Jesus’ Family Tree – It’s Hidden Message

Jesus’ Family Tree

This is a look at the spiritual messages hidden in Jesus’ family tree as given in Matthew 1:1-16.

Imagine for a moment if you will that God has asked you to design Jesus’ family tree. What kind of people would you put in it? Who would you choose? Would you choose the very best of the best, the real giants of faith? Apparently, God had other ideas.

Abraham

Nobody is surprised to find that Abraham (the father of the faithful) is at the head of the list. After all in Romans 4:20-21 we read of him that “He (Abraham) did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”

And yet there was a time when Abraham’s faith did stagger at the promise of God. You know the story. God promised Abraham and Sarah a son. But years passed, and then decades, and finally they decided that they needed to help God out before it was too late. And so, Hagar enters the picture. (Genesis 15-16).

More years pass. Abraham and Sarah are both old, even by the standards of their day when people lived a lot longer. And then finally at long last God came one day and told them that by this time next year Sarah would bear a son. Their response to the news was to laugh at God. It just could not be. Not at their age. But the promised son was given, and because they laughed his name was called Isaac, which means laughter. (Genesis 18:1-15).

I believe that Abraham is in Jesus’ family tree, not so much because his faith was so strong, but for all of us whose faith has staggered at times at the very immensity of God’s promises, for those of us who look at the promises and see all the impossibilities. For those of us who like the man who brought his son to Jesus at the foot of the mount of transfiguration, who find that we need to pray as he did, “Lord I believe, help me to believe.” He is there to let us know that we too can through Christ learn to believe and to trust and to hope.

Jacob

And Isaac begot Jacob. Jacob, the very name means deceiver. He was a con artist. While with one hand he reached for the blessings of God, with the other he grasped for all that the world could give. He represents all of us who have ever found ourselves seated firmly on the fence, in the midst of a tug-of-war with God on one side and the world on the other. He is there to let us know that there is hope, that if we will but surrender ourselves to God, we too can have victory over the alluring attractions of the world.

Judah

And Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. And the question is, just where do we begin? Judah, as you may remember, in a fit of jealousy, along with ten of his other brothers sold his younger brother (Joseph) into slavery. (Genesis 37). Sometime later, with hormones raging, he mistook his daughter-in-law (Tamar) as a prostitute and got her pregnant. (Genesis 38). And this was one of Christ’s ancestors? What in the world was God thinking?

Perez and Tamar

And Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Now here’s a question for you. Judah still had one son living who was born through a legitimate marriage relationship. Why then did God choose to bring his family tree through the son of a forbidden relationship? Could it be that God chose to bring his linage down through Perez for the sake of all those who are born out of wedlock? For all those whose parentage is questionable, that they might know that however scrambled or uncertain their earthly relationships, that in heaven they do have a Father, a Father who would love to call them His sons and daughters.

The Forgotten Multitudes

And beginning with Perez we come to a list of names of whom we know nothing. They live out their lives in Egyptian bondage. They never received their 15 minutes of fame. They just lived day to day in mind-numbing drudgery, just trying to survive and to live another day. They are for the countless millions who seem to be trapped in circumstances beyond their control, for all those who look to the future and see no way out. They are there, in Jesus family tree, to let people know that though they may be forgotten by the world, God remembers. He knows who they are. He knows their names. He has not forgotten them.

Rahab

And Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab.  Why Rahab? (Joshua 2). First of all, she was a prostitute. (Strike 1). More than that, she was bred, born, and raised an idolater. (Strike 2). She was of the old Canaanite race. (Strike 3). Three strikes and you’re out, right? — But not in God’s book! –

I believe that Rahab is there in Jesus’ family tree to show us that there is no place or circumstance of birth that can place us beyond the reach of the saving arm of God. It doesn’t matter where we were born. It doesn’t matter what culture we were brought up in. It doesn’t even matter what we have done with our life. The message of Rahab is that God is able to reach us wherever we are and that there are no circumstances on this earth that can keep Him from saving the soul that honestly seeks after God.

David

And David. We could write a book on David and many people have. The Bible calls him a man after God’s own heart, and yet his life is marred by some of the most blatant sins to be found in the Bible. He is there for all of us who have stumbled and fallen in our walk with God and have really really really blown it big. For all of us who feel that we have sinned so badly that God can’t possibly take us back, God puts David in his family tree to let us know that in Christ we can be accepted into the family of God. That He is a much much bigger Savior than we can ever possibly be a sinner.

Bathsheba

David’s great sin as you know was his affair with Bathsheba. Not only did he have an affair with another man’s wife, he sunk so low as to commit murder to cover it up. (2 Samuel 11). Now David had many legitimate children through other marriages. Why then did God take the family tree of Jesus through Solomon the son of Bathsheba and David? Why bring His family tree through that sorry relationship? Could it be that God looking down through the ages and seeing all the broken homes, husbands deserting their wives and wives their husbands, and all the sorry tangled messes that we make of our lives. Could it be that God looking down through the ages and seeing all this took his linage through David, Bathsheba and Solomon to show us that however tangled, however awful a mess we have made of our homes and our relationships, He is more than able to make things right again. That we can still have hope.

Solomon

And as for Solomon, he started out OK with a close walk with God, but before his reign had ended he had backslidden so far that he was setting up pagan idols and altars in the sight of the temple he had built for the Lord. But God saved him from his backsliding, showing that there is real hope for all of us backsliders. Solomon is there to show us that no matter how far we have backslidden, we have not strayed so far that God can’t find us. The Good Shepherd will seek his lost sheep.

Jehoshaphat

Jehoshaphat was a good king, but he really messed up when he allied himself by marriage to Ahab. (2 Chronicles 18:1). A union that brought both Ahab and Jezebel into Jesus’ family tree. A union that would have devastating effects on his family for generations to come.

What in the world was God thinking when He allowed this to happen? Of all the people who you would think should never ever find a place in Jesus’ family tree, these two would be at the top of the list. So why are they there? Could it be that God wants it to be known that He is the God of all humanity, the good and the evil alike, whether they ever acknowledge Him as such or not.

Manasseh

And the list goes on through the kings of Judah. Not exactly a list of spiritual giants. Too many to look at them all, but one that we must consider. Manasseh the son of Hezekiah. (2 Chronicles 33). The man was a monster by any definition of the word. He is easily the single most evil king ever to reign over either Judah or Israel. The Bible says speaking of Manasseh: “Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.” (2Kings 21:16).

When the Bible begins to use this kind of language, you know that you are looking at an extreme situation. So why Manasseh? At times, it seems as if God is very deliberately choosing the very worst of the worst, the very dredges of humanity to include in Jesus family tree.

Remember this is Jesus genetic heritage. We live in an age when people want to blame everything on their genes. Could it be that God is trying to tell us that He is more powerful than even our genes? If anyone ever had an excuse to blame their sins on their genetics it would have been Jesus, yet he lived without sin. Nor did He make the place or circumstance of His birth an excuse for sin.

And getting back to Manasseh, in 2 Chronicles 33 we find that God was able at last to save even this monster of a man. And so, he teaches us that instead of hating the monsters of this world (and the world has more than enough hate already) we should pray FOR (not against) them. Consider the apostle Paul, before he became the apostle Paul. He was Saul. His motto was “the only good Christian is a dead Christian.” And he lived that motto. Now consider what God was able to do with him. (Acts 8:1-3, 26:9-11).

And the list goes on, the rich and the poor, the famous and the unknown, the saved and the lost. That’s right! Not everybody in Jesus family tree is saved. Consider what message there is for us in that.

Jesus

And finally: Matthew 1:16 “And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” And the world has never been the same since.

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