The Genealogy of Jesus / Matthew 1:1-17
Introduction: The Movie Credits of the Bible
Welcome to The Well. I hope you guys are doing good tonight. For those of you joining us via video, we are thrilled that you’ve chosen to hang out with us. If I haven’t had the great pleasure of meeting you, my name is Mike Slayton, and I’m one of the teaching pastors here at The Well Community Church. It is a privilege to get to hang out with you guys.
As you know, if you were here last week, we are back in a book of the Bible, and I’m excited about that. I invite you to turn to Matthew chapter one. We are going to dig into a genealogy of all things today. There are forty-eight names we’re going to look at. If you’re wondering why you came to church today to hear forty-eight names, hopefully, this will be a redemptive time. If it’s not, you can stone me later!
Brad did a great job last week introducing this series. He introduced us to the character of Matthew through Caravaggio’s painting, The Calling of Saint Matthew. It was a beautiful picture of the moment this Jewish tax collector from Capernaum decided to follow Jesus. Today, we venture into the first pages of Matthew’s Gospel. As you scan Matthew chapter one, you’ll see seventeen verses explaining who Christ came from.
As Americans, we often look at a genealogy and think, “Really? Why?” Why start a book as important as the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a genealogy? It’s like going to a movie and starting with the end credits. You see all these names—the key grip, the best boy—and we usually don’t care. We get up and leave because the good part is over. But every now and again, you show up to a movie like The Avengers, and a friend tells you to stay to the end. Suddenly, there’s an “Easter egg” scene buried in the credits. It connects back to the past and previews what’s to come. That is what we find in this genealogy.
Think about The Lord of the Rings. (If you haven’t seen it, I’m questioning your salvation publicly right now!) It’s the story of Frodo and Sam, but early on, you meet a guy named Strider. He’s a sketchy-looking ranger sitting in a dark corner of a rainy inn. As the story unfolds, we find out he is no mere ranger. He is actually Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the heir to the throne of Gondor. His genealogy changes everything. He is the one rightful ruler, and the tension of the story is whether he will fulfill his destiny.
We see the same thing in Matthew. We are looking at 2,100 years of history. Forty-eight names, including forty-three men and five women. From powerful kings to lowly shepherds, Israelites to Canaanites, virgins to prostitutes, the righteous to the wicked. Matthew is writing to the Jew, trying to convince his countrymen of two things: first, this is your King; and second, His kingdom has come. To a Jew, starting with a genealogy made perfect sense because they had been waiting for this guy for thousands of years.
As we roll through this, I want to show you four things: this genealogy is legal, it is scandalous, it is merciful, and it is inclusive.
Matthew 1:1 (NASB)
The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
A Legal Claim to the Throne
Matthew starts by identifying Jesus as the “son of David” and the “son of Abraham.” These are the two most prominent characters in the Old Testament. Both men received unilateral covenants from God.
Let’s look at David first. In 2 Samuel 7, David’s kingdom is at its height. David wants to build God a house, but God responds by saying He is going to build David a house. God promises that a descendant will come after David whose kingdom will be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:12-13 (NASB)
’When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. ’He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Now, did Solomon live forever? No. But God repeats a specific word: forever. He tells David his throne will be established forever. This is the Davidic Covenant. It wasn’t conditional; God promised to do it regardless of David’s actions. Every Jew knew the Messiah had to come through David’s line because God said this King would reign on a literal throne forever.
2 Samuel 7:16 (NASB)
‘Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.’‘’
But it goes back even further to Abraham, 2,000 years before Christ. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham and promises him land, seed, and blessing. He tells Abraham that through his offspring, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Paul tells us in Galatians that this was the Gospel preached beforehand—that the blessing would come through the Messiah.
Genesis 12:1-3 (NASB)
Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
Matthew is connecting the dots. He traces the line from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, and then to the fourth-born son, Judah. In Genesis 49, as Jacob is dying, he gives a prophecy about Judah. He describes Judah as a lion and says the scepter—the ruling staff of a king—will not depart from Judah until “Shiloh” comes. This ruler would receive the obedience of all peoples.
Genesis 49:8-10 (NASB)
’Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. ’Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him up? ’The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him [shall be] the obedience of the peoples.
Jesus checks every box. He is the seed of Abraham, from the tribe of Judah, and from the family of David. In just two verses, Matthew proves to the Jew that this is indeed the King they’ve waited for. His claim is legal in every respect.
A Scandalous Lineage
While the genealogy is legal, it is also incredibly scandalous. If you look at verse three, you see Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.
If you know the story from Genesis 38, Tamar was not Judah’s wife; she was his daughter-in-law. After Judah failed to provide a husband for her after his first two sons died, Tamar dressed up as a temple prostitute. Judah, on a business trip, slept with her, and she conceived. It is a scandalous story, yet these children are in the line of the Messiah.
Matthew 1:3 (NASB)
Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram.
It gets even more intense. Look at verse five. Rahab is mentioned—the prostitute from Jericho who rescued the spies. Then there is Ruth, a Moabite. The Moabite line began through an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters. Yet Ruth is included in the genealogy of Jesus.
Matthew 1:5 (NASB)
Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse.
Then we get to verse six. It mentions David, the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife. Matthew doesn’t even call her Bathsheba here; he identifies her by the man David had murdered to cover up their affair.
Matthew 1:6 (NASB)
Jesse was the father of David the king. David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah.
Matthew includes four women here (five including Mary) who are absolutely scandalous or foreign. In a Jewish genealogy, you usually only traced the male line. There was no genealogical reason to include these women, yet Matthew highlights them. Why? Because the men weren’t much better. This isn’t a whitewashed, “pretty” genealogy of impressive people. It’s full of brokenness.
Extreme Mercy and Preservation
Thirdly, this genealogy shows us that God is unbelievably merciful. Matthew organizes the history into three groups of fourteen generations. He moves from David through the Judean kings, all the way to the exile in Babylon.
Matthew 1:7-8 (NASB)
Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa. Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah.
You’ll notice some names are missing. Joram wasn’t the biological father of Uzziah; there are three kings skipped in between. The same happens in verse eleven.
Matthew 1:11 (NASB)
Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
In Hebrew culture, an exact accounting of every single name wasn’t always the highest value; sometimes numerical patterns were used as a memorization tool. Matthew uses the number fourteen—which happens to be the numerical value of David’s name in Hebrew—to show the progression of history.
Matthew 1:17 (NASB)
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
What’s amazing is that even when the line of David ended up in shackles in Babylon, God was merciful. He preserved the line through the exile, through the Greek occupation, and into the Roman occupation. By the time we get to Joseph, the line of kings has become a line of commoners.
When we meet Joseph, he isn’t sitting on a throne. He is a lowly tekton—not just a carpenter, but likely a stonemason, as there was very little wood in Israel. He was a lowly man doing a lowly job, yet he was the rightful heir to the Davidic throne. God preserved that line for 2,100 years, all the way to a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth.
Matthew 1:16 (NASB)
Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
An Inclusive Savior
Finally, this genealogy is inclusive. Look at the names again: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. These were likely all foreigners—Canaanites, Moabites, and Hittites. Five non-Jews are mentioned in the line of the Messiah.
If you were God, is this how you would write the genealogy of the Savior of mankind? I wouldn’t. I’d want it whitewashed and full of powerful CEOs and women of courage. But God chose the scandalous and the foreign. This shows us that Jesus is not just a Savior for the Jew; He is the Savior for the Gentile. That is why we are in this room today. Our Messiah is for the whole world.
Matthew begins this way to show us that Jesus has the pedigree, but He isn’t just the King of the upright—He is the King of the broken. Jesus said He didn’t come for the healthy, but for the sick. He came for tax collectors like Matthew, and people like me.
I would be devastated if I looked at this genealogy and saw only perfect people. I need a Savior who understands brokenness, sin, and failure. We see in these pages people who desperately needed Jesus themselves.
Conclusion: Resting in the Evidence
So, what do we do with this? Usually, a speaker tells you what to do. But tonight, I want you to do nothing. I want you to believe this and rest in it.
We can have confidence, looking back at 4,000 years of history, that we are worshiping the right guy. He is the incarnate Son of God. He walked this earth, laid down His life, and was raised again. You don’t need to strive; you just need to believe in Him. We have mountains of evidence to say: This is the guy.
As we worship tonight, let’s remember Jesus Christ, the hero of the story and the focal point of this genealogy. Let’s rest in the assurance that our faith is in the right place.
Father, thank You that You saw fit to record these words. Though we are often quick to jump over them, we recognize the beauty and the “Easter eggs” hidden here. Thank You for bringing Jesus through the faith of broken men and scandalous women to show us that He is a Savior offered to all of us. May we put our faith in Him—the one and only, fully man and fully God. Thank You for Your plan of salvation that bridged the gap between us. We give You all the praise. In Jesus’ name, amen.