The law brings curses but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus is cursed so that those who could not follow the law can be blessed. Paul has already said that the law cannot save a person (Galatians 2:16), but in this passage, he explains why the law cannot save. Because we cannot follow it.
Category: Bible
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The Son of God allows us to be God’s sons. STUDYING JOHN 5:18
In John 5, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath which draws the ire from the Pharisees who had more restrictive views of Sabbath practices. In John 5:17, Jesus says:
“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
In response to Jesus pointing to God as his Father, the Pharisees begin to actively conspire against Jesus.
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
We know the end of the story. Jesus is ultimately crucified. But it is because Jesus said that God was his father that jump started the Pharisees in their conspiracy against him.
In an event which is not recorded in John, Jesus is before the Pharisees. The sonship question comes up again.
Matthew 26:63-64:
the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
That’s the final straw in Matthew’s gospel and the Pharisees seek to have Jesus crucified.
Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?” (Matthew 26:65-68).
The pharisees look at the words of Christ as blasphemy.
But it wasn’t. It was the truth.
Incarnationally, morally, theologically, Jesus is the Son of God and God is his father.
But in John 5, we see the opposition rising.
What started as a miracle turned into a Sabbath controversy.
And what became a Sabbath controversy was intensified by Jesus pointing to himself and his relation to God.
The sonship of Christ and the fatherhood of God points us to the gospel.
We are God’s children, created in his image who had forsaken God through our sin.
Jesus is the perfect Son of God who was forsaken so we could be forgiven for our sins.
As radical as it is that Jesus addressed God as his father, he invited us to do the same when he taught the disciples how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount.
your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6:9)
The Apostle Paul says in the opening salutations of all of his letters: grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The fatherhood of God is bestowed upon the people of God because Jesus is the true Son of God.
Jesus is the son of God who allows us to be adopted as God’s children and to approach God as our own father.
John 1:12 says:
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
The adoption language is used by Paul at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-5)
That’s the Good News of the Gospel. The Son of God allows us to call God our father.
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Sermon – The Only New Year’s Resolution that matters
During Israel’s history, the Israelites had lost the promised land and the temple had been destroyed. In the Book of Haggai, they’ve returned to the land and 20 years have past. The Israelites have not yet started rebuilding the temple. They were putting their own wants and desires over the will of God. For Christians, we must start with God.
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People missed the significance of the first Christmas – but how do you respond to Jesus this Christmas?
There are the important days that we know are important at the time. And there are the important days when we only know of their significance with hindsight.
A couple weeks ago, we had the anniversary of an important day in American history when we remembered the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941.
Other important days in American history.
November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy died.
September 11, 2001.
You knew those were historic days at the time.
And that’s also true in our personal lives.
There are some days that you know are monumental days at the time.
The day you get married. The day kids are born.
But as we begin in our passage this morning, I want to talk for a moment about the days that matter but that we don’t know matter until after the fact.
On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was killed. It was a story at the time, but to observers, it seemed like a regional matter that wouldn’t extend much past Eastern Europe. In reality that event was the spark that led to the outbreak of World War I, the most destructive war the world had ever seen at that time.
The days that matter that you don’t know matter.
The first time you ever heard of Covid-19 in China, you probably never imagined that it was going to turn our world upside down.
Think about the day the lightbulb was invented. The world was going to change but most people had no idea.
It’s always a fascinating thought to me. That such significant days can be days when you don’t know it at the time.
I think of one of the most significant days in my life. February 20, 2017. It was on that day that I talked to a girl on eharmony.com who I thought looked cute. I had no idea at the time, but that was the first day I ever talked to my wife.
Think about the day a famous person was born. No one knows it at the time. A future president, or leading actor, or star athlete could be in the process of being born this very morning and we wouldn’t know it.
And I think of that with the events surrounding the first Christmas Eve.
Human history was about to forever change.
For people who lived in Bethlehem on that first Christmas Eve, their little town was about to be center stage to events that we’d be talking about 2,000 years later, events that were so significant that time itself is calculated by its proximity to them.
And for the average person living in Bethlehem on that first Christmas Eve, they would have had no idea.
Think about that.
SONG – WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
One of my favorite newer Christmas songs of the last several years comes from the Christian band Casting Crowns. The song is titled “While you were sleeping.”
And the song considers this world-changing event. Christ coming into the world, and how it happened on – for many people – just any other ordinary night.
The song says:
O Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping
For God became a man
And stepped into your world today
O Bethlehem, you will go down in history
As a city with no room for its King
While you were sleeping
While you were sleeping
The world kept turning. On that first Christmas and over the coming weeks and months, people continued to live their lives.
For the average person living at the time, that seems to be the most likely response at the advent of Christ. Unawareness. Obliviousness.
But there were some who had heard about the birth of Jesus. You have wise men who sought this newborn baby out. You have King Herod who heard the news but who was not overjoyed at the prospect of another king living in his territory. And you have Herod’s priests and scribes, those who were most learned in the Old Testament, yet who would miss the significance of the moment.
The first Christmas, many didn’t realize what had happened. But since that first Christmas, the rest of history has been turned upside down.
It was easy to be blissfully unaware of Jesus as a baby. But what do you do with him as a man? What do you do with him as a teacher? What do you do with him as a prophet? What do you do with him as a savior? What do you do with him as Lod?
Some will continue to ignore him, some will continue to miss the significance of who he is, some will continue to actively oppose him.
But will you come to him and worship him?
It might have been easy to dismiss a baby, but that baby grew and became the savior of the world. That baby went to the cross. That tomb was empty on the third day.
What do you do with all of that?
Will you continue to overlook the significance of Jesus and who he is?
Or will you come to him and worship him as Lord?
People ignored and overlooked the significance on the first Christmas but what are you doing with Jesus this Christmas?
He invites you to come to him, to know him.
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Why do Matthew and Luke give two different genealogies for Jesus
The gospels of Matthew and Luke both give genealogies for Jesus.
But they’re different.
Not just a little different.
From David to Joseph, they’re almost entirely different. Only two names are found in both genealogies in that time period. The genealogies are much more similar from Abraham to David. Matthew has an extra name. That’s not so unusual. Ancient genealogies are not always exhaustive. So person A can be referred to as the father of person B but it might actually be his grandfather or great grandfather, etc.
When you get to David, the genealogies diverge in two different directions.
Matthew’s genealogy goes from David to Solomon and through Solomon’s line.
Luke’s genealogy goes from David to another of his sons, Nathan, and Nathan’s line.
Both list Zerubbabel and both list Shealtiel and that is where the commonalities begin and end.
But why?
There are all sorts of theories.
And I’ll be honest. Any solution to this problem is purely speculative.
THEORY 1 – JOSEPH’S LINE AND MARY’S LINE
One of the oldest theories which goes back to the early church is the suggestion that they’re giving genealogies for both Joseph and for Mary.
Simple.
That’s possible but it shouldn’t be assumed, most importantly because the text never tells us that.
It would be highly unusual to give a woman’s genealogy in ancient times. Although as one scholar pointed out, a virgin birth is also highly unusual.
THEORY 2 – A ROYAL LINE AND A LEGAL LINE
Perhaps one of the genealogies is royal and one is legal.
This is ultimately where I land and what I believe is the most like scenario.
What’s that mean?
So Matthew’s genealogy goes from David to Solomon to Rehoboam to Abidjan, etc.
That is the Israelite monarchy of the Old Testament. They’re the kings.
Those people can be found in Old Testament genealogies.
Matthew gives the kings. Luke does not.
But both go through David.
So one suggestion is that Jesus is in the line of David, but while the royal line goes from David through Solomon, Jesus isn’t part of the Solomonic line.
Is that to say that Jesus is not a legitimate royal?
It’s not saying that.
Perhaps the direct royal line had died off and Joseph was next in line.
So in that, Matthew could be giving the line of the monarchy which ends up at Joseph.
Even if not, Jesus is the divinely appointed Davidic King. We see several instances in the Old Testament where God makes a choice which goes against birth order. Judah was not the oldest of the 12 tribes. Jacob was younger than Esau. Abel was favored over Cain.
Certainly we should not think that either of the gospel writers were just arbitrarily listing names. Luke’s genealogy is interesting because it goes another route off of the Davidic line. Luke is very meticulous and detail oriented in his gospel. He knew the Old Testament. Why did he do that?
I think he did it because it was true. That was the line.
That does not mean Matthew’s genealogy is wrong.
Again, the theory that I think makes the most sense is that Matthew is giving the kings. Keep in mind that the monarchy ends long before Jesus. There are people living in the world today who are descendants of monarchies that are no longer in power.
And from the line of the kings, Matthew is pointing to Jesus as the final and ultimate king. That also goes with the kingship theme in this gospel.
There are other theories.
OTHER THEORIES
Maybe it’s as simple as Matthew and Luke showing that Joseph himself was related to David from both sides of his family.
Maybe Joseph’s parents died and he was adopted and it’s giving the lines of his blood family and his adoptive family.
Jesus was adopted by Joseph. Maybe Joseph too had been adopted.
And there are other theories.
Maybe Joseph’s mom was a widow and his dad had a half brother who married the mother to give Joseph’s father a legal heir and the gospels are giving that genealogy and the genealogy of his biological father.
Again, it’s not a new thing that Matthew and Luke have different genealogies. Theologians and scholars have been wrestling with this throughout church history. We have church theologians commenting on this in the third century, but I think it’s safe to say that the question goes back further than that.
AN IMPORTANT LESSON ABOUT THE BIBLE
But here are a couple things to keep in mind.
Because sometimes skeptics will point to these different genealogies as a known on the historicity of the Bible.
People like to sometimes make it seem like way back in the early history of the church, like they edited the Bible. But the Bible gives us two different genealogies for Jesus and throughout the history of the church, both were left in the gospels because they were original to the books.
And that should mean something.
It’s a powerful reminder of the efforts throughout the history of the church to preserve the Biblical text and not be editors. But letting the text speak for itself.
The Bible is the word of God.
All scripture is God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).
Hebrews 4:12 says:
the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword
The Word of God does not need to be explained away.
Thomas Jefferson was famous for producing his own “bible” where he cut out the parts he disagreed with. That’s not how you treat the Word of God.
Matthew and Luke gave those two genealogies, as we have them.
And they’re both God’s word.
For the skeptics and those who want to use this against the historicity of the Bible or even for the Christian who’s uncomfortable with the discrepancy, that needn’t be so. Just because we don’t know exactly why the genealogies are different does not imply that a solution doesn’t exist.
Again, there are no shortage of plausible theories.
We just don’t know exactly which one it is.
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