who can teach and train our spirits for God’s New Covenant salvation. And it is not our good words or works that earn salvation, but Christ’s saving works in our spirits which causes them to do good works, to bear nutritious and pleasing “fruit” through the labours of our hearts. It is our elect spirits’
pure trust in God’s Spirit, even before we ever knew His name, that is saving us. “We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rom. 3:28, WEB). For an elect spirit does not need to know the Bible or the biblical names of God to trust His Spirit. So Jesus can save an elect spirit in a body of Buddhist monk in Tibet, whose flesh has never heard of Jesus or the Bible. Even that monk will not be left behind, to be cast into hell with Satan and Satan’s children.
On the other hand, if we see that a world-famous television preacher, or a president of a dominant world power, does no just and loving works through truly loving motives and intentions of one’s spirit, we definitely cannot call that one an elect child of God. For we have found no real evidence of salvation in that one’s life, none at all. And, if that one is a mature adult, whose spirit has had much time to learn from God, and much time to be humiliated into godly sorrow leading to repentance into the truth, but that one never repents, and continues to follow ruthless, greedy, self-serving ways, then that one’s spirit is most likely a child of Satan, destined for hell. That one may claim to believe in Jesus. Yet our Lord commanded us to judge by the fruits of one’s spirit, not by words blabbed by a mouth of flesh. Since that one’s spirit clearly does not believe Christ’s words, and that spirit never trusts that His words are true, certainly never enough to even acknowledge that any of Jesus’ words are true, then that one likely does not have an elect spirit at all. Therefore, if that one’s spirit does not believe God’s words, that one has no saving faith at all. So it is likely that some elect Buddhist monk, whose flesh has never read or heard Christ’s words in the Bible, but believes the truths that Christ’s Holy Spirit has spoken to his spirit, then acts upon those words through love, has proven to have more genuine saving faith in Christ’s teachings than that famous preacher or that president.
For one’s biblical, good and loving words and works in life to demonstrate and prove one’s faith in the real Jesus, in the real God who came to live among us in a body of human flesh, that one’s words and works must align with the words and works of Jesus, and must originate from right motives and intentions of one’s spirit. So, if any preacher or president only speaks religious words and does
“good” works for personal gain, to obtain more political support or more donations of money, then that one has fake “fruits” of the spirit. And fake fruits are telling, revealing evil motives and selfish intentions. So they are the kinds of “fruits” of the spirit which indicate that spirit to be a liar, and one of the non-elect children of Satan. Simply parroting Scriptures and Jesus’ name, or even believing God exists, and there is only one Creator God, can save no one. For even demons quote the Bible, and all demons know and believe there is one God (James 2:19). “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself” (James 2:17, WEB). Therefore, even a spirit that says or does nothing through the love of one’s spirit may be one of the non-elect. If a spirit never receives, believes and acts upon any of God’s truths, that one is likely not one of God’s elect, and is not being saved. For one’s apathy, in the face of all this world’s injustices, reveals that one to be unloving. But all elect spirits love at least a little, although some have very broken minds of flesh, which become so numbed and inert that it is very difficult to see their love. Yet, if a spirit joyfully receives, believes and acts upon God’s words, even once in a lifetime, then that is an elect spirit, predestined for salvation and a home in heaven.
Now I hope you will now see why God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus’ body of flesh, and why He chose Joseph to serve as His surrogate father. Surely Mary and Joseph had good, well-taught and carefully trained elect spirits in their hearts. God certainly must have done much work in the spirits of Mary and Joseph. Considering the actual words and deeds of both, all of which were clearly motivated by love worked through the minds of their spirits, with deep trust in God’s words, Page 36
we can conclude, based on these facts of reliable testimonies of honest men with no ulterior motives, that both Mary and Joseph were God’s elect children, and that Jesus had already begun the long process of salvation for both of them. So those two were being saved by Jesus even before Jesus was born. And, in fact, our God Jesus has been working for the salvation of literally all elect spirits, all His elect children from the beginning of time, even since the day Adam was formed from the dust of the earth. Christ’s salvation has been granted to literally all God’s elect on earth throughout history.
The biblical New Covenant salvation process, where God teaches and trains an elect human spirit to love in a just, wise and God-like way that fulfills His Old Covenant Law, has always been worked in God’s elect, though it is now fully revealed and empowered in Jesus. And this process can only be initiated and completed by God Himself, by Jesus, since only He is wise enough and powerful enough to work directly upon and in human spirits, and because He is love. God is a very personal God who takes full responsibility for the eternal welfare of the spirits born from Him. Clearly, God has indeed been saving all of His elect since the beginning of time. Of course, this process would be greatly enhanced if the relationship that each elect human spirit has with one’s utterly holy Father was fully restored, if all the barriers of sin were removed. For a child’s sin makes the holy Father step back, away from His child. For God is not willing to partake in sin, even in the sin of His own child. And this was the work of our Messiah, Jesus, who is God incarnate. Jesus paid for all the sins that all His elect children ever did or ever would do through the flesh, so their utterly holy heavenly Father, who is a Spirit, could then draw near and even dwell with the human spirits of His children.
Think about this. If God helped His sinful child, without acknowledging that child’s unpaid and unrepented sins, then God would actually be aiding and abetting that child’s sin. So God would be sinning together with His child, and the child’s sin would also be counted against God. But a truly loving and utterly holy God cannot possibly partake in any kind of sin. For every kind of sin opposes the core nature of God, and God cannot oppose Himself. If God opposed Himself, by allowing His child to sin, all His creations would instantaneously crumble, because His self-opposing power would destroy Himself, and he could no longer maintain any of His creations. God Himself would become a self-destructive storm. If God drew near to a sinner, while ignoring ongoing and deliberate sins, God would indeed share in culpability for those sins. God would become a sinner Himself, through His implicit condoning of sins, since He would not be using His knowledge and power to stop those sins. Thus, a child’s sin always draws an opaque curtain between that child and the Father.
Sin can stop or greatly slow down a elect spirit’s salvation process, until His child heeds the inner rebukes of the Father, and repents into His wise counsel, away from sin. Even then, to be entirely rid of sin, the accusers of that sinner will need a just payment for that sin, enough to gratify their own demand for justice. And, believe it or not, the demons and their children are always the first to make accusations of sin against God’s elect, as well as the first to demand that a just penalty must be paid for the sins of the elect. For they know that God cannot ignore even them, when it comes to justice.
Yet literally all the infantile, created, elect human spirits who have ever lived in flesh have sinned.
There are no exceptions. All created elect spirits have committed all the kinds of sins summarized by the Ten Commandments, and not one is innocent. Only Jesus, whose life-giving spirit is not a human spirit, but is God’s uncreated Spirit dwelling in His body, did not commit even one sin in His entire life on earth, from birth to death. This means that literally all the created elect have hindered God’s salvation process while living in flesh on earth. All have turned their backs on God, caused God to step back, out of their lives. Therefore, it would be a wondrously great gift if God’s utterly holy Spirit could draw near to our unholy and sinful elect human spirits, so He could teach, train, correct and save our spirit, but without any possibility of Him being accused of aiding and abetting the sins Page 37
of us sinners. If every elect one’s sins could be somehow paid in full, all our sins from birth to death, then God could enter the chamber of our souls to save our spirits without any hindrance. Then our Father and our oldest Brother could personally counsel our elect human spirits in a wondrous way.
If this could happen, it would enhance the salvation process in us by orders of magnitude. Then God could teach His truths directly to our spirits, in a very effective way, by dwelling right next to our own human spirits. Then His truth would convict our spirits, causing us to turn away from sins, even unrecognized sins. God’s Spirit would help our elect spirits discern the lies and sins that others try to trap us with, and guard our lives from those deceptions and temptations. Then, after our elect spirits begin to experience all the good effects and fulfillment of being taught and trained by the very Spirit of God Himself, our trust and faith in Him and His words would grow. The fruits of God’s labours would cause our spirits to fully believe and apply His words. And, each day, our spirits would learn better and faster, as our faith grew. Then wisdom, a more effective application of His truth, would result in fewer sins, an ability to repent more quickly and thoroughly into His truth whenever we did sin, a power to tear down the works of Satan on earth, and the skill to build up His kingdom on earth.
If the Spirit of God Himself would stand in the chambers of our souls, to help our elect spirits learn and practice His truth, the effectiveness of His salvation would be limitless. For then His Holy Spirit could more readily convict our elect spirits about truly loving and God-like justice, so we could learn to express just love much better, until that pure, just love allowed our very spirits to be lifted up with the resurrected and ascended Jesus into the very home of the heavenly Father. For, whenever our human spirits become holy, our spirits are permitted to enter the spiritual realm of heaven, or at least gaze into it. And, whenever we catch a glimpse of heaven, the counsel of His holy Spirit convict our elect spirits about the coming judgment day, so our elect spirits can maintain hope for the completion of our salvation, for the promised perfect conclusion of the Messiah’s teaching and training process, when we all shall become fully adept at applying His truth in right, wise, loving ways at all times.
If we obtained this hope, based on what our spirits actually saw and heard in heaven, it would alleviate much of the fear and anxiety we have while we live in fragile flesh on this dangerous earth, full of deliberate deceivers and sinners. If our spirits were truly awake and made alive by Jesus, we would build up much confidence in Him, trusting that He will overcome the works of Satan and his minions. For the minds of our spirits would know that the wisdom of our omniscient God Jesus can easily outmanoeuvre all the well-crafted lies and cunning tricks of the devil, which so often carry our hearts and lives into lies, delusions and sins. Then, our spirits would also know, with all certainty, that His judgment and sentencing of evil spirits will soon eternally separate them from us, and allow all His elect to be perfected without hindrance, so we might forever walk in peace within His just and loving Kingdom. So this is exactly what Jesus does, for our great comfort and encouragement.
Through Jesus, all this is granted to His elect children. The Spirit of God came to walk among His elect children on earth, in a body of flesh, even from birth to death. Through His all-wise and all-powerful Spirit, He caused His flesh to remain utterly sinless throughout His entire life. Thus, His willing sacrifice of His flesh in death fully paid the demanded penalty for literally all the sins of all His elect children, all their sins from birth to death. The price of their atonement was granted in full, allowing for the full restoration of their relationships with their Father. Now all God’s elect children may approach their heavenly Father at any time, and will be received with full acceptance, in the name of Jesus, that is, by the authority of Jesus, the one Creator God. The payment of all the just demands for the penalty of all our sins, through the separation of God’s sinless body from God’s creations in death, is already paid by Jesus. His death officially justifies each and every elect spirit that has ever existed or ever will exist. More than this, God also raised His flesh from the dead, into Page 38
life again. Thus, Jesus lives to be our Teacher, even with more access to our spirits than He had before His resurrection. Because of this increased access won through His bodily death, Jesus then ascended into heaven and transformed His physical body into a body made of heaven’s spiritual substance. And, since Jesus’ Spirit is the one God, He bears the ability and authority to enter each of us, to dwell in each of us, even all of us at the same time. His resurrected life can forever teach and train our spirits, each one personally, day and night, throughout our lives. So the elect are no longer left with merely a written Word. Rather, God’s Spirit dwelling with our human elect spirits, through the atonement that restored our relationship with Him, provides a way for God’s very Spirit to teach our spirits literally all the truth that exists in and through Him, as the fulfilling living Word of God.
Jesus, after His life, death and resurrection, ascended to His throne in heaven so He could send His Holy Spirit to the elect, to dwell beside our spirits in the chambers of our souls. So He has become our personal Counsellor within us, to convict us of sin, so we might repent and maintain our close relationship with our Father in Jesus. And this Counsellor also convicts us of all that is truly, justly loving, so we might walk in those ways, and so we might recognize sin when we see it. Last, but not least, this Counsellor convicts our hearts of the coming final judgment as well, a judgment that will eternally perfect and complete our salvation—while also ridding us of the devil’s many distractions, which greatly disrupt our relationship with our Father. So His Holy Spirit comforts our infantile spirits as we helplessly thrash about on earth, slowing gaining cognizance of our God and His ways.
If we gain a biblical understanding of God’s promised New Covenant salvation through the Messiah, Jesus, we can better understand the content of Matthew’s Gospel, and why the Messiah’s Holy Spirit stirred Matthew’s spirit to pen the words of his book for his Jewish readers, and for all who believe in Jesus’ works and words. I pray you understand enough to truly grasp what he wrote. So now let me comment on his Gospel. Matthew began by describing the Messiah’s advent, then told us how He fulfilled God’s New Covenant promises for our salvation. The first chapters are what Matthew heard from eyewitnesses like Mary, the mother of Jesus’ body, whom Matthew knew well. And that part is packed with references to the Old Testament prophecies about His birth and origins. Then Matthew describes how Jesus called him to become one of His twelve core disciples, at the beginning of His three-year ministry as the King of Israel. He ends with the account of how Jesus, who is also our High Priest, made His sacrifice to win our saving forgiveness, atonement and abundant life in Him.
The Messiah, Eternal King and God Arrives
Mat. 1:1-17,
Genealogy of Joseph
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham became the father of Isaac. Isaac became the father of Jacob. Jacob became the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.
Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron became the father of Ram. Ram became the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon. Nahshon became the
father of Salmon. Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse. Jesse became the father of King David.
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“David became the father of Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon became the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam became the father of Abijah. Abijah became the father of Asa. Asa became the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat became the father of Joram. Joram became the father of Uzziah. Uzziah became the father of Jotham.
Jotham became the father of Ahaz. Ahaz became the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah
became the father of Manasseh. Manasseh became the father of Amon. Amon became
the father of Josiah. Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon.
“After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel became the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim. Eliakim became the father of Azor. Azor became the father of Zadok.
Zadok became the father of Achim. Achim became the father of Eliud. Eliud became the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan. Matthan became the father of Jacob. Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations” (Mat. 1:1-17, WEB).
Matthew’s Gospel was likely written sometime between about 58 and 66 AD. And his genealogy must have come from the reliable birth records stored in Jerusalem on the temple grounds. For the genealogy Matthew wrote is too detailed to have come from the memories of family members. Now, since the genealogical records still existed in the temple at that time (i.e., until Rome burned and destroyed the temple in 70 AD), Jews like Matthew had access to those records. And, to prove that Jesus was indeed the rightful King of Israel, His genealogy was important. For to Jews of that time, the Messiah’s lineage had to be clearly traced to King David, through legitimate heirs to David’s throne. So this Jewish apostle begins his Gospel with this genealogy, because he was writing it for the Jews, and hoped to convince them that Jesus was indeed their true promised Messiah and King.
If anyone claimed that a man was Israel’s promised Messiah, one first had to prove that this man had a legitimate right to sit upon David’s throne. This was essential and non-negotiable evidence to any man’s claim to be the prophesied Messiah. For the prophecies of Scripture had very clearly stated that the Messiah would be a male descendant and legitimate Heir of King David’s throne. So this genealogy of Jesus, as Joseph’s oldest son and Heir, was critical to Matthew’s claim that Jesus is the Messiah, and the only legitimate Heir of David’s throne. We can understand his concern if we look at some of these Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah as the legitimate Heir of David’s throne:
“But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish ... but in the latter time He has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations [i.e., the Messiah would be in Galilee at a time when Gentiles ruled it]. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined.... For to us a Child is born. To us a Son is given; [the Messiah was to be God incarnate, God in a body of a human man, but “born” as a “son” from a woman, not a man who appeared out of nowhere, not like God who walked in a body of a man with Adam and Eve] and the government will be on His shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace [So, as the “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father,” the Messiah was fully God, one with the Creator Yahweh, who fathered all elect spirits]. Of the increase of His government and of Page 40
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peace there shall be no end, on the throne of David, and on His kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this” (Is. 9:1,2,6-7, WEB). [This is obviously a prophecy about the first advent of the Messiah, when He was to teach and judge Israel, as their King, starting in Galilee. And it is also about what the Messiah, who is called “Mighty God” and “Yahweh of Armies,” will become in the end times, when He comes a second time, to oppose His enemies and sit upon His throne in Jerusalem forever.]
“A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit.
[Jesse was the father of David. So the ‘stock of Jesse’ refers to King David, and the ‘shoot’ or ‘branch’ from his roots means the Messiah is a descendant of David.] The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on Him: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh. His delight will be in the fear of Yahweh. He will not judge by the sight of His eyes, neither decide by the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth; and with the breath of His lips He will kill the wicked. Righteousness will be the belt of His waist, and faithfulness the belt of His waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox” (Is. 11:1-7, WEB).
[This is about the second advent of the Messiah, when He returns in glory to eliminate the wicked and all their power, when true, loving, justice will exist over all the earth. But notice how this Messiah will be a “judge”
whose judgments are through the “Spirit of Yahweh,” through the Spirit who is God. And all biblical kinds of judgments involved teaching, for the possible repentance of the sinners, and for the education of those who heard judgments against those sinners. Every biblical judge was an elder, a teacher of life and faith. Thus, the first advent of the Messiah would see the advent of a teaching Judge, a wise King whose Spirit was the wise and utterly holy righteous God, who would judge all equitably, to restore the losses of the exploited and the poor.]
“Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed My people: You have scattered My flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings, says Yahweh.... I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, says Yahweh. Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His name by which He shall be called: Yahweh our righteousness” (Jer. 23:2,4-6, WEB). [Notice how Yahweh God declared that He Himself would visit Israel. Then Yahweh God told them how He would visit them. Yahweh would visit Israel in the flesh of the Messiah, who was not only to be a descendant of David, but was even to be called by the name of God Himself, Yahweh. One of the names of this Messiah was to be the full tetragrammaton of God’s name. Yahweh was a name of the Messiah, and this name indicated that Messiah’s attributes. One of the Messiah’s attributes was that He, a human man, is Yahweh God.
This, as well as other names of this Messiah found in other prophecies, indicates that this descendant of David, this King of Israel, is God incarnate. God’s Spirit would be the life-giving Spirit in His human body of flesh.]
Jesus, King of Israel
To prove that Joseph was the rightful king of Judah—and, consequently, that Joseph’s oldest Son, Jesus, inherited the right to sit on David’s throne—Matthew provided this genealogy of Joseph. We definitely know that this was Joseph’s genealogy since verse 16 explicitly states that “Jacob ... begat Joseph” (Ἰακὼβ ... ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰωσὴφ). So there can be no ambiguity in the way Matthew had provided it. Using the temple records, Matthew traced the lineage of Joseph all the way down through Solomon to David. And it seems that every one of the men listed in this genealogy were Page 41
legitimate heirs to David’s throne. All were the first-born sons or the oldest of the surviving males who were most closely related to the previous legitimate king. And we can definitely trust that all the males in this list were legitimate heirs to David’s throne. After all, many Jews hated the truths taught by Jesus, since Jesus exposed their hypocrisy and sins. So all those Jews, some bearing much power and authority, desperately wanted to prove that Jesus was not the legitimate heir to David’s throne.
And those Jews had the time to prove this, from about AD 25, when Jesus began His ministry, all the way up to AD 70, when the genealogical records were destroyed. So those opponents had about 45
years to consult the records in the standing temple, to disprove Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. Yet not one of Jesus’ opponents ever provided even a shred of evidence to prove that Joseph and Jesus were not heirs to the throne of David. Even the high priests and chief scholars found no evidence, nothing to disprove that Jesus was the true King. And none would dare to lie about Jesus’ ancestry either, because the physical temple records could easily expose their lies, and shame them greatly.
Therefore, Jesus was indeed the legitimate heir to the throne of David. Not only did Matthew prove this through the genealogy he provided—a genealogy which would have been scrutinized and fully confirmed by his Jewish audience—but his genealogy was indirectly confirmed by the silence of Jesus’ worst enemies. Of course, the Messiah had to be a legitimate heir of David through Solomon’s lineage. After all, Solomon was the only legal and God-appointed heir to the throne of David. For a prophecy declared that God would establish Solomon’s throne forever. When God declared that Solomon’s throne would exist forever, it was God’s way of indicating that the promised immortal Messiah, that is, the Messiah’s body of flesh, would descend from Solomon, and someday sit on his throne. This is the prophecy that Jewish Bible Scholars would have cited to prove this was true:
“But Yahweh’s word came to [David], saying, ‘You have shed blood abundantly, and have made great wars. You shall not build a house to My name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight. Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his enemies all around; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for My name; and he shall be My son, and I will be his Father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever’” (I Chron. 22:8-10, WEB). [Here God made an irrevocable promise to give Solomon an eternal throne. That is, there would always be a descendant of Solomon who would be a king of Israel. But this prophecy speaks of only one descendant of Solomon, who would sit upon his throne of Israel forever. So it was obviously a prophecy about the Messiah at a future time, who is the eternal King of Israel.]
Since the inheritance of David’s eternal throne was passed on to only one legitimate heir from each generation, the Messiah needed to be one of those legitimate heirs. Thus, the lineage of Jesus had to be traced down to David through Solomon. And it had to be traced through the father of the Messiah, since only sons inherited the throne and each could only inherit it from his father. So, if Joseph, the Messiah’s father, had any male ancestor who was not a legitimate heir to David’s throne, Jesus could not be the Messiah. So Joseph himself was an heir to Solomon’s throne, as the king of Israel. And other evidence in the Gospels also hints that Joseph was indeed the true heir to David’s throne. For it would explain why Joseph had to fled from his home town of Bethlehem, all the way to Nazareth, during the time of King Herod’s reign in Judah. For Herod the Great was an insanely jealous king, who murdered everyone with any claim to his illegitimately acquired throne as the king of Israel.
Bethlehem was the place where David and his ancestors resided, and Herod knew this. So that jealous and ruthless Roman-appointed king of Judah likely would have been watching that town, willing to kill any man there who legally held any kind of claim to David’s throne in Judah. And Joseph, whom the genealogical records in the temple named as the heir to Solomon’s throne, would Page 42
Mat. 1:1-17, Genealogy of Joseph
have felt extremely threatened there. Joseph knew that, if he remained there, Herod may impulsively order him to be executed, along with all his brothers and children, any possible heirs, to prevent any Jewish people from ever even attempting to replace him with Joseph, or with any of the other heirs.
Yet some like to point out a problem with Matthew’s genealogy. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God had “cursed” Coniah, one of the legitimate heirs to the throne of David. Jeremiah prophesied: “Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which no one delights? why are they cast out, h e and his seed , and are cast into the land which they don’t know ? O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word. Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man [forsaken], a man who shall not prosper in hi
s days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah” (Jer. 22:28-30, WEB). [ Note that the word “forsaken” is most often translated as “childless” in the verse above. It should not be. Coniah was not childless, and this Hebrew word can also mean “forsaken” or “bereft.”
So, in this context, it clearly should be translated as “forsaken.” God had “forsaken” Coniah as an heir to the throne.]
This prophecy from Jeremiah began to be fulfilled very soon after it was uttered. Within a few months, God removed Coniah (also called Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah) from the throne of David and Solomon, exiling him to a foreign land. Then God promised to prevent this king’s future descendants from ever sitting on the throne of his ancestors, David and Solomon, the throne of the king of Israel in Judah. So some might now ask how the Messiah could be the eternal Heir to the throne of David and Solomon, if His right to that throne came to Him by being a legitimate heir of King Coniah, as Matthew declared (see Mat. 1:11, where Matthew called him Ἰεχονίαν/Jeconiah)? For the Messiah had to be the immortal King who would indeed sit upon the throne of Israel in Judah, the same throne that Coniah, Solomon and David sat upon. Clearly, the infallible words of God prophecied that the Messiah would rule over all of Israel, even over all the world, from that throne in Judah. But, if the Messiah, as a descendant of Coniah, could not rule in Judah, how could the other prophecies about the Messiah be fulfilled? How could the Messiah be seated on the throne in Judah, and rule as Israel’s eternal King, if not one of Coniah’s heirs could ever sit on that throne, nor bear any power?
To Matthew, this prophecy from Jeremiah was not a problem, although Matthew certainly must have known about it, and believed it was true. Matthew did not even make a comment about Jeremiah’s prophecy about Coniah, but left us to figure out why Jeremiah’s bleak prophecy not deter him from tracing the lineage of Jesus down to Coniah. For his Jewish readers all knew the real meaning of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Thus, not even the opponents of Jesus, some of whom were the greatest Jewish Bible scholars of that time and after that time, bothered to comment about Jeremiah’s prophecy against Coniah, nor ever even suggested that this prophecy about Coniah made it impossible for the Messiah to ever be born as Coniah’s descendant. For Jeremiah’s prophecy actually did not disqualify literally all of Coniah’s descendants from sitting on the throne of David and Solomon in Judah, to rule Israel. And, if we look closer, we find several good reasons for their confidence that the Messiah had to be a descendant of Coniah, as Isreal’s King on throne of David and Solomon, ruling all Israel.
First, remember that God removed Coniah from the throne of Judah through the agency of a pagan king, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore, since a pagan king physically removed Coniah from the throne, Coniah was physically prevented from sitting on the throne of Israel in Judah. God used human power to depose Coniah, and he was not dethroned directly by God’s command and power. This was an important detail in the interpretation of Jeremiah’s prophecy. For Coniah was physically prevented from ruling, but was never told by God, through the prophet, that he no longer had any legitimate right to rule on the throne in Judah. God had simply declared the physical circumstances that would prevail over Coniah and his descendants for an unspecified time.
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Although some translate Jeremiah’s prophecy with the implication that Coniah’s descendants would never, in all time, sit on David’s throne, nor ever rule again, the original Hebrew text does not state this. It simply says Coniah would be forsaken and not prosper “in his days.” Then an acceptable alternative translation declares “that his descendants shall not prosper, sitting on the throne of David and ruling still in Judah.” That is, the Hebrew word in Jeremiah 22:30, the word often translated as
“again,” simply indicates “continuance,” and can mean “still,” “yet,” and so on. So this verse, if it is interpreted in the global context of the whole Bible, is simply saying that an unspecified number of Coniah’s heirs to his throne will not rule in Judah, or will not “continue” to rule, and would cease to rule in the same way that Coniah ceased ruling for three months. Jeremiah’s prophecy definitely did not nullify that fact that the coming Messiah would eventually sit on the throne of David and rule over the whole of Israel, even all the world, including the southern part of Israel called Judah. God reduced the scope of David’s throne after Solomon died, because all Israel stubbornly clung to their sins against God and His exploited people. Israel split into two nations and Solomon’s son only ruled over the southern kingdom of Judah. But other prophecy had infallibly declared that a descendant of Coniah, Solomon and David would someday rule over all of Israel, and even become the King of the entire earth. Jeremiah knew this. God, who gave Jeremiah these words of prophecy definitely knew this. Therefore, neither God nor Jeremiah would ever nullify a previous prophecy with a new one!
Future foreign and domestic powers ruled over Judah and Israel, and these powers had prevented Coniah and his descendants from sitting on David’s throne, right up to the Roman times when Joseph and Mary first looked into the eyes of their first-born son, Jesus, the next legitimate heir to David’s throne. Yet Coniah, and one of his sons from each generation, actually remained the rightful and God-ordained heirs to the throne of David and Solomon, in spite of this interference from those foreign powers. All devout Jewish people knew this. And no believing Jews of that time ever thought that Israel would never again see a king sitting on the throne of David. Not one of them interpreted Jeremiah’s prophecy about Coniah in the same way that some theologians now do. All devout Jews believed and hoped for the final and eternal King of Israel to sit on the throne of David and Solomon in Judah, as the Messiah descended from Coniah, Solomon and David. And, if those Jews interpreted Jeremiah’s prophecy the same way that some theologians do now, this would mean that it would no longer be possible for their Messiah to bring His salvation to Israel. For the Messiah had to be a legitimate heir to the throne of David and Solomon, thus, also had to be descended from Coniah.
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, dragged Coniah back to Babylon and put Coniah’s uncle, Mattaniah (later called Zedekiah) upon the throne of David. But all the devout Jews knew that Mattaniah was an illegitimate king. For they all knew that God’s Law stated: “You shall surely set him king [i.e., here the Hebrew word translated as “king” actually refers to any kind of human authority over others, whether it is a secular, religious, business or some other kind of decision maker] over yourselves, whom Yahweh
your God chooses” (Deut. 17:15, WEB). That is, God’s Law commanded Israel, and all who would ever worship Him, to ensure that God had chosen the one they would chose as any kind of decision-making authority for themselves. Before God’s people ever granted anyone any kind of authority over anyone, that one had to manifest God’s own endorsement. And it was a sin for Israel to choose anyone for a position of authority if that authority was not evidently chosen by God. Thus, it was a sin for pagans to choose decision-making authorities for Israel, especially authorities who pleased those pagans instead of God. And the authority who proves to be chosen by God is the one whom God causes to be humble, just, equitable and loving. For every authority had to serve Israel in God’s name, as a steward of God’s property. Only if a man was taught, trained, raised up by God, so that he clearly manifested the knowledge, wisdom and other good fruits of God in his life, could Israel then Page 44
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receive God’s permission to elect that man to a position of any kind of authority over them. Even then, if God explicitly rejected that man at a later time, through the words of His true prophets, the people had to also reject that first choice and accept God’s choice for a replacement of him instead.
Throughout subsequent centuries, God’s chosen and rightful heirs to David’s throne, selected by God through His prophecies about David and Solomon, had always been physically prevented from sitting on Israel’s throne by pagans. The power of pagan kings kept the rightful heirs to David’s throne from ruling over Israel. And this power of those pagans actually came through God’s own decisions, and was granted to those pagans according to the express will of God, since Israel was still sinning against Him. However, God clearly did not intend to give this power to those pagans forever. From the days of Nebuchadnezzar to Tiberius, carnal pagan rulers chose the rulers of Judah, according to their own political agendas and criteria, without ever seeking God’s endorsement of those authorities, without demanding that Israel’s rulers manifested true godly faithfulness and just love to prove that God Himself had chosen them. So the physical actions of Nebuchadnezzar, and the other pagan rulers after him, fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy. All of it came true. However, that prophecy did not nullify God’s Law, nor did it nullify God’s prophecies granted to David and Solomon. Thus, Jeremiah’s prophecy could not possibly be a permanent, eternal restriction on the descendants of Coniah. By God’s Law and by pure logic, it was meant to be a temporary restriction.
Jeremiah’s prophecy was only about the physical removal of Coniah from David’s throne, along with an unspecified number of his future heirs to that throne. It simply could not be interpreted by anyone as God having forever cut off the entire lineage of Coniah. It could not possibly say that David and Solomon would never again have any legitimate heirs to their throne in Judah, that not one of their descendants would ever rule Israel again. And no Jewish scholars ever thought that this prophecy of Jeremiah meant such a thing. All the Jewish scholars after Jeremiah, who knew Hebrew better than modern theologians, interpreted the Hebrew words of Jeremiah to mean that the physical actions by human beings, which were the only kind of actions God required to fulfill this prophecy, could never nullify the God-granted right to the throne of David to Coniah or any of his descendants. This God-given right to that throne was forever held by all first-born and legitimate heirs to Coniah’s throne.
Clearly—although God promised to keep an indeterminate number of Coniah’s descendants from still sitting on David’s throne and still ruling over Judah, in the same way that Coniah did for three months—God had also promised, “I will establish the throne of Solomon’s kingdom over Israel for ever” (I Cron. 22:10, WEB). Since this prophecy originated from God speaking through one of His faithful prophets, and God cannot contradict Himself, we and all devout Jews of the past knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that one of David and Solomon’s legitimate heirs would eventually and eternally sit on the throne of David, Solomon and Coniah as the final King of all Israel, as the Messiah who would someday rule the entire world forever. For only Coniah’s appointed heirs were legitimate heirs to the throne of David and Solomon, by God’s command. Thus, no man could be the Messiah unless His lineage could be traced back through Coniah’s appointed heirs of Judah’s throne (usually the oldest surviving son of each generation). Only a legitimate heir to Coniah’s throne could possibly fulfill God’s promises to David and Solomon, His promise of the Messiah to save the world.
Let us clearly understand this, that God did not make it impossible to fulfill His prophecies granted to David and Solomon. When God gave that prophecy to Coniah through Jeremiah, not one of God’s other prophecies could be nullified by it. Since it is impossible for God to lie, and literally all that ever occurs on this earth is according to God’s will, we know that literally all the genuine prophecies from God will be fulfilled. When God made His promises to David and Solomon, God knew the future from the beginning, since time itself is God’s creation, and God controls all that occurs during Page 45
all past, present and future times. Thus, God’s “curse” upon Coniah could not possibly break His promises granted to David and Solomon. It is utterly impossible for God’s prophecy about Coniah to contradict and nullify His previous prophecies about Messiah, that this Messiah would be the eternal King descended from David and Solomon through their legitimate heirs. However, on the other hand, Jeremiah’s prophecy did mean that the Messiah, the heir to Coniah’s throne, would not sit on David’s throne until God’s “curse” upon Coniah’s heirs and sinning Israel had been totally nullified.
So how was God going to nullify and do away with this “curse” upon Coniah and sinful Israel, so the Messiah sit upon His eternal throne to rule Israel and the world? Well, God provided at least two ways of removing Coniah’s “curse” upon his heirs to the throne. First, we must consider how many other prophecies seem to indicate that Coniah’s curse could not be nullified until Daniel’s prophesied four kingdoms of the beast (Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome) had been vanquished, since those kingdoms were the ones who had always prevented David’s legitimate heirs from sitting on Israel’s throne, even since the days of the first kingdom, when Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon.
But the highly fractious fourth kingdom of Rome, which Daniel’s prophecy described as a factious and divided kingdom, still ruled over Israel in the days of King Jesus. And it continues to rule over Israel and all the earth to this day, through its moral and organizational precepts, through its state religion of humanism. Therefore, the immortal Messiah cannot physically sit on His throne and exert His power over Israel and all the earth just yet. Nevertheless, Jesus became the legitimate and eternal King of Israel, and was greatly empowered by the Creator’s Spirit, by Yahweh God, even from birth.
The Messiah Jesus, as an heir of Coniah’s throne, will someday physically and eternally sit upon the throne of David, as the King of Israel, but only after He destroys Daniel’s fourth kingdom of Rome, and the previous three kingdoms. In the meantime, Jesus bears the right and the ability to rule all the kingdom of God, which includes the entire priesthood of Israel and the whole of the world, because Jesus did not base His claim to that throne entirely upon being a physical heir of Coniah, through the flesh alone. The Messiah had to make his claim both through a physical inheritance of His flesh and through the “purification” from Coniah’s “curse.” For all who claimed the throne solely through a physical lineage traced to Coniah could be prevented from sitting upon David’s throne. By God’s command, recorded in Jeremiah’s prophecy, the rulers of the four kingdoms had the right to suppress the rule of all who simply possessed the blood of Coniah in their veins. So some kind of change to Coniah’s bloodline had to occur, in order to nullify God’s “curse” upon Coniah’s heirs, before the Messiah, the eternal King, would be restored to David’s throne and rule. And God did provide two ways to alter Conniah’s bloodline and nullify that “curse.” Let me begin to explain one of these two ways by comparing Matthew’s genealogy to a very different genealogy found in the Gospel of Luke:
• Matthew declared: “Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Mat. 1:16, WEB, or, in Greek: Ἰακὼβ δὲ ἐγέννησεν
τὸν Ἰωσὴφ τὸν ἄνδρα Μαρίας, ἐξ ἧς ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς ὁ λεγόμενος χριστός, SBLGNT).
• But Luke said: “Jesus Himself, when He began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli ...” (Luke 3:23, WEB, or, in Greek: Καὶ
αὐτὸς ἦν Ἰησοῦς ἀρχόμενος ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, ὢν υἱός, ὡς ἐνομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Ἠλὶ, SBLGNT). So Luke was saying that Joseph was not actually the biological father of Jesus.
Luke’s genealogy of Jesus (see Luke 3:23-38) differs from Matthew’s genealogy because Luke did not provide the genealogy of Joseph, like Matthew did. Although it is difficult to understand this from the English translation above, Luke actually traced the lineage of Mary’s male ancestors, beginning with her father, Heli. The father of Mary clearly was not Joachim, as the fictitious Gospel Page 46
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of James claims. There is absolutely no reason to trust any of the claims of that pseudo-gospel, especially since it was written in about AD 150 by someone claiming to be a half-brother of Jesus.
Obviously, it was not possible for a half-brother of Jesus, even if he might have been born as late as AD 25 (i.e., Joseph must have died by this time), to have remained alive until AD 150. For that would make him about 125 years old when he wrote that false gospel. And there are many other reasons to doubt the authenticity of that document, which I will not bother to explain at this time.
If we look carefully at the way Luke’s concise genealogy was worded in its original Greek language, we are forced to conclude that it records Mary’s lineage. In verse 23, Luke claimed that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. Luke stated: Ἰησοῦς ... ὢν υἱός, ὡς ἐνομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Ἠλὶ
(Luke 3:23, SBLGNT). This can be literally translated as: “Jesus ... being the son of Joseph, as he was according to the custom/law, this [actually being the son] of Heli ...” The imperfect passive indicative third person singular form of νομίζω (i.e., ἐνομίζετο) means, “he was according to the custom/law.” In its singular form, this verb can have only one subject. It only refers to one person, to Joseph alone. Then we need to consider the genitive articles before all the names in this genealogy, that is, all except Joseph’s name. The Believer’s Bible Commentary (MacDonald, William; Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1995), explains those singular references in this way:
“... the definite article (τοῦ) in the genitive form ( of the) appears before every name in the genealogy except one. That one name is Joseph. This singular exception strongly suggests that Joseph was included only because of his marriage to Mary.”
Since the verb ἐνομίζετο does not refer to any of the other names found in the genealogy, all the other names in Luke’s genealogy are not actually related to Jesus in the same way Joseph was. That is, none of the other names were merely related to Jesus through laws or customs alone. Only the one man Joseph was the legal father of Jesus. Joseph was a surrogate father of Jesus. Joseph legally bore all the responsibilities that the laws and customs required of a father, and Jesus inherited all the legal rights of Joseph’s first-born son. But Luke was saying that Joseph was not the biological father. On the other hand, all the others listed in the genealogy must have been related to Jesus in a different way, in a way that was not merely recognized by laws or customs alone. Luke meant that all the others in his genealogy, starting with Heli, were related through some kind of biological connection.
Considering the way Luke worded his genealogy, it was not a list of the forefathers of Joseph. But we can be certain that it was a list of the biological forefathers of Heli, and that Heli was somehow a forefather of Jesus in some biological way. Since Luke said only Joseph was related to Jesus in a customary or legal sense, but did not include any of the other names in this purely legal relationship, all the others were more directly and biologically related to Jesus. For, if Luke wanted to suggest that Heli and the others were merely related to Jesus through legal and customary means alone, as Joseph was, Luke would have used a plural form of this verb (νομίζω), to include the others in a the legal or customary relationship with Jesus. Thus, we know Heli and the others named in Luke’s genealogy are not ancestors of Joseph, yet are somehow connected to Jesus in some kind of biological way.
Since both the Jews and Gentiles traced ancestry through the male heirs in those days, Luke listed the biologically related male ancestors of Jesus, beginning with Heli, after excluding Joseph. So who was Heli? And how were Heli’s biological ancestors biologically related to Jesus, but in a way that Joseph was not biologically related to Jesus? To most, this seems obvious, especially if we realize that Luke was an educated Gentile who converted to Judaism before he began to follow Jesus. Luke was called the “Beloved Physician,” and would have focused more on parent of Jesus who had a more medical, physical and biological connection to Jesus, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Page 47
a young virgin’s womb. In Luke’s eyes, the only parent who seemed most directly connected to the body of Jesus, in a physical or biological sense, was His mother, Mary. Because Luke truly believed that Jesus was miraculously conceived in Mary’s womb, he believed Jesus could not actually have true biological parents. But, at the same time, Luke knew that Mary’s physical womb had carried the fetus, the body of Jesus, from conception through to its full term. Consequently, there was this real biological connection between Mary and Jesus. So Luke decided to write Mary’s genealogy, starting with her father, Heli. Consequently, Luke provided us with a genealogy of Mary’s male ancestors.
Now consider that Luke, a Gentile who was not an eyewitness of Jesus’ entire ministry and wrote for a Gentile audience, likely penned his Gospel a few years before Matthew wrote his Gospel. And we know Matthew was a Jewish disciple who followed Jesus during His entire three-year ministry and knew Jesus’ mother, Mary, very well. For Mary travelled with Jesus and his twelve assistant teachers, including Matthew. Then the twelve cared for Mary after the death of Jesus. Now Matthew also believed that God Himself miraculously created the fetus of Jesus in Mary’s womb, all that became His human body. Therefore, neither Mary nor Joseph created the body of Jesus in the womb, and neither were directly related to Jesus in any biological way—although God would have made the genetic material in Jesus’ body somewhat like that of Mary and Joseph. However, God had chosen both Mary and Joseph to serve as the parents of the Messiah, and Matthew knew that his Jewish readers would want to know the genealogical ancestry of the father whom God chose for the body of Jesus, since the prophesied line of Israel’s kings, up to the eternal King and Messiah, had to be traced through the sons of the kings who fathered them. Thus, Matthew corrected Luke’s genealogy, by providing the genealogy of Joseph rather than the genealogy of Mary. So Luke provided us with a genealogy of Mary’s father, Heli (in Luke 3:23-38), and Matthew provided us Joseph’s genealogy.
Of course, Luke did not consider Mary to be the true biological mother of Jesus either. For Luke previously stated that the angel told Mary: δύναμις Ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι· διὸ καὶ τὸ γεννώμενον
ἅγιον κληθήσεται, υἱὸς θεοῦ (Luke 1:35, SBLGNT, “the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Consequently, the one being born also will be called holy, Son of God.”) Here Luke indicated that the body of Jesus was formed by the power of God inside Mary’s womb. Luke meant that the conception of Jesus was not accomplished through the fertilization of an egg in her ovary, neither by God nor by man. Rather, Luke was saying that God’s power created all the genetic materials for the fetus of Jesus in Mary’s womb, so that Jesus’ body of human flesh would be entirely “holy,” totally of God and for God, the total “Son of God,” like Adam was created in the beginning. Of course, it was possible, even most likely, that God caused the genetic material in the flesh of Jesus to be like the genetic materials of both Joseph and Mary. And, naturally, Luke did not know all the scientific and medical details about “genetic materials,” not in the same way scientists and doctors do today.
But Luke certainly knew about physical traits inherited from parents. And both Jews and Gentiles were very concerned about the legitimate parents of a child. Thus, God accommodated the concerns of both, and provided genealogies of both Mary and Joseph. Then the opposite was actually true as well. God would have planned and predestined the genetic traits of both Joseph and Mary to be like those of the physical body of Jesus. Nonetheless, in the eyes of God, Luke, Matthew and all the other believers, neither Joseph nor Mary were actually the biological parents of Jesus. Rather, the human body of the Messiah was a newly created, “holy,” separated “Son of God,” like the body of Adam.
By the way, Matthew and Luke would have also believed the ancient biblical Jewish anthropological doctrines, not the Platonic anthropological doctrines. That is, like all those who remained faithful to Jesus in the first century, they would have believed that a human being consisted of three principal parts: spirit, soul and flesh. So Luke would have also believed that the life-giving Spirit in the body Page 48
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of Jesus was the uncreated Spirit of the one and only Creator God, and not a created human spirit.
Furthermore, Luke would have also believed that the genetics of Jesus’ body had been created before Adam existed. For Jesus’ physical human body, in which God dwelt, had walked in the Garden of Eden, together with Adam. And the early Christians believed this because they believed God created the first day, and thus created time itself. Since God created time, God never be subject to time. So God step into and out of any time, at any time. God could cause His body to be born at a time long after He walked upon this earth. And God’s body could die for the sins of His elect long after their bodies died on earth, yet still have payed the ransom for all their sins before they were even born.
Jesus’ death on the cross paid for all the sins of Adam and Eve before He created either of them. For God not only sees the end from the beginning, but actually exists in the end and in the beginning, as well as in literally all times between, at the same time—that is, in His internal time outside our time.
Now think about this miraculous conception. First and foremost, it made the body of Jesus “holy.”
And the word “holy” meant that the flesh of Jesus was set apart from all the past heirs of Coniah’s throne. Jesus’ miraculous birth caused Him to be the first heir of Judah’s throne who was entirely free from God’s “curse” upon Coniah’s bloodline. For Jesus’ blood did not originate from Coniah’s bloodline. Of course, in the eyes of Luke, Mary’s ancestors were also free from Coniah’s “curse,”
since none of her male ancestors were descended from Coniah. So Luke likely thought that, since the body of Jesus was formed in her womb, then her freedom from the “curse” would also be passed to Jesus. At the same time, the words that Luke used to describe the miraculous conception of Jesus implied that he not believe the body of Jesus originated from Mary’s bloodline. Still, Luke thought that, if any parent’s blood was closely connected to the blood of Jesus, it was Mary’s blood. For the blood of Mary kept the fetus of Jesus alive for nine months, until He was born. And, when Luke searched the temple records, he found that Mary’s father descended from Nathan, the brother of Solomon. So Mary had a royal bloodline, but was far enough removed from the bloodline of Coniah.
Every fetus develops its own blood and circulatory system, which is always kept entirely apart from the mother’s blood within the fetus. So the blood in the fetus does not come from the mother, and the mother’s blood never mixes with the baby’s blood. A mother’s blood simply passes oxygen and nutrients through a wall to the baby. So, because God created the body of Jesus in a holy/separated manner, His body had entirely new blood, blood which did not share the genetics of Mary or Joseph.
And all biblical Jews, including Luke who thoroughly knew biblical Jewish doctrines, believed a teaching which is similar to this scientific fact. For they trusted the Scripture which told them that
“the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11; cf., Gen. 9:4-6). Now, to them, a spirit is not a part of the physical world, since a spirit is eternal and all that is physical, including blood, is temporary and destined to be “burned” by God in the very end, vanishing from existence. Yet, during a spirit’s life on earth, each human being’s spirit kept the body of flesh alive, and permeated the entire body of flesh, like the blood does. So, although they distinguished between the spirit made of an eternal spiritual substance from a non-physical realm and the physical blood, they also believed that a human spirit dwelt in the physical blood. And blood always passed through the physical heart. So the
“home” of the spirit was the heart—although they also believed that the “heart,” as the spirit’s home in person, was not actually the physical heart, but a chamber made of eternal spiritual substances.
Now, since Jesus and all biblical Jews believed that God directly created each individual’s spirit, and one’s spirit was one’s life, any inheritance of the temporary body was primarily ruled by a spirit that was not more nor less related to the spirits of one’s parents and ancestors than anyone else’s spirit.
So, actually, only the temporary and far less important body of flesh could inherit from a parent’s body flesh, and could only keep a physical inheritance as long as that flesh lived. Even then, the Page 49
Creator God was the only true owner of all human bodies, even all spiritual and physical existence.
So no flesh truly owned any inheritance, and could only serve God as the steward responsible for the care of the inheritance. Furthermore, each biological sibling’s blood came from a slightly different mix of the blood of their two parents. And God ultimately controlled which attributes of each parent were mixed into each sibling’s flesh and blood, making each sibling’s blood and body unique as well. Therefore, biblical Jews and true Christians, including Luke, did not see much difference between biological children and adopted children. All were unique individuals with spirits created by God, not by humans, as well as blood and bodies formed in unique ways by the ways in which God chose to mix the blood of biological parents. So, although Luke likely believed the blood of Mary was nearer to the blood of Jesus than the blood of Joseph, since Jesus’ body had been in her womb, Luke would have fully recognized that Jesus was legally, and by every custom of the land, the true and rightful heir to David’s throne through his surrogate father, Joseph. For Luke would have believed that all spirits and bodies of flesh of biological and adopted children are individuals made by God and differ from both parents. Thus, all inheritances are purely legal matters, either granted or forbidden by God. So, being an heir to David’s throne by the prophesied ordination and command of God, as a non-biological son of Joseph, would be perfectly acceptable to Luke. By law, Jesus was the legitimate first-born son of Joseph, and the true heir to the throne of Coniah, Solomon and David.
Luke thought it was best to trace the ancestry of the miraculously conceived Messiah through His mother’s lineage, although Jesus’ body was not actually genetically related to her either. In Luke’s eyes, God chose to make the fetus of Jesus grow in Mary’s womb until birth, and this physical connection seemed to require Mary’s genealogy. But Luke’s reasoning was that of a Gentile physician, who was more focused on relationships between bodies of flesh. And this would also be the focus of the Gentiles for whom Luke wrote his Gospel. But Matthew was a Jew who presented the legal lineage of Jesus’ human body, since his focus was to prove that Jesus was the legitimate Heir to the throne of Israel. Then Luke, who likely read Matthew’s Gospel a few years after he wrote his own Gospel, would have fully accepted Matthew’s genealogy, for Luke also proclaimed that Joseph was the legal father of Jesus. And none of the early Christians ever seemed to see any reason to doubt either genealogy, since they assumed that Luke wrote an accurate genealogy of Mary and that Matthew wrote an accurate genealogy of Joseph. We can see Luke’s focus on Mary, as the strongest biological link to Jesus, in Luke’s account of the incidents leading to the birth of Jesus (i.e., in the first two chapters). For Luke mentions Mary twelve times only mentions Joseph three times.
This clearly suggests: (1) Luke felt that Mary was more biologically connected to Jesus than Joseph, and (2) Luke personally met and knew Mary, but not Joseph. So Luke gave a genealogy of Mary.
Luke was likely thinking that both Mary’s biological connection to Jesus, together with her noble lineage, would appeal to the Gentiles who read his Gospel. Luke’s genealogy catered to Gentiles in another way too, by tracing the lineage of Jesus all the way back to Adam, back to the common ancestor of all mankind, of both Jews and Gentiles. Yet Matthew stopped tracing the lineage of Jesus at Abraham, since Matthew was writing to the Jews. So Matthew’s genealogy might satisfy the Jews, but would make Gentiles feel a little excluded. Also, we must realize that Luke, like Matthew, also had access to the temple records when he wrote his genealogy. And, since Luke always proved to be an able, diligent and conscientious historian, we can trust that he did due diligence in researching the genealogy of Mary’s father, Heli. We can definitely trust the full accuracy of Luke’s genealogy too.
From Luke’s genealogy, we know that Mary descended from David as well, but through Solomon’s brother, Nathan (see Luke 3:31). Thus, Mary was also of noble descent. More than this, since Mary came through Nathan, this would mean that she was free from the sins of all Solomon’s descendants Page 50
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who ruled on the throne of David, including Coniah. Yet, at the same time, Mary had much of the same bloodline prophesied for the Messiah, since both Solomon and Nathan had the same mother, Bathsheba, as well as the same father, King David. This seemed good enough for Luke, although it was not be good enough for the Jews, who would insist that Jesus inherit His throne from his father.
In Luke’s eyes, God wanted the Messiah, as the eternal legal heir to the throne of David, to have a mother with a noble lineage, a mother who could trace her lineage from David through Bathsheba (i.e., through a full brother of Solomon, Nathan). For such a mother of the Messiah would free her Child from the “curse” upon Coniah’s bloodline, possibly in a way that many superstitious Gentiles and Jews might believe. Through Mary’s lineage from David and Solomon’s mother, her lineage would seem to counter the corruption of Coniah. An heir to David’s throne, through a mother descended from Nathan, would “cleanse” the blood of the heir to throne, set aside God’s physical
“curse” upon Coniah’s bloodline, that is, if God had made the genetics of Jesus to resemble that of Mary instead of Joseph. However, Jeremiah’s prophecy about Coniah was not actually a “curse.” For God’s “curse” upon Coniah’s bloodline was not an act of revenge. Rather, preventing Coniah and his descendants from ruling was a necessary aspect of teaching Israel to rely upon God alone, to no longer place faith in physical power, money and allies, upon human kings like Coniah. God was teaching His priesthood of Israel to be humble before Him, to stop treating the throne as a means to selfish ends. So Luke may have thought Mary’s royal bloodline of Nathan, of a man who did not covet the throne, would wash away the arrogance of Coniah’s bloodline, and remove the “curse.”
Yet we cannot deny that Luke also believed that Jesus was the legal heir to the throne of David, Solomon and Coniah through Joseph, since Luke acknowledged that Jesus was the oldest legitimate son of the rightful king of Israel, of Joseph. Jesus was Israel’s King by law. Of course, the Romans did not allow Joseph to sit on David’s throne in Judah, did not let Joseph bear any power at all.
Rather, Rome’s appointed Herod the Great to be the king of the Jews. And that illegitimate king forced Joseph to live in exile, to fled from his home in Bethlehem, to Nazareth, a small village far north of there. There Joseph worked as a common carpenter, in obscurity. But being a carpenter was not a disgrace for a Jewish king, since all devout Jews, even devout kings, were expected to learn a trade, some kind of useful occupation. Then, later, through a miraculous birth, Joseph’s wife gave birth to his first-born Son. And Joseph’s legitimate Heir to David’s throne could not yet sit on the physical throne of Israel either. Yet Joseph’s Heir had the Spirit of God as the life-giving Spirit of His body. Thus, Joseph’s Heir had always been and always would be owning the throne as the King of heaven and earth. And, after the flesh of Joseph’s Heir rose in the flesh from the dead, to live forever, He will be able to sit on David’s physical throne in Judah, and rule over Israel in the end, after Rome falls. Joseph’s Heir will indeed fulfill all of God’s promises to David and Solomon.
The rightful heir to the throne of David, the Messiah, simply had to come through Coniah. And Jesus legally met that requirement by being the legal heir of the rightful king of Israel, by being the firstborn Son of Joseph. But, in the eyes of some, God also “purified” Coniah’s bloodline, by making Jesus come through Mary’s alternative noble bloodline, since she was another descendant of David through Bathsheba. But, in reality, Jesus’ body was made holy and separated from all human sinners, including Coniah, through His miraculous conception. And any way one looks at the physical birth of Jesus’ body of flesh, Coniah’s “curse” could not possibly be inherited by Jesus’ body and soul.
Then let us also remember that, after the genealogical records of Israel were destroyed in AD 70, no one else could establish a verifiable claim to be the legitimate heir to David’s throne ever again. It is now impossible for anyone to prove that one is the Messiah of Israel, since no one will ever be able to demonstrate that all one’s ancestors were legitimate heirs of the throne of David, not without those Page 51
genealogical records that were burned in AD 70. When God sent Jesus to claim His right to the throne of Israel, those genealogical records existed, and were available for all to see. For forty years after Jesus’ death (in about AD 28), even the worst enemies of Jesus had full access to those records.
Yet none could deny Jesus’ claim to the throne of David. Since a biblical generation was forty years, God allowed one whole generation the chance to dispute Jesus’ claim. But none could deny it during that entire generation. Then God ended any possibility of anyone ever claiming to be the Messiah again, by destroying the temple and its genealogical records. So we, and all Jews, are now forced to choose either Jesus or another heir of David living before AD 70, as their Messiah, King of Israel.
The Five Women
Another aspect of Matthew’s genealogy is that he provided the names five female ancestors of Jesus, while Luke’s genealogy does not mention the names of any women. Tamar was the first woman Matthew mentioned (Mat. 1:3). And Tamar was not a Jew. She came from one of the Gentile tribes in Canaan (see Gen. 38:6-30). In fact, all the twelve sons of Jacob, the founders of all twelve tribes of Israel, could only have married Gentile women, since no eligible Jewish women existed back then. Then Rahab was a Gentile too, even a prostitute from Jericho (see Joshua 6:22-25). This female ancestor of Jesus’ body married a male ancestor of Jesus’ flesh, Salmon. So Rahab was the great, great grandmother of God’s most beloved king, David. Then Ruth, the great grandmother of King David, was a Moabite (see Ruth 1:4), another Gentile woman who married Boaz, the son of Rahab and Salmon. Yet the Moabites were usually shunned by Jews, since God condemned the sins of the Moabites against Israel (Deut. 23:3-4). Later, Solomon, the only legitimate heir whom God chose for the throne of Israel, was the son of David and Bathsheba. And, before David married Bathsheba, she was the widow of Uriah the Hittite. And Hittites are Gentiles originating from regions in what is now called Turkey. Thus, Bathsheba was most likely a Gentile Hittite too. So, of the five women Matthew mentioned, three definitely were Gentiles and another was probably a Gentile too. Only one of the five women listed in Matthew’s genealogy was definitely Jewish, Mary, the mother of Jesus’ body.
Now we might ask why Matthew deliberately named these three or four Gentile women? Clearly it was because Matthew wanted to remind his readers that God brought His salvation to both Jews and Gentiles through the sacrificial, sinless body of the Messiah Jesus. God’s salvation was not for Jews alone. Rather, God’s plan of salvation was for all the elect of the earth, all whose spirits were capable of learning to love in a just, pure, God-like way. God granted His salvation to all the elect scattered among all the tribes of the earth, through Israel and through their Messiah, the eternal King of Israel.
God planned to bring many Gentile elect into His priesthood nation of Israel, and joined many Gentiles to Israel from the beginning. God brought Gentiles into His priesthood of Israel as it was being established by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s twelve sons. Then God gathered many more Gentiles into Israel during their exodus from Egypt (see Ex. 12:38,48-49). And God has continued to gather Gentiles into Israel ever since. Also remember, in the days of the Exodus, Caleb, the Gentile Kenezite (see Num. 32:12; Josh. 14:6), was chosen to represent the whole tribe of Judah, as one of the twelve esteemed scouts or “spies” sent into the Promised Land. Israel chose only one man from each tribe to perform this task, and the large tribe of Judah chose Caleb, a Gentile convert, to be their representative, to make a responsible and informed decision for them about the promised land. So Caleb must have been an esteemed member of the tribe Judah, which was the tribe of the King David and the Messiah (see Gen. 49:10). Yet Judah was also the tribe in which God placed most elect Gentiles throughout biblical history. Then later, after the twelve scouts returned, only Joshua and Caleb, the Gentile, remained faithful to God, while the other ten Jewish scouts did not. This kind Page 52
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of thing has occurred throughout the history of the church of Israel. As Jesus said, “For many are called, but few chosen” (Mat. 22:13, WEB). And one of the faithful scouts, chosen by God, was Jewish, while the other one was a Gentile. So, although the Jews outnumbered the Gentile converts in Israel at that time, half of the two chosen ones was Gentile. Later, God only allowed Joshua and Caleb to survive Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, but let all the others die. Then Joshua took the place of Moses, as God’s prophet leading Israel. And God granted Caleb, a Gentile, a full inheritance in Israel (Num. 14:24). Clearly, throughout history, God offered His salvation to both the Jews and Gentiles alike, and He actually created His priesthood of Israel to serve the entire world in His name.
To me, the most fascinating of the four Gentile women named by Matthew was Ruth, a Moabitess, from a people who seemed to be enemies of God and His people. Yet God caused a whole book in the Scriptures, in the Word of God, to be written about her (possibly by the prophet Samuel). And this book about this Gentile woman was obviously ordained by God to be included in the canon of Scriptures. For her story was about pure, godly love. The Book of Ruth tells us how this Gentile woman married a Jewish man, whom she clearly loved. Then he died and she remained with that man’s mother, because she loved his mother too. During this time, Ruth also grew a deep love for God and for the faithful, loving people within the priesthood of Israel. Through much suffering and loss, God worked His redemption in Ruth’s spirit. God was saving Ruth through His love for her, and used loving Jewish servants, working through His Holy Spirit, as His agents for her salvation.
By mentioning these Gentile women, Matthew implied that salvation by the Messiah was not to be granted only to those who descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God did not save according to biological and genetic criteria. Rather, the Messiah’s salvation is granted to all whose spirits can love Him and His creations. His salvation is for all His spiritual offspring, for all elect spirits born of His Spirit. He plants the desires and propensities of His own heart into all elect spirits. The Messiah and His saving works are for both the Jewish and Gentile elect spirits of the world, all who are capable of the kind of love which rejoices in the truth, which builds up justice and overcomes evil with good.
David became the king of Israel by God’s personal choice, by His decision revealed through a true prophet, Samuel. And God desired this youngest son of Jesse, a descendant of Tamar, Rahab and Ruth, solely because David’s heart was right before Him. For God sent Samuel to anoint only one of Jesse’s sons as the new king of Israel, to replace an unfaithful king, Saul. But God did not allow Samuel to pick the oldest son. For God told Samuel: “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for I see not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart” (I Sam. 16:7, WEB). Nor did God let Samuel select any of David’s brothers. All those other sons of Jesse were presumably rejected for the same reason, because the spirits in their hearts were not right before God. Only when David, the last and least of Jesse’s sons, finally appeared, did God command Samuel: “Arise, anoint him; for this is he” (I Sam.
16:12, WEB). For God saw that the spirit in David’s heart was honest before Him. For David’s spirit welcomed the Creator’s Spirit into his heart, and heeded every wise truth from the omniscient God.
Surely God could have chosen a king who was not descended from Tamar, Rahab and Ruth, if genetics mattered to God. But genetics did not and never will matter to God. And that was the point Matthew was making by listing the Gentile women in his genealogy. To God, all that matters is the honesty and openness of an elect human spirit in the heart of an individual—a spirit bearing the ability to love in the way God Himself loves, in a just, true, honest and pure way. This is what Matthew wanted to remind his Jewish readers about. For only a humble and loving heart will love God and heed His words. Only an honest and serving spirit is able to see God’s intended meanings of His words, and guard that truth from man’s self-serving interpretations. Matthew was telling his Page 53
Jewish readers to cast out any pride in their Jewish ancestry, because the Messiah’s salvation is for all kinds of people. God loves elect Jews, but also loves elect Gentiles from every family on earth.
Now we might ask, “Then why did God separate a people for Himself and call them Israel? Doesn’t God’s Word tell us that salvation belongs to Israel, to the people descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?” Well, yes, but not in the way some like think. God’s salvation does belong to Israel, and to the genuine Israel alone. Salvation is worked by God through the spiritually awake, alive and true elect whom He has gathered into Israel. God saves through the eternal Israel He established for all time through His spiritually awake priests called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet God’s salvation only belongs to Israel in the sense that this salvation will be proclaimed to all kinds of people, to elect souls from every nation on earth, through His eternal priesthood of Israel. More specifically, God’s salvation will be completed and fulfilled for all the elect on earth through only one Priest of Israel, through Israel’s true and eternal High Priest, the Messiah, Jesus. But, no, God definitely does not grant salvation to only the people who trace their physical ancestry to Abraham, Isaac and Israel.
We need to remember what Israel is and where it came from. Before Israel, in the very beginning, starting with the life of Adam and Eve, God chose individual priests for the world. The Creator set apart at least one male from each generation to serve the family of mankind, to speak on His behalf and to approach Him on their behalf. So Adam was the priest of the first generation. Then God chose Abel, one of Adam’s sons, as His priest for the next generation. And Abel was a faithful priest for that next generation, speaking and acting as a mediator between God and them, with supplications and sacrifices, where the family feasted on the meat of sacrifices and drew closer to one another in God. Of course, these chosen men were not called “priests” back then. Yet they functioned as priests, according to the biblical definition of a priest. For we must realize that different parts of God’s Word used the different terms, since different writers from different places and different cultures penned each of the different parts in different times. And some parts are far more than 4,000 years old, but others are less than 2,000 years old. So these individual priests chosen by God for each generation were not specifically called priests, but we know them to be priests because God called them all into a priestly relationship with Him, like He did with Able (see Gen. 4:3-7, 4:25 to 5:32). So the earth had a number of individual priests among them until the days of Noah and the world-wide flood.
Then the flood came, and Noah was the only priest left upon the earth. And, of Noah’s surviving sons, God only chose Shem to be a priest for the next generation (Gen. 9:26). Then God chose one son from each subsequent generation of Shem to be His priests (Gen. 11:10 to 12:3), until God had chosen a descendant of Shem from the ninth generation, who was named Abram. Later God changed the name of Abram to Abraham. At that time, God decided that He would no longer send out these individual priests alone, as the men through whom He communicated with His people on the earth.
God told Abraham that He would build a nation of priests to serve Him in the world, through a son of Abraham, whom God would give to Abraham, through Isaac. Then God arranged for only one of Isaac’s sons, a man named Jacob, to inherit this promise or covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac. So God’s covenant with Abraham, to build a nation of priests, was to be fulfilled through Jacob, whom God later renamed, and called Israel. And that is where the nation of God’s priests got their name. They are called Israel to this day. Thus, Adam was the first priest, the first representative of God for the whole family of mankind. Of course, Adam was the only one of his generation. Yet God one of his sons to be His priest as well. So Adam became the eldest of all subsequent priests, the
“high priest” until the day he died. Then God chose Abel to be the priest for the second generation (Gen. 4:4). But, since Cain slew Abel, God chose Seth to replace Abel, as the second generation’s priest, so the next generation would have a priest to call on “the name of Yahweh” for them (Gen.
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4:25-26). After this, God chose only one descendant of Seth from each subsequent generation to be a priest. This line of priests continued until God created the priestly nation of Israel. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the last of these solitary, individual priests whom God ordained for each generation (see Gen. 4:25-32; 10:26; 11:10-32; 17:19; 28:13-15). After the last of these individual priests, God chose to communicate with His family of elect children upon the earth through a nations of priests.
Once Jacob’s twelve sons were born, God no longer raised up only one priest for the next generation.
Rather, God replaced the one priest with all twelve of Jacob’s sons. God called and sent all twelve sons, and all the sons of every generation descended from Jacob, out into the world, to reveal His will to the world and to supplicate on behalf of the world before His face. God elected an entire family of priests, a whole nation of priests, all whom God would choose from Jacob’s descendants and all whom God would gather into Israel from outside that family. And that nation of priests took the new name of Jacob, the name of Israel, because this name meant, “he wrestles with God.” For this is what a priest does. A priest wrestles or struggles with God, for the sakes of the people. Every priest incessantly wrestles out the true meanings of God’s words, then struggles to guard this truth in his spirit, resisting all who want to injure or kill that truth with their lies and delusions. And every priest also battles against the impulses and deceptions of his own flesh. Every faithful priest of God must always remains at war with God’s enemies, often even his own flesh, to serve God’s people.
When God created Israel, God began to relate to all the people of the earth through an entire nation of priests, through a people who would continuously grow larger, more informed and more effective in serving both God and the people as His priesthood. Some may deny that this is true, but we must remember exactly what God commanded Moses: “This is what you shall tell the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ... you shall be My own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:3,5-6, WEB).
So the term “priest” was not used in the writings of the Scriptures to describe either the individual priests, from Adam to Jacob, nor the nation of priests called Israel, not until the days of Moses, or possibly some generations before then. However, although Israel obviously did not always faithfully carry out their duty as God’s priesthood to the world, God created them to be His priesthood, and we certainly cannot blame God for any ignorance and unfaithfulness found among the more carnal souls in that priesthood. For God has always been faithful to both the individual priests and His priesthood of Israel, as well as to all His elect Gentile children scattered throughout the world. God has always taught and trained literally all the spirits of His elect children who came to Him, who sought to know Him and His truths. God turned away none. Every elect spirit who has ever honestly and earnestly approached the one Creator’s Spirit, has learned from Him to love in a just and pure way. This includes both His Jewish and His Gentile elect children. Furthermore, even when these elect became entirely carnal, God did not abandon them forever. And God has never allowed His priesthood of Israel to perish on earth, both for the sake of that priesthood and for the sake of the rest of the world.
Now the main duty of a priest is to speak on behalf of God to the people, to all those inside and also outside of the priesthood. Each priest was forbidden to serve himself alone, and the entire priesthood of the real God definitely was not created to serve itself alone. For it is God’s nature to serve others more than Himself, to sacrificially labour for the good of others through His love, asking nothing in return. Thus, all who bear God’s name, all who serve as priests of God, must do the same, in His likeness, as His true and faithful representatives. God has always, throughout history, taught, trained, called and sent all His true priests for one reason, to serve Him by serving His creation, especially the human beings in His creation. All His true priest must do this in His name, according to His will.
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True children of the heavenly Father learn their Father’s business, which is to serve all others. God Himself created all living and inanimate things so He could serve them. This is His pleasure, and it is a pleasure shared by all His elect children, even by all His other elect living creatures. Only demons, the fallen angels, and their non-elect human children find no pleasure in serving for the good of all God’s creation, and would rather be served by all, as though they were evil gods. Only they love to deceive the elect, and other creatures, into serving their own selfish needs and desires, without any desire to truly serve anyone or anything through just love. Although those non-elect spirits can see that their Creator did not make even one thing selfishly, exclusively for His own pleasures or needs, they still want to be the kinds of gods who do everything for themselves. Yet, God fulfills all His needs and pleasures within Himself through His sacrificial labours of love, and none of those false gods can ever do that. In fact, those self-serving gods cannot ever fulfill any of their own needs and desires, no matter how much they gain for themselves. Always they want more, growing ever more empty and wanting as they get more. In the meantime, no external entity can ever begin to provide anything for God, but nothing is more pleasing and more needed by Him than what He provides for His creations. God is utterly, perfectly and completely self-sufficient. He is the Source Provider for all, the first and foremost Servant of His creations. And His human elect children are like Him, since He teaches all these to serve as He serves, through love, then grants all the resources for their works.
Therefore, this loving, wise, almighty, self-sufficient God created His elect human children for the sole reason that He might serve them. And He serves His most beloved creations, the human spirits born of His Spirit, by teaching them to serve through love, as He does. God’s children have eternal, life-giving spirits “breathed out” from within Himself (Gen. 2:7). This means that their spirits are of the very same essence as His Spirit. Elect human spirits were not merely created by His spiritual power, like the spirits of elect angels and all other living creations. And God scattered His human children throughout the earth. Through His external power, He created other spirits and inanimate things, but all for the same reason, so He might diligently serve them, through His core nature of love. Then all His human children, all with spirits created directly from His Spirit, learn to serve all His creations in the same way, both other humans and other living creatures, even the soil, water and air of the earth, through the same love which works for the ultimate eternal good of those creations.
Every priest is obligated to serve God’s purposes, and God’s purpose is to serve all His creation, especially His chosen people, His elect children, who live both inside and outside of the priesthood.
Many of His children do not even know the name of their heavenly Father. Yet they have spirits that were created in His image. So these elect, who remain without any knowledge of the Bible or God’s name, remain perfectly and innately capable of God-like love, with a strong and inherent propensity to gravitate toward that pure, just and God-like kind of love, as well as toward the truths which that love is built upon. Of course, we all know that every individual and nation naturally serves itself, through the mind of flesh. But every priest of God is obligated to let the mind of the spirit rule over the mind of flesh within the chamber of the soul, so he or she might love and care for the spiritual and physical welfare of living creations, and guard one’s own spiritual purity in one’s relationship with God, as well as the relationships of fellow priests with God. This is a priest’s main priority, set far above one’s physical needs. And the main reason a priest must do this is so that the spiritual fruits of peace and love will enable the production of both spiritual and physical fruits for all. A priest and one’s fellow priests need to guard their own spirits from the corruption which Satan’s children might cause in them, and even from being taken captive by lies, delusions and lusts of one’s own flesh. At all cost, a priest must walk in God’s ways, and rightly serve all according to God’s will through a pure, equitable, just and God-like love. Otherwise, one’s own life and all lives grow empty and dead.
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Naturally, a priest must adequately fulfill the needs and some simple desires of one’s own flesh. For a priest needs one’s own body of flesh to express love to other humans and to God’s other creations on earth. A spirit needs to be able to use its brain and body of flesh to serve others, while the spirit is in the womb of this physical creation, for both the spiritual and physical benefit of others. Yet all the elect with awakened spirits, all who have been gathered into the true Israel, into God’s priesthood of the “church” of Israel, must keep their eyes on their ultimate goal, which is to serve God through the love in their spirits, by serving His creations. First and foremost, a priest must serve God, especially by serving His elect children. So serving oneself is a secondary priority. The primary reason for God creating the priesthood of Israel was so they would work benefits for all the other nations, and serve them in His name. And, to serve in His name, it did not mean using God’s name as a magic talisman, as a way to force God to do one’s own will. We must not be like most churches, who supposedly say and do things “in God’s name.” For, if one of them says or does anything in the name of a ruthless human dictator, that one is extremely careful to ensure that one’s words and deeds are exactly what that dictator commanded one to say and do, and done in a way that pleases the will of that dictator.
Otherwise, that dictator may even kill that one, in a very painful way. Yet God is the King of all kings, and they recklessly say and do things in God’s name according to their own wills, expecting God to empower and fulfill what they say or do in His name, without even considering what God desires. Although God is not ruthless, nor is He a dictator, He is infinitely greater than any powerful human being. Therefore, if a true priest of God says or does anything in God’s name, in Jesus’ name or in the name of the Father, a true priest will always ensure that he or she is actually saying or doing that thing according to God’s express command, and in a way that is entirely pleasing to God’s will.
God created the nation-priesthood of Israel to represent Him to the people in the entire family of mankind, to the people of all the other nations on earth, and especially to His elect human children scattered throughout the world. The elect in Israel, the true Israelites, were to be His enteral property, His owned servants whom He would “adopt” as His children, after they were granted their eternal spiritual bodies and entered His home in heaven. In other words, the priests of Israel were to be His church, since the word “church” actually means “privately owned property.” The church of Israel was, above all God’s most cherished property in heaven and on earth, His most treasured and private property, reserved for His use alone. Israel was “sanctified” unto Him, which means God separated the people of Israel to serve for His purposes alone. The whole reason God made the church-nation of Israel was to assist Him in teaching and training others to live in His loving, just, equitable, wise and effective ways. The church of Israel has always existed, even now with Old and New Covenant branches, so they might beseech God on behalf of the people who are both inside and outside their priesthood, and serve them in His name. Israel is to seek God’s will at all times, with the hope that God will gather even more of elect outsiders into His priesthood, into the “church” of Israel that He created once and for all time through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Israel has no other purpose.
Therefore, since God created the priesthood of Israel to do His works for His creation, especially for the salvation of His elect children scattered in all the other nations, it is obvious that God’s salvation clearly does not belong only to the souls whom God Himself gathers into the priesthood of Israel.
Rather, God’s salvation belongs to all His elect children scattered throughout the earth, to all souls whom His “church” of Israel was created by Him to serve. God appointed the priesthood of Israel to serve the rest of the world in His name, just as the individual priests served all in the days before Jacob. God created the priesthood of Israel so their foremost duty would be to serve the people who exist outside of their priesthood, to serve Gentiles on His behalf, especially His elect among them.
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However, it is obvious that “they are not all Israel that are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6, WEB). That is, not all the descendants of Jacob are truly called and chosen priests of God. Not all who make the claim that they descended from Jacob even have elect spirits, although there does seem to be a higher percentage of Jews with elect spirits than Jews with non-elect spirits. There are some Jews who do not have elect spirits, whose non-elect spirits never will be capable of knowing any kind of God-like, just, pure love. Some who are genetically related to Jacob have spirits born of Satan, not born of God. Some Israelites actually hate the real God, and serve the devil. And many of those Jewish children of the devil still claim to worship and serve God, although, in reality, the fruits of their selfish, ruthless labours expose them as enemies of God. So their eternal home will be hell, not heaven. On the other hand, the majority of Jewish people seem to have spirits that are able to justly love in the same way God loves. And, whether these elect Jews claim to be in the Old or New Covenant branch of the church of Israel, they are all destined to be the priesthood of the original and real Israel which God created through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet that true priesthood shall not only consist of Jews descended from Jacob, but also many Gentiles whom God gathers into Israel.
Gentiles were never excluded from God’s priesthood of Israel. In fact, Abraham was clearly God’s chosen priest. Yet Abraham, together with all his descendants inside him, submitted to the blessings of a Gentile priest named Melchizedek, even as to a superior priest, since Abraham had supported Melchizedek’s ministry with a tithe (Gen. 14:18-20). So all of the priesthood of Israel, while still inside Abraham (even the Levites, the inner priesthood of Israel, who served the spiritual needs of the outer priesthood of Israel, and received tithes from them) also “paid tithes” to this Gentile priest, to Melchizedek (Heb. 7:8). Since this is true, we know that God clearly does not determine whom He will ordain as His priest strictly according to genetics. None can serve as God’s priest strictly through genetics, by one’s body of flesh somehow inheriting a right to become a true priest of God.
Rather, all who serve as a priests of God have elect spirits specifically chosen, taught, trained and ordained by God, through God’s will alone. A priest’s ability to love and serve God is not a matter of genetics, nor a decision of the human will. First a human spirit must be born of God’s Spirit. Then one’s heavenly Father must personally apprentice that infantile spirit in the field of this world for a long time, to teach and train that human spirit rightly, to make it ready to serve as His representative.
In reality, all human beings, both the elect and the non-elect, are owned by the One who created all.
And all can be owned by Him alone, not by anyone else, since God never forfeits that ownership nor His responsibilities as their Owner, none of His self-imposed obligations to provide for them. God has never and never will sell any of His inanimate properties to anyone else, much less any of His living properties, not even a blade of grass or an insect, much less human lives. The most God has ever done is grant some of His human creations a temporary kind of stewardship over a few of His properties, although not over siblings in the family of mankind. But literally all that exists, in every space-time continuum, forever remains the exclusive property of the Creator, and all the stewards of God’s property are expected to serve that property in His name, according to His will. Every steward bears the duty to diligently care for all that God assigns to him or her. All we consume to remain alive, as well as all we may be granted to “possess” as stewards still belongs to God. Literally any animate or inanimate entity that anyone might claim to “own” is not actually that one’s property, but belongs to God, and that “owner” merely holds it in stewardship, as God’s owned servant, until God removes that entity from that steward’s hands, such as by the death of that steward’s flesh. Thus, we all owe an incalculable debt to God, for every moment he lets us live. And it is our duty to use all that “belongs” to us solely for His good purposes. It is a sin for us to misuse or abuse any property we temporarily possess as His stewards, to use it for any purpose that opposes the real Owner’s will.
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So every faithful priest of God not only serves as a good steward of all the property that God calls him or her to serve, but also allows all his or her important conscious decisions to be initiated, approved, endorsed and ratified by God alone. Then a priest teaches and trains others to do the same.
For a priest’s own body, soul and spirit are required to do this, since a priest is not only owned by God, but is chosen and called to assist in the works of God for God’s creations, especially for God’s human children. A priest’s role in life is to endorse and ratify God’s will. And, if a priest does this, then God will also provide all that the priest needs to fulfill His will. But if a priest opposes God’s will, then God cannot provide much of anything for that priest, since God cannot help a false priest work against His own will. But, if a priest’s life is all about knowing and doing God’s will, and God only reveals His will to those to whom He wills to reveal His will, then who can choose to be a priest of God through one’s own human will? None can choose to be God’s priest, not unless God first grants that one’s spirit a strong inherent desire to be His priest. Only after God first puts this desire in the mind of one’s elect spirit, then confirms and reinforces His calling for one to fulfill that desire in one’s spirit, can one’s spirit be taught and trained to be His priest. For all the teaching and training for all God’s priests must also ultimately originate from God Himself. And no infantile human spirit can adequately teach and train another human spirit to truly know and wisely follow all of God’s just and loving ways according to His will. Not one is able to do this. Only God Himself is able to do it.
Only the very Spirit of God Himself can be the Head Teacher and Lord of every individual who serves in the priesthood of God. No mortal man, nor even the greatest of the heavenly angels, has the ability to be the head teacher and lord of any true priest of God. Then it is clear that God intends to save only the souls whom He chooses to save. So not even a true priest of God can ever save anyone.
God causes His priesthood to serve elect souls, many whom He chooses to truly and effectively save.
But God does not choose to save all human beings, since some are non-elect souls. In fact, God does not even choose to save all elect souls while they live in flesh on the earth, and has ordained that many of His elect children shall only enter into salvation on the last day, through His teachings on the judgment day. Thus, God does not require all whom He saves to be served by the works of His priesthood. Only some of His elect children will be served by His church during a salvation process that He Himself works in the spirits of all His elect. The salvation of literally all His elect children can only be initiated and completed through Him alone. Salvation originates from our God Jesus, and will be completed by Him alone. “There is salvation in none other, for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, by which we must be saved!” (Acts 4:12, WEB).
Yet one of the main reasons God created His priests and priesthood was so that they could assist Him with the process of teaching and training elect spirits for salvation. And this is a huge task, since God has indeed chosen to save countless souls, perhaps half or more of all who live on this earth. So this massive work of salvation will be helped by His priesthood, but only a tiny part of it can be done by the infantile human spirits serving as His priests. God will teach, train and call each priest to say and do certain tasks. But each priest will only be able to do whatever God grants him or her the ability to do. God will also provide many spiritual and physical resources to His priesthood, so they can do many kinds of works for Him, especially this work of enhancing and facilitating the salvation of His elect children. But God can only provide this if His priests serve Him faithfully in truth. And His priesthood cannot actually save even one elect soul on their own, through their own wills. Nor does any infantile spirit of a true priest ever serve God because God needs that one. Rather, God calls His priests to serve Him because He wants His little children to draw nearer to Him, to commune with Him as they share in His labours. And, although the work of His priesthood are extremely faulty and weak, our heavenly Father still desires His children to labour in the fields each day together with Page 59
Him, in the same way human parents love when their children work together with them, even if those children are more of a nuisance than a help. Furthermore, as His serving priesthood struggles through hardships and failures, together with the elect siblings whom they serve, all these elect spirits, both those of the priesthood and those being served, grow a trusting, God-like love for one another. Then both learn to love and cherish their Father more through this difficult labour as well.
Salvation is partially worked through the Old and New Covenant branches of God’s priesthood of Israel, even in a way where God will gather many elect outsiders into that priesthood of Israel. And God has been gathering elect outsiders into this priesthood of Israel from the beginning, from the days when Jacob’s twelve sons took Gentile women as their wives, and when many Gentiles joined Israel as they left Egypt during the Exodus. Some of these outsiders even became very effective members of God’s priesthood, and the ancestors of Israel’s kings and prophets. This was clearly implied when the Jewish apostle Matthew listed the four Gentile women in the genealogy of Jesus.
Naturally, only the readers of that genealogy who knew the history of Israel, which God carefully preserved in His Word, would see and understand those implications. But Matthew wrote his Gospel for devout Jews, who did clearly comprehend what Matthew was implying when he included the names of those women. Nevertheless, Matthew named those women for all who had the eyes to see, including the Gentile elect who had learned the name of their heavenly Father and hoped in Jesus.
The Four Eras of Israel’s History
Matthew ended the genealogy of Joseph with a concluding paragraph (Mat. 1:17), outlining four eras of Israel’s history. And the fourth era began after the resurrection of Jesus. The first era was Israel under the rule of God, when God remained their only King, and revealed His will to Israel through His Levitical priesthood and His true prophets. This era began with Abraham and lasted ἕως Δαυὶδ, or “until David.” So it ended with the reigns of Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David. Since Saul’s authority was overruled by God, acting through the prophet Samuel, God was still exerting His rule as the true King of Israel, through His prophets. Yet God did not allow any of Saul’s descendants to sit upon Israel’s throne, to govern her secular affairs. Instead, God, Israel’s High King, ended the rule of Saul when He anointed David, an unrelated many, as the next subject king, through the hands of Samuel. And David was actually a true prophet of God himself. Thus, God still ruled Israel as their High King through His prophets, including the prophet David himself, until the day that David died.
The second era of Israel fell under the rule of hereditary kings, all of whom descended from the flesh of David. So this era includes all the hereditary kings who sat on David’s throne in Jerusalem, from Solomon up to Coniah (i.e., Jeconiah). Coniah was the last king to actually rule upon David’s throne in Judah. And, because these kings ruled solely through an inheritance of the flesh, this era saw a great decline of service to God through the priesthood of Israel. For, while these kings clung to personal power, they often arrogantly opposed the prophets sent by God to proclaim His loving will.
Most of these ruling secular kings, descended from David, no longer heeded the true High King, their God. Instead, these kings made all their decisions based on thoughts from their minds of flesh, according to political expediency, usually through selfish motives. Very few walked according to thoughts from the minds of their spirits, as their spirits sought and heeded the counsel of God. Most were despots who ignored God’s purposes for Israel, and did not lift a finger to help Israel serve the world as God’s priesthood. Many even hindered or stopped the true and faithful priests of God from proclaiming God’s truths to Israel and to the Gentiles. And these kings exploited their siblings in mankind, even their fellow priests in the church of Israel. For these kings wanted Israel to become a nation like all the pagan nations around them, with a human god serving as the nation’s head. And Page 60
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the priests of Israel allowed these ruthless and selfish kings, who served only themselves, to lead them. Israel followed those men into countless vile sins, and refused to serve God, their true King.
All these kings sat on the throne which God had granted to David, but strictly through the right of inheritance. Very few were directly called, taught, trained and ordained by the High King, by God Himself. Very few were chosen according to God’s Law, from among the men whom God chose. At times, God would explicitly endorse one particular king, and cause him to inherit the throne, as God did with Solomon. But very few of these kings had been directly appointed by God, chosen from within the entire priesthood of Israel, solely based on the rightness of the heart. Almost none were appointed by God alone, through one of His true prophets. And even those who actually were chosen by God did not remain faithful to their High King and Highest Priest, God. Yet Israel accepted all these kings, because they believed the pagan concept that only a king’s oldest biological son had the right to sit on the throne. God allowed and predestined this, as a lesson to His “church” of Israel. But that lesson was not acknowledged and understood by most in Israel. Consequently, the priesthood of Israel experienced a despairing decline in their faith, character, morality, strength, wisdom and love.
So the third era began when God cast all of Israel into centuries of captivity for her betrayal. Since Israel did not repent in all the years from Solomon to Coniah, but desired only to be ruled by human wanna-be gods, God temporarily threw Israel into bondage. God caused their expulsion from their centrally located lands which God had eternally granted to His priesthood by first creating and strengthening foreign powers who worshipped human gods. Those Gentile nations were esteeming, exalting and serving human beings in the same way Israel had been. In fact, those Gentiles were also worshipping demonic spirits as gods, and many in Israel began to worship those same demons as well, before the real God threw them into captivity. So, among those worshippers of demons and human gods, the real Creator God hoped that the elect spirits of His priesthood would see all the injustice and death caused by such evils, then repent. And some did repent, but not all of Israel.
Another aspect of Israel’s captivity was that they were to learn about the very nature of Satan during that time. For the nations that held them captive were the devil’s four humanistic kingdoms (Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome). God allowed Satan to raise up these pagan nations in a way that practised, in full measure, the very sin that the priesthood of Israel had been committing for centuries. For the spirits of demons had attempted to corrupt Israel in the worst ways possible, then created nations which practised those worst ways, since God temporarily handed His priesthood of Israel over to Satan and his demonic world order. This would be a hard lesson for Israel to learn, since those ruling human gods of the Gentile nations often treated the true priests of God cruelly, and murdered many of them. Still, it did cause some in Israel to stop worshipping (i.e., to cease from esteeming and serving) human beings, and to worship God from their spirits and in truth. Still, most of Israel did not learn this lesson, and most remain like those demonic nations to this day. But they will learn to worship God fully someday, and serve Him as their only Head, as their only King and only High Priest, as the only Teacher and Trainer of their spirits. Still, during this era, the rightful heirs to Israel’s throne were no longer allowed to sit upon the throne of David, and could bear no power at all. All had to remain under the unjust, unwise, ruthless dictates of pagan human gods.
So the Old Covenant branch of Israel still continues to exist in the third era. But, for the elect spirits of many priests in Israel—those with ears to hear and eyes to see—this captivity ended, when their High King, God, came to them in the body of Jesus. When their King and God brought those Jews into His promised New Covenant relationship, for their salvation, He became their only Head, Lord, High King and High Priest. So these were no longer held captive under the power of deluding human gods. Their captivity only lasted 14 generations, from Coniah to Jesus. That is, because Coniah spent Page 61
part of his life sitting on David’s throne, with the power to rule in Israel, but spent the latter part of his life in Babylonian captivity, dethroned and without power, Matthew included him in both the second and the third eras of Israel. Then this third era also included a part of the Messiah’s reign, that is, the three-year ministry of Jesus on earth. For, during this time, Jesus was the last of the dethroned kings of the third era, until He rose from the dead and God crowned Him as the eternal King of Israel. So, including times Coniah and Jesus served without a throne in Jerusalem, there were also 14
generations in the third era. This is why Matthew said there were 14 kings in that era, although he only listed 12 after Coniah, and only named the heirs of David’s throne up to Joseph, Jesus’ father.
Jesus, after His father died, inherited the throne of David. And Joseph seems to have died just before Jesus began His ministry on earth. For Jesus moved the family to Capernaum very soon after He began His ministry (Mat. 4:13). His father’s death meant Jesus became the Head of His household at that time, and replaced His father as the heir to the throne of David. His father was no longer the king. Now Jesus had become the rightful King of Israel. Yet Jesus did not sit on a physical throne and did not bear power over Israel during those three years of His ministry. Thus, during that time, Jesus was included with the hereditary kings within the third era. And, when the body of Jesus died, He did not leave a son to inherit the throne. But Jesus also rose from the dead, in the flesh. And the body of Jesus also transformed into a body made of heaven’s spiritual substances, as He ascended into His homeland above. Therefore, with the death of Jesus, the third era ended. After that, there could be no more hereditary kings of Israel. However, Jesus still lives and serves as Israel’s King.
The physical body of Jesus rose to life again, on the third day after His body died. Then, on the day of the Pentecost, Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to dwell inside His elect priests of Israel. And, a couple of decades later, His Spirit also entered many elect Gentiles. In this way, this King of Israel was enthroned and wielded power over the priesthood of Israel, even over the inner spirits all the elect Jews who received His Holy Spirit, as well as over the spirits of all the elect Gentiles whom He also chose to grant His Spirit, and gather into His priesthood of Israel. From within the hearts of all these citizens of the same Israel that He created through Jacob and many Gentiles in the very beginning, Jesus ruled with a gentle, wise, loving power. From that time on, Jesus has been sitting on the throne of David, ruling Israel and the world, albeit not visibly, not in earthly flesh from a physical throne in Judah. But make no mistake, it was not that physical chair sitting in a physical house in Jerusalem which Yahweh God promised to David’s descendants forever. Rather, it was the power of that throne God promised to David’s descendants, and to only one of David’s descendants in particular, that is, to the Messiah, whose body of flesh would descend from David, but whose Spirit was Yahweh God.
Jesus did not physically, in His resurrected body, seat Himself upon a physical throne in the land of Israel, within a material temple in Jerusalem, as the visible and eternal King and High Priest of Israel. But this too will occur in its appointed time. After vanquishing the beast’s four kingdoms, Jesus’ body will return to Jerusalem. And He will seat Himself upon a physical throne, ruling until the end of all days on the earth. This is why many biblical prophecies say He will return in the flesh.
So Matthew listed fourteen “generations” in the first era, from Abraham to David. Then he provided fourteen names of “generations” from Solomon to Coniah, to delineate the second era. Finally, beginning with the latter part of Coniah’s life in captivity, and ending with Jesus, Matthew provided fourteen “generations” for the third era. But Matthew merely implied that, after the three years of the Messiah’s ministry on earth, the fourth and final era had begun. And that fourth era will never end, even after the earth and entire material universe will be “burned” away into nothing. For Jesus will also rule over the entire true priesthood of Israel forever, in the heavenly Jerusalem for all eternity.
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Specifically, Matthew stated: “Therefore, all the generations from Abraham until David [are]
fourteen, and from David until the exile of Babylon [are] fourteen generations, from the exile of Babylon until the Messiah [are] fourteen generations” Πᾶσαι οὖν αἱ γενεαὶ ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ ἕως Δαυὶδ
γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες, καὶ ἀπὸ Δαυὶδ ἕως τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες, καὶ ἀπὸ
τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος ἕως τοῦ χριστοῦ γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες (Mat. 1:17, SBLGNT). Naturally, you will find that most versions of the English Bible will translate the noun γενεά as “generation.”
But should they? After all, Matthew actually did not literally list all the generations in each era, and Matthew did not seem to even try to do so. Rather, the main point of Matthew’s statement in this verse was to have his readers contemplate the reasons for God imposing these eras upon Israel.
Clearly, Matthew did not intend to list every male of every generation within the lineage of Jesus.
For example, as one commentary pointed out, Joram (also called Jehoram) did not directly beget Uzziah, as Matthew seemed to suggest (in Mat. 1:8). Nor did Uzziah reign immediately after Joram.
Rather, the son and heir of Joram was Ahaziah, who ruled for one year (II Kings 8:25-26). Then Ahaziah died and the wicked wife of Joram, who tried to murder all Ahaziah’s legitimate heirs to the throne, ruled in his place, for about six years. However, one of Ahaziah’s sons, Jehoash (also called Joash), was hidden from her and survived. After about six years, the people killed the wife of Joram and raised Jehoash to the throne, where he reigned over Judah for forty years (II Kings 11:2,21; 12:1). Then the son of Jehoash, Amaziah, reigned for another 29 years in total (II Kings 14:1-2).
Thus it was about 76 years after Joram died that the sixteen-year-old Uzziah (also called Azariah), the son of Amaziah, began to rule on the throne of David (II Kings 14:21; 15:1). And Uzziah was only the “son” of Joram, in the sense that he was Joram’s great, great grandson. So, in this one verse alone (Mat. 1:8), Matthew skipped three generations of the kings of Judah, some who did right in the eyes of the Lord and some who did evil. And there were also two kings (Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin) after Josiah and before Coniah (Jeconiah), which are missing from Matthew’s list (see v. 11). And there are obviously other names missing, such as in the generations born between Boaz and Jesse.
Clearly, then, the form of the Greek word gennavw, as it was used in Matthew’s genealogy, does not actually imply that each name listed was the very next generation after the previous name listed. In reality, this is only implied in the English translations. But, in the original Greek, the text does not imply the concept of a “generation.” As I wrote in a previous commentary on Matthew’s Gospel: The Greek verb ejgevnnhsen is the aorist indicative active of gennavw, which means “beget, give birth to someone.” The verb gennavw does “not necessarily [refer to] immediate parentage, but merely direct descent” (R&R2). The definition of this verb is: “to cause something to come into existence, primarily through procreation or parturition” (BDAG3).
Since Matthew obviously knew and consulted the Scriptures, as well as the temple records, when he compiled this genealogy, he must have deliberately chosen to list only fourteen names in each era.
And he must have intentionally excluded other names. For it seems highly unlikely that a devout and very conscientious scholar like Matthew mistakenly excluded some names from his genealogy. Also, Matthew did not select only the 14 best kings. Rather, he included both good and evil kings in his list. Therefore, although Matthew clearly did not intend to declare that there were only fourteen generations in each era, nor did he mean that there were only fourteen good kings in each era.
What Matthew seemed to be doing in his genealogy was encoding a message to knowledgeable Jewish readers. It appears that he was using technical ecclesiastical terms to illustrate how there was a balance and order regarding these four eras, a symmetry which God Himself had imposed upon His priesthood of Israel, an orderly development that God predestined for His priesthood of Israel.
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Yet it seems to be a mystery as to why Matthew chose the specific 14 names listed for each era. Was he thinking that the time of a king’s rule would impose that king’s own individual interpretation and administration of certain laws and customs, and that Israel would live under different circumstances during the reign of each listed king. Then, if the rule of several generations of kings shared common characteristics—where all the kings administered laws and customs in the same way, or while Israel lived under the same unchanging circumstances during the reigns of several subsequent kings—only the name of the first king who caused that time with common customs and attributes would need to be named. Whatever reason Matthew had for excluding some names of some generations from his genealogy, we know that Matthew was actually treating each name as a distinct time within Israel’s history. For Matthew did not even attempt to provide the names of literally all the ancestors from all the generations existing from Abraham to Jesus. Thus, a better translation of Matthew 1:17 may be:
“Thus, all the times from Abraham until David [are] fourteen distinct times, and from David until the exile of Babylon [are] fourteen distinct times, and from the exile of Babylon until the Messiah [are] fourteen distinct times.”
Nevertheless, although the reason for Matthew specifically choosing only 14 names for each era remains somewhat obscure. Matthew was obviously inferring that God had predestined and carefully weighed each of the first three eras, balancing each era for maximum effectiveness, to serve His purposes precisely. There was a completion of the fourteen times allotted to each era, and an equal weight for each of the first three eras God predestined for Israel. Since seven was God’s symbolic number representing completion and perfection, using the number fourteen seemed to indicate that Israel’s painful wait for the Messiah, through each of the first three eras, was doubly completed to perfection. The lessons God wanted to teach Israel, and the world through Israel, were doubly demonstrated and illustrated in those first three eras, until absolutely nothing was left for God to teach, at least not through any of those first three eras. Then the Messiah’s arrival came at just the right time, at the very moment appointed by God from the beginning. Now our learning continues.
Mat. 1:18-25,
The Miraculous Conception
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this; for after his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, intended to put her away secretly.
“But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She shall give birth to a son.
You shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who shall save His people from their sins.’
“Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name Immanuel’; which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us.’
“Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took his wife to himself; and didn’t know her sexually until she had given birth to her firstborn son. He named Him Jesus” (Mat. 1:18-25, WEB).
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Many preachers have introduced much confusion into this teaching from Matthew. And some do so because they use a faulty English interpretation of what he wrote in Greek. Then they also assume that the customs and culture of Israel in the days of Christ were the same as the current Roman-like customs and cultures of North America and Europe. For instance, some claim that Jesus was born to an unwed mother, who was homeless and destitute in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. Clearly, those preachers do not look at the Greek text, nor consider the Jewish cultural and historical setting of the time in which Mary and Joseph lived. Furthermore, they do not actually know the Holy Spirit of God. For, if they knew any of this, they would see the truth. His Spirit would show them the truth.
Let us be prayerful, diligent, careful about the truth, seeking God’s interpretation. Let us allow the minds of our spirits to learn from our God, while also applying our minds of flesh to understanding the words Matthew wrote as his heart was directed by God to pen his Greek words. In His Spirit, our spirit must learn the truth, then counsel our minds of flesh to do the work of honestly studying the real New Covenant Scriptures, which were written in Greek. Then our spirits must use our minds of flesh to learn all the relevant historical and cultural details as well. After due diligence, with our spirits heeding the Holy Spirit of Jesus and adequately managing our flesh, God will help us rightly interpret God’s words that His servants faithfully wrote for us. And Matthew stated the following:
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as such: Having had finalized the marriage contract of His mother, Mary, to Joseph, but before they [were] to cohabit, she was found with child, having
[the baby] originating from the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 1:18, from: Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ ἡ
γένεσις οὕτως ἦν. μνηστευθείσης τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν
αὐτοὺς εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου, SBLGNT).
First we should realize that Mary and Joseph were devout, just, loving Jews. And none of the devout Jews in those days and in the place they lived, ever became “betrothed” or “engaged” in the way we do today in North America. A devout Jewish man and woman, like Joseph and Mary, did not simply promise to someday marry one another. Rather, a man and a woman, after their families got to know each other well and decided that the two would make a good couple, would either marry through mutual concent, or not marry, if one refused to agree to the marriage. If they did not marry, the two families would seek another spouse for their family member. If the two were not willing to unite in marriage at the beginning of their relationship, through a binding marriage covenant that could not be broken throughout life, neither would offer any kind of commitment to marry the other. But, as soon as that man and woman made that covenant of marriage, they were fully married for life, not merely willing to get married at some future date. So the aorist passive participle form of the Greek verb (μνηστεύομαι in Mat. 1:18) does not mean that Mary “was engaged” to be married to Joseph in the future. Rather, in the cultural and historical context, the aorist tense indicates the completion of a formal and binding marriage covenant or contract had been entered into by Mary and Joseph, and that their marriage could only be ended through a divorce. And this marriage contract was far more than any kind of promise to get legally married, even more than a pre-nuptual contract, as some say:
“It was a formal pre-nuptual contract entered into before witnesses and could only be broken by a formal process of divorce” (R&R2).
Once the parents, extended family and community proposed that the man and woman might be a good match and should consider marrying each other, the families of the man and woman would meet. If both families agreed, then the potential bride and groom would be asked to give their consent to be married for life. If either the potential bride or the potential groom rejected the family’s proposal to marry the other person, there usually would be much family pressure to reconsider, but no commitment to the marriage covenant would be made. That is, there would be no “engagement”
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nor “betrothal.” But, if both the man and woman agreed to marry one another, the two were joined in marriage, right then and there, through a life-long, binding marriage covenant or contract, either an informal verbal contract or a more formal written covenant. From that point on, the couple were fully married and could have sexual relations with one another, although the couple was expected to wait until they had prepared a suitable home in which they could raise children. And, for the poor, a wedding like this normally occurred without any “wedding ceremony” or “reception.” The rich might later have a marriage feast to celebrate the union. But most Jewish couples were quite poor. So they simply married with a verbal covenant established in the presence of their families and friends.
From that moment on, they were husband and wife for life, fully married in every sense of the word.
The Jewish apostle Matthew obviously used the aorist passive participle form of the Greek verb μνηστεύω with reference to this Jewish custom when he wrote this for his Jewish readers. And, in modern English translations, we should not translate this verb as “was engaged” or “was betrothed,”
since those English words connote something completely different to most English-speaking people in our day. The verb might have meant this if Matthew was a Gentile Roman speaking about a pagan Roman couple. But it did not mean this when he was referring to a devout Jewish couple living in Judea and Galilee during the first century. In some pagan cultures back then, μνηστεύω might refer to an act of wooing and winning a spouse, to an engagement or betrothal, where each promised to marry the other in the future (see BDAG3). But, regarding two common, relatively poor, very devout Jews in a small Galilean village at that time, μνηστεύω definitely indicated the full ratification of a marriage contract, a full and legally binding marriage for life. In fact, μνηστεύω would also refer to a similar kind of fully binding marriage contract in some pagan Gentile cultures of that time as well.
Clearly, in context, Mary and Joseph were not merely “engaged” to be married, had not merely promised to marry one another. Rather, they were fully married. And the only way they could legally part from one another, in a way that would allow each to marry a different spouse, was through a legal divorce, according the biblical laws and traditions of the Jewish church. This is why the aorist infinitive form of the verb ἀπολύω was used in verse 19. This verb was used by Greek-speaking Jews, and by Gentiles, as a technical term meaning “divorce.” In context, it did not simply mean “to put away,” as in to cancel an “engagement.” It referred to a legal divorce. Also, if either Joseph or Mary had sexual relations with anyone other than one’s spouse, it would be called adultery. And, under God’s Law, committing adultery with deliberate and malicious intent, and without repentance, could even warrant the death penalty. At the very least, a spouse who was caught in adultery would suffer ostracization and disgrace, and likely would need to flee from one’s home and community.
Some may also be confused by the way Matthew said that Mary was found with child “before they
[were] to cohabit” (πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς). Most assume that, if Mary and Joseph were not living together, they were not yet married, or that the marriage was not yet ratified, since they had not yet had any sexual relations. However, they only assume this based on modern practises of promising to marry and remaining apart until a marriage ceremony is performed. They assume this because of the pagan Roman laws and customs they are familiar with, not based on actual Jewish and Christian laws and customs of that day. To the Romans, and to many European cultures based on the Roman culture, marriage was an act of a man taking possession of a woman, in the same way he would purchase livestock. And a Roman man could do with her just as he pleased, as he could with any of his other livestock. But the central and most valuable aspect of a human female head of livestock, the thing which made her different from a man’s other livestock, was her ability to provide sex and heirs for her husband. Thus, if a woman could not be used for the physical act of sex, or could not bear him an heir, the marriage could be declared null and void. Of course, the Roman Catholic Page 66
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church adopted this pagan view of marriage, and entirely rejected biblical teachings about women and marriage. But, as biblical Christians who believe in the Jewish Messiah Jesus, we need to reject those pagan views of marriage, and follow God’s ways, since Jesus came to fulfill God’s Law, not to nullify and alter it. Jesus definitely did not come to replace God’s Law with that loveless pagan materialism and injustice. Rather, Jesus came to teach us God’s just and loving intentions of His Law, to make us able to apply all the loving, wise, just precepts God taught in His Law for our good.
Now, in God’s Law, a wife was to be one’s companion, one’s closest friend and ally, the only human being who would share literally all one’s joys and sorrows. A wife was not livestock, not a man’s property, but the property of God alone, a life God ushered into the core of a man’s life. And, after a Jewish marriage, the bride usually remained in her parents’ home until the groom could build or acquire a suitable home for them, a place where they could live apart from their parents and raise their children. Once a couple entered a marriage contract, even before living together, it was legal for them to have sexual relations. And records show that many devout Jewish couples actually did, while the bride was still living in the home of her parents. For some have pointed out that babies were often born to newly wed couples within a very short time after they began to live together. No one ever condemned these couples for having sexual relations before they began to live together, and it certainly was not considered to be adultery in any way whatsoever. None thought that it was somehow immoral for the couple to have sexual relations, nor considered their children to be illegitimate in any way. For the man and woman were legally married as soon as both entered the marriage covenant. Nonetheless, many couples considered it to be prudent to wait before having sexual relations, until they finished setting up a decent home for themselves, until they could live together apart from parents and siblings. So, after marriage, a husband and wife would live apart for weeks or months, even a year or more, and abstain from having any sexual relations during that time.
We need to remember that the devout Jews in those ancient times did not have the same shallow, pagan view of marriage that is so prevalent today. And, to them, sex was never seen as a critically important aspect of marriage or life. Sex was merely as an insignificant pleasure which should be regulated and confined to marriage—in order to prevent the abuse of women and to provide for the care of any children resulting from their sexual union. To Jews, a marriage was the joining of a man and woman into one unit, where both became one living building block in the temple of God, one organ in the body of all God’s loving servants within His priesthood of Israel. Marriage made the two able to more effective in accomplishing God’s works in God’s land. For the whole focus of devout Jews rested on true, godly, pure, wise and just love, the kind of love which could only grow in their spirits, and only if God chose to grow love in their spirits. Romantic delusions of carnal passions and materialistic views of estate holders, seemed utter nonsense in the eyes of the devout.
These biblical Jews, who rejected Roman humanism, sought the kind of love that a human spirit learns from God’s Spirit, the kind which God Himself must teach and train a human spirit to adeptly apply throughout one’s life, even eternally in heaven after the death of the flesh. In marriage, a man and a woman became one in the mind and body of flesh through a covenant made between their spirits. Marriage gave the two an ability to express God-like love through their minds and bodies of flesh more powerfully than they could as two individuals, better than they could through two separate bodies of flesh. As one flesh, they could accomplish more than the sum of two individual bodies of flesh. Each one’s complementary thoughts and skills could make the other more effective in serving God and His creations. The man focused on building the spiritual structure of the home, the principles upon which his family would interface with God and the community, the way of life they would practise. Then the woman focused on the needs of the individuals in her home and in her Page 67
community, to build up relationships within the parameters of the structure her husband provided for her, utilizing the resources that both of them acquired from God and through their labours. Her first thoughts were about all that was needed for a loving, good life, and all that was necessary to build and maintain relationships within her family, church and community. Thus, her “submission” to her husband and teaching elders was her willingness to work within the spiritual and moral structures they provided for her. So her relationships with God and others was naturally and spontaneously shaped by the beliefs and actions of her husband and the elders, not by their autocratic commands.
Both devout men and devout women focused on serving God by serving the people whom God brought into the sphere of their lives. But women naturally and automatically served according to the spiritual structure of life which her husband had built, as well by the spiritual structures built by the other loving, wise, godly men in her community. A wife unconsciously applied her love according to moral values and life principles provided by her husband, as well as by her father and the other men in her community. And, although some men might see this way of thinking as “messy,” this feminine way of thinking is actually just the second way of thinking that every man also practises. A mature man first considers what is right in God’s eyes, the just and logical principles to act upon. Then he also considers the feelings and perceived needs of others. But a woman considers the secondary matters first, and may even compromise on principles, in order to complete works of the secondary matters, in a way required to maintain her relationships with others, especially with her children. Yet both kinds of thinking are necessary in God’s eyes. The works of both first and secondary matters must be completed in order to fully accomplish the works of God on earth, not just one or the other.
So here is the story of Jesus Christ’s birth, made vivid by Matthew, to all who knew God and the times, as well as the customs of the land in which it occurred. A young married couple still lived apart while Joseph was busy establishing a home and business. Joseph was the legal heir to the throne of Israel, but there was no possibility that he would ever sit on the throne of Israel. And, in fact, being an heir to Israel’s throne, in the days of the ruthless Roman-appointed King Herod, was more of a burden than a privilege. For his royal birth was likely what forced him to flee from his home in Bethlehem, to the tiny Jewish village of Nazareth, in the Gentile region of Galilee. By the time of his marriage to Mary, Joseph was possibly about thirty years old, the age of responsibility among the Jews, when a man was expected to get married and raise a family. Joseph had probably completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter, since all Jews, even rabbis and noblemen, were expected to learn a trade in those days. But Mary probably was only about sixteen years old, since devout Jewish women were fully capable of managing a household by that age and were considered old enough to marry by then. Also, primarily due to the poverty of most families in those days, a woman was encouraged to get married as soon as possible, since women could not earn much of an income and she would be a financial burden to the family, if she remained unmarried within the household.
Yet a miracle occurred after the marriage. A child began to grow in Mary’s womb, though she had never had any sexual relations with any man. This child came to her ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου. In Greek, this meant that the body of this child “originated from the Holy Spirit.” The power of God’s Spirit created a baby in her womb. The son in her womb was formed by the Holy Spirit, who is God, since God is a Spirit and the Creator of all that exists. Then Jesus was was likely born in the fall of 6 BC, during the high holy days, which occurred in September (this is explained in the first footnote of one of my other books, Last Days Timeline). Therefore, God would have caused this miraculous conception about nine months before September, probably occurred in January of 6 BC, or possibly in December of 7 BC. And, at that time, Herod was still jealously clinging to his throne, since he did not die until late in 5 BC, or possibly in January or February of 4 BC. Thus, the presence of the Page 68
Mat. 1:18-25, The Miraculous Conception
insanely covetous Herod made it a very dangerous time to give birth to the first son of Joseph, to the legitimate heir of king David’s throne. For, if Herod could reach that child, Herod would kill him.
But, at first, Joseph did not know God formed the child in the womb of his wife. But, eventually, he did find out about her pregnancy, since it would have been impossible to hide in a tiny village like Nazareth, especially while Mary was still living with her parents and siblings. And this news would have devastated Joseph, since he knew he was not the father of that child. Therefore, he would have assumed that some other man was the father. Perhaps Mary secretly loved some other man more than him. So the horror of finding out that Mary, whom he had come to love and respect, was unfaithful to him would have cut his heart deeply. Yet the just and loving character of Joseph would not allow him to expose the fact that Mary had been unfaithful, since that would mean she would be accused of adultery, irreconcilably publicly humiliated, and possibly even be stoned to death. And that would be unbearable, since he truly did love her. Besides, Joseph was likely thinking that he had somehow pressured Mary into agreeing to their marriage, since he was a respected member of the Jewish community, even the rightful heir to David’s throne. So, when he asked for her hand in marriage, Mary would have felt compelled to agree, and her family would have pressured her to accept the proposal, even though she obviously loved some other man. However, in reality, Mary was not unfaithful and did not love any other man. Mary also learned to love Joseph. And all this was a test from God, the kind used to test metals, to make metals purer and stronger. This crisis actually strengthened Joseph’s resolve to trust in God and to not trust in his own understanding, certainly not in his jealousy of the flesh. As Matthew testified: “But Joseph, her husband, being just and not willing to publicly disgrace her, was resolved to privately divorce her” (Mat. 1:19, Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ὁ ἀνὴρ
αὐτῆς, δίκαιος ὢν καὶ μὴ θέλων αὐτὴν δειγματίσαι, ἐβουλήθη λάθρᾳ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν, SBLGNT).
As mentioned, the verb ἀπολύω was the Greek word used to indicate the act of legally divorcing a spouse. In the infinitive form, and in this context, where Joseph is called her “husband” (ἀνὴρ), it can only mean “to divorce,” and a man can only divorce a woman if he is actually married to that woman in the first place. Joseph planned to privately or quietly divorce Mary, and allow everyone to think that Mary had not committed adultery, but the child was his legitimate son. For Joseph and Mary were indeed a fully married couple, not merely “engaged” or “betrothed.” And most would have assumed that they had sexual relations with one another, as soon as Mary became pregnant.