Chapter 3 – The Second Rejection of the King (Part 5 of 8)

 

The Beginnings of Jesus

In Matthew 1:18, Matthew uses the same Greek word γενέσεως as is used in verse 1, however this time, it is translated “birth.”

“This is how the γενέσεως (birth) of Jesus Christ came about…”

In verses 1-17 of chapter 1, Matthew gave us the “beginnings” of Jesus, the Son of Man, thus denoting Jesus’s human side and His right to reign as King of the Jews, in the line of David.

Here, in verse 18 and following, he is giving us the “beginnings” of Jesus, the Son of God, thus denoting Jesus’s divine side, and His right to reign as God.

This is critical, folks.

Matthew could have used other words, but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was making a point. Jesus was more than just a human king. Jesus could redeem, something only God can do, which becomes a major focal point in his gospel account and critical to our understanding of the incarnation. Even the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, when confronted with Jesus’s claim to have the power to forgive sin, understood this point and took issue with Jesus ultimately saying He was God. They wanted to stone Him on the spot, and when they could not, they plotted to discredit Him and eventually murder Him  (Matthew 8:1-17, 28-34; 9:1-8, 18-34; 11:4-6; 12:1-8; 13:1-17, 34-35; 36-43; 14:22-36; 15:21-28, 29-39; 16:14-17; 17:1-27; 21:12-17, 28-32, 42-44; 22:15-22, 41-45; 24:30-31; 26:62-64; 27:11; 28:16-20).

In one particular instance in Matthew 9, Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed. Because of the faith of his friends, who had brought the man to Jesus with the expectations of having the paralytic healed, Jesus told the paralytic to “take courage” and that his “sins are forgiven.” Immediately, some scribes who were there recognized what Jesus had said. For those of us today, we gloss over this section because we know “the rest of the story.” However, in real time, these scribes were watching a “person of interest” make an outlandish claim: He was claiming to have the same rights and power that only Almighty God possessed. Their response was that Jesus was committing blasphemy (v. 3).

Jesus, hearing their claims and knowing their hearts, puts a question to them in verse 4: “Which is easier? To say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’? Or to say, “Get up and walk’?” The obviously answer would be to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” No proof needed to say that. You say it, and whether it is true or not is only known by God. As a matter of fact, in the eyes of the scribes and those standing around watching, they would have looked at Jesus as some kind of blaspheming charlatan (and the scribes did!) unless He had some way to back up His claim. So, what does Jesus say? “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins…” Then He turned to the paralytic and said, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk home” (vv.5-7).

On its face, it sounds cruel to tell a man—who had possibly been paralyzed from birth—to get up and walk. If he had been able to do that, don’t you think he would have done so already? However, that thought probably never crossed the minds of the crowd watching, because enough of them knew the man, or at least of him. They knew he was not faking it. They knew his malady was real.

Instead, this story was a flash point, one of many, in the ministry of Jesus. The scribes believed Jesus made an outlandish claim that was worthy of stoning. Therefore, the test wasn’t whether Jesus could say the man’s sins were forgiven. It was all about if He could demonstrate the power that went along with the claim, for they believed that only God could heal too. It’s one thing to say you’re God in the flesh with mere words. But if you demonstrate it, well, that’s another matter entirely.

Of course, as we know, such displays of Jesus’s authority to rule spiritually fell on deaf ears and blind eyes when it came to the scribes, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. They still did not want to believe. However, they heard Jesus’s claims and saw Him back up those claims time and time again. And with each authoritative word and each miraculous demonstration, Jesus drove another nail into the coffin of their self-righteousness and religious phoniness.

Another Aspect to Consider About Jesus’s Birth

Also, in Matthew 1:18, notice how careful Matthew is about the relationship with his parents. He refers to Mary as “His mother Mary,” but does not refer to Joseph as “His father Joseph,” because again, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wishes to make sure it is understood that Jesus had no earthly father.

Mary “was pledged to be married” to Joseph. They called this the “Betrothal.” Marriages were arranged differently in Jesus’s day than they are today, especially in the West.

Today, young people decide who they are going to marry, which was not how things were done in Jewish culture during the time of Jesus. In the play, Fiddler on the Roof, which later became a movie, Tevye was being forced, from one daughter’s betrothal to the next, to change his cultural way of thinking and “get in step” with the times. Tevye kept holding on to the “tradition” of his forefathers which mirrored something similar to what the people in Jesus’s time would have embraced.

In Jesus’s culture, it was marriage first, then love followed. Despite popular opinion, it tended to be a stable pattern for marriages as Genesis 24:67 indicates. In contrast, Esau married foreign wives like our society goes about marriage today, and it caused nothing but headaches and problems (Genesis 26:34; 27:46; Malachi 1:3; Obadiah 1:18).¹

Before the betrothal period began, in Jewish culture during the days of Jesus, a close and trusted friend of the bridegroom would negotiate on behalf of the prospective bridegroom’s father with a representative of the bride’s father. Arrangements had to be made for compensation, as the bride’s departure from the family would take a valuable worker, and possible wage earner, from the bride’s family. This negotiation was called the Mohar, and it was paid to the bride’s family. A dowry was also paid to the bride’s father. (Interestingly, in western culture, it’s the bride’s family that pays for the wedding, which does seem backwards when you think about it.)

The father of the bride could use the interest from the dowry during the betrothal period, but he could not spend the dowry. The dowry was to be kept in trust for the bride in case she was ever widowed or divorced so that she would have a means of taking care of herself and not become a burden on anyone nor be homeless. Therefore, it acted as a “savings account” or “pension,” if you will, for the bride-to-be.

If such sums of money could not be paid for the Mohar and the dowry by the groom’s family, other means of payment could be negotiated. For example, poverty was a real issue for many grooms and their families, so working it off was one option, like in the case of Jacob working seven years for Rachel (Genesis 29:18). Another example could be called “deals.” David wanted to marry Saul’s daughter, Michal. So, Saul employed David’s services of killing one hundred Philistines (1 Samuel 18:25).

Marriages were arranged also with members of your own kin, meaning Jewish only, but not close kin (see Leviticus 18). An example of this is found in Genesis 24, where Abraham sent a servant to find a bride for Isaac from his own people. ²

Once all the betrothal negotiations were completed, the two participants, the bride-to-be and the groom-to-be, entered into the actual “Betrothal Period,” which normally lasted twelve months. Betrothals could last longer, especially when the bride-to-be was as young as twelve years old, which was not common but could be the case. However, in all cases, the betrothals could not last forever, and when the two participants were old enough, the wedding had to take place. As was the custom, twelve months was a typical agreed-upon length of time.

And one last important point: Betrothals were much more binding than engagements are in today’s society. They were as binding as an actual marriage and could only be broken through a divorce (cf. Matthew 1:19). Therefore, these arrangements were not entered into lightly like engagements are today.

The purpose of the betrothal period was singular: to prove the fidelity of both the bride and the groom. Fidelity, was something that covered many areas too. For example, in matters of character, for if one member of the betrothal arrangement was a thief or a swindler in matters of business, this would typically come out. Or if one member of the arrangement proved to have lied about something, like never having been married before, this, too, could be made known. And of course, fidelity covered matters of sexual purity as well. If a member was having an affair, or worse, if the bride-to-be got pregnant, or another woman did so, claiming the groom-to-be was the father of her child, a year was plenty of time to “show” the proof to the families.

Therefore, showing fidelity was the same as showing purity of heart. As the groom, you were vowing to your betrothed that you were pure, righteous, and worthy of having someone devote her life to you. As the bride, you were vowing the same. And I hope you can see the spiritual picture here. As we devote our lives to our spouses, we are also to devote our lives to Christ as His bride. Pure. Righteous, Holy hearts. Qadosh. Sacred. Different. Devoted to Him for life (Ephesians 5:21-33).  

It was during this time of the betrothal period, after the agreement had been made, after the dowry had been paid, but before the consummation of the marriage had taken place, when Mary was found to be pregnant (Matthew 1:18).

Hopefully, you can understand now the context in which Joseph and Mary found themselves. Imagine the controversy. Imagine the confusion. And consider the “dilemma” this news produced for both families.

 

Thought for the Week:

If a person takes enough time and looks at this Biblical account of Jesus, it amazes us—or at least it should—how many obstacles God had to overcome just to get to Matthew 1:18-25, let alone bring an infant into the world…BE THAT INFANT…put Himself in the hands of two righteous teenagers…and accomplish salvation for any human who chooses to believe in Jesus and follow Him.

Yet, obstacles are part of the fallen world, aren’t they? All of the obstacles were results of sin and its effect on people and nations, to include Israel. We often pray, as Christians, for God to remove all the obstacles from our lives so our days can be filled with joy and blessing. Yet, when Mary held the Messiah in her arms that evening in a stable filled with smelly animals, there were no obstacles present. And all the obstacles she and Joseph had overcome to get there were water under the bridge.

Salvation had come. What else mattered?

Do we see obstacles the way God sees them? We ask for Him to remove them, yet as is often the case, He gets very little glory when everything is peaches and cream, as they say. God is glorified when obstacles happened at the most inopportune time. He receives the glorification He deserves when obstacles are overcome with shouts of praise.

Don’t pray away your chance to praise God. Pray that when those obstacles occur, He will help you be as faithful and righteous as those two teenage Israelites in the stable.

 

                   

NEXT WEEK:

We will continue our study by looking at how critics have used this very section of scripture to attack Jesus’s claim to being God in the flesh.

 

Endnotes

1. It must be noted that any marriage arrangement based on cultural norms has its flaws because of human depravity and sin. Whether a spouse was chosen for you or whether you chose one for yourself, it still boils down to two things: 1) the marriage commitment and the “covenant” the man and woman make to one another must be sacred and not entered into lightly. Without such a commitment, no marriage can last and be all that it is intended to be, regardless of how the two participants were partnered; and 2) that marriage union had to be between a male and female, according to God’s Word (Genesis 2:24; Mathew 19:5; Ephesians 5:31).

 

2. We must take note here that in Leviticus 18, God reminds the Israelites to be qadosh, “sacred,” “different,” and “consecrated” when it came to everything, and this included His directives on marriage. It was about purity of heart and total devotion to God: “You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs. You are to practice My judgements and keep My statutes by walking in them. I am the LORD your God. Keep My statutes and My judgments, for the man who does these things will live by them. I am the LORD” (vv. 3-5 Berean Bible).

 

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:

Payalyzed Beggar by Kasun Chamara

Praying by Pexel

Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus by Nick Stafford

Chapter 3 – The Second Rejection of the King (Part 4 of 8)

 

Jesus’s Right to Rule - Spiritually

In Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew establishes the fact that this baby “who is called Messiah” (v. 16)—who has been born with the right to rule on the throne of David from a physical, earthly, human, and political perspective—also has the “right to rule” from a spiritual perspective.

This section establishes the virgin birth of Jesus, which is one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity. I would venture to say it may be the foundational doctrine of the Christian Church, for without it, Jesus was just a good teacher and a product of the union between Joseph and Mary.

Just another man.

And we already have seen what mankind is like in our study thus far. Man’s history is not pretty.

Jesus’s death would have been just another death in a long line of casualties in this spiritual war within which we live, day in, day out.

However, the virgin birth changed everything. It set in motion a series of events that changed history, and it still continues to change people today. This doctrine, coupled with the life and ministry of Jesus and culminating with His death, burial, and resurrection, are the triumvirate foundation of Christianity. Each part is so needed by mankind and inextricably dependent on the other to have full impact of what God intended.

A baby born of a virgin has no impact, if the baby grows up and becomes a sinner who rebels against God. Thus, the importance of Jesus’s perfect life and ministry.

A perfect life and ministry has no impact, if Jesus is just another man and not “God in the flesh” (Isaiah 9:1-7). Thus, the importance of the virgin birth.

And neither of the above have an impact, if Jesus doesn’t become the perfect sacrifice for sin on the cross and then defy death by rising again on the third day, as He stated He would do (John 2:19).

Therefore, the virgin birth of Jesus sets in motion a critical moment in God’s redemptive plan (Galatians 4:4-5). It sets Jesus apart from every other Israeli king, every other Levitical priest, every other Old Testament prophet of God, as well as every other king, priest, or prophet that ever existed. Kings and queens always demand that their subjects die for the purpose of the expansion of their kingdoms but rarely do they get into the fight themselves, and never on the front lines. Nor would any king or queen be willing to die for people outside the kingdom in hopes they would become part of his kingdom, with no guarantee anyone will accept the gracious offer. No human priest would take the place of the bulls, sheep, and doves he normally would sacrifice. No prophet would willingly present his life as a sacrifice either. Thus, the virgin birth makes Jesus the perfect example of qadosh (i.e., holiness), never asking us to do that which He was not willing to do Himself.

The virgin birth also sets Jesus apart from all other deities, for no god or goddess ever dwelt amongst mankind for the purpose of dying for humanity. The other deities always demand the sacrifice be in reverse only, sometimes even demanding children be the sacrifices, which is atrocious.¹

The first part of Matthew 1 establishes Jesus as one hundred percent Man (vv. 1-17). This second section of Matthew 1 (vv. 18-25) establishes Jesus as one hundred percent God. Hence, the references throughout Matthew of Jesus being the Son of Man (Matthew 9: 6; 11:19; 16:27-28; 24:30; 26:2, 24) and also being the Son of God (Matthew 2:15; 3:17; 17:5; 27:43). In the person of Jesus, we have the reinstatement of God as the King, of His Kingdom of Heaven, in His own way, by His own means.

Without this second section of Matthew 1:18-25, Jesus is just another king in the long line of David. King number forty-three. He’s just another man with a human father, subject to sin and its effect like every other human being. This is why all other religions reject Jesus’s virgin birth. If Jesus was virgin born—in other words, born as the Son of God—then their gods and goddesses, whoever they may be—are false and inept.

Throughout the twenty centuries since the birth of Christ, there has never been a doctrine attacked more than the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Most people are very quick to ascribe honor to Jesus. They will acknowledge that He was a good teacher, a good moralist, a reputable man who lived an exemplary life. Some even go so far as to say He was a prophet. However, they cannot accept Him as deity.

Christianity is the only religion that assigns deity to Jesus alone. There are other religions that attach to Jesus as sense of “godhood” or god-like qualities, but He would be among many in which they would attribute such characteristics. In their religious understandings and teachings, His deity would not be any different or unique.

Now, before we bash other religions or their secular counterparts too mercilessly, it must be understood that the Church herself, within the last one hundred years particularly, has also had a hard time accepting the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.

In a poll taken in 1998, 7,441 Protestant clergy in the U.S. showed a wide variation in belief.² The following ministers did not believe in the virgin birth:

·       American Lutherans: 19%

·       American Baptists: 34%

·       Episcopalians: 44%

·       Presbyterians: 49%

·       Methodists: 60%

In 1999, twenty-five percent of Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant priests in the UK did not believe in the virgin birth either. In 2002, another poll of 140 Anglican priests found twenty-seven percent did not believe in the virgin birth. In 2004, a poll amongst ministers in the Church of Scotland found that thirty-seven percent did not believe in the virgin birth. Many stated that their interpretation of the virgin birth event in Matthew 1:18-25 was metaphorical, not literal.³

The point is clear. When anywhere between 19% and 60% of the leaders of some major denominations within the Christian church do not believe in one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity, then it’s hard to point fingers at a world setting itself ablaze and say they are the bad guys. In the eyes of God, if a pastor, minister, priest, vicar (or whatever the title) claims to be a messenger of God and teaches blasphemous doctrine and leads people astray and away from God and His teachings and instructions, then all He has for them is woe and destruction. Matthew 23 deals with this very issue. Matthew 18:6 is another. These Christian ministers are falling into the same traps into which the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus’s day had fallen.

They simply do not believe God’s Word. And as a result, they no longer wish for God to be their King. Instead, they want to follow someone else’s “Word.” And we all know whose “Word” that is (1 Peter 5:1-9).

Sometimes, these ministers and clergy members have a hard time understanding the truths surrounding the virgin birth, so they rationalize away the things that are hard to understand into a concept around which they can wrap their finite minds. Sometimes, they have a hard time accepting it because they feel its truths are too restrictive or not inclusive enough, or the truth seems too farfetched for our modern, sophisticated societies of today. Sometimes, they have a hard time believing it because what it teaches doesn’t align with their personal beliefs and understanding of the world. Again, it boils down to which “King” they wish to obey and serve. The Israelites wanted to be “like all the other nations around them” and have “an earthly king” (1 Samuel 8:4-5). It would seem the Church, in varying degrees, wants the same thing, and in some circles, wants to reject God altogether, just like the elders in Samuel’s day.

At the 1993 Reimagining God conference, sponsored by the World Council of Churches in honor of their “Decade of Solidarity with Women,” 1,700 delegates came from all over the world to “reimagine God” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As one commentator summed up the event, “When one begins to re-imagine God, then nothing is sacred—everything in on the table for reconstruction. Truth, reality, social institutions, modes of communication all fall prey to the corrosive analysis of post-modern subjectivism” (emphasis added).⁴

Five years later, a similar group met again in Minneapolis to continue to re-imagine God, and the assault on Jesus’s identity and virgin birth continued. Carter Heyward, who is the Howard Chandler Robbins Professor of Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1978,⁵ asked, “What does it take for us to break rank with the slave masters’ religion?” Her answer? Re-imagine Jesus. She claimed it is a mistake to emphasize “the singularity of God’s presence in Jesus…It was not Jesus’ identity with God, as if Jesus somehow thought of himself as divine…Jesus in reality was not God…Jesus was human like us, and also, like us, he was infused with God, with sacred spirit, and in that sense was divine, and he had a clue.”⁶

Do you see how it works? Are you hearing the same, tired, attacks and the same satanic verbiage? “Jesus wasn’t deity.” “Jesus was human like you and me.” “Jesus also was infused with divinity, a spark of the divine, if you will, which is available to all of God’s children.” These are the kinds of teachings being taught inside the Church! These “Christian” feminists and other “biblical scholars” have their own websites and push this theology into our bible schools, our schools of divinity, and our seminaries. So, it should not be surprising when we see church leaders joining hands with groups who flaunt their anti-God and anti-Christ rhetoric, because in their minds, God and Jesus have already been “re-imagined” into a more palatable, human definition and explanation of what truth really is…to them, or course.

Why is there such push back against God’s Word and its teachings? Why do people—even people who call themselves “Christians”—gather together at conferences and convince themselves and others of such things? Because they know that if Jesus was virgin born, then He is God in the flesh. And if He is God in the flesh, then what He said is true. And if what He said is true, then His words are true. And if His words are true, then passages like John 14:6 pose a huge problem for people trying to re-imagine themselves into a divine figure. If what Jesus said was true: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And no man comes to the Father but by me, then you cannot touch the divine without Jesus.

That’s extremely exclusive toward sinful people who chose not to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and obey Him. That’s very intolerant of sin. The passages like John 14:6 drive people like Carter Heyward insane because they wish to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, live sinful lives and still get to experience a heavenly existence. However, it doesn’t work that way. The clay doesn’t get to tell the potter what shape it should take (cf. Isaiah 45:9-13; 64:6-8; Jeremiah 18:6-10). Another way to put it is, the creation doesn’t get to tell the Creator how things are going to work. If you are a parent, then you understand this concept. Your children may wish to “run away from home” so they don’t have to abide by your “laws” any longer, but they cannot tell you how your relationship will be dictated. You’re the parent. They are not. That will never change. Just like our relationship with God. He’s God. We are not. That, too, will never change, no matter how much we “reimagine” it.

As you can see, if the church is having a hard time with the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, it is little wonder those outside the church are as well. However, understand also that God is not in need of people to believe in Him. The concept of delegates voting on church doctrine doesn’t change God or His instructions and teachings (torah). He is about reigning in His Theocracy. Israel was not to be a democracy nor an aristocracy in the Old Testament. Christianity isn’t a democracy nor an aristocracy in the New Testament. Our disbelief as humans does not affect God’s character or His Word. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:3-4, “What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar.” God rules. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, whether we believe in it or not. Therefore, we can never lose our faith to majority rule, although the push toward that kind of thinking grows stronger every day. “Majority-rule theology” always leads to sinful compromise and perversions of Scripture.⁷ If Jesus is not God in the flesh, then He cannot be the savior. And if He is not the savior, we are doomed, for God proved time and time again in Scripture His sovereignty over all the other gods of the nations. There is only one true God. If He’s a fraud, then we have no hope.

 

Thought for the Week:

How often do you hear in the news a report about a Christian religious group abandoning their Christian heritage and embracing the verbiage of groups, like the one referenced previously that met in Minneapolis? This kind of rhetoric has been plaguing God’s people for centuries. The Israelites had fallen prey to the worship of “The Queen of Heaven” (Jer. 7:18; 44:17-25). This queen came and went throughout history with many names (Semiramus, Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Diana, etc.).

The point is that a “feminist” infiltration into the doctrines of God has always been an issue. We see it now in our political landscape, as religion and politics are joining hands and marching against everything they wish to change within the “slave master’s religion.” Does that sound familiar? Have you heard that phrase, or something like it, thrown around lately in the political debates of today? It’s a not-so-veiled reference to Christianity. They wish to eradicate the Christianity of the virgin-born Jesus from the world. They, instead, wish to re-imagine God in their own image, and while they are at it, re-imagine Jesus, too, into a kinder, gentler Jesus who really didn’t mean what He said in John 14:6.

I hope you are beginning to see the battle between the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of men. The former is run by God. The latter is run by the man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:1-12).

As we move forward, this divide will only become more pronounced. It will become harder and harder to remain true to the Kingdom of Heaven, but we must, if we wish to see God in all His glory at the Second Coming of Christ.

 

NEXT WEEK:

We continue our study into Jesus’s spiritual right to rule.

 

Endnotes

 

1. Some would argue, as I do, that people of our times, particularly here in America, worship the god of Freedom. For many, committing abortion is their form of child sacrifice to this god, as they flaunt their freedom and want that “freedom” to be available to everyone, even encouraging it through various means, like lobbying for government funding to provide such “services,” encouraging promiscuous activities with abortion as the “parachute,” etc.

 

2. Robinson, B.A. “The virgin birth of Jesus: Beliefs of Christian clergy & public. Alternate explanations of Jesus birth.” Religioustolerance.org. Last updated: 23 Dec. 2007. Web. 25 July 2020. <https://www.religioustolerance.org/virgin_b7.htm>

 

3. Ibid.

 

4. Lensch, Christopher. “‘Re-imagining’ Review: Radical Feminism in Sheep’s Clothing.” WRS Journal. 10/1. (February 2003), pp. 9-11. Web. 25 July 2020. <https://www.wrs.edu/assets/docs/Journals/2003a/Lensch%20-%20Re-imagining%20Update.pdf>

 

5. According to the Virginia Tech University’s Center forDigital Discourse and Culture, a list of projects Carter Heyward was working on at the time of the writing of this blog chapter were:

•        Long-term Research/Writing project on Feminist Liberation Theology and Ethics (with Dr. Beverly W. Harrison of Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY).
•        Queer Theology and Ethics.
•        Christology (special attention to: suffering, passion, and atonement).
•        Racism, anti-racism, and the construction of "white people."
•        Mutuality and connections between healing and liberation (theological, psychological, and political study in collaboration with Dr. Janet L. Surrey of The Stone Center, Wellesley College.)
•        Sex, Gender, and Power: emerging issues.
•        Christian Right—Its history, theology, and political resurgence.

As you can see by this list, when we re-imagine God, current affairs—like the ones America has been facing now—become the reality mankind must face and embrace. Those who preach “tolerance” will become very intolerant, especially if you are a follower of Jesus in the traditional sense. Then, other movements will join forces, and interestingly enough, they will espouse the same “beliefs,” even if they are not “religious,” by definition.

As was noted before, Satan is getting very close to creating the kind of havoc needed to bring each human to the brink of all-out war, filled with hatred toward one another while believing at the same time they have “exonerated” themselves from the “strictures” of God’s instructions and teachings and from the “white Jesus theology” of the traditional Christian Church. In this clash of subjective ideologies, everybody is right in his or her own mind (and thus, nobody is right). Agreeing to disagree will no longer be an option. As everyone will see eventually, mankind cannot survive without morals (i.e., God’s instructions and teachings). This will be the time when Satan introduces his anti-Christ and supposedly delivers what he has been promising all along: peace, fulfillment, and contentment apart from God. This “heavenly, utopian nirvana-like existence” will last for a few years (three and a half, to be exact, according to God’s Word), but then the gloves come off, and the world will see (too late, we might add) who they really are serving (See Revelation 12, particularly verse 9).

Oh, and by the way, the anti-Christ figure and what follows after the three and a half years of peace will make Hitler and his barbaric acts look like an amateur.

6. Lensch, Ibid. Another attack on Christianity, specifically the virgin birth of Jesus, as well as the validity of the New Testament is found in the works of the Jesus Seminar. Started in 1985, it has done more to discredit the authenticity of the Scriptures than possibly any other group because they claim to believe in the Bible, but they wish to understand it through didactic reasoning. When they were finished examining the four gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they concluded that 82% of Jesus’s words were inauthentic. Only fifteen sayings of Jesus should be in “red letters,” all of which are short, pungent remarks of little spiritual value when taken from their contexts. To read more about it, you can find it here: https://www.westarinstitute.org/projects/the-jesus-seminar/. When you couple this kind of “scholarly” work with people like Carter Heyward, it is no wonder Christianity is in shambles today. It’s no wonder the world is setting itself ablaze, overdosing itself to death, and curled up in a ball in the corner of some room, feeling depressed and seeing no hope around them. The Church is taking the only hope there is (Jesus) and making Him, in their own minds, just like us. Without a savior from sin, where can anyone find hope?

7. This is not to mention the tearing apart of His Church in the process. All participants must dedicated to God, His Torah, and His Messiah. If they are not, and church splits occur to allow worldly beliefs to infiltrate, Satan wins another battle in a war he cannot win. However, he knows this, so he’s working hard to take as many captives with him to eternal punishment. Satan hates God, and he hates everything to do with God, including His creation (John 8:44; 10:10; Romans 16:20; 2 Corinthians 11:3; James 4:7; 1 John 3:8). For a very current example of this battle taking place, see Reyner, Solange. “Methodist Conservatives to Split from United Methodists over LBGTQ Rights.” Newmax.com. 04 March 2022. 15 May 2022. <https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/lgbt-methodists-church-religion/2022/03/04/id/1059744/>

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:

Heaven by jplenio

King Jesus by malst

Blinded by StockSnap

Saddened by StockSnap

Aphrodite/Venus etc by Gordon Johnson

Chapter 3 - The Second Rejection of the King (Part 3 of 8)

Jesus’s Right to Rule as King over Israel

We learned last week how Jesus had the right to rule on the throne of David from a legal standpoint. However, there is one more thing Matthew does in verse 1 that is so critical for our understanding moving forward. He calls our Lord “Jesus Christ,” or you could render it “Jesus, The Anointed One.” He does this again in verse 16: “Jesus, who is called Christ.”

In Old Testament times, kings, priests, and prophets were “set apart” by God for their office, and to symbolize this act, they were anointed with oil. Once this happened, they were considered qadosh (i.e., holy; set apart) for that specific purpose of either ruling as a king, being the liaison between God and His people as a priest, or acting as God’s mouthpiece, and sometimes His bullhorn, as a prophet.

In Leviticus 4:3 and 6:20, the priest is referred to as anointed. In 1 Samuel 9:16, 15:1, and 2 Samuel 23:1, kings were referred to as anointed. In 1 Chronicles 16:22 and Psalm 105:15, prophets were referred to as anointed. And in 1 Kings 19:16, it lists both kings and prophets as such. The point being, to be anointed was to be “set apart” for a purpose. If you were anointed, you were being consecrated unto God. You were qadosh, and you were to live a life that demonstrated that fact.

Interestingly, the Messiah was “set apart” to be all three: Prophet, Priest, and King. In Isaiah 61:1-2 (AMP), according to Luke 4:14-21, was the first passage Jesus ever used when He began His preaching ministry in the synagogues:

“The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed and commissioned me to bring good news to the humble and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted, to proclaim release from confinement and condemnation to the physical and spiritual captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance and retribution of our God.”

Prophets preached good news to the poor. They called God’s people to repent and to follow in His ways. Priests and kings did not do this.

Priests bound up the brokenhearted. They encouraged followers who were in despair and acted as the conduits between God and His people. Prophets and kings did not perform priestly duties. To do so would bring judgment upon the evildoer (Leviticus 21-22; 1 Samuel 13:1-15).

Kings proclaimed freedom for captives and had the power to release prisoners. Prophets and priests did not have such power.

In Acts 3, Peter preaches to a group of onlookers. In verse 22-23, he quotes Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19, stating that God would raise up a prophet from among Israel, referring to Jesus. They were to listen to His words and obey them, or they would be cut off from God’s chosen people.

In Hebrews 7, the writer tells us Jesus is in the order of Melchizedek, thus He has a permanent priesthood. The implication here is that Jesus can save completely because he never dies like an earthly priest. His intercession for us is perpetual and thus became “the guarantee of a better covenant,” one where hearts of stone get replaced with hearts of flesh and God’s Spirit is placed within us (Ezekiel 36:24-28; Luke 24:49; John 15:26; Acts 2:1-13).

In John 18:37, Jesus confirms Pontius Pilate’s assertion that Jesus is a King. Paul writes in Philippians 2:10-11 that “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” All those knees include earthly kings and rulers, even Pilate, by the way. Therefore, Jesus’s kingship is clear.

Jesus as The Son of David, The Son of Abraham

 However, Jesus is not just “The Anointed One,” “the Christ,” but he is also listed in verse 1 of Matthew’s genealogy as a Son of David and a Son of Abraham. Notice also that Matthew lists “Son of David” first, even though Abraham lived way before David did, chronologically speaking. Why would Matthew do that? Because the fact that he is a “Son of David” already implies He is a Son of Abraham. More importantly, though, it establishes Jesus’s right to rule on the throne.

In John 7:37-42 (ISV), Jesus stands up and addresses the crowd: 

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! The one who believes in me as the Scripture has said, will have rivers of living water flowing from his heart.”…

“When they heard these words, some in the crowd were saying, ‘This really is the Prophet,’ while others were saying, ‘This is the Messiah!’”

“But some were saying, ‘The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? Doesn’t the scripture say that the Messiah is from David’s family and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived’ (emphasis added)?”

 

Surely thinking of Old Testament passages like 2 Samuel 7:12-13, Jeremiah 23:5-6, and Micah 5:2, just to name three more besides Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18:18-19, these people in the crowds following Jesus knew the Messiah was to come from the lineage of David, and Matthew was checking all the boxes for them. Jesus fulfilled all the promises. He fulfilled all the prophecies. He fulfilled all the prerequisites of the Messiah.

He was to be King of all, including Israel.

I love what William Barclay states about this passage:

“Right at the beginning, the genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David. The title, Son of David, is used oftener in Matthew than in any other gospel. The wise men come looking for him who is King of the Jews (2:2). The triumphal entry is a deliberately dramatized claim to be King (21:1-11). Before Pilate, Jesus deliberately accepts the name of King (27:11). Even on the Cross, the title of King is affixed, even if it be in mockery, over his head (27:37). In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew shows us Jesus quoting the Law five times abrogating it with a regal: ‘But I say to you….’ (5:21, 27, 34, 38, 43). The final claim of Jesus is: ‘All authority has been given to me’ (28:18).

“Matthew’s picture of Jesus is of the man born to be King. Jesus walks through the pages as if in the purple and gold of royalty.”¹

 

Ultimately, Jesus had the right to be King because God Almighty was His father, which coincides with Matthew’s account in Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke’s account in Luke 1:5-56 and 2:1-20. So, as we would expect, God had all the bases covered when it came to the birth of His Messiah. And that leads us to the next step in Matthew’s gospel account: Jesus’s Right to rule spiritually.

 

Thought of the Week:

The message of the Messiah is found all throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. He was to come to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). First, in Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8). God’s plan was always to save the world. He wanted to use Israel to accomplish this feat, but they rejected Him. So, He tried to get them to “repent,” “see the light,” and “turn from their wicked ways.” However, that never happened. Therefore, God sent His Messiah to do the job Israel refused to do. That Messiah, in turn, commissioned the Church to be that New Covenant conduit between God and humankind. However, the Church has done much of what Israel did. We have committed the same sins, made the same mistakes, made the same demands, and now we are reaping those “rewards” as the Church wanted to be more like the world, especially in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

The world we experience today is in large part the shambles it is because the gospel has been tainted, placed under a basket, and subjugated to “weightier issues,” like “truth, freedom, and the American way.”

However, Jesus came to be prophet, priest and king. And He did so for one sole purpose: To bring honor to God and serve Him faithfully.

We need to have the same, singular focus in our daily lives.

 

NEXT WEEK:

 

We look at Jesus’s Spiritual Right to Rule.

 

 

 

 

Endnotes

 

 

1. Barclay, William. The Gospel of Matthew – Volume 1: Revised Edition. (Philadelphia; PA; Westminster Press, 1975), p. 9.

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:

"Jesus" by GDJ

"Calvary" by geralt

"Jesus/Eye" by JeffJacobs1990

"Shiny" by ctvgs

 

Chapter 3 - The Second Rejection of the King (Part 2 of 8)

 

The Legality of This Kingship

It is clear from the outset that Matthew wishes to portray Jesus as the King. This is the theme of his gospel account. Throughout the chapters and verses, time and time again, Jesus is lifted up as the King of Kings, and His Kingdom—The Kingdom of Heaven, or sometimes called The Kingdom of God—are the focal points of every word. If you want to know Who Jesus is, why He came, why He lived on Earth, why He died, Why He rose again, and what He taught all along the way about that Kingdom, including what we must do to enter it, Matthew makes it vibrant and visible, if a person has the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

In this development of the overall theme, Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus in chapter 1, verses 1-17, offers interesting information which simply proves just how God Almighty is the lone and master operator of the machine that is human history. In these first seventeen verses, we have the lineage of Joseph listed, the husband of Mary. For most people today, genealogies are just something to explore in an effort to find out if they are related to someone famous or infamous, using DNA services to help determine their pedigree. For many readers of the Bible, they just skip the genealogies because they are “boring.” However, there is nothing in God’s Word that is there simply as “window dressing.” Every chapter, every verse has a reason for being there, for God could not put everything down on paper, otherwise, the Bible would be voluminous (John 21:25).

In Jewish culture, the husband’s or man’s lineage was needed to establish legality in everyday living and all legal proceedings. All taxes, land and property transactions, inheritances, etc., were tied to a person’s lineage or pedigree.

Having said that, there is an interesting little lesson contained in Joseph’s genealogy that must be addressed before we can move on in our overall study. In this lineage, we have a person referenced in verse 11 by the name of Jehoiachin (some versions call him “Coniah”). According to Jeremiah 22:24-30, Jehoiachin was cursed by God. What was the curse, specifically?

“As sure as I am the living God”—God’s Decree—“even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, I’d pull you off and give you to those who are out to kill you, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, and then throw you, both you and your mother, into a foreign country, far from your place of birth. There you’ll both die. You’ll be homesick, desperately homesick, but you’ll never get home again. Is Jehoiachin a leaky bucket,  a rusted-out pail good for nothing? Why else would he be thrown away, he and his children,  thrown away to a foreign place? O land, land, land,  listen to God’s Message! This is God’s verdict: Write this man off as if he were childless,  a man who will never amount to anything. Nothing will ever come of his life.  He’s the end of the line, the last of the kings” (The Message/TLB).¹

God was so angry with Jehoiachin, he was cursed with the kind of curse that would haunt any human king: “You are going to die at the hands of a ruthless and powerful enemy, and your offspring will not carry on the family line. It is your kingship that became the final nail in the coffin of the nation of Judah.”

Ouch.

But how can Jehoiachin be “as if he were childless” when he had children? It meant he was not going to have any offspring who would be allowed to sit on the throne of David. Hence, the “as if he were” part of that phrase.

When you look at this curse at first on its face, it immediately raises some questions with Joseph’s genealogy in Matthew 1, because it seems the curse of Jehoiachin would nullify Jesus from inheriting the right to rule from David. However, two things must be noted here. First, Matthew is very careful not to list Joseph as Jesus’s “blood” father. When he gets to the end of the genealogy, he changes the verbiage. Up until that point, the phrase “was the father of” is used consistently throughout the genealogy. But when we get to verse 16, we read, “Jacob was the father of Joseph,” but it does not say, “Joseph was the father of Jesus.” Instead, it says Joseph was, “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” This is because Joseph was not the father of Jesus, as we learn in verses 18-25.

This solves the Jehoiachin issue, meaning Jesus doesn’t fall under the curse of Jehoiachin as a blood relative would. However, it still leaves us with a genealogy problem, for Jesus had to be of the line of David by pedigree (i.e., be a blood relative) in order to be a legal heir to the throne.

And this is where Luke’s gospel account comes into play.

The Lineage of Mary  

In Luke 3:23-38, we have the lineage of Mary, a Jewish woman. This genealogical account not only travels backwards in time through her genealogy, it also goes all the way back, past David, past Abraham, past Adam even, to God Himself, because God, the Father, is the Father of us all (Matthew 5:9, 16, 45, 48; 6:1, 9, 26; 7:11; 18:14; 23:9; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 11:2, 13; John 12:28; 17:1).

Thus, Jesus had the legal right to rule because of Joseph’s lineage, and He had the blood lines of Mary’s lineage. By Jewish law, Jesus could be the legal heir to the throne of David, according to Matthew’s account and Luke’s account. He could be that “Righteous Branch of David” spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah. This shows just how in control God is of everything. Even a curse smack dab in the middle of a genealogy could not prevent Him from orchestrating the lives of two Jewish teenagers, growing up in the same vicinity, from being pledged to one another and eventually married, all the while making sure the Messiah’s lineage was pure and legal.

Thought for the Week:

If God can orchestrate history, centuries of Jewish history in this particular case, and bring about the exact moment in time He needs to have happen, then can He do the same in our lives? Of course He can. However, do we always live like that?

Sadly, the answer is “no” more often than it is “yes,” I think.

We used to sing a song many years ago, particularly to our children. Even sang it in the kids’ Sunday school classes and children’s church. The song went like this:  

“My God is so big,

So strong and so mighty,

There’s nothing my God cannot do.

My God is so big,

So strong and so mighty,

There’s nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are His,

The Valleys are His,

The stars are His handiwork too.

My God is so big,

So strong and so mighty,

There’s nothing my God cannot do.” 

Is He?

If so, then why do we doubt? Why do we wander in despair? Why do we grumble and complain? Could it be that we do not see Him as the King? Could it be that we do not view this life through the eyes of the Almighty? Therefore, we do not see His kingdom? The one that is at hand (Matthew 3:2; 4:17)?

It’s a matter of faith, isn’t it?

 

NEXT WEEK:

We’ll look at prophecy pertaining to the King.

Endnotes

1. It should be noted that this passage in Jeremiah, which denotes the end of the nation Judah because of their wicked, human kings, is immediately followed by chapter 23 where God tells of how He is going to raise up for David a “righteous Branch” (v. 5). This “Branch” will “reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.” Jeremiah goes on to prophesy that “in His days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety,” and “His name will be ‘The LORD Our Righteous Savior’” (vv. 5-6). 

The “human king experiment” started in 1 Samuel 8 was a catastrophic failure. One unified nation was split into two warring ones and ended up in separate captivities to the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The elders in 1 Samuel 8 got their wish. They wanted to be like all the other nations around them. If it were not for God, Israel would have been exactly like them—nothing more than a few paragraphs in some history books and some relics buried in the dirt for archeologists to use to piece together what their culture was like. But God made a promise. And only a Savior from the line of David could pick Judah and Israel up from the ashes and bring them back to the Promised Land.

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay & Unsplash and the following photographers/artists:

"Matthew" - Pixabay by Scottish Guy

"Luke" - Pixabay by wisconsin pictures

"Strong Boy" - "Upsplash by Ben White