From: Referent Hendrik du Plessis 14th Dec 23
Matthew 1:1-6
1The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram,
4and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse,
6and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah,
At this time around Christmas, one has a lot of time to think about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was a birth like no other birth. It was a divine birth where God became man. Let us first look at the exceptional genealogy that led to this birth. In the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ, four women are mentioned. According to the rule at that time, women were not included in a genealogical register – only men. If they were women of noble descent, one could still understand it, but now they are some of the worst women there were. If this genealogy had to be drawn up by one of us, we would have left these women out instead. It would only have put a blot on the family name. Think for a moment about Tamar (verse 3), how she cunningly seduced Judah dressed like a prostitute and waited for him in a certain place. This was after Judah’s wife Shua had died. Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law who survived two of his sons. They were bad boys standing there and the Lord killed them. When they died, according to the brother-in-law’s marriage, only Sela was left to marry her, but the problem with Sela was, that he was still too young. Tamar therefore had to wait a few more years for him, but when he was old enough for the brother-in-law’s marriage, Judah pretended that nothing had to happen. All the time she was just there with her parents in the hope that Judah would call her one day when the time was right, but it never happened. Why? Because Judah was hesitant. What if she is the cause of his son’s death? Then Sela is going to die as well. That was how the in-law marriage worked. If your brother dies, you must bring children into the world for him by his widow. You had to maintain his offspring. Then she gets a brilliant idea. If Judah does not want to give Selah to her, she will seduce her father-in-law herself. When Tamar heard (Genesis 38:13) that her father-in-law (Judah) was on his way to Timna to shear his flock, she took off her mourning clothes covered her face with a veil, and sat down at the gate of Enaim along the Timna road, and wait for him. When Juda saw her he was convinced she was a prostitute, and what an opportunity it was for him, especially now that his wife Sua had passed away. Of course, you have to find out beforehand what it will cost. “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand”, were her words. He had to leave that behind. A few days later, Judah sent his friend from Adullam, with a young goat to collect the pledge from her, but he did not find her anywhere. He asked everywhere: “Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim at the roadside?” When Tamar became pregnant, Judah was deeply troubled. He simply wanted to have her burned, and when they wanted to fetch her, she sent a message to her father-in-law with the words: “The man to whom these things belong – I became pregnant by him. Determine who this signet and the cord and the staff belong to.” It was then that Judah hung his head in shame and realized that it was him. He is the culprit. In verse 26 it says: “She is more righteous than I since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And so this prostitute becomes the great-great-grandmother of our Lord Jesus and conveys the clear message for whom He came to this world.
However, there is another woman who is included in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus. Like Tamar, she was not a Jew either. She too literally had no drop of Jewish blood in her veins. She was a Canaanite. She was a prostitute. It was her business, her job. A dirty woman. We know the story in Joshua 2 of how she hid the two scouts from Israel in her house and the king of Jericho heard about it and sent a delegation to her with the order: “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” (verse 3) Then she answered them, verses 4 and 5: “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.
5And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” Verse 6: “But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.” After that, she climbed up to them where they were hiding, and her words to the two spies of Joshua were: “I know that the LORD has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 10For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. 11And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. 12Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign 13that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” We know the rest of the story, how she let them down with a red rope and the agreement was very clear, that rope had to stay there so that when they attacked the city, that red rope would be the sign that nothing would happen to them, as long as she keeps her word. Then the great miracle happened in chapter 6 when the walls of Jericho collapsed after they walked around it for seven days, once every day and seven times on the seventh day. And true to Rahab they did nothing to her and her family. In verse 23 it says: “Then the two men returned. They came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they told him all that had happened to them.” You can imagine how dejected and shocked the little family stood there watching as all the people of Jericho perished (her people) and how the city went up in flames and she and her family were spared. Bewildered, stunned, defeated, and pathetic, she and her little family stand there – not saved because she was a good woman, but because she believed in the God of Israel. Little did Rahab the harlot know that day that she would become the great-grandmother of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, and would be mentioned in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ. How touching is the Word of God? Only He can make something out of nothing. He could take a whore and make her the great-grandmother of his Son. And He did that with us too. He also made us, who have not a drop of Jewish blood in our veins, his children. Galatians 3:29: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Then there is another controversial figure included in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus, Ruth the Moabite. Let’s take a closer look at her background. If there is a nation with whom you did not mix at that time, it was the Moabites. They were a cursed nation. In Deuteronomy 23 from verse 3 it says: “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever, 4because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5But the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you. 6You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever. 7You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land.”
The descent of Moabites and Ammonites was probably the worst form of incest that there could be. Their great-grandfather Lot fathered them in a cave when he was drunk. Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt and Lot and his two daughters then went to a cave where they had to hide for a while after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. One day the two daughters come up with a “brilliant” idea – in quotation marks of course. Genesis 19 from verse 31 says: “And the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth. 32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.’ 33So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.’ 35So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 36Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.”
In Nehemiah 13 from verse 23 Nehemiah scolds the Jews who have taken Ammonite and Moabite wives for themselves. He says: “23In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. 25And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, ‘You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. 26Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. 27Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?’”
When Naomi and Elimelech decided to move to the land of the Moabites because of the great drought, every Jew had reason to raise their eyebrows and gossip: “Did you hear Naomi and Elimelech are going to move, and guess where? To the land of the cursed Moabites. The Lord will punish them. If you don’t want to hear, you have to feel.” You can imagine what Nehemiah would have said if he had lived in Ruth’s time. They had hardly arrived in the land of the Moabites when Elimelech died, and with every Jew, we would like to agree that this can only be the Lord’s punishment. Then their sons also marry two Moabite daughters, and every Jew just shakes his head again. After ten years, the boys also died – their deserved reward, we would say. The rest is history when Naomi and her daughters-in-law took the long dusty road back to Bethlehem-Judah. At Naomi’s insistence, Orpa decided to turn back, but Ruth refused to turn back and said to Naomi: “16Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” Back in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, but Naomi wanted to be called Mara (Bitter) and said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” “It’s your fault, Naomi,” we would say. “What did you go looking for among those accursed people.” So it happens that Ruth meets Boaz and they end up getting married. And guess who was Boaz’s mother? None other than Rahab the harlot. The cursed Moabite, Ruth, and Rahab the harlot’s son, Boaz then becomes the great-grandmother and great-grandfather of David from whom our Lord Jesus Christ was born. This was the third woman in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Matthew 1 verses 5 and 6: “5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of David the king.”
How honest the Bible is, names that you and I would rather have hidden are hung on the big bell, and this brings us to the fourth woman in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ, Bathsheba. However, the name Bathsheba does not appear here. In the genealogy, it is only written: “And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah”. When it says “the wife of Uría”, all the bones of the past are dug up again and the Lord Jesus is burdened and confronted with them here in his genealogy. Rightly He had to stand up for his past. At several times He is called the Son of David. His father David slept with another man’s wife and sank so low that he had him killed for his wife. Can you imagine if you had to be the son of such a father? And when the angel said to Joseph: “And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah”, not only these four women are included in the number, but involve the whole people of God in this. He then becomes the Savior of the descendants of Abraham – all their sins, but also my and your Savior, we who believe in Christ and put our hope in Him. Yes, we are part of the people of God. In Galatians 3, Paul writes to Christians who were not Jews: “28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
To conclude, this brings us to a question that many people have already asked. This is something a lot of people have doubted. Although the Lord Jesus was born from this genealogy, it says that Mary’s pregnancy was from the Holy Spirit. How do we know it was true? Is this something we should just blindly believe? Is faith something blind? Do we just believe it simply because the Bible says so, perhaps with such an undertone of doubt that I don’t want to admit to myself? What is my answer to those who do not want to doubt, but still doubt? Doubt is not something only the pagans experience. No, John the Baptist also doubted in prison and sent some of his disciples to the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 11:2,3 it says: “2Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” Then the Lord Jesus answered them: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” What a brilliant answer!!! And when the disciples left, the Lord Jesus began to tell the crowd about John. In verse 11, the Lord Jesus says: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” He was such a great man here on earth and yet he also doubted. Believers can also doubt. And now the question is, what does one do in such a case? John went to the Lord Jesus Himself with his doubts. It is best to go to the person about whom you have doubts, and what an incredible answer he got: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
There is another answer that the Lord Jesus gave to the people who doubted. In John 14:11 the Lord Jesus says: “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.” In other words, His works will show whether He is who He is. In other words, his works will show whether what happened at his birth was really from the Holy Spirit. If it was a lie, his works would have caught him out or betrayed him immediately. Never before has anyone been able to do so many extraordinary miracles. People born blind see immediately. People who are paralyzed get up in front of everyone and walk back home. Just think of Lazarus who had been in the grave for four days. He already smelled. You can imagine how people had to cover their noses. ““Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days,” said Martha (John 11:39). On two different occasions He increased bread and fish. Matthew 15:38 speaks of four thousand men besides the women and children. Together with the women and the children, they could easily have been fifteen thousand. And the leftovers were seven baskets of the seven loaves and the few fish. In John 6, the leftovers were 12 baskets full. It was so overwhelming for the people in John 6 that they wanted to make him king. In John 21:25 John writes: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” In short, it comes down to this, if there was a lie about his birth then where did the incredible miracles that testify to such a birth come from? If He was not who He was supposed to be, you and I as his friends at that time would have warned Him: “You better stay away from Lazarus’ grave, because there the people will find out who you are.” Even extra-biblical books speak of his extraordinary miracles. In John 3 Nicodemus says: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Where then did these extraordinary miracles come from that could not be repeated from the beginning of the creation of the world until today? The answer is very simple. He was born of the virgin Mary. His birth was as amazing as his works. Then we haven’t even delved into the incredible prophecies of the Old Testament that foretold Him. Isaiah 9 verse 6 is to mention just one example. May the Lord give us opened eyes to be able to say like Thomas of old: “My Lord and my God!” And the Lord Jesus’ answer: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
As I said at the beginning, we have a lot to think about when we think about the Divine birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. From us here in a very hot Botswana, we wish you all a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Your brother in Christ, Hendrik du Plessis.