#23 Lu. 3:23-38; LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF JESUS
Introduction:
The word, genealogy, means a family history or family tree. Luke
here gives the family tree of Jesus.
In our text last Sunday Luke told us about the baptism of Jesus.
The baptism of Jesus was the first public
act of His ministry. He went
to John the Baptist and was baptized. Before proceeding further in an
account of the ministry of Jesus, Luke
takes the time to show by the
family tree of Jesus that Jesus qualifies
to be the Christ.
The prophets of old had prophesied certain things about the family
lineage of the Christ. In order for one to be the Christ, he must
meet
those qualifications. Not everyone who meets these qualifications
is
the Christ, but the one who is the Christ
must meet these
qualifications. Anyone who does not meet all the
qualifications set
forth by the prophets is not the
Christ. Luke wants us to know that
Jesus does meet the qualifications as set
forth by the prophets. He is
worthy of our trust. He is worthy of our service. He is worthy of our
loyalty.
I.
The opening remarks of Luke, V. 23
I think you are aware that Luke is not the only one who has set
forth the family tree of Jesus. Matthew has also set forth the family
tree of Jesus. There is, however, a considerable difference
in the
point of view that each one was taking and
therefore an entirely
different approach to the way they present
the family tree. I will try
to point out SOME OF that difference as we
proceed in the message.
Let us first look to verse twenty-three of our text. V. 23, "And
Jesus himself began to be about thirty
years of age..." From this
statement we learn that Jesus was not
begin His ministry until He was
about thirty years of age. You will note that His exact age is not
given.
He could have been a little bit less than thirty years of age
or He could have been slightly over. But He was approximately thirty
years old when His ministry began.
I think it is significant that in the Old Testament, the ministry
of the Levitical priests was to start at
the exact age of thirty.
They were required to be fully thirty
years of age before they could
minister in the temple. Jesus may have begun His ministry at a
slightly younger age.
Jesus is a priest, but He is not a Levitical priest and, therefore,
He was not under the law which required
Him to wait until He was thirty
to begin His ministry. He is our Great High Priest; He is not a
Levitical priest. He was not of the tribe of Levi.
It seems that Jesus waited until He was about thirty years of age,
to begin His ministry not because He was
required to do so by law, but
rather because it was wisdom to do
so. The Jewish people were not
accustomed to accepting anyone of a
younger age to a place of religious
responsibility. They would not accepted Him as the Messiah if
He had
begun His ministry any appreciable time
less than thirty years of age.
(V. 23), "...being (as was supposed) the son of
Joseph..." At this
point, Luke begins his genealogy of
Jesus. He starts out to give the
family tree of Jesus. He begins with Joseph, the foster father of
Jesus.
Luke is very careful not to say that Joseph is the father of
Jesus.
He says, "...as was supposed..." When Jesus was a little
child,
the children around the neighborhood would
not look at Jesus as being
the Son of God. They would look at Him as
being the son of Joseph. The
entire neighborhood would look at Him that
way. It is likely that His
own brothers and sisters looked at Him
that way. In all matters legal
matters that is the way that He was looked
upon. They thought of Him as
being their brother. He was considered by almost everybody at the
opening of His ministry as the son of
Joseph. Joseph, of course, knew
better.
Mary knew better. Zacharias and
Elizabeth, the parents of
John the Baptist, knew better. Yet all but a very few people thought
of Him as being the son of Joseph.
II.
The difference between Luke and Matthew concerning the father of
Joseph, V. 23
At any rate, since Joseph was the head of the household and was
considered the father of Jesus from the
legal standpoint, that is where
Luke begins his genealogy. He starts with Joseph.
(V. 23), "...which was the son of Heli." At this point Luke makes
a statement that has given Bible students
a lot of trouble down through
the years.
I can understand that. You see
Matthew, in his account,
says that Joseph is the son of Jacob. In Matthew
Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of
whom was born Jesus, who is
called Christ." Now if this were the only thing involved, we
might
surmise that the same man spoken of by
both Matthew and Luke is known
by two different names. Such a situation is not unheard of in
Scripture.
For example Simon is also called "Peter." Saul is better
known as Paul.
But there are other things in the passage that indicates that this
is not the answer to the problem. Matthew is talking about one man by
the name of Jacob, and Luke is talking
about another man by the name of
Heli. Before I get to those other things
that are involved let me go
ahead and give you the solution to the
problem. Joseph is the son of
Jacob by both. He is the son of Heli in the sense of
"son-in-law."
Heli is Mary's father and Joseph is his
son in the sense of being his
son-in-law.
I will show you the evidence later that this is the answer to the
problem, but I will have to go around the
elbow to get to the thumb.
There is no direct statement to that
effect in the Scripture. Let me
start with another problem of
interpretation and when we find the
answer to that problem, we will also find
the problem to this one.
III.
Another problem of interpretation, V. 31
The other problem is found in verse 31.
V. 31 reads, "Which was
the son of Melea, which was the son of
Menan, which was the son of
Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan,
which was the son of David."
Luke says that Nathan was the son of David
and traces the lineage of
Jesus through Nathan. However, Matthew says that Solomon was the
son
of David and traces the lineage of Jesus
through Solomon. Up to this
point the two lineages are in perfect
agreement. From this point
forward, they differ until they get down
to Joseph. They both agree
that Jesus was born in the home of Joseph
even though Joseph did not
conceive Jesus.
The question is: Why did Matthew
say that the lineage of Jesus is
to be traced through Solomon and Luke says
that the lineage of Jesus is
to be traced through Nathan. Again we have to put the pieces together
in order to get the answer. In Jeremiah
the descendants of King David by the name
of Coniah or Jechonias as he
is called in Matthew's account of the
lineage. We read, "Thus saith
the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a
man that shall not prosper in
his days: for no man of his seed shall
prosper, sitting upon the throne
of David, and ruling any more in
no man of Jechonias' lineage would sit on
the throne of David. Yet
Matthew traces the lineage of
Jechonias. He traces the lineage on down
to the father of Joseph and says that the
father of Joseph is Jacob.
Then Jesus is born in the home of Joseph.
All this is true. But if the only lineage between David and
Jesus
was through Jechonias, Jesus would have no
right to the throne of
David.
God has said that no descendant of Jechonias would sit on the
throne of David.
However, Luke does not trace the lineage of Jesus from David
through Jechonias. He starts back with David's sons and shows a
different line than that which Matthew
shows. Matthew traced Joseph's
lineage as Jacob's son through David's
son, Solomon. Luke does not
trace Joseph's lineage through Joseph's
own fleshly father, Jacob.
Rather, he traces Joseph's lineage through
Joseph's father-in-law,
Heli.
In order to do this, it was necessary to miss Solomon and
Jechonias.
Luke, instead, had to switch over to David's son, Nathan,
because Heli was not descended from
Solomon. Heli was descended from
David's son, Nathan. While Nathan, himself, never did sit on the
throne of David, yet he was still of the
royal line who was eligible
for the throne. Solomon's lineage was not eligible for the
throne past
Jechoniah.
Therefore since the lineage of Jesus through Heli is
eligible for the throne, and since Jesus
is the grandson to Heli, then
Jesus is eligible for the throne.
Let me say it once more. Through
Joseph's father, Jacob, Jesus
would not have been eligible for the
throne of David. However, through
Joseph's father-in-law, Heli, Jesus is
eligible for the throne of
David.
IV.
The importance of this to us
While all this might not at first seem so important to us, it is
important to God. God has said that none of Jechonias'
descendants
would sit on the throne. On the other hand, God has said that the
Christ would sit on David's throne. In order for God to be faithful to
His own words, it was necessary for God to
work it out so that Jesus
would have a legitimate claim to the
throne and He has. He has a
legitimate claim to the throne through
Mary and father, Heli.
It should be of importance to us, because if Jesus is ineligible to
sit on the throne of David, the entire
millennium would go out the
window our hope for peace for the world
would go out the window also.
There would be no millennium. But since Jesus Christ is eligible for
the throne of David, God will give Him the
throne of David at His
return and there will be a millennium.
Another thing that is of major importance to us is the virgin birth
of Jesus.
Luke makes it obvious in this text that he is aware that
Joseph did not conceive Jesus. Jesus was virgin born just as the Old
Testament prophets had said He would
be. He is virgin born just as
Matthew in his account said that He
was. As I said last Sunday, if He
is not the Son of God we have no Savior,
and if He is not virgin born
He is not the Son of God. Our hope of a Savior hinges on the virgin
birth of Jesus. Jesus was considered by people to be the son
of
Joseph, but in truth He is the Son of God.
Men need not hesitate to call on Him and ask Him to save them from
the torments of hell. Men need not to hesitate to trust Him to save
their souls. Men need not hesitate of follow Him and obey
Him and
commit their lives to Him. Men need not hesitate to rally around His
cause and support it with their money,
with their time and with every
ounce of energy they can muster. Jesus is the Christ, the very Son of
the Living God and He is going to come
back to this world one of these
days and He will sit on the throne in
it stands right now, many people pay Jesus
little attention. At this
time men can take Him or leave Him. They can easily ignore what He has
to say.
But let me tell you that when Jesus Christ comes back that is
not going to be so. When Jesus Christ sits on the throne and
rules the
whole wide world, men are going to take
notice of what Jesus says and
they are going to be a lot more careful to
obey His holy word.
Likewise, as far as worship is concerned, men today can and do very
easily ignore the worship of God. If they happen not to be doing
something else, if they are not going to
the lake or to see Aunt Susie
or if nobody has said or done anything to
hurt their little feelings or
to displease them in any way they just
might come to the house of God
and worship God. But if the least little thing gets in the
way, they
will not show us at the house of God. But when Jesus comes back and
sits on the throne in
going to be so negligent in attending the
house of God. Jesus is going
to rule the world with a rod of iron and
He is not going to tolerate
non-attendance at the house of God. If somebody does decide to miss
one Sunday, he will think twice before
missing again. Faithfulness to
the house of God is going to improve
tremendously.
Listen, when I start thinking about the Lord returning to this
world and when I start thinking about how
much better things are going
to be in every respect, I get
excited. I can get just downright happy.
Yet on the other hand when I think about some of the people in our
families and some of the people in our
neighborhood going out into
eternity unsaved and unprepared to meet
God it saddens my heart. I
just wish there was some way that I could
preach the gospel to
everybody in the whole world. At least I wish I could preach the
gospel to everybody around here. I especially wish that those who are
unsaved who do come to our services and
hear the gospel preached would
repent of their sin and trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ and be saved.
How sad it is that somebody would sit
right here in this church
auditorium and then go right out thorough
that front door and down the
road into the fires of hell.
Conclusion:
If you have never trusted Jesus Christ to save your soul and keep
you out of hell, I am not only preaching
to you, I am praying for you.
I am asking God to touch your heart and to
impress upon you your need
of salvation. I am asking God to impress upon you the
urgency of
getting saved without delay.
I assure you that the inspired written word of God teaches that
Jesus Christ is qualified, not only in His
family lineage, but in every
respect to be the Christ, the Savior of
men. I do not hesitate one
moment to ask you to put your destiny in
the hands of Jesus Christ and
let Him save your soul. I do not hesitate to ask you to do that
because I have already trusted in
Him. He has saved me and I know that
He will save you, too.
Well, really, I am asking you to do three things. First, I am
asking you to repent of your sins. I am asking that you stop trying to
justify your wrong doings before God. You are not going to help your
cause by trying to justify your wrong
doing. What you need to do is to
confess your sin to God and to ask God for
mercy and pardon of your
sins.
Ask pardon through Jesus Christ.
Secondly, I am asking you to trust Jesus to save your soul. I am
asking that you stop trying to get to
heaven by your own feeble flimsy
good works. Actually your so-called "good
works" are not so good. So
stop trying to get to heaven by your
no-good works and you put your
faith and your trust in Jesus Christ the
Son of God to keep you out of
hell.
Thirdly, I am asking you to commit your life to Jesus Christ. I am
asking you to surrender your will to
Him. Stop trying to have your own
way and start letting the Lord Jesus
Christ have His way in your life.
He is your God and He has a right to be in
control in your life.
Besides that, just as surely as you have
trusted Him as your Savior,
just that surely you ought to love Him
enough to try to let Him have
His way in your life. You know whether or not you love the Lord and
if
you love the Lord then start showing your
love for Him by letting Him
have your way in your life.
Furthermore, I am not only going to ask you to do these things, but
I am going to ask you to do them now. We are going to have an
invitation hymn and if there is anyone
present who needs to turn to the
Lord and be saved, do it now. If there is anyone present who is saved
and you know that it would please the Lord
for you to come and present
yourself to this church for membership,
would you come right now as we
sing.
We are going to stand and the congregation is going to sing a
hymn.
While they sing, you come.