Behold The God Who Governs The World!

BEHOLD THE GOD WHO GOVERNS THE WORLD!

An Exposition of Matthew 1:1-17

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: December 17, 2017 (Third Sunday of Advent)

Series: Advent 2017

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Let me begin by reading Matthew 1:1-17. Holy Scripture says:

¹The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

² Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, ³ and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, ⁴ and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, ⁵ and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, ⁷ and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, ⁸ and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, ⁹ and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, ¹⁰ and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, ¹¹ and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

¹² And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, ¹³ and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, ¹⁴ and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, ¹⁵ and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, ¹⁶ and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:1-17)

INTRODUCTION

As we consider the extensive genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17, the first question we must tackle is the question of spiritual profitability. Every now and then Scripture gives us a lengthy genealogy – for example in Genesis 5, Genesis 10-11, 1 Chronicles 1-9, among others – and the common temptation is, quite frankly, to blow them off. We want immediate and obvious relevance and spiritual application, not a historical record of the distant past, and certainly not a boring list of names – half of which we cannot pronounce anyway! So there may be part of us that wants to skip Matthew 1:1-17 and jump straightway into Matthew 1:18-25 because we assume that the second passage will feed our soul with more nourishment.

If you find such a temptation or attitude of disinterest in your heart, you may take a little comfort that you are not alone! But that little comfort should be short-lived because you have to reckon with Scriptural teaching that all of Scripture is profitable for your soul:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

Do you believe this? If so, then a clear implication follows: The genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17 along with every other genealogical or historical recounting in Scripture is designed to help you grow in your walk with God. Which means that so long as you think that Matthew’s introduction is boring or beside the point, you have not yet understood the passage correctly. Because if you understood it correctly, it would help you grow, it would renew your mind, it would energize your heart, and it would give you courage to live a God-pleasing life.

Believing, then, that this passage is spiritually profitable, our task is to be expectant beneficiaries of God’s Word and discover the profit that awaits us here.

Let me set forth four things that we would do well to see in Matthew 1:1-17.

PART 1: WHAT THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW IS ALL ABOUT

First, we must see front and center that the Gospel According to Matthew is about Jesus. For notice how it all begins – and since Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, this is how the New Testament begins as well:

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David…” (v. 1)

It is beneficial for us to pause on this very first verse and consider its significance. What do you think the Bible is all about? How do you read it? What are looking for in its sacred pages?

Some may see the Bible mainly as a rule book. It gives us commands, telling us what to do and what not to do. “Thou shalt not” – and you can fill in the blank. It is gives us guidance and general principles by which to conduct our lives. It provides an ethical or moral compass that distinguishes right from wrong, good from evil, wisdom from folly. The person who sees the Bible mainly as a rule book might like the acronym B-I-B-L-E that someone came up with:

Basic

Instructions

Before

Leaving

Earth.

Well, perhaps in a way.

Others may see the Bible mainly as a collection of disconnected but inspiring lessons, or as a tonic for hard times. This may take the shape of “a verse a day keeps the devil away” sort of thinking. When we read the Bible we are seeking an emotional or motivational lift: David defeated the giant, and so can I!; Timothy had a faithful mother and grandmother and therefore I should try to be a faithful Mom or Grandma as well. Don’t bother me with the larger literary context and theological purpose of the good book, let me just have a spiritual vitamin for today – and if it helps, it helps.

Still others may see the Bible mainly as a prophecy about the future. The Bible is all about the end of this present world. And so we construct impressive charts that outline the future, we make interesting connections between Scriptural predictions and current events, and we assume that the end must be near. Some people even believe that there are secret codes in Scripture that unlock the key to the future. There are fringe groups and probably even “Christian novels” that promote this approach to the Bible.

To be sure, the Bible is full of instruction about how to live. But is the Bible mainly a rule book? Yes, the Bible offers an abundance of encouragement and inspiration. But is the Bible mainly a mishmash collection of inspiring lessons? It is certainly true that the Bible gives us a reliable window into the future. But is the Bible mainly about future events? What is the Bible about?

Scripture’s testimony concerning itself is quite clear – and the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel is part of that testimony. The Bible is mainly about the Lord Jesus Christ and the gracious salvation that He brings to His people. 

In John 5:37-40, Jesus is speaking to religious people who were devoted to the study of Scriptures. The passage reads:

“And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:37-40)

What a tragedy! They were Bible people, but not Jesus people. Which means that they missed the point of the Bible, which is to “bear witness” to Jesus and His gracious provision of life. When we read or preach or teach the Bible and when we listen to the Bible being read or preached or taught, we ought to have an eye for Jesus, “the one whom [the Father] has sent,” and as we see Him we ought to run to Him for life!

In another passage, Luke 24:44-47, the risen Lord Jesus is teaching His disciples about the main subject matter of the Old Testament:

“Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”” (Luke 24:44-47)

So if you come to Scripture mainly to get commands, or mainly to get inspired, or mainly to confirm or refine your prophetic timeline, you’re missing the greater point, namely, that it is your privilege as a believer to know and love the Lord, and to walk in fellowship with Him. Indeed the main subject matter of the Bible is Jesus Christ who fulfilled the promises and hopes of the Old Testament; Jesus Christ who suffered on the cross for our salvation; Jesus Christ who rose again as the Conqueror of Satan, sin and death; and Jesus Christ who alone brings the gift of repentance, pardon, and new life to everyone who believes. Therefore the prayer of our heart should consistently be, in the words of the well-known song, “Give Me Jesus.” “In the morning when I rise” and “Oh when I come to die” and at every point in between, with ready ears and an open Bible, “Give me Jesus.”

Brothers and sisters, never let the beautiful light of this simple truth fade from your sight, never say that this discovery is only for new converts and not also for seasoned saints, never assume that you are so sanctified that you would never lose your bearings. But always, always return to this foundational reality that the Bible is mainly about the gracious “Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:10).

PART 2: BEHOLD THE GOD OF HISTORY!

Having established the centrality of the Lord Jesus to the storyline of Matthew and indeed of the whole Bible, now we are ready for some additional lessons from this passage.

So our second point of consideration is that Matthew 1:1-17 reminds us that God is the sovereign director of history. An extensive genealogy such as the one here is obviously a window into history – into the history of a family, and a rather large family at that! The coming of our Savior Jesus did not just come out of nowhere. It was not the case that God had been asleep for thousands of years, and then one day He woke up and decided to intervene by slipping His Son into the world through a secret side door. What we have instead is a rich historical context – a multi-generational storyline, a coherent historical plot moving forward from Genesis 1 (the beginning of the Old Testament) to Malachi 4 (the end of the Old Testament).

• “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

• “… God created man in his own image.” (Genesis 1:27)

• Our first parents turned their back on God and plunged humanity into ruin (Genesis 3:1-24), and yet God promised that a Savior would come in due time in order “to destroy the works of the devil” (Genesis 3:15; quotation from 1 John 3:8).

• The ancient world was so steeped in sin that God wiped out everyone in a catastrophic flood, but He preserved Noah and Noah’s family who carried forward God’s promise.

• The post-flood world – the multiplied descendants of Noah – wasn’t exactly sterling in character either, and they were soon chasing the vanity of their own foolish ideas.

• Then, as my friend John Miller might say, God tapped Abraham on the shoulder. Note that Abraham is one of the key historical hinges in Matthew 1: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” (v. 1-2) Indeed, Jacob had twelve sons and these twelve sons were the building blocks of the nation of Israel. This nation had a high and holy calling to walk with God and to reflect God’s light to the other nations. God’s mercy to Abraham and Abraham’s family was intended to ultimately bring mercy to all the nations.

As we ponder this lengthy genealogy which spans forty-two generations and over fifteen-hundred years, we might scratch our heads and ask a question like: Why did God take so long? I mean, we’re talking about the salvation of the world here! The world was a mess then just as the world is a mess now, and surely God could fix it all right now if He decided to do so. Why so much time? Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, then Judah, then Perez, then Hezron, then Ram, then Amminadab, then Nahshon, then Salmon, then Boaz, and on and on it goes. Why couldn’t the Messiah have come along earlier in the process? Why did fifteen- or sixteen-hundred years have to pass? And as those who live on the other side of the Messiah’s coming, we might ask why two thousand years have passed since His first coming? Why not just come after a short time and usher in the new heaven and the new earth? Why the wait?

The answer, of course, is a simple one. It is an answer similar to the reminder that I give to my children on a regular basis, namely, that they are not in charge, but Daddy is. They do not necessarily need to know the inner workings of my mind; what they do need to know and honor is the fact that I have the limited but real authority, under God, to direct my home, which includes my children. And with respect to the historical development and (from our perspective) the historical delay, we need to bow our hearts in humble submission and confess: we are not in charge, but God is! God is the sovereign director of history. History has rightly been called His Story, and so it is. God is working out His plan. In sovereign authority, He ordained that His plan should span many generations and involve many people. In sovereign wisdom, He decided that many ups and downs, many twists and turns, should be permitted to take place along the way.

Brothers and sisters, it is so important for us to realize that Christianity is fundamentally a historically grounded faith: a faith, a worldview, that is anchored in actual history and that is tied to real people in real places at real times – and that the entrance of our Savior Jesus upon the world’s stage happened in the context of this historical unfolding. Now you might ask why this matters and the basic answer to that question is because it is true. If you are sitting at home in your living room chair and pondering your relationship with God and your whole conception of His love to you is that He loves you outside of humanity’s sad history and sent Jesus to rescue you from humanity’s sad history and will someday take you to glory where you will be forever free from humanity’s sad history, and that God’s love just kind of shows up out of nowhere and one day your soul will be set free from this embodied earthy history – well, you’re a bit off track. If you don’t realize that God is the author of a plan that stretches from the Garden of Eden to Ur of the Chaldeans to sojourns in Egypt to wanderings in the desert to entering the Promised Land of Canaan to establishing the temple in Jerusalem to suffering well-deserved affliction at the hands of the Assyrians and then later the Babylonians, and that through all this God’s Plan A was moving forward with a remnant always holding onto the promise all the way down to first-century Palestine and the Galilean town of Nazareth and the “Little Town of Bethlehem” and finally to a cruel cross at Golgotha and an empty tomb outside of Jerusalem – if you don’t realize that the majestic God who dwells in heaven above is intimately involved in the details of earth, then there is a big gap in your conception of God. And consider this: the same God who was at work in the lives of these people in these places is also involved with us where we live today. The Christian life is not about escaping from this world, but rather about being transformed while in it. Our God is the God of history!

PART 3: BEHOLD THE GOD OF PROMISE!

And, moving now to the third point, He is also the God of promise! The theological foundation of this historical genealogy is that God made promises to these people, and the unfolding of history is actually the outworking of God’s promises. Every single one of us should be convinced from Scripture that God has a plan and that He has revealed His plan to us. To be sure, God didn’t reveal the whole plan all at once, but chose to reveal the plan one step at a time.

Other than Jesus Himself, the two key men in Matthew’s genealogy are Abraham and David. God made spectacular and globally significant promises to and about each of these men. Abraham, whose original name was Abram, was an insignificant man without any children because his wife Sarah was barren. Then God stepped in and promised to do great things through Abraham:

“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

The families and nations of the earth at that time were not in a condition of spiritual blessedness; they were corrupt, wayward, and under divine judgment. But God planned to start a new family through Abraham, and that family would become a great nation that received God’s instruction and walked in His favor, and Abraham and his family would become a vehicle of blessing to the whole world. This was the big picture plan!

But as this big picture plan unfolded, it became clear that the fulfillment of the plan would focus on a single individual, a very special descendant of Abraham, who would become King and bring the Abrahamic blessing to the whole world. This narrowing of focus from the larger nation to this single individual is echoed in Matthew’s genealogy in verse 2: “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” Here Matthew acknowledges that Jacob had many sons (twelve in fact, as I already mentioned) – and all of these sons were chosen and incorporated into the great nation of Israel. Nevertheless Matthew puts the focus on just one of Jacob’s sons, the son named Judah, because God decided that Judah would father the kingly line. Therefore in Genesis 49 Jacob blesses his son Judah and assures him that his tribe shall possess the kingship and that in due course a special King shall arise to whom the peoples shall render obedience (see Genesis 49:10). The King is coming!

This takes us to David, the other key man highlighted in our passage. David isn’t just David, is he? As verse 6 tells us, “Jesse [was] the father of David the king.” King Saul was the first man to sit atop the throne of Israel, but he proved to be a total disaster. So God appointed David, a man after God’s own heart, to become king in Saul’s place. King David was in the royal lineage of Judah, and as such he was to receive a spectacular promise of his own.

One day David was contemplating the state of things and he got a-thinking that while he was enjoying life in his royal palace, God Himself didn’t have a permanent house in the capital city of Jerusalem. So David thought he would do God a favor and build Him a house. It was well intended, of course, because David loved the Lord and wanted to honor Him. And even though God does not dwell in temples made by human hands, nevertheless God would eventually authorize the building of a temple that would symbolize His presence among the people. But God said that David would not be the man to build the temple. And it is at just this point that God made a remarkable promise to David. If I may summarize what the Lord said to David, He said: You are not going to build Me a house, but I am going to build you a house. (see 2 Samuel 7:4-11) And when the Lord said that He would build David a house, the Lord didn’t mean a palace; He meant a kingdom. The Lord promised,

“And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:16)

So there you have it: David’s throne will endure forever! Now as D. A. Carson has pointed out, there are only two ways in which this everlasting kingship could be fulfilled. One way would for there to be an endless succession of sons – with each man sitting on the throne for a season of time before he dies, at which time the deceased king’s son assumes the throne, and so this continues forever and ever. That was theoretically possible, but that wasn’t God’s plan.

The other way that God could fulfill the promise of David’s everlasting throne was to eventually bring forth a descendant who would assume the Davidic throne and live forever. This would be a case not of “Long live the King!” but of “Forever Live the King!” This, of course, was God’s plan. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, there would be a son called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, [and] Prince of Peace” who would sit “on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness” forever! (Isaiah 9:6-7) This “shoot from the stump of Jesse” would be empowered by the Spirit to judge rightly, to heal all the divisions of our broken world, and to bring the joy of knowing God to people from every tribe and language group on earth. (Isaiah 11:1-10) And as the prophet Ezekiel foretold, there would be a Davidic king who would stand among God’s people to “feed them and be their shepherd.” (Ezekiel 34:23) And as the prophet Micah foretold, this ruler would come forth from Bethlehem – the city of David – and He would bring peace and security to His people, and He Himself would “be great to the ends of the earth.” (Micah 5:2-5) All that and more is the Old Testament background to Matthew 1:1-17.

And as we read on in Matthew’s Gospel, we discover that this theme of fulfillment is prominent:

• “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” (Matthew 1:22)

• “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet…” (Matthew 2:15)

• “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah.” (Matthew 2:17)

• “… that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled…” (Matthew 2:23)

• “so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.” (Matthew 4:14)

As a final example, let me quote the Lord Jesus Himself:

• “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)

This fulfillment theme – that Jesus came to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament – is implied in the introductory genealogy. The promises entrusted to God’s people – the promises given to Abraham and David and further explained by the prophets – had now reached the age of fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. Our God is the God of promise: the God who makes promises and the God who keeps His promises. The incarnation of our Lord is nothing less than God keeping His promise to His people. The King has come and salvation is near!

PART 4: BEHOLD THE GOD OF GRACE!

We have one final point to consider. The same God who directs the course of history and who makes good on His promises to His people, is at the very same time the God of abundant grace. This also looms large in Matthew’s genealogy, although we have to dig a bit in order to see it.

Genealogies are obviously about individual people who are part of the same multi-generational family and every family has a story. Maybe you think that your family has a “history” – well, be assured that this multigenerational family in Matthew 1 has a “history”. This genealogy points to lots of little stories within the single larger story that tells us the history of a people. And we ought to notice some of the little stories that relate to this genealogical record.

“Abraham was the father of Isaac,” true, but he was also the father of Ishmael. Do you remember that? God promised Abraham a son, but his wife Sarah was barren and as that barrenness continued and they struggled to wait, Abraham and Sarah decided to “help God” fulfill His promise by letting Abraham attempt to father a child with Sarah’s maidservant Hagar. The resultant child was named Ishmael. Thus we have a blemish on the family history – I am speaking not so much of Ishmael as of Abraham’s impatient attempt to work things out in his own strength.

Then Isaac fathered Jacob. Do you remember that scoundrel Jacob? Jacob manipulated his older brother Esau to sell him his birthright and subsequently Jacob stole Esau’s firstborn blessing by deceiving his blind old father Isaac. Another blemish!

Moving to the next generation, we have Judah. What does verse 3 say?

“Judah [was] the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.” (v. 3)

That may sound unremarkable if you don’t know the background account in Genesis 38, but the reality is that Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law. When Judah slept with Tamar, he didn’t know who she was because she was disguised as a prostitute, and so Judah was the sort of man who in our current political climate might lose his job on account of his scandalous behavior. But here he is, written into God’s story, not because of any righteousness of his own, but only because of God’s mercy.

In due course we discover that “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” (v. 6) David really did have a heart for the Lord, but that didn’t mean he was without sin. For on that grievous day when he should have been out on the battlefield fighting with his men, he stayed home at his palace and his eye fixed upon the neighbor a couple doors down – the neighbor being Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. The adulterous affair resulted in an unintended pregnancy, and in David’s effort to cover the whole thing up, he deliberately sent Uriah to his death on the front lines of the battlefield. Then Bathsheba became David’s wife; their first child died, but their subsequent son Solomon became the heir to David’s throne. And Solomon, well, this wise man went on to play the fool in the extreme, as he multiplied wives and concubines into the hundreds and devoted resources to the worship of false gods.

I could go on, but you get the point: this genealogy directs us to a family history that is full of blight and blemish, scandal and sin. If you want a pure race of men, you will not find it in this genealogy. For here we find that David’s throne – as evidenced not only by his own sin but also by the sin of his ancestors and descendants – that David’s throne was severely tarnished. Time and time again, instead of leading the nation into the bounty of God’s goodness, the kings led the nation in the opposite direction – all the way to defeat by a foreign power and deportation to a foreign land.

But this is where grace shines so brightly, because against this backdrop of darkness and disrepair something wonderful has been happening. And what has been happening is that the Holy God of Israel has not written these people off. He hasn’t thrown out the plan because the human participants are so pathetic. He has been preserving the lineage of kings; He has been preserving the nation as a whole; He has been preserving the promises and prophecies that foretold that a day of deliverance would come.

Yes, this genealogical storyline is a sad tale characterized by so much sin-induced sorrow and pain. But do you know what? This genealogical storyline got redeemed – and it got redeemed because of the One who came along at the end of the genealogy, namely, Jesus Christ. If you take away Jesus, you can take this otherwise broken historical record, throw it into the fire, and weep as the whole edifice – throne and all – burns to the ground. And frankly, as it would be with this genealogy if you take Jesus out of it, so it would be with the whole world, if Jesus had never been sent to it. As the Christmas hymn “O Holy Night!” puts it,

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared…”

And as another Christmas hymn reflects,

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, / And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here, / Until the Son of God appear.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer / Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, / And death’s dark shadows put to flight.”

Thus is the history of Israel, and of Israel’s kingship, and indeed of all the world – sin and error, captivity and exile, darkness and gloom, and finally death itself.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps you have come to service today knowing that your life is in as much brokenness and disarray as the historical record of Israel. Well, I have come to service today to tell you good news – and the good news is that David’s reckless behavior wasn’t the end of the story, and Solomon’s foolish escapades weren’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, and “the deportation to Babylon” wasn’t the end of the promise, and the genealogical line didn’t end with “Matthan” and “Jacob” and “Joseph” and the obscurity beyond, and that in God’s perfect time He sent His Son into the mess. This Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, and legally adopted by Mary’s husband Joseph, was and is the true King who came to rescue us from ourselves and deliver us from our sins.

Earlier I said that if you are looking for a pure race of men, you won’t find it in this genealogy. To which I now add: but you will find it in the work of King Jesus. We are all sinners, every single one of us, but the good news of the Gospel is that King Jesus, through His vicarious death upon the cross and His victorious resurrection from the dead, takes us out of the impurity of our sinful life and transfers us into the purity of His perfect life. In the words of the apostle Paul,

“… our great God and Savior Jesus Christ… gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 1:13-14)

Behold the God who directs history and keeps His promises and brings grace to sinners. Be assured that this great and terrible genealogy has been redeemed through the grace of Jesus Christ. The question is: have you? Have you received His grace? Have you entrusted your sinful heart to the true King? Are you walking with Him in newness of life?