Matthew: Gospel of the Kingdom

Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 1:1-17

This morning we begin a new study in the word of God. We have just completed our study of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, and today we begin our study of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. Just as Genesis is a book of beginnings and lays the foundation for the rest of the scripture, even so, Matthew also is a foundational book for our understanding of the New Testament.

Opening Statement

Matthew begins his Gospel with this statement: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1). “Book” is the word biblos from which we get our word “bible.” It meant something written on paper, thus a scroll or book. The word “genealogy” is the word genesis meaning origin or source. The Greek version of Genesis uses this exact same phrase to translate the tolodoth headings in Genesis 2:4, “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created” and Genesis 5:1, “This is the book of the genealogy of Adam.” So Matthew in his first words makes a connection to the first book of the Old Testament. Just as Genesis told the beginnings of the heavens and the earth and the generations of the first man, Adam, even so Matthew is writing about the new beginning for the heavens and the earth through the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

The early church was unanimous in placing Matthew as the first book of the New Testament canon. It forms a fitting bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Gospel of Matthew is more like the Old Testament than any of the other three Gospels. It is saturated with quotes from and allusions to the Old Testament. It is the most Jewish of the four Gospels. The church considered knowledge of this Gospel as most necessary to understanding the transition from the promises and prophesies of the Old Testament to the fulfillment of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.[1]

All four of the gospel accounts in our Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) tell about the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although they contain biographical data, they are more than biographies. Although they are historically accurate, they are more than histories. Technically, there is only one gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the message of salvation in His name through his life, death, and resurrection. What we have in the four gospel accounts are their Holy Spirit inspired presentations of the story of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Theme

As with the other gospel writers, Matthew writes with a distinct purpose. Matthew lays out his thesis statement in the first sentence, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1). Matthew declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of David to emphasize His royalty because the kingly line comes from David. The genealogy which follows (Matt. 1:2-17) clearly turns on “David the king,” a phrase he repeats for emphasis in Matthew 1:7. Throughout the centuries of the Old Testament, God had promised Israel a king—a Messiah—Christ, who would rule in righteousness forever over the nation of Israel and over the earth. God had promised David a son, a direct descendent, who “shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever,” (2 Sam. 7:13) and “your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Sam. 7:16). The purpose of Matthew’s Gospel is to present Jesus Christ as that long-prophesied Messiah and King of Israel who will be King over all the nations.

MacArthur summarizes, “It is the story of the King who comes, the King who is rejected, and the King who will return.”[2] Matthew designed the opening genealogy to document Christ’s credentials as Israel’s king, and the rest of the Gospel fills out this theme. Matthew is truly the gospel of the kingdom. “Kingdom” is a keyword in this gospel, found 56 times (NJKV). Matthew shows that Christ is the heir of the kingly line. He demonstrates that Jesus fulfills dozens of Old Testament prophecies regarding the king who would come. All other historical and theological themes in the book revolve around this one.[3]

Matthew emphasizes “the Kingdom of Heaven” (a phrase found 32 times in this gospel). He will tell us what the kingdom requires:

Matthew 3:2; 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (both John the Baptist and Jesus preaching).

He tells us to whom the kingdom will be given:

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

He tells us who will not enter the kingdom:

Matthew 5:20 “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:3 “and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:23 “And Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

He tells us who is greatest in the kingdom:

Matthew 5:19 “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:4 “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

He records many parables to explain the kingdom (Matt. 13, 18; 20; 25). It is easy to see that Matthew is consumed with the kingdom of heaven and the King who will rule it. He wants you to know that Jesus is the King. He wants you to know that Jesus is the Messiah. He wants you to know how you should respond to this King.[4]

But Matthew also emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the “Son of Abraham.” In fact, he begins his genealogy with Abraham. All of God’s promises to the nation Israel are founded in Abraham. But the promises to Abraham were more inclusive than the promises to David. God’s promises to Abraham had a personal emphasis, a national emphasis, and a universal emphasis.[5] We will remember from Genesis 12 that God promised Abraham:

“² I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:2-3 NKJV)

Matthew follows this pattern of Jesus Christ being first “the Son of David” then “the Son of Abraham” in his Gospel. First, the kingdom is offered to Israel exclusively (Matthew 10:5-7). Then after it is rejected by Israel, it is offered to the nations of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20).

Author

Both external testimony and internal clues affirm that author of this gospel is Matthew, one of the twelve apostles. Matthew (also called Levi in Mark and Luke) tells his own story of his conversion and call in Matthew 9:9, “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.” Tax gatherers, or publicans, were despised by the Jews. They were ranked with the heathen, with highwaymen, robbers, and murderers. They were often excluded from the synagogue because they were considered traitors to their people. It was this man, whose life was transformed by Jesus Christ, who wrote this wonderful Gospel for us. He had at one time worked against God’s kingdom, but now had become a worshipper and follower of God’s King.[6]

Structure

Matthew records 5 major discourses from Jesus: the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7); the commissioning of the apostles (Matt. 10); the parables about the kingdom (Matt. 13); a discourse about the childlikeness of the believer (chap. 18); and the discourse on His second coming (chaps. 24, 25). Each discourse ends with a variation of this phrase: “when Jesus had ended these sayings” (Matt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1) signaling a new narrative portion. A long opening section (Matt. 1–4) and a short conclusion (Matt. 28:16–20), bracket the rest of the gospel, which naturally divides into 5 sections, each with a discourse and a narrative section.[7]

Jesus’ Genealogy (Matt. 1:2-17)

If you were going to try to prove to Jews that you had found the Messiah, you had to prove it first by his genealogy. Pedigree was everything to the Jews. We saw many genealogies in the book of Genesis that we just concluded. The rest of the Old Testament has many more. Tribal identification was essential for dividing the land of Canaan in the conquest in the book of Joshua. It was essential to know your place in the land according to your tribe. The priesthood was determined by being from the tribe of Levi. And the kings were to come from the tribe of Judah through David.

According to Luke, Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem while she is “great with child” to register to be taxed in their ancestral home, the city of David “because he was of the house and lineage of David” (Luke 2:4). The Jews loved their lineage. These records were kept in the temple in Jerusalem and until the records were destroyed in 70 A.D., every Jew could tell you their lineage and which tribe they came from.

1. Rooted in God’s promises

Obviously in order to prove that you have found “The King of the Jews”, you must first prove that you are dealing with a Jew. The right King must be a child of Abraham. God’s promise to Abraham is found in Genesis 22:18: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:18) God promised Abraham that he would have a son, a descendant, through whom all nations would be blessed.

Now in one sense that son was Isaac. Isaac was the promised son, a miracle child. His mother was barren, and both his parents were in their nineties when he was born. And yet Paul in the New Testament shows us that this promise was really fulfilled in Christ. We read in Galatians 3:16: “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.” (Gal. 3:16).

As we saw when we studied Genesis, the miraculous birth of Isaac in the Old Testament foreshadows the miraculous birth of Jesus in the New Testament. And so, Matthew’s genealogy both begins and ends with the miraculous birth of a child in fulfillment of God’s promises.[8] So Jesus’ birth is rooted in God’s promises to Abraham, God’s promises to David, and God’s promises to the nation through the prophets of the Old Testament.

2. Rooted in God’s Sovereignty

In Matthew 1:17, the author indicates the structure of his genealogy: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.” Matthew purposefully structures his genealogy in three sections of fourteen names. Matthew tailors the genealogy to fit this pattern even leaving out some names in order to come to the number fourteen in each section.

These three sections represent three eras in the history of the nation of Israel. The time from Abraham to David was a time of rising power as God’s people multiplied and came to the Promised Land and the kingdom was established. The time from David to the exile was a time of declining power as the nation of Israel was divided and rebelled against God and was eventually dispersed in the exile. The time from the exile to Christ was a time of rebuilding as a remnant returned to the land and the sacrifices at the temple were reinstated and the people waited for the coming Messiah.

The number fourteen was very significant in Judaism. Hebrew letters were assigned numerical values, and every good Jew would know that fourteen was the numerical value of King David’s name. (D = 4, V[W] = 6, D = 4). Fourteen is also double the number seven which is the number of completeness in Scripture. So three groups of fourteen equals six groups of seven, which would mean Jesus was born at the beginning of the seventh seven, a fitting and climactic place for the Messiah’s birth.

In other words, for Matthew three times fourteen equals God’s sovereignty. Matthew is showing that God was sovereign over all the persons and events leading up to Jesus’ birth, and that Jesus is the climax of Israel’s history. It all leads to Jesus. Jesus’ birth is rooted in God’s sovereignty.[9]

Another place where we see the sovereignty of God in this genealogy is in the person of Jeconiah. You find him in Matthew 1:11-12. Jeconiah, also called Jehoiachin or Coniah, was the grandson of good king Josiah. He was carried off to exile in Babylon. In Jeremiah 22 the Lord says this about Jeconiah through the prophet “”As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off; … Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah.’ “” (Jer. 22:24, 30). Do you see the problem? None of Jeconiah’s offspring will ever sit on the throne of David. That was the curse on Jeconiah.

So, if Jesus is a descendant of Jeconiah, He could never sit on the throne of David. He would be under the curse. But notice Matthew 1:16, “And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” Matthew introduces the virgin birth of Jesus here and will develop it in more detail starting in Matthew 1:18. But notice that all the way through this genealogy Matthew has used the same formula, “the father begot the son, who begot the next son” and so on through all the names. But here the formula changes. Joseph did not beget Jesus. He was born from Mary. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, he is Jesus’ adopted father, his legal father. So, through Joseph Jesus inherits the legal right to the throne of David and avoids the curse of Jeconiah.

How God solved this great problem is a marvel! If you look at Matthew’s genealogy, you see that Joseph was born from David in the lineage of David’s son Solomon (Matt. 1:7). But there is another genealogy of Jesus found in Luke, a genealogy that is traced down to Joseph from the lineage of Joseph’s father-in-law Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew, in other words, is giving us the legal or royal genealogy of our Savior through Joseph, and Luke is giving us the biological genealogy of Jesus through Mary. And Mary was born from David in the line of another of David’s sons, Solomon’s brother Nathan (Luke 3:31). Both were sons of David; but Solomon’s linage was under a curse through Jeconiah, and Nathan’s was not. Isn’t it stunning how God guarded every detail and solved this problem with the virgin birth?

The reason for the genealogy is to present the fact that Jesus Christ is the One who has the right to reign. It is rooted in the sovereignty of God.

3. Rooted in God’s Grace

We learn this from the women Matthew includes in the genealogy. It was highly unusual for any woman to be included in a Jewish genealogy. And yet Matthew includes four. He does this on purpose to highlight these women and what they stand for.

Now if you ask any good Jewish person what four women would most likely be highlighted in an Old Testament genealogy, the answer would easily be Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah. They were the wives of the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But instead of these mothers of the nation, we get Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, four women with questionable backgrounds.

The first women that Matthew highlights is Tamar. Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law. When Judah refused to give Tamar to his son, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and slept with Judah. Twins Perez and Zerah were born as a result of that incestuous encounter. And through Perez the messianic line continued.

Next there was Rahab who was a Canaanite prostitute in the city of Jericho. She saved the Israelite spies and they saved her from the destruction of Jericho. She became the mother of Boaz, the great-grandfather of King David.

And then there was Ruth who was from Moab. The Moabites you remember were the result of the incest of Lot’s daughter in Genesis 19. The Moabites were usually enemies of Israel. They refused to let Israel pass their way into Canaan, hired Balaam to curse Israel, and led them into idolatry. Deuteronomy 23:3 said, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever.” (Deut. 23:3) And yet God had mercy on Ruth. She not only came to Israel with her mother-in-law Naomi, she married Boaz and became the great-grandmother of King David.

And then finally we come to Bathsheba, although Matthew doesn’t actually name her but instead calls her “the wife of Uriah.” (Matthew 1:6) This reminds us not only of David’s adultery with Bathsheba but his murder of Uriah to cover up the sin. And so, Jesus had adultery and murder in his family line.

What are to make of these four women in Jesus’ genealogy? You’ve got two harlots, one born out of incest, and an adulteress. Now what do you think the message is? God is a God of what? Grace. I believe they are meant to show us that Jesus’ birth was rooted in God’s grace. Jesus’ family line was populated not with righteous Jews but with sinners like you and me. Frederick Bruner writes: “Matthew will later teach us that Jesus ‘came not for the righteous but for sinners’ (Matt 9:13); but already in his genealogy Matthew is teaching us that Jesus came not only for, but, through, sinners.” (Bruner, Matthew Vol 1, p. 6).[10]

Not only that, but all four women were non-Jews: Tamar was a Canaanite; Rahab was from Jericho; Ruth was from Moab; Bathsheba was married to a Hittite. Jesus came for all people from all nations – just as God promised Abraham so many years before. Matthew, the Gospel to the Jews, stresses that salvation is also to the Gentiles.

Understand this–No human being is beyond the reach of Christ’s saving arm or sympathetic heart. Our sins may have been as many and as vile as any who are here named, but they shall never be remembered against us by God, if we trust him who is the Christ, the Son of God. Matthew says “Jesus is King” and He is also Savior. The One God revealed who will come to reign someday, was rejected and crucified, bearing the sins of the world. The good news is that all who receive Him, who believe in Him, trusting in His death to forgive their sins and in His resurrection for eternal life, are included in the Kingdom of Heaven. Are you?

[1] Gil Rugh, Why Bother About Genealogies?, Sermon preached October 23, 1983. https://s3.amazonaws.com/ihccathena/pdf/GR647.pdf accessed 5/7/2022.

[2] John MacArthur, The Gracious King. https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2180/the-gracious-king Accessed 5/8/2022.

[3] John MacArthur, Bible Introductions: Matthew. https://www.gty.org/library/bible-introductions/MSB40/matthew accessed 5/8/2022.

[4] Bro. Rory at FBC Spur, Texas. The Right King at the Right Time (Matthew 1:1-17). https://fbcspur.org/right-king-right-time-matthew-11-17/ accessed 5/8/2022

[5] Gil Rugh, Why Bother About Genealogies?, Sermon preached October 23, 1983. https://s3.amazonaws.com/ihccathena/pdf/GR647.pdf accessed 5/5/2022.

[6] Greg Allen. The Lineage of Our King. https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2004/022204.htm accessed 5/8/2022

[7] John MacArthur, Bible Introductions: Matthew. https://www.gty.org/library/bible-introductions/MSB40/matthew accessed 5/8/2022.

[8] Ray Fowler. Everyone has a Past. http://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/everyone-has-a-past/ accessed 5/5/2022

[9] Fowler, ibid.

[10] Quoted by Fowler, ibid.