The Imperfect Genealogy of Jesus Christ – Lessons from His Lineage
Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. – Matthew 1:2-6
Even though He came into the world through a virgin birth and He lived a pure life all through His 33 years on earth, Jesus nevertheless did not have a similar stainless origin.
By the mere fact of coming to earth through a biological process, it is already predisposed that He was bound to have imperfections in His background because the earth, this hemisphere where we humans exist, is only inhabited by imperfect people. There is no perfect person living or who has lived on earth. No, not one. Incidentally, only Jesus Himself had the singular honor of living without sinning. Every other person who had lived before or after Him had failed and fallen at some point in their evolution as a human being.
That is why it is not surprising that in the lineage of Jesus were recorded such social maladies as incest, prostitution, outcast, generational curse, confusion, murder, and adultery. In fact, every time a woman was mentioned in His genealogy as seen in Matthew 1:2 16, it was because there were some abnormalities surrounding the referenced women.
The first woman so referenced was Tamar, who had to sleep with her father-in-law in order to have her own children after the death of her husband. The next woman was Rahab, a very well-known prostitute and a heathen, who nonetheless made enough of an impression on Salmon and gave birth to Boaz for him. Boaz himself followed his father’s footsteps by marrying Ruth, a Moabitess, an accursed tribe, not to mention that Moab itself was a product of incest between father and daughter.
Finally, and perhaps more shocking, was the involvement of David, a great king, the sweet psalmist of Israel and a man after God’s own heart, who had an adulterous affair with the wife of one of his warriors and had the husband killed at the battlefront when he discovered the woman was pregnant.
This, with some confusion thrown into the mix as to which of David’s sons Jesus actually came from, whether it is the womanizing Solomon (Matthew 1) or the unknown Nathan (Luke 3:23-38), adds to the imperfections in the origin of Jesus Christ.
But, through all this, God is perhaps teaching us a lesson we have often heard but do not seem to have imbibed as evidenced in our reactions to scandals or someone’s fall, that imperfections are the mosaic He uses to weave a great destiny as well as accomplish great things on the earth.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. – Habakkuk 2:14
Also read:
- The Origin of Jesus Christ – Whose Son was He?
- Beyond “I’m Fine” – Finding Honesty, Healing, and God’s Blessing
- 5 Relationships That Could Make or Break You (5): Boss
- How God Creates: Creating by Extraction
- Friends Enrich Your Life
- I Felt Compelled to Find Out More
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