WE come to a new study at the beginning of a new year, and this is appropriate. In these Sunday meditations we have already been through Mark's Gospel and also the Gospel of St. John. After learning from Hebrews it is good to look at another Gospel in these meditations.

The opening verses of St. Matthew are not attractive to our modern mind, and so perhaps we skip over this record of genealogy as quickly as possible. However this would be a mistake. This record of genealogy has a very important place in this gospel testimony. Matthew wrote to his fellow Jews, and he seeks here to show that Jesus was the promised seed of Abraham through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. He also seeks to prove that Jesus is the king, the son of David, whose kingdom will have no end. He does this in this genealogy in a concise and cogent manner. Those who are interested in biblical numbers, and they are significant, can’t help to see the three periods of 14, and that 3 and 4, both perfect numbers make 7, and 2 x 7 is 14, and 3 x 14 = 42, all adding up to total perfection. Those who are interested in numbers in the bible will be able to find a very clear and full discussion of these numbers in the commentary on Matthew by William Hendriksen published by the Banner of Truth.

For our spiritual nourishment there are lessons from these verses which stand out clearly. the first is that the message of the bible is focused on Jesus Christ. Matthew, because he was writing to Jews, traces the ancestry of Jesus concerning his human nature to Abraham, but Luke traces it to Adam. From beginning to end of the bible the message is concerning God’s purpose of love to sinners through providing a Saviour, Jesus Christ. From the time of Adam’s sin which plunged the world into misery and death, God, in grace and love, planned to provide salvation. He promised it after sin and death devastated the world, and again to Abraham, and again to David. Matthew brings out this fact. Jesus, therefore, is the message of the revelation of God. It is in him we have salvation and the gift of eternal life. Here is the uniqueness of the religion of the bible, which marks it out as the one and only true religion. No other religion has such a Saviour and such a Salvation.

We need to notice how careful Matthew is to protect the true identity of Jesus. He is truly a human being, because he was born by Mary. However, Matthew makes clear that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and so he is referred to as the husband of Mary. In the next verses we are told who conceived Jesus. It was God, the Holy Spirit. Jesus had to be both human and divine. He had to be a man to represent mankind and become responsible for man, so being the second Adam. He had to be God to give his work and sacrifice that infinite value that would be sufficient to pay the price of salvation.

Next we learn the lesson that the Jews were chosen for one purpose only, and that was so the promise of a Saviour should be fulfilled. God chose them for this, and it brought on the nation supreme blessings if they were faithful, but it did not mean that these blessings continued in spite of sin and rebellion. In fact the nation turned from God continually, and so forfeited the blessings, and so when the purpose of there selection was fulfilled, and Christ had come and won salvation for all who would believe on him, the Jew’s special relationship to God as a nation ceased. Jews became like all others. Salvation was opened to them only if they believed in Jesus as the Christ.

This leads us to see that the purposes of God for our salvation was not and can not be thwarted by human sin. God kept the nation of the Jews in their identity, even though they sinned, in order to fulfil his purpose of love and grace to save. The sin and disobedience of the Jews could not upset God’s purpose, however Satan sought to achieve this.

So we see that the promise of the Saviour was to save a people for a new world wherein would dwell righteousness. This present world is doomed, and always has been. God’s purpose in Christ is salvation, so the people of faith may become God’s people and inherit the new heaven and earth, and be delivered from the bondage of corruption into glorious liberty in this new life.

There are interesting details in this genealogy which bring out this truth concerning salvation. We see the Christ as Saviour was never meant to be for Jews alone because Ruth, the Moabitess, is mentioned as being part of the purpose of salvation (Verse 5). The Jews could never see this fact, which was so plain in so many ways in the Old Testament, not least in the promise to Abraham, that in Christ all the nations of the world would be blessed.

Then we see that salvation is offered in grace to sinners, and is not earned. We see this in the mention of Uriah’s wife, which brings to mind that the line of the promised Saviour was preserved even through the grievous sin of mankind.

Both these aspects of salvation and God’s purpose in grace are brought together in the mention of Rahab in verse 5, who was a believer yet both a sinner and a gentile.