GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 3:31-33
The Genealogy of Jesus Christ – From the Exodus to Solomon
31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,
In this part of Jesus’ genealogy there are fifteen generations, taking us backward nearly a thousand years from the reign of King Solomon to the time of the Patriarchs.
An important name here is Nathan, who was Solomon’s brother. Nathan and Solomon were born after David conquered Jerusalem and began to reign there (2 Samuel 5:14). This was in about 1000 BC. Another benchmark for chronology here is Nahshon son of Amminadab. He was head of his family group entering Canaan (Numbers 1:3-7), which means that he was not yet an adult when the Exodus began. Since more than 400 years separate Nathan from Nahshon, and since the line from Jesse to Nathan is certainly only three generations, there seem to be several names missing. If Jesse were 40 when his son David was born (David was his youngest), that leaves 380 years between Nahshon (who knew Moses) and Jesse, David’s father, but there are only three names between them in the genealogy. We know that Boaz was not a young man when he married Ruth (“You have not run after the younger men,” Ruth 3:10), but his father and grandfather were probably not in their hundreds when they married and begat children.
Hezron, the third name, is different. We don’t know how long Hezron lived, but he outlived at least one wife (1 Chron. 2:21). His last wife (we don’t know if she was wife number 2, 3 or even 4) was still pregnant when he finally died: “After Hezron died…Abijah the wife of Hezron bore him Asshur the father of Tekoa” (1 Chron. 2:24). This means that his grandson or a later descendant named Tekoa was the man who built the village of Tekoa, nor far from Bethlehem in Judah (see Amos 1:1; Jeremiah 6:1).
In this list, some dates are far more certain, and other dates are extremely uncertain. For “extremely uncertain” cases, no date is even suggested below. King David’s years are pretty well established as being 1040-970, with his reign beginning in 1010 (2 Samuel 5:4).
Judah, c. 1920
Perez, c. 1890
Hezron
Ram (Caleb’s brother, 1 Chronicles 2:9)
Amminadab (Aaron’s father-in-law, Exodus 6:23)
Nahshon, c. 1460 (the exodus was in 1446 BC)
Salmon
Boaz (Ruth’s husband during the days of the Judges)
Obed, Ruth’s son
Jesse, David’s father
David, 1040-970 (King, 1010-970)
Nathan, born c. 1000 (Solomon’s brother)
Mattatha, c. 972 (Temple built between 966-959 BC)
Menna, c. 955
Melea, c. 938 (Solomon died in 930)
As we read these names, we are tracing the line of Jesus back into a time more fully recorded in the Bible. Several of these names—David, Jesse, Boaz, and Judah—are people we can talk about and whose stories we know. They are also men whose sins we know. Do we need to go any further than David himself to see a sinful man in need of a Savior? This is why God took on human flesh and lived here. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386) said, “If the incarnation was a fantasy, then the redemption was also a fantasy.” It’s clear from this why it’s important to believe the Bible when it tells us that Jesus was fully and completely human—he did not redeem only one part of me from my sinfulness, but all of me. Since I am completely and fully a sinner, I need a Savior who removes sin completely and fully from all of me.
But we need to let that clear teaching penetrate throughout the rest of the teachings of the Bible. Christ’s humanity doesn’t only maintain its importance on the cross. Jesus was fully human at his baptism, too. He undertook his baptism “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). All of the other things Jesus did in his lifetime on earth were done in perfect obedience to the Heavenly Father. These things he did personally, in his human body, and not apart from it. So Jesus kept the Law as a man.
There are Christians who want to deny that Jesus was physically present in his flesh, either during his lifetime or after his resurrection. Usually they do this because they want to believe that he cannot be present in the Lord’s Supper, but this teaching leads down a path to despair. Why? If he is not present in the Lord’s Supper, it leads to the teaching that he is no longer inhabiting his physical body in the resurrection at all. This leads to two false teachings: (1) That the emphasis of modern Christianity should throw all of its focus on the Holy Spirit and on being “spiritual,” and (2) that Christ’s body did not rise from the dead.
But “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). This is the despair at the end of such a dangerous teaching. It’s not the teaching of the Bible.
Also, the Holy Spirit throws all of our attention on Christ and not on himself. The Spirit, who inspired the epistles of Paul and Peter, focuses all of their attention and ours on Christ crucified. If it is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23), even some Gentile Christians, that isn’t the fault of the Holy Spirit. Christ is truly risen in the flesh—which he demonstrated to his disciples by eating with them (Luke 24:42-43) and showing them the wounds in his hands and side (John 20:19). We do not do the Spirit a disservice by focusing our worship on Jesus Christ. We are listening to the Spirit’s own call to faith in Jesus. He is the firstfruits of the resurrection, and since he has risen in the flesh, we will rise in the flesh, as well.
This carries over into the Lord’s Supper. Jesus is not just symbolically present in the Lord’s Supper, but actually, personally, physically present. We eat his flesh and drink his blood through the miracle of the sacrament, and when he says, simply and clearly, “This is my body, this is my blood” (Luke 22:19-20), that’s what he means. Apply Cyril’s words in this way: “If the physical presence of Christ is a fantasy, then the incarnation is a fantasy.” If someone rejects that Christ is actually present in the Lord Supper—I mean, in the way we partake of the supper Sunday after Sunday in worship—then that person rejects Christ as being actually present on Easter Sunday morning, That person is still in his sins. That person has fallen into despair.
But Jesus died in his physical body. He rose again, also in that physical body. He will come again on the Last Day, still wearing the same flesh you and I wear, and he will come as the firstfruits of the resurrection to bring each one of us to life and to immortality: Judah, Boaz, Jesse, David—and me.
And you, too.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota