to Jesus. He is the Messiah and the fate of everyone who ever lived rests with Him.

That's how important these genealogies are. One last question. How does this genealogy help us understand the gospel, understand God's redemptive plan?

Does it? I think it does. How? To answer that question, we need to look at the end of the genealogy. Look at the end of it and work our way up.

Four things very quickly. Jot these down. The genealogy reveals, first of all, the deity of our Savior, Jesus. He is, verse 38, the Son of God.

He is the Son of God. That's Luke's intent. First and foremost, to establish His deity. He has already done that in another way.

In verses 21 and 22, we looked at that last week, when God the Father spoke from heaven, you are my beloved Son. And so here in the genealogy, He is doing the same. He traces all the way back to God.

And so this reveals the deity of Jesus. You see, listen, Adam was the Son of God by creation. And when Adam was created, he was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

He was the perfect image of God, His Creator, unmarred, unpolluted, uncorrupted by sin. But Adam did sin, didn't he? And when he sinned, the perfect image of God was utterly destroyed.

And every one of Adam's descendants has been polluted by the sin of Adam. from that point on. Until when?

Jesus. Until Jesus. And so Jesus came into the world and as was testified in verse 22, was fully, He fully pleased God.

God said, You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And so you see, we need to understand that Jesus is the second Adam. He is what Adam was.

Sinless, perfect, but Jesus was, and is the true Son of God. It then reveals the deity of our Savior.

Second, the genealogy also reveals the humanity of Christ. He is the Son of Adam. Son of Adam, verse 38.

And so just like Adam, Jesus was what? He was a real man. Real human man. flesh and bone and blood. He was just like us.

He was a man. And you know, after this genealogy here in Luke chapter 3, when we get into chapter 4 next week, after the genealogy, Luke is going to tell us about Jesus going out into the wilderness and being tempted by Satan.

And that ought to cause us to remember, to make the connection that you remember that Adam, the first Adam, was also tempted. He was tempted one time there in the garden and he failed.

And because of that, the entire creation plunged into sin and corruption. And so Luke wants to call our attention to the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He too was tempted, not in a lush garden of Eden, but in the wilderness. And he was tempted three times, not just one time. And he did not fail.

And by doing that, by not sinning, he reversed all of what the first Adam had done. Praise the Lord. And so do you see what the genealogy confirms about Jesus?

As the Son of God, He is perfect, the exact image of God. As the Son of Adam, He is like us, like you, like me, tempted, troubled, suffering, persecuted, hated, reviled, abused, ultimately killed.

He was fully man, and in every sense, yet without sin. The third thing the genealogy reveals is the universality of our Savior.

The universality of our Savior. Who is He according to verse 34? The Son of Abraham. The Son of Abraham. He is the universal Savior Savior of all who will believe in Him from every tribe and tongue and nation and people.

And why is that? Because He is the Son of Abraham. The Son of Abraham. He is the promised seed of Abraham. You see, God made a covenant with Abraham way back there in Genesis chapter 22.

In fact, it was repeated a number of times. In Genesis 22, 17, the Bible says, and this is God speaking blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand is on the seashore.

In or through your seed, Abraham, seed singular, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. This was the covenant with Abraham.

All the nations of the earth through your seed. Who's that seed? Well, Paul in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 points out that the seed is singular, that it's one person and he even identifies who that seed is.

He says, now to Abraham and his seed, again singular, were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed.

This is what God said. And then Paul adds, who is Christ. The seed is Christ. Jesus is the son of Abraham. And in him, those who believe, those who trust him, will have all the Abrahamic promises and blessings which are eternal.

One last thing. The genealogy also reveals the royalty of our Savior. The royalty of our Savior, who is he? He is the son of David.

the son of David, verse 31. He is, Jesus is, the eternal heir to the Davidic throne. God made a promise to David as well in 2 Samuel 7, 16.

And he said to David, And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.

Now, he wasn't talking about his immediate kingdom, because it did come to an end for a time. He's talking about something way out in the future. And Isaiah the prophet says that the Messiah, when he comes, will be the fulfillment of that promise, that everlasting kingdom.

In Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government, and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward even forever.

Eternal kingdom is the Davidic kingdom, and the Messiah is the fulfillment of that covenant, that promise, and so who is David's son, the son of David, who is he?

And therefore the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy of a kingdom that shall never end, who is the fulfillment of that prophecy? Jesus.

Jesus. That's the point of this genealogy. Jesus is not only the legal right to the throne of David, and therefore king of Israel, he is our king.

He is king of all humanity. Jesus. Do you know him? Do you know him?

Do you know him? Do you know him? Do you Thank you.