The genealogy in Matthew 1 furnishes us with a record of the marvelous grace of God in going on with the people of His adoption, for He does not pass over their sins. “All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Heb. 4:1313Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:13). In this line we find the names of four with whom there was connected something very humbling—Thamar, or Tamar (Gen. 38); Rachab, or Rahab (Josh. 2); Ruth (Ruth 1); and “her that had been the wife of Urias,” or Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11). Perhaps pride in the heart of the Jew, had he been recording this genealogy, might have excluded these four and included names such as Sarah, Rebekah and other prominent and respected women. But not so God who has been pleased to give it to us this way that the pride of nature might be humbled, for no flesh shall glory in His presence (1 C or. 1:29), while at the same time He would show His grace even to poor sinners of the Gentiles. What wonderful grace on the part of the long promised Messiah who deigned to be linked with a family with which there was connected so sad a history. But such was the way of divine grace in Him who sought to reach the hearts of His people and to redeem them.
The genealogy in Matthew is evidently that of Joseph, who is addressed as a son of David by the angel. It thus gives the legal line of whom Mary’s son would have the rights of inheritance. The angel, in speaking to Joseph, calls Mary his wife and assures him that her child is of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the child’s name, Jesus, is given to Joseph as the One who was to save His people from their sins. Then the prophetic scripture is quoted to Joseph as being fulfilled in the birth of this child: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call His name, Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”
Finally the long heralded event took place, for Mary “brought forth her firstborn son: and he called His name JESUS.” It is in Luke’s Gospel we read that “she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger.”
Oh, strange, yet fit beginning
Of all that life of woe,
In which Thy grace was winning
Poor man his God to know!
Bless’d Babe! who lowly liest
In manger-cradle there;
Descended from the highest,
Our sorrows all to share:
Oh, suited now in nature
For Love’s divinest ways,
To make the fallen creature
The vessel of Thy praise.
O Love! all thought surpassing!
That Thou should’st with us be:
Nor yet, in triumph passing;
But human infancy!
J.N.D.
ML 12/31/1961