Matthew 1:18–25
The genealogy provided by Matthew (1:1–17) includes fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian captivity, and fourteen from their captivity in Babylon to the birth of Jesus. Jesus in His humanity descended from a long line of sinners—some of them quite remarkably so. Judah impregnated Tamar thinking she was a prostitute and the consequent son Perez is in the genealogy, as well as these unsavory parents. Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho, not only is taken as an adopted citizen of the Israelites but becomes a part of this genealogy. Her son Boaz fathered Jesse, father of David by Ruth, the Moabitess, the people produced by Lot’s drunken impregnation of one of his manipulative daughters. Indeed, Jesus came into a world of desperate sinners and was descended from them. Jesus is descended from Abraham, who was promised such a descendant (Genesis 12:3) and from David, whose descendant would rule from an eternal throne (2 Samuel 7:12–16). The legal descent is traced to Joseph the “husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ” (1:16 NKJV). In the angelic announcement to Mary in Luke 1:26–38, she is told that a child to be born to her will occupy the throne of His father David. She did not question that a child to be born to her would descend from the Davidic lineage. That was her lineage. She did question how such a child would be conceived, for she was a virgin. This child would have divine origin but still would be human, of her flesh as well as of her lineage. The Holy Spirit would come upon her giving to her seed a true human life. Since she had been told that He would be called the Son of the Most High, the angel explained that at the moment of the Holy Spirit’s impregnation the power of the Most High would overshadow her (35). Thus, the eternal Son of God, eternally generated by the Father, would assume this fertile egg into His eternal personhood so that the child conceived would truthfully be called “the Son of God.”
I. Matthew 1:18 – “Now the birth of Jesus Christ” – This introductory statement to the narrative is filled with theological significance.
A. The birth – For the achievement of God’s redemptive purpose, a birth was necessary.
The Savior did not, and could not, simply appear in raw power, or as a member of the angelic order, or as a mere theophany to set in place all that was involved in redeeming fallen humanity. He must enter into the human race through the process of taking on our flesh and human nature and living under the authority of the divine law as written in every human heart as well as the law written on tables of stone. The moral and legal obligations of humanity can not be ignored or arbitrarily set aside but, in light of their manifestation of the divine character, have to be fulfilled within the human race, created in the image of God. The Redeemer, therefore, must be born.
B. Jesus – He is given a human name and operated as a true person who shared our nature.
The name befitted his purpose (a name by which he still is known and still functions (1 John 1:3; 2:1) as the only one through whom salvation from sin and all its consequences could arise. The giving of the name is discussed in this text.
C. Christ – This word embodies the concept of one that has received the chrism, the anointing.
It is the Greek synonym for the Hebrew rooted word “Messiah.” This one person is to fulfill all the offices that served to give order and meaning to the nation of Israel. He would be prophet, priest, and king. So peculiarly appropriate is this title, Christ, to Jesus only, that it now adheres to him as his name.
D. “His mother Mary” – This phrase also overflows with theological meaning and embraces the most ancient of the redemptive prophecies, “her seed … shall bruise your head” (Genesis 3:15).
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- Mary was the mother of this person that was God and man. When she visited Elizabeth (Luke 1:43) Elizabeth exclaimed, “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Her exclamation shows revelatory insight into the complexity of the person in Mary’s womb.
- The ecumenical, orthodox creeds of the fourth –fifth centuries employed the startling word, Theotokos (God-bearer or mother of God) to emphasize the reality of the singularity of this person of two natures and that the incarnation involved a true birth from the flesh of a human mother. There are dangers in this title, if the emphasis focuses on Mary and the honor given her at this time. It captures, nevertheless, a truth which must be affirmed unequivocally. This text clearly says it: “When his mother Mary” (18).
- This brings beautiful fulfillment to the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. Mary’s child came not from the seed of a man but from her ovum, fertilized by the operation of the Holy Spirit, so that transfer of original sin and federal condemnation that comes through Adam (and subsequent male progenitors—Romans 5:12, 17) would not be true of Mary’s son since as she personally testified, “I know not a man.” (Luke 1:34)
II. Multiplied testimony to the virginity of Mary
A. The straightforward testimony of Matthew – The point is introduced by the testimony of Matthew that Mary was with child, though she and her betrothed, Joseph, had not come together.
The child she bore was not the child of Joseph nor of any man.
B. Matthew stated that, instead of the child having any human father at all, the child was “from the Holy Spirit.”
We have polarities established in the witness. The child is not of Joseph; the child is of the Holy Spirit. Now the narrative begins to fill in the space between these.
C. Evidence of the simple truth of this narrative from the dilemma of Joseph.
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- Joseph knew that he was not the father and resolved to help Mary give birth to the child with a minimum of public notoriety (19).
- As he was considering how to handle this, an angel revealed to him what had actually taken place with Mary. Joseph was told, (verse 20) “What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
- Joseph believed what the angel had said, took Mary as his wife, and had no relations with her before she gave birth to Jesus (verse 25).
- The angel that appeared to Mary told her to name the child Jesus (Luke 1:31) and told Joseph the same thing, but with the reason for the name annexed—“for he shall save his people from their sins” (verse 21). Verse 25 tells us that this is what was done—“And he called His name Jesus.”
D. (Verses 22, 23) The prophecy to which Matthew referred (Isaiah 7:14), as a matter of truthful discourse, must have an adequate fulfillment.
It is a matter of divine veracity, power, wisdom, and redemptive mercy. At some point in redemptive history, deliverance would climax through a child conceived in the womb of a virgin. This conception, and then birth, would result in this: the presence of God in true human life. To see events as designed in the providence of God is a trait of Matthew’s gospel. This phrase—“this was to fulfill”—is consistent with that tendency throughout Matthew. John A. Broadus points to several examples (Matthew 1:22; 2:15,17, 23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 26:54, 56; 27:9). See also 27:63 compared to 28:6; Jesus’ words, equal in themselves to inspired Scripture, had their precise fulfillment. This phrase throughout implies that the event brought to final fullness the predictive element in the text invoked. As startling as it would seem to those upon whom the promise came, it was going to happen some place, at some time, to some woman. This was indeed that event.
E. Matthew sealed his discussion of this issue by pointing to the statement in Isaiah 7:14 concerning a birth from a virgin.
Matthew emphasizes that this was spoken “by the Lord” through the prophet. What the prophet had said to Ahaz in Isaiah 7, a virgin giving birth and the child being given a name that meant “God with us” certainly was not fulfilled in Maher-shalal, hashbaz, the son to whom the prophet’s wife gave birth (Isaiah 8:3 although part of the prophecy did relate to him). Ever since Genesis 3:15, births of children, especially those that were in unusual circumstances or achieved with difficulty, had meanings that transcended the immediate occasion (Genesis 4:1, 25; 21:1, 2, 7; 30:22–24; 1 Samuel 1:17–20). The prophecy of the “seed” of the woman that would crush the serpent’s head must be fulfilled in a way that did not depend upon the seed of the man. Isaiah 7:14, therefore, extends the meaning of Genesis 3:15, but could not be fulfilled by the son of the prophet Isaiah.
F. The option of disbelief calls for overcoming a number of hurdles.
One must overcome the straightforward narrative of Matthew and call into question the testimony and the actions of Joseph concerning these matters. They must doubt the testimony of Mary as well as the consent to the truth of the report on the part of Elizabeth (both in Luke 1). The life, the claims, and the resurrection of Jesus all verify the truthfulness of this narrative. Paul’s summary of the “fulness of time” in Galatians 4:4,5 show that his entire ministry of gospel preaching assumed the historical veracity of this conception and birth. It would take someone particularly determined to ignore the textual and historical evidence to dismiss the virgin conception and birth as a mere capitulation to superstition or primitive, unscientific worldviews.
III. The importance of the name given the child. “Call his name Jesus.”
A. Jesus – This is a Greek word that is the same as the Hebrew word for Joshua.
It means, “Jehovah is helper.” This child was to be Jehovah come as our helper. The name “Emmanuel” (23) is a declaration that God Himself has become as one of us to help us, for we are desperately helpless of ourselves.
B. The ultimate help needed by sinners is an effectual mediator before the just bar of God’s pure judgment.
Jesus helps as none other can help (“He” is in a construction of emphasis [He himself, and no other]) for He is our advocate who can insert His own righteousness into the case made against us (1 John 2:2).
C. Joshua was the great deliverer in the Old Testament, not only bearing witness to the promise of God to protect, but actually leading the people in their conquering of the land. (Numbers 14:6–9; Joshua entire).
Jesus destroys him that has the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14, 15).
D. Joshua also was the name of the high priest at the time of the return from exile.
God would “bring forth My Servant the BRANCH” as the One who would execute God’s determination to remove the sin of His people “in a single day” (Zechariah 3:8, 9).
E. All of this should flow clearly into Paul’s summation of redemptive history in Galatians 4:4–6.
God sent forth his Son. The one sent forth pre-existed as the Son eternally related to the Father and already possessing personhood before the incarnation. As born of woman, the specific fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, the debilities of corruption and condemnation involved in descent from the man were bypassed. The human nature conceived in Mary by the operation of the Holy Spirit united immediately with the eternal personhood of the Son of God, born under law to redeem those under the law. He was born as responsible to keep the law since He shared our nature as truly human, but at the same time was a true second Adam whose righteousness when achieved could overcome the condemnation intrinsic to our unrighteousness. He was under the responsibility of keeping the Law but was not under its curse; we are under both the responsibility and the curse; and His sacrificial death brings to effectuality the redemption prophesied of old (Isaiah 53:6; Job 33:23–28) and in this passage. He himself shall indeed save His people. He is the ransom to keep us from going down to the pit, for the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Poem on Matthew 1:18–25
A man named Joseph was perplexed
His promised was with child.
An angel came, relieved his mind,
No more was he beguiled.
Salvation’s dawn was in her womb,
The angel made it clear.
The prophet’s words of God’s own birth
Would in this child appear.
Emmanuel! A glorious name—
God with us—yet a man.
Name Him Jesus, Heaven’s dictate,
Confirming Heaven’s plan.
To God the Son, as Son of Man
The virgin would give birth.
To save His people from their sin,
A Savior came to earth.
Seed of the woman for our sake,
By Holy Ghost conceived,
To crush the serpent, bear our shame,
From fatal curse relieved.
This Savior, prophet, priest, and King
To save, instruct, and reign,
Humbled in life and cursed in death,
Salvation to attain.
Fear not this fruit of Mary’s womb.
He came not to condemn.
He came to clear and justify
His own, who trust in Him.
Provoke a hymn of praise to Him;
Bid every tongue repeat.
Eternal wisdom, hidden grace
In this child are complete.
