The Genealogy of Jesus

 

   As I studied the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:1-17 and in Luke 3:23-38, I tried to understand what the differences in ancestery might mean.  From Adam to David, the ancestors are, of course, the same, but after that we see a list of different names.  As I thought about it, I wondered if God might be showing us that our legal lineage is more important than our physical lineage?

    

    When we look at Jesus' legal lineage through his step-father Joseph, we see a long list of kings that came after David.  This added to Jesus' right to be King.  Not only that, but the gospel of Matthew is considered to be the book that proclaims Jesus as King, the Lion of Judah.

    Then, we have the list of ancestors in Luke, which is the line of Mary, the mother of Jesus and therefore His physical line.  There are no kings after David, just ordinary men, yet even so, King David as ancestor in Mary's line also gives Jesus the right to the throne of His "father David."  Also relevant is that the gospel of Luke is considered the story of Jesus as a Man.

    It's mind-boggling to realize that God had Mary and Joseph's family trees worked out even before He created the first person Adam!  Through each generation, God knew and controlled the gene pool being handed down until He revealed His choice of Mary to be the physical vessel to be the link between humankind and Heaven.

    It's a mystery, a wonder, a miracle and an act of the most amazing grace!

    At first, I thought surely Jesus' lineage through Mary whose physical gene pool He shared was the more important.  But then, I began thinking of the importance of a legal lineage.  When a person is adopted into a family, that person becomes a legal part of that family, sharing in the inheritance and all the aspects of what it means to be part of that family - as if he were born into that family.

    I began to think of the spiritual aspects of a physical versus legal lineage.  Physically, we are descended from Adam - a natural man - which means we were born a sinful human (not Jesus, of course, who was perfect).  But then, when we were born again as a Believer in Jesus Christ, we became a child of God, adopted into His family.  We are legally a child of God through the price that Jesus paid to cleanse us from our sin.  

    "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," John 1:12-13.

     And so, for us, our legal lineage is by far the more important.  As far as the importance of the physical versus legal lineage of Jesus, I shall leave that up to Almighty God to determine.  I'm just so thankful that He came, that He loved us enough to die for us, that He rose again, and will soon come back to bring us to Himself.  And so shall we ever be - with the Lord.