Matthew 1
McGeeCHAPTER 1THEME: The genealogy of Jesus Christ and record of the virgin birth of Jesus
Matthew 1:1
THE GENEALOGYThe genealogy which opens the Gospel of Matthew and the New Testament is in many respects the most important document in the Scriptures. The entire Bible rests upon its accuracy. You will notice it has three divisions:
- Genealogy from Abraham to David (vv. 1-6).
- Genealogy from Solomon to the Babylonian captivity (vv. 7-11).
- Genealogy from the Babylonian captivity to Joseph, the carpenter (vv. 12-17). In our study of Genesis, we note the fact that it is a book about families. The genealogies there are very important, and we see them here as we start the New Testament. Now I must confess that at first this looks rather boring. You give someone a New Testament, and they begin here in the Gospel of Matthew with a genealogy staring them in the face, and they’re not going to get very far in it. A chaplain friend of mine told me that in World War II he gave out literally thousands of New Testaments to servicemen. He’s seen the men in the bunks open the New Testament, read for a minute or two at the beginning of Matthew, start through that genealogy and come to the conclusion this Book wasn’t for them. Can’t blame them! My point is that we ought to use a little wisdom in giving out literature to people.
The average person should start first in any one of the other three Gospels, preferably Mark, rather than the Gospel of Matthew. But that doesn’t lessen the importance of this genealogy. The New Testament rests upon the accuracy of this genealogy because it establishes the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is of the line of Abraham and of the line of David. Both are very important. The line of Abraham places Him in the nation, and the line of David puts Him on the throneHe is in that royal line. The genealogies were very important to the nation Israel, and through them it could be established whether a person had a legitimate claim to a particular line. For example, when Israel returned from the captivity, we find in the Book of Ezra, “These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood” (Ezr_2:62). It was possible in Ezra’s day to check the register of the tribe of Levi and remove those who made a false claim. Evidently these genealogies were kept by the government and were accessible to the public. I have a notion they were kept in the temple because Israel was a theocracy, and actually the “church” and the state were one. This genealogy was obviously on display and could have been copied from the public records until the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. The enemies of Jesus could have checked them and probably did. This is interesting and important because they challenged every move of the Lord Jesus, even offering a substitute explanation for the Resurrection, but they never did question His genealogy. The reason must be that they checked it out and found that it was accurate. This is most important because it puts Jesus in a very unique position. You remember that He said the Shepherd of the sheep enters in by the door but the thief and the robber climb up some other way to get into the sheepfold (see Joh_10:1-2). That “fold” is the nation Israel. He didn’t climb into the fold over a fence in the back, and He didn’t come in through the alley way. He came in through the gate. He was born in the line of David and in the line of Abraham. This is what Matthew is putting before us. He is the fulfillment of everything that had been mentioned in the Old Testament. So the enemies of Christ never could challenge Him in regard to His genealogy. They had to find some other ways to challenge Him, and, of course, they did. When I was a teenager, I became interested in the Bible for the first time, and I went to a summer conference where the Lord spoke to my heart. Our Bible teacher thrilled my heart as he taught the Word of God. One morning he asked, “How many of you young people have read the Bible through in a year?” There were two to three hundred young people there, but not a hand went up. He asked the same question four times. Finally, one young man in the back put up his hand rather hesitatingly and said, “Well, I read it, but I only read the parts that were interesting. I didn’t read the genealogies.” Everybody laughed, and the teacher laughed, too, and admitted that he didn’t read them either.
At that very moment it occurred to me that since the Spirit of God has used so much printer’s ink to give them to us, there must be some importance in them for us. So I’ll have you note this genealogy now in Matthew because it is very important. This is the genealogy of the Lord Jesus on Joseph’s side. We’ll have another when we get over to Luke, and that will be from Mary’s side. “The book of the generation” is a phrase which is peculiar to Matthew. It’s a unique expression, and you won’t find it anywhere else in the New Testament. If you start going back through the Old Testament, back through Malachi and Zechariah and Haggai and back to the Pentateuch, through Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Exodus into Genesis, you’ll almost come to the conclusion that it’s nowhere else in the Bible except here in Matthew. Then all of a sudden, you come to the fifth chapter of Genesis and see “This is the book of the generations of Adam …” (Gen_5:1). There is that expression again. There are two books: the book of the generations of Adam and the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.
How did you get into the family of Adam? You got in by a birth. You didn’t perform it; in fact, you had nothing to do with it. But that’s the way you and I got into the family of Adam. We got there by birth. But in Adam all die (Rom_5:12).
Adam’s book is a book of death. Then there is the other book, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ. How did you get into that family, into that genealogy? You got into it by a birth, the new birth. The Lord Jesus says we must be born again to see the Kingdom of God (see Joh_3:3). That puts us in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and we get there by trusting Christ. We all are in the first book, the book of the generations of Adam. I trust that you, my friend, are also in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Matthew says Jesus is “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Didn’t Matthew know that Abraham came before David? Of course he did because he makes that clear in the rest of the genealogy. Then why did he put it this way? He is presenting the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, the One who is the King, the One who is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. And that comes first. He must be in the line of David in fulfillment of the prophecies that God made to David. He is the Son of David. He is also the Son of Abraham and it is very important that He be the Son of Abraham, because God had said to Abraham, “…in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed …” (Gen_22:18). And in Gal_3:16 Paul explains who that “seed” is: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.” So Jesus Christ is the Son of Abraham.
Matthew 1:2
A careful look at the genealogy that follows is not only interesting; it is actually thrilling. Four names stand out as if they were in neon lights. It is startling to find them included in the genealogy of Christ. First, they are the names of women; second, they are the names of Gentiles. Customarily, the names of women did not appear in Hebrew genealogies, but don’t find fault with that for the very simple reason that today we have the same thing in marriage. In a marriage the name that the couple takes is the name of the man. They don’t take the name of the woman. Her line ends; his goes on. That’s the way we do it today, and that’s the way they did it then. Down through the years I have performed marriages in which the girl had a lovely name like Jones or Smith, and she wanted to exchange it for a name like Neuenschwander or Schicklegruber! You would think that she’d not want to surrender her name for one having four or five syllables, but that’s the way they do it today. I have a clipping in my file of about ten years ago that tells of a couple in Pasadena who did the unusual thing of taking the name of the woman, which, I understand, can be legally done. But our custom is to take the name of the man, and it is the man’s genealogy that is given. In Jesus’ day it was indeed unusual to find in a genealogy a woman’s nameyet here we have four names. They are not only four women; they are four Gentiles. As you know, God in the Law said that His people were not to intermarry with tribes that were heathen and pagan. Even Abraham was instructed by God to send back to his people to get a bride for his son Isaac. Also, the same thing was done by Isaac for his son Jacob. It was God’s arrangement that monotheism should be the prevailing belief of those who were in the line that was leading down to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet in His genealogy are the names of four gentile womentwo of them were Canaanites, one was a Moabite, and the fourth was a Hittite! You would naturally ask the question, “How did they get into the genealogy of Christ?” “Thamar” is the first one, and she is mentioned in verse three. Her story is in Genesis 38, and there she is called Tamar. That chapter is one of the worst in the Bible. Thamar got into the genealogy because she was a sinner. “Rachab” is the next one mentioned in verse five. She’s not a very pretty character in her story back in Joshua chapter 2 where she is called Rahab. But she did become a wonderful person after she came to a knowledge of the living and true God. “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Heb_11:31). She got into the genealogy of Christ for the simple reason that she believed. She had faith. Notice the progression here. Come as a sinner, and then reach out the hand of faith. “Ruth” is the next one mentioned in verse five. She is a lovely person, and you won’t find anything wrong with her. But at Ruth’s time there was the Law which shut her out because it said that a Moabite or an Ammonite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord (see Deu_23:3). Although the Law kept her out, there was a man by the name of Boaz who came into his field one day and saw her. It was love at first sight. Now, maybe you didn’t know that I believe in love at first sight. I proposed to my wife on our second date, and the only reason I didn’t propose on our first date was because I didn’t want her to think I was in a hurry! I do believe in love at first sight. But don’t misunderstand mewe waited a year before we were married, just to make sure. And I think that is always the wise thing to do. Boaz loved Ruth at first sight, and he extended grace to her by putting his mantle around her and bringing her, a Gentile, into the congregation of Israel. She asked, “…Why have I found grace in thine eyes …?” (Rth_2:10). You and I can ask that same question of God regarding His grace to us. Again, note the progression. We come as sinners and hold out the hand of faith, and He, by His marvelous grace, saves us. “Bathsheba” is not mentioned by name but called “her that had been the wife of Urias” (v. Mat_1:6). Her name isn’t mentioned because it wasn’t her sin. It was David’s sin, and David was the one that really had to pay for it. And he did pay for it. She got into the genealogy of Christ because God does not throw overboard one of His children who sins. A sheep can get out of the fold and become a lost sheep, but we have a Shepherd who goes after sheep and always brings them back into the fold. He brought David back. So this is the whole story of salvation right here in this genealogy. Now there are some more interesting things about this genealogy. If you will compare this genealogy with the one in 1 Chronicles 3 (some of the names are spelled differently), you will find that in verse eight of Matthew, the names of Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah are left out. This shows that genealogies are quoted to give us a view of a certain line of descendants and that every individual is not necessarily named in every genealogy of the Bible. I think we should remember this in the genealogies given to us in Genesis before the Flood. These are not necessarily complete genealogies, but they are given to trace a certain line for us. I personally think man has been on this earth a lot longer than Ussher’s dating which is found in the margins of many editions of the Bible.
Remember that these dates are by Ussher and are not part of the Bible. They are faulty and do not belong there.
Matthew 1:10
In verse Mat_1:11, we find that Matthew skips Jehoiakim but includes Jechonias. Jechonias deserves our special attention because God had said that none of his seed would sit on the throne. “As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah [his name is Jeconiah, but God took the Je off his name because it is the prefix for Jehovah, and this man was a wicked king] the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence…. Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah” (Jer_22:24, Jer_22:30). Because of the sin of this man Jechonias, no one in his line could ever sit on the throne of David. You see, Joseph is in this line, but Joseph is not the natural father of Jesus. This is one of the most remarkable facts in the Scriptures, and Matthew is trying to make it clear to us.
Joseph gave to Jesus the title, the legal title, to the throne of David because Joseph was the husband of Mary who was the one who bore Jesus. Jesus Christ is not the seed of Joseph, nor is He the seed of Jeconiah. But both Joseph and Mary had to be from the line of David, and they werethrough two different lines from two different sons of David. We’ll find when we get to Luke that Mary’s line comes from David through his son Nathan. Joseph’s line comes through the royal line through Solomon. So Joseph and Mary both had to go to Bethlehem to be enrolled for taxation because they were both from the line of David.
You see how interesting, fascinating, and important these genealogies are and how much they are worth our study. Now the genealogy concludes with this verse
Matthew 1:16
You see that this breaks the pattern which began as far back as verse Mat_1:2 where it says that Abraham begat Isaac. From then on it was just a whole lot of “begetting,” and verse Mat_1:16 begins by saying, “And Jacob begat Joseph.” You would expect it to continue by saying that Joseph begat Jesus, but it does not say that. Instead, it says, “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” Obviously, Matthew is making it clear that Joseph is not the father of Jesus. Although he is the husband of Mary, he is not the father of Jesus. What is the explanation of this? Well, Matthew in the rest of this chapter will give us the explanation and will show how it fulfills Old Testament prophecy.
Matthew 1:17
THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS CHRISTLuke, who wrote the Gospel bearing his name, was a Greek doctor. In his Gospel, he goes into an extended section on obstetrics. Both Gospels declare that Jesus was virgin born. Joseph was not His father, but Mary was not unfaithful to Joseph. Jesus is not an illegitimate child. This is something new: “…A woman shall compass a man” (Jer_31:22). Now, my friend, I have never objected to any man saying that he does not believe in the virgin birth. A man has the right to disbelieve. But I do have two very definite objections: I do not think that a preacher should deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. If he does, then he ought to get a job selling insurance and deal with births in a different way. And I do object to anyone saying that the Bible does not teach the virgin birth of Christ. The only Jesus that we have any historical record of is the One who was virgin born.
If you want to take the position that He was not virgin born, where is your documentation? You will have to produce evidencecertainly more than the puny reasoning of man. It is so easy to sit in a swivel chair in some theological seminary and write a thesis on the impossibility of the virgin birth. You may write a very profound tome on the subject, but you haven’t any documents to back up your denial. All you have is just rationalism. By the process of rationalizing you may say, “It couldn’t have happened.” Well, who are you to say that it couldn’t have happened?
A few years ago man said that it was impossible to go to the moon, but we have gone there, and we have gone there by using the laws of God. God is the Creator of natural laws. He can either use those natural laws or He can set them aside in order to accomplish His purposes. The record clearly states that Jesus Christ was virgin born. In verse Mat_1:17 we find a statement which will explain something in the genealogies. Matthew puts the genealogy into groupings to give an overall view of Old Testament history. One era extends from Abraham to David, another from David to the Babylonian captivity, and the third from the captivity in Babylon to the birth of Jesus Christ. Obviously, he has omitted some names from the genealogy in order to fit fourteen into each period. The question is, why did he do this? Apparently, the number fourteen (twice seven) offered some proof concerning the accuracy of this genealogy. Now that Matthew has shown that Joseph is not the father of Jesus, he is going to give us an explanation. Already in the Old Testament, a supernatural birth has been predicted by God. Jeremiah is talking to the nation Israel when he says, “How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man” (Jer_31:22). That’s not the way it’s done, my friend. That’s not natural birth; it’s supernatural. The virgin birth of the Lord Jesus is the “new thing” which God has done. And it is the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Matthew 1:18
“The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.” Here’s the way it happened, Matthew is telling us. When His mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, that is, she was engaged to him, before they came togetherthey had had no sexual relationshipshe was found with child of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 1:19
The Mosaic Law was very specific at this point. It said that a woman who was guilty of being unfaithful should be stoned to deaththat was the extreme penalty. But this man Joseph was a remarkable man. We devote a great deal of attention to Mary, and rightly so. Protestants should not let themselves be deterred from giving Mary a great deal of credit. She was a remarkable person.
Remember that she was the one whom God chose to be the mother of our Lord, and God makes no mistakes. He picked the right girl. While all of this is true, we need to remember that God also chose Joseph. God made no mistake in choosing him either. A hot-headed man would immediately have had her stoned to death or would have made her a public example by exposing her. But Joseph was not that kind of man.
He was a gentle person. He was in love with her, and he did not want to hurt her in any way, although he felt that she had been unfaithful to him.
Matthew 1:20
In order to prevent a very tragic situation, the angel appeared to Joseph to make clear to him what was taking place.
Matthew 1:21
The name Jesus means “Savior.” He shall have the name Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins.
Matthew 1:22
Matthew, who is writing for the nation Israel, points out that all this was done so that it might be fulfilled as the Lord had spoken. Matthew is appealing to the nation Israel to understand that this One who had come must be the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy. It has been said that there are over three hundred prophecies concerning the first coming of Christ that have been literally fulfilled. I don’t know how many of them are in Matthew, but I do know that Matthew quoted more from the Old Testament than the other three Gospel writers all together. It seems he records things and substantiates them from the Old Testament because he is not primarily trying to give a “life of Christ” but is showing that this is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning Him. Now he states the prophecy which was given in Isa_7:14:
Matthew 1:23
Now let’s look at this a moment because it is very important. The liberal theologian has, of course, denied the fact of the virgin birth of Christ, and he has denied that the Bible teaches His virgin birth. Very candidly, I suspect that the Revised Standard Version was published in order to try to maintain some of the theses of the liberals. In fact, I am sure of this because one of the doctrines they have denied is the virgin birth. In the New Testament of the Revised Standard Version, which was copyrighted in 1946, Mat_1:23 reads thus: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel’ (which means, God with us).” In the Old Testament of the Revised Standard Version, which was copyrighted in 1952, Isa_7:14 reads like this: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Notice that in Isaiah they substituted “young woman” for the word virgin, even though in Mat_1:23 they had used the word virgin, which is a fulfillment of Isa_7:14! The prophecy of Isa_7:14 was given as a sign. My friend, it is no sign at all for a young woman to conceive and bear a son. If that’s a sign, then right here in Southern California a sign is taking place many times a day, every day. They translated it “young woman” to tone down that word virgin. Let us look at Isa_7:14 in the original Hebrew language. The word used for “virgin” is almah. The translators of the RSV went to the writings of Gesenius, an outstanding scholar who has an exhaustive Hebrew lexicon. (I can testify that it’s also exhausting to look at it!) Gesenius admitted that the common translation of the word is “virgin,” but he said that it could be changed to “young woman.” The reason he said that was because he rejected the miraculous. So this new translation and others who have followed him, have attempted to say that almah means “young woman” and not “virgin.” Let’s turn back to Isaiah 7 and study the incident recorded there. This was during the time when Ahaz was on the throne. He was one of those who was far from God, and I list him as a bad king. God sent Isaiah to bring a message to him, and he wouldn’t listen. So we read: “Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD” (Isa_7:10-12).
May I say, it was pious hypocrisy for him to say what he did. God had asked Isaiah to meet Ahaz on the way to deliver God’s message to him that God would give victory to Ahaz. However, Ahaz wouldn’t believe God and so, in order to encourage his faith, Isaiah tells him that God wants to give him a sign. In his super-pious way Ahaz says, “Oh, I wouldn’t ask a sign of the Lord.” Isaiah answered him, “God is going to give you a sign whether you like it or not. The sign isn’t just for you but for the whole house of David.” Now here is the sign: “…Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa_7:14). Obviously, if this refers to a young woman, it would be no sign to Ahaz, or to the house of David, or to anybody else; but if a virgin conceives and bears a son, that, my friend, is a sign.
And that’s exactly what it means. When the word almah is used in the Old Testament, it means a virgin. Rebekah was called an almah before she married Isaac. I asked a very fine Hebrew Christian, who is also a good Hebrew scholar, about that. He said, “Look at it this way. Suppose you went to visit a friend of yours who had three daughters and two of them were married and one was still single. He would say, ‘These two are my married daughters, and this young lady is my third daughter.’ Do you think he would mean a prostitute when he said ‘young lady’?
If you would imply that she was anything but a virgin, he would probably knock your block off.” May I say, I would hate to be those who deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ when they must come into the presence of the Son of God. I’m afraid they are going to wish they could somehow take back the things they have said to malign Him. The fact that the word almah means “a virgin” is proven by the Septuagint. During the intertestamental period, seventy-two Hebrew scholars, six from each of the twelve tribes, worked down in Alexandria, Egypt, on the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language. When they came to this “sign” in Isaiah, those seventy-two men understood that it meant “virgin,” and they translated it into the Greek word parthenos. That is the same word which Matthew uses in his Gospel. My friend, parthenos does not mean “young woman”; it means “virgin.” For example, Athena was the virgin goddess of Athens, and her temple was called the Parthenon because parthenos means “virgin.” It is clear that the Word of God is saying precisely what it means. HIS NAMENotice something wonderful. “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” It looks as if there is a problem here. Can you tell me where Jesus was ever called Emmanuel? No, He is called Jesus because that is His name. He was given this name because He shall save His people from their sins. Christ, by the way, is His title; Jesus is His name. But it says here that He shall be called “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Friend, here we have one of the most wonderful things in the entire Word of God. Let’s look at this. Emmanuel means “God with us.” He can’t be Emmanuel, God with us, unless he is virgin born. That’s the only way! And notice, unless He is Emmanuel, He cannot be Jesus, the Savior. The reason they call Him Jesus, Savior, is because He is God with us. This truth about the One who came down to this earth is one of the most wonderful things in the Bible. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb_2:9). He had to be a sacrifice that was acceptable. I couldn’t die for the sins of the world. I can’t even die a redemptive death for my own sins. But He can! How can Jesus be a Savior? Because He is Emmanuel, God with us. How did He get with us? He was virgin born. I say again, He was called Jesus. He was never called Emmanuel. But you cannot call Him Jesus unless He is Emmanuel, God with us. He must be Emmanuel to be the Savior of the world. That is how important the virgin birth is. Can a person be a Christian and deny the virgin birth? Hear me very carefully: I believe that it is possible to accept Christ as your Savior without knowing much about Him. You may not even know that this record is in the Bible. But after you have become a child of God, you will not deny the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. You may not have to know it to be saved, but as a child of God you cannot deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Do I sound dogmatic, friend? Well, I hope I do because I consider this to be all-important. I want a Savior who is able to reach down and save Vernon McGee. If He’s just another man like I am, then He’s not going to be able to help me very much. But if He is Emmanuel, God with us, virgin born, then He is my Savior. Is He your Savior today? He took upon Himself our humanity in this way so that He might taste death for us, that He might die a redemptive death on the cross for us.