Matt 1:1–17 — The Genealogy of the Messiah

I have decided to preach expository sermons through the Gospel according to Matthew. The timing is especially fitting because this first sermon coincides with the beginning of Advent. We will therefore consider Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus during the season leading up to Christmas, and then continue through the Gospel.

I am particularly interested in wrestling with the sections devoted to the teaching of Jesus, such as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 and the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24–25. These passages contain searching calls to discipleship, including the command to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. I want to preach them in a way that does not leave you feeling beaten and bruised, but encourages you to grow in Christ and receive these exhortations from Christ himself as part of our sanctification.

Matthew groups the teachings of Jesus into five major discourses, which contain some of his most extensive teaching in the Gospels. Because of these large teaching sections, Matthew’s Gospel is especially focused on the church. It is the only Gospel that explicitly uses the word “church.” In Matthew 16, Jesus says, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” and Matthew 18 contains instruction about discipleship and discipline within the church. The Gospel concludes with the Great Commission, which gives the church its marching orders. This emphasis is especially relevant as we seek to plant a new church here in Santa Clarita.

The Structure and Flow of the Passage

The passage begins with a header in verse 1: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” The word “book” refers here to the genealogy and the account of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 1, not to the whole Gospel. It should not be taken too literally as a complete book or scroll. The NASB therefore translates the phrase less literally but accurately: “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.”

Verses 2–16 contain the genealogy itself, divided into three sections. The first section, verses 2–6a, traces the line from Abraham to David. The second, verses 6b–11, proceeds from David’s son Solomon through the kings of Judah to Jechoniah, the last king in the genealogy to be carried away to Babylon. The names in these first two sections come from the Old Testament.

The third section, verses 12–16, covers the postexilic period from Jechoniah to Joseph, the legal or adoptive father of Jesus. We recognize Shealtiel and Zerubbabel from the postexilic prophets, but most of the other names do not appear in the Old Testament. Matthew probably obtained them from genealogical records preserved by Joseph’s family to maintain the lineage of the royal house.

The preservation of those records was itself an act of faith. After seventy years of exile in Babylon, Cyrus issued a decree in 539 BC allowing the Jews to return to the land and rebuild the temple. Yet the restored community remained under a succession of foreign powers—the Persians, Greeks, and Romans—and no longer had a Davidic king. The temple had been rebuilt, but the nation lived through a period of spiritual malaise without a reigning son of David.

Nevertheless, a godly remnant continued to trust that God would fulfill his promise. Even names such as Zadok, Jacob, and Joseph reflect hope in the biblical promises, much as Christians today name their children after biblical figures. Those believers lived as pilgrims, much as we do while we wait for Christ’s return. Two thousand years of church history have passed, and we still ask when he will come. We continue as servants of the Lord, trusting the promises of the gospel even when their fulfillment seems delayed.

The passage concludes in verse 17 with a retrospective summary. Matthew’s genealogy is not merely a literal lineage. Like the genealogies elsewhere in Scripture, it is theologically shaped and filled with rich theological truth. Consider its literary structure:

• David stands at its center and is expressly called “David the king” in verse 6.
• The Hebrew consonants of the name David—D-V-D—have the numerical value fourteen: four plus six plus four.
• The genealogy is arranged into three groups of fourteen generations.
• It highlights three key persons or events in redemptive history: Abraham, David, and the exile.
• It inserts references to four women of faith from outside the covenant community: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah.

The genealogy of Jesus therefore teaches us three great theological truths: what it tells us about redemptive history, what it tells us about God’s grace, and what it tells us about ourselves as God’s people.

Christ, the Culmination of Redemptive History

The Son of David and the Son of Abraham

The first prominent feature of the genealogy is its emphasis on Jesus as the son of David. The opening verse reads, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David.” Even the title “Christ,” or “Messiah,” means “the anointed one.” Jesus is the anointed king from the house of David.

The same point appears at the end of the first section, where Jesse is identified as the father of “David the king.” At the end of the genealogy, Jacob is said to be “the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” Finally, verse 17 highlights the Davidic connection through the three groups of fourteen generations. Matthew’s obvious but important point is that Jesus is the long-expected king of the royal house of David.

Jesus is not only the son of David; he is also the son of Abraham. Matthew is connecting the Davidic covenant to the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant focused upon the promise of a collective offspring—the numerous descendants of Abraham who would inherit the land. God told Abraham to look at the stars and count them if he was able: “So shall your offspring be.” He also promised, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Gen. 12:7).

The Davidic covenant develops this promise by narrowing the focus from the covenant community as a whole to the individual offspring who is Christ. God had already told Abraham that kings would come from him. The promised king would reign over God’s people in the land. Thus, the Davidic covenant does not replace the Abrahamic covenant; it advances it by focusing upon the individual Seed, the Messiah.

The promised land itself also reaches beyond a piece of earthly territory in Canaan. In its ultimate fulfillment, the land is the heavenly country and the new creation—the inheritance in which all God’s promises find their fulfillment. The royal Seed secures that inheritance for the collective seed, the whole people who belong to him.

The Promised Seed

The Abrahamic covenant, in turn, reaches back to the original promise of the covenant of grace in Genesis 3:15. After the fall, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Where is that promise found in Matthew’s genealogy? It is implied in the opening expression, “the book of the genealogy.” The phrase occurs in the Greek translation of Genesis in Genesis 2:4, concerning the heavens and the earth, and most significantly for Matthew’s purpose in Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Genesis 5 traces the line from Adam through Seth to Noah, and Genesis 11 continues the line from Noah’s son Shem to Abraham. Matthew’s opening words invite us to place those earlier genealogies before his own, thereby tracing the promised line from Adam to Abraham and ultimately to Christ.

Although Matthew does not explicitly call Jesus the offspring promised in Genesis 3:15, his language points us in that direction. The word “offspring,” or “seed,” has both a collective and an individual sense. Collectively, it refers to the people of God; individually, it refers to the Messiah. The promise unfolds from Genesis 3:15 through the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant until it reaches its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Matthew’s genealogy therefore has a vast vision of redemptive history. It contains profound covenant theology. Jesus is the promised Seed announced to Adam and Eve after the fall, the offspring of Abraham who inherits the promises, and the royal son of David who reigns over God’s people.

The Seventh Seven

The three groups of fourteen generations reinforce this message. Three times fourteen equals forty-two, or six groups of seven. All of redemptive history, from the first promise of the gospel through Abraham, David, and the exile, prepares for the coming of Christ. Christ is the seventh seven, the one who brings the eternal Sabbath and the true Jubilee. The Sabbath finds its completion in him. He is the culmination and fulfillment of all God’s promises.

This pattern also leads us back to Adam. Adam received a Sabbath command: six days of labor followed by a seventh day of rest. That weekly pattern pointed to his ultimate hope. After fulfilling the cultural mandate to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, he was to enter God’s eternal Sabbath rest. Adam failed, but Christ, the last Adam, fulfilled the covenant of works and ushered in the eschatological Sabbath.

Matthew’s genealogy thus presents a teleological view of history: history has a divinely appointed direction and goal. It moves from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile “until the Messiah.” Christ is the goal, the telos, the Alpha and the Omega. Everything moves toward him.

This perspective changes the way we read a genealogy. A long list of unfamiliar names may tempt us to become impatient, but these names trace the preservation of God’s promise across generations. They proclaim that the promise of Genesis 3:15 did not fail. Through centuries of waiting, displacement, faith, and unbelief, God carried the line forward until the promised Seed came.

Most of the biblical genealogies prepare the way for the genealogy of Jesus. Not every genealogy does so in the same immediate sense—the descendants of Esau in Genesis 36 are an obvious qualification—but the central genealogical line of Scripture displays the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15. The Bible moves from promise to fulfillment, from the Seed promised to the Seed revealed. Christ is the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, and the son of David. The genealogy tells us that Christ is the culmination of redemptive history.

God’s Sovereign Grace

The second truth is not as immediately visible. It is woven throughout the genealogy like a counterpoint: the persistent sin and failure of humanity. A reader who knows the Old Testament recognizes that many names in this genealogy carry stories of rebellion, sexual immorality, idolatry, and apostasy. Yet God overrules human sin and turns it to good.

Judah and Tamar

Verse 3 says that Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, recalling the events of Genesis 38. Judah had three sons by a Canaanite woman. His firstborn, Er, married Tamar but was wicked in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord put him to death. Judah then instructed his second son, Onan, to perform the duty of a brother-in-law and raise up offspring for his deceased brother. Onan tried to prevent Tamar from becoming pregnant because he knew the offspring would not be counted as his. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord put him to death as well.

Judah then had one surviving son, Shelah. He should have given Shelah to Tamar in marriage, but he feared that Shelah might also die. He told Tamar to remain a widow in her father’s house until Shelah grew up, although he had no intention of fulfilling his promise. In fear and self-regard, Judah lost faith in God’s promise concerning the offspring.

Judah was trying to control the fulfillment of the promise by his own wisdom. His conduct recalls Abraham’s attempt to obtain the promised offspring through Hagar rather than waiting upon the Lord. Judah treated his family circumstances as merely human and secular rather than seeing his responsibility within God’s covenant promise.

Tamar, however, believed more firmly in that promise than Judah did. She covered herself with a veil, presented herself as a prostitute, and sat at the entrance to the town. Judah did not recognize his daughter-in-law and went in to her, and she conceived. Three months later, when Judah learned that Tamar was pregnant, he demanded that she be brought out and burned.

Tamar had wisely retained Judah’s signet, cord, and staff as a pledge. As she was brought out, she said, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant,” and asked Judah to identify them. Judah acknowledged them and confessed, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” Tamar later gave birth to the twins Perez and Zerah.

Judah sinned against Tamar by withholding his third son, but Tamar acted to continue the line of the promised seed despite Judah’s unbelief. If God put Onan to death for refusing his duty, Judah deserved the same judgment. Yet through Judah’s sin came Perez, and through Perez continued the line of the Messiah. Behind the genealogy lies human sin, but God sovereignly overrules it to accomplish his redemptive purpose in Christ.

David and the Kings

David’s sin is likewise recalled in verse 6: “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David committed adultery with her and then arranged for Uriah to be killed at the front of the battle in an attempt to conceal his sin. Matthew does not retell the whole sordid affair, but the expression “the wife of Uriah” deliberately brings it to mind.

Sin also appears in the history of the kings. Some of the kings listed were faithful, including Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Many others were not. Rehoboam’s folly contributed to the division of the kingdom into Israel and Judah. His son Abijah was not a good king. Ahaz was wicked, and Manasseh was among the worst. According to 2 Kings 21, Manasseh rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed, erected altars for Baal, placed an Asherah in the temple of God, and burned his son as an offering.

The genealogy is therefore filled with sinners. Although sin is not its primary theme—the focus remains the culmination of redemptive history in Christ—it runs throughout the family line. Human failure, rebellion, apostasy, sexual immorality, and idolatry stand behind these names.

This gives added force to the angel’s words in Matthew 1:21: Mary “will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The Messiah had to come because his people needed salvation from sin.

Grace That Overrules Sin

God not only sent the Messiah to save his people from their sins; he also overruled their sins and used this sin-tainted genealogy to accomplish his plan of salvation. In the mysterious providence of God, the sins of God’s people became part of the lineage through which their Savior came. God is a God of amazing grace. He is sovereign over sin, overrules it, and turns it to good.

How much sin and brokenness do we see in this genealogy? How much do you see in your own story, your own life, and your own family? Take heart, brothers and sisters. God has the power, mercy, and grace to overrule our sin and bring about good—even the glorious plan of redemption that he ordained before the foundation of the world. Let us rejoice in the Lord’s ability to take even our sin into his sovereign hands and use it to display the glory of his grace. All the glory belongs to him.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:4–9:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The coming ages will display the immeasurable riches of God’s grace. In eternity, we will look back upon the sins of our lives, our families, and this world and see how God forgave us and used even human evil for his glory.

Heaven is eternal, and it will take the coming ages to display the immeasurable riches of that grace. We will not glory in sin itself, but in the wisdom, mercy, and power of the God who pardoned it, defeated it, and brought good out of what human beings intended for evil.

The People of Christ the King

The third truth concerns us as God’s people. At first, the text may appear to concern only the royal dynasty leading to Christ. Yet the people of God are present throughout the genealogy.

Judah and His Brothers

Verse 2 says, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” If Matthew intended only to trace the royal line, we would not expect him to mention Judah’s brothers. The Messiah comes from Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah, but Judah’s brothers represent the twelve tribes descended from Jacob. They too belong to the people of God.

The brothers appear again in verse 11: “Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.” It was not only the king who was deported. The whole people of God were under the king’s leadership. The kings led the nation into sin, the people followed them, and all were sent into exile.

Although the genealogy focuses on the royal line and the individual Seed of the woman, it also includes the collective seed, the people of God. We are part of that people.

The Gentile Women

What about those of us who are Gentiles? Matthew signals our inclusion through the four Gentile women named or identified in the genealogy. Tamar was probably a Canaanite. Rahab was a Canaanite living in Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite who voluntarily joined the people of God. Bathsheba is identified as the wife of Uriah, who is repeatedly called “Uriah the Hittite” in the Old Testament, making it likely that she too was a Hittite.

The inclusion of these four women gives us hope that Gentiles belong among the Messiah’s people. Matthew teaches that the people of the Messiah are integral to his purpose and that the church is composed of Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ. The church is restored Israel after the exile under the headship of Christ the King.

This explains the repeated references to the deportation to Babylon—in verses 11 and 12 and twice in verse 17. The failures of Israel’s kings brought the people into exile. Those kings led the nation into idolatry, the shedding of innocent blood, apostasy, and rejection of the covenant. As a result, the royal dynasty was cut down, and Jechoniah was taken into captivity.

Yet the genealogy makes a Christ-centered proclamation. As the sinful kings caused Israel to sin and brought exile, so the true and righteous King restores his people to covenant fellowship with God under the new covenant. Again, Matthew 1:21 supplies the explanation: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

The genealogy of Jesus is therefore also our genealogy because we are united to Christ. He is the King and head of the people of God. Israel’s kings were responsible for leading the people in the true worship of God, cleansing the nation from idolatry, and shepherding them in righteousness and holiness. More often than not, they led the people into sin. Christ perfectly fulfills the kingly calling. He was born from among the people of God to save us from our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness.

The kings were also charged with caring for the temple and encouraging the people to support its worship and priesthood. Their office was never merely political. They were covenant heads called to order the life of the nation toward the service of God. The royal line therefore always possessed a corporate dimension: the king represented and led a people. Christ fulfills that office without failure.

Gentile Faith in Matthew

The Gentile women at the beginning of Matthew anticipate a theme that unfolds throughout the Gospel. Although Jesus first came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, his saving purpose extends to the Gentiles.

In Matthew 8, a Roman centurion asks Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant. Jesus marvels at his faith and declares, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

In Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman pleads with Jesus to heal her demon-oppressed daughter. Jesus initially says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” She persists: “Lord, help me.” When he answers, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” she replies, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Jesus commends her: “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”

Finally, the Gospel ends with the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Gentiles are a key theme in Matthew’s Gospel. At the outset, Matthew lays down the first markers by identifying four Gentile women whom God brought into the covenant community and used as instruments through whom the promised Seed would come.

Sanctification Under the King

What, then, does this genealogy tell us about ourselves? We are the people of Christ. We belong among “Judah and his brothers” and “Jechoniah and his brothers.” Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ are the restored Israel of God under the headship of Christ the King. Therefore, we must follow his leadership.

Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven and sits at God’s right hand, reigning over the new Israel. He is our King, head, and leader, and he shepherds us in paths of righteousness and obedience. This is the work of sanctification.

We often rejoice in justification and then groan when we hear about sanctification, but that is the wrong way to think about it. Sanctification is not something to fear or a burden beneath which we must despair. Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Sanctification is as much the sovereign work of Christ as justification. He gives us his Spirit to dwell within us and transform us into his image. We are his people, and as he brings us through trials, tribulations, sins, and struggles, he works for our good. Just as the faithful people in the postexilic portion of the genealogy waited for the Messiah, we live by faith while Christ continues his work in us. In progressively sanctifying us and conforming us to his image, Christ exercises his kingly office.