Chapter 1

We should be aware of the emphasis of the four gospels. Four people reporting on the same events always come up with a different emphasis. Matthew presents Jesus Christ as Messiah the King; Mark presents Jesus Christ as the Servant of the Father; Luke presents Jesus Christ as the ideal Man; John presents Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God. This is emphasis.

The recipients of the four gospels are also different and this explains why certain things are included in some gospels and excluded from others. Matthew was written originally to the Jews and written in Aramaic. Mark was written to the Romans, Luke was written to the Gentiles, and John was written to everyone. The divine author of the book of Matthew is God the Holy Spirit — 2 Peter 1:21; the human author is Levi the tax collector, low on the totem pole and saved in a most unusual way. We cannot be too exact about the date of Matthew. It was written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It was written before Luke and Luke was written before Acts, and on the basis of following out this type of procedure we conclude that the Aramaic text of Matthew was written in 45 AD and translated into the Greek text in 50 AD. The original language of Matthew is Aramaic — all of the church fathers who commented upon Matthew made this particular point. This was not unusual. Josephus wrote the Wars of the Jews in Aramaic and then he found himself a good man in the Greek language to help him bring it into Greek. This is also why we have such phrases as “which is being interpreted” in Matthew 1:23; “that is to say” in Matthew 27:33.

The structure of Matthew is very simple. In the first four chapters we have a chronological approach and then we go to the logical-topical approach in chapters 5-13, and then in chapters 14-28 we go back to the chronological approach. There are only five characteristics of Matthew which will be presented at this time. Others will be presented as we get into the book. First of all there is a great emphasis on the teaching ministry of Jesus Christ. For example the sermon on the mount, the most misunderstood part of the Bible. We have the temple discourse and all of its details in Matthew chapters 21-23. This is the greatest of all the discourses because it exposes religion for what it really is — a Satanic device and the greatest evil that the world has ever known. (It is very interesting to note that you cannot have emotion or ecstatics in spirituality until religion is removed from the world. Religion is not removed until the Millennium and when it is then for the first time ecstatics and emotion are permitted as a bona fide spiritual experience under the filling of the Spirit. In the meantime emotion has nothing whatever to do with the Christian life) Also, of course, we have the famous Olivet discourse which deals with the Tribulation and the second advent. The second characteristic of Matthew is the extensive quotations from the Old Testament. The third point of Matthew is the use of the Greek word tote. This is not really a Greek word, it is Aramaic Hellenised in the way in which it is used in Matthew. It occurs 90 times and it indicates that Matthew thought in Aramaic and not in Greek. He was bilingual but he did not actually think in the Greek language and this explains again why Matthew was apparently originally written in Aramaic. The fourth characteristic is that Matthew as a former tax collector reveals a great deal of interest in the Gentiles. After all Matthew became a wealthy man through his connections with the Gentiles and therefore we will notice for example the Gentile women in the genealogy. We will notice the great discourse on the Magi in Matthew chapter two. In chapter eight he talks of many coming from the east and the west, an idiom for Gentiles. He quotes how the Gentiles were saved in chapter twelve. The fifth characteristic has to do with some of the unique features of Matthew. The synoptics are different from the gospel of John but in many ways Matthew is different from the other synoptic gospels, first of all in that it records the repentance of Judas — that is, repentance, not salvation. Judas felt sorry for his sins. There are two Greek words translated “repent.” The first one means a complete change of mental attitude, the word metanoiew. The other is metamelomai, an emotional word which means to feel sorry for sins. Judas felt sorry for his sins, he confessed his sins, he made restitution for his sins, and he went to Hell. The reason he gives this story is that most religious people think that if you feel sorry for something and that if you have enough emotion about something and make restitution then you must go to heaven. Judas wasn’t any closer to heaven when he finished repenting than he was before. Next, the Jewish request that the blood of Christ be upon them and their children in Matthew 27:25 is unique to Matthew, and he is the one who would bring it out. As far as he was concerned he was a Jew and he thought that the Jews had it coming to them. A third unique characteristic is the resuscitation of saints after the resurrection of Christ — 27:51,52. And then Matthew is the only one who records the fact that the religious crowd got together and decided to fabricate a story to explain away the resurrection. This again shows Matthew’s utter contempt for the Jewish leaders and their facade of self-righteousness and their hypocrisy.

In verse 1 we have a statement of the fact that this is the genealogy of Joseph. There are two genealogies in the synoptics: the genealogy which is found in Matthew and the genealogy which is found in Luke chapter three. There is a difference. They both start with David the king. David had two extant lines, the ruling line which goes through Solomon and the other were the cousins which go through Nathan. And you go down through Solomon until you get to a person called Coniah upon whom God pronounced a curse and said he would never have a son who would sit on David’s throne. Coniah’s great great grandson is Joseph who is the legal but not the real father of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so the virgin birth cuts off and fulfils the Coniah curse whereas Nathan goes down to a woman called Mary. The blood line goes through Mary. These two genealogies are different although they do not appear to be at times due to the fact of the special use of the genitive case in the beginning of the Luke 3 genealogy. The point is that we have the legal line and the blood line is given in Luke chapter three.

When it says, “The book of the generation,” it is a title for a genealogy — “of Jesus Christ.” It is literally, “The scroll of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” He is called here “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” This is strictly a Jewish genealogy; it will begin with Abraham and terminate with the Lord Jesus Christ, whereas the one in Luke goes back to Adam — the human race genealogy.

Jesus Christ is going to be demonstrated the King of the Jews and, of course, the big question which Matthew will answer is: Is Jesus Christ the King of the Jews? Matthew says, yes, He is. Christ has a legal right to the throne — he will demonstrate that; Christ has a moral right to the throne, a judicial right to the throne, and a prophetical right to the throne. The genealogy which is found here emphasises two persons: “son of David, son of Abraham.” The reason for that is because of the Davidic covenant which promised David that he would have a son who would reign forever, and son of David indicates the fulfilment as found in 2 Samuel 7:8-17; Psalm 89:22-37. “Son of Abraham” goes back to the principle of how the Jewish race came into existence. Abraham was a Gentile part of his life and the rest of his life he was a Jew, and this “son of Abraham” is explained by Romans chapter nine verses six through fourteen. The principle of the founding of the Jewish race is regeneration: Abraham was born again, he believed in the Lord and it was credited to his account for righteousness. This is the only race in the history of the world that has a foundation based upon regeneration and, of course, it eventually works into natural generation.

Abraham had a number of sons but the eldest son was Ishmael who was not a Jew. Ishmael had a brother by the name of Isaac who was a Jew, and the difference between the two of them was regeneration, one was a believer and one was not.

The point is that the Jewish race was founded on regeneration and, because of that, we have in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first …” Why? Because the Jewish race was the only race that was founded on regeneration. And in Romans 9:6 where Paul says, all Israel is not Israel, he is simply saying that even though you are physically born a Jew you are not saved, the only way you can be a true Jew in every sense of the word is to be born again. All of that is brought out in the first few phrases of the genealogy. “Son of Abraham” says, Look, this genealogy starts with a true Jew. Abraham was a true Jew because he was born again — the first Jew was a true Jew.

The only other factor needed as far as the whole doctrine is concerned is this: Israel is often pictured today under the fifth cycle of discipline — Israel is a stump. The fifth cycle of discipline finds the Jews dispersed throughout the world and, under these conditions, the stump has a root and the root is said to be Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Jewish race: Abraham believed in Him. Then you also have Christ discussed as the Branch, which means that some day the born again Jews will be gathered in a kingdom, second advent of Christ, and they do have a future. All of this is actually found in this phrase, son of Abraham, and while the phrase may not mean much to us it means a great deal to the people to whom Matthew wrote. They understood the Old Testament scriptures and they understand this particular principle that the foundation of the Jewish race is regeneration.

Points about Abraham

1. The Jewish race was founded on regeneration — Romans 9:6-14;

2. Abraham is the pattern for all Old Testament salvation — Romans 4:1-7; 3. Abraham is one of the great illustrations of spirituality in the Old Testament, which was the faith-rest technique — Hebrews 1:8-19; James 2:21-24 (and do not be deceived by the phrase that Abraham was justified when he offered Isaac. He offered Isaac many years after he was saved. The word “justified” means vindicated; he was vindicated in the eyes of men as carrying the faith-rest technique to its maximum).

In verses 2-6 we go from Abraham to David. In verse 2, one reference to the patriarchs to recognise them as a part of the Jewish picture. “Judas” is simply the Hellenised form of Judah. The Greek language cannot terminate a word with “h,” and therefore they substituted the closest to it in the Greek, which is an “s” .Judah is mentioned simply for this reason: the ruler and the ruling tribe should have been Reuben. Reuben was the firstborn, but we discover from 1 Chronicles chapter 5 that Reuben stepped out of line in a way that knocked him out of the rulership. He lost all the privileges of the firstborn. First of all the firstborn is the sovereign or the ruler; that went to Judah. Secondly, he was the priest; he lost the priesthood to Levi, specifically the family of Aaron. Thirdly, the double portion; he lost this to Joseph. Joseph had two tribes: Ephraim and Manasseh. So Reuben lost out and Judah is mentioned in this genealogy because this is the legal genealogy of the King — “and his brethren” refers to the other eleven brothers. Verse 2 brings us down to the line of Judah, so in verses 3,4 we start the line of Judah and the interesting way in which it was developed. One of the great things about this genealogy is how many times the grace of God is emphasised.

For example, there was a Gentile woman by the name of Thamar. Her name was actually Tamar but the Greeks had to put a q in, they couldn’t put a rough “T” in at the beginning of a word. She married the older son of Judah. Judah, by his first wife, had three children; two of them are pertinent. One of them was Er and the second one was Onan. The third we do not need. Tamar married Er and he died suddenly, so to carry on the family name they married her to Onan, and he died. So immediately Judah became suspicious and he told Tamar to stay at home until his other son had grown up, the events are recorded in Genesis chapter 38. When she began to think about this she decide that Judah didn’t intend to do it. Judah’s wife died and he became interested in the phallic cult of the Canaanites, so he began to visit some of the phallic priestesses. So Tamar disguised herself as a priestess of the Canaanitish cult. Judah came in and was quite taken with her beauty but she refused him until he gave her a special locket with his signet ring on it. So he fornicated and went home. He promised that she could redeem that locket and get anything she wanted. She later confronted Judah and pulled out the signet ring. He recognised then that he was at fault so he married Tamar. They had twin sons and the eldest of those sons is mentioned in this particular passage. The text says in verse 3: “And Judas begat Phares and Zara” — these are the twins. Phares is the oldest twin so the line will go down through him.

Verse 4 — Salmon is worth noting because he was one of the two men who was sent out on a reconnaissance to find out about the fortifications of Jericho. He got into a jamb and in doing so met his future wife, and out of this contact Salmon married Rahab the prostitute and she is officially in the line of Messiah. It is interesting that the Jews did not like to have women in their genealogies, and to have a Gentile in their genealogies was even worse. And so we have a wonderful picture of God’s grace. Not only do we have one woman in this particular genealogy but we have five women, and four of them are Gentiles. So the principle is the grace of God once again.

Verse 5 — Next we have Booz. “Booz” is the Hellenistic form for Boaz. “Booz of Rachab” — “Rachab” is Rahab. Notice here that we have in one verse, Rahab and Ruth. Ruth was a Gentile, a Moabite, and the Moabites were under a special curse in the Mosaic law, Deuteronomy 23:3-8, and here is the principle of cursing turned to blessing, a great principle under the grace of God. Here was a woman under a special curse but she found the Lord, she found her husband in Israel, and cursing was turned to blessing. Then at the end of verse five we have Jesse who was the father of David. If ever there was a man who was a poor father in every sense of the word, as far as David was concerned, it was Jesse. David was the eighth son was neglected and was just simply doing the job of a shepherd, in contrast to the other sons. So again we have the principle of the grace of God. When God promotes a man no matter how much neglect there is on the part of the parents, God will overrule, and that is the story of David’s childhood.

Verse 6 — we have the beginning of the Davidic dynasty. “And Jesse begat David the king” .From this point on we start with the king. David is the first of the dynasty, he was the second king in Israel’s history, Saul being the first — “and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias [Uriah].” This is Bathsheba, so again we notice a woman, an adulteress, and yet by the grace of God this is all overruled and she becomes the mother of kings. Principle: Who and what we are as believers never depends on who and what we are, it depends on who and what God is — always. None of us have the right to look down our nose at anyone else, we have no right to consider ourselves as superior. Everything that we have and everything that we will be on this earth is strictly the grace of God.

In verses 7-11 we go from Solomon to the Babylonian captivity. In Leviticus chapter 26 we have five cycles of discipline to the Jews because the Jews were responsible in Old Testament times for custodianship of the canon of scripture and for missionary activity throughout the world. Their failure caused in 721 BC at the fall of Samaria the southern kingdom to go into the fourth cycle of discipline. The 4th cycle means that a foreign Gentile power controls the land. This continued until 586 BC and during that time three Gentile powers controlled Judah. The first was Assyria under such people as Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esar Haddon, etc., after which was Pharaoh Necho. Then there was the control of the Chaldeans so that during the 4th cycle of discipline from 721-586 BC the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Chaldeans controlled the land. In 586 BC Jerusalem was conquered for the last time and destroyed [the temple was destroyed] and the Jews went into the fifth cycle of discipline which is a period of being scattered. Then the Jews were restored and from 516 BC the second temple was rebuilt, even though the Jews had come back in 536. From 516 to the death of Alexander in 323 BC the Jews had a great period of prosperity even though the rest of the world was at war. And then they went into their cycles again eventuating in the fourth cycle of discipline which started in 63 BC when Pompey the Great conquered Jerusalem, and it went until August of 70AD when Titus and three Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem and the Jews went into the fifth cycle of discipline which continues today. The Jews will continue to be scattered until the second advent of Christ. Satan is always trying to get the Jews in one spot and all of these movements trying to get the Jews back into the land — Zionism and so on — are Satanic in nature, they are anti-Christian to the core, and only Jesus Christ can bring them back, and at the end of the Tribulation He will restore them from the fifth cycle.

During the fourth cycle there were two bright spots — the Hezekiah revival and the Josiah revival. Both Hezekiah and Josiah will be mentioned in the genealogy. The Hezekiah revival was led by Isaiah; the Josiah revival was led by Jeremiah. In the fourth cycle of discipline which, by the way, was administered by the Romans all the way, starting with the triumvirate of Crassus, and Pompey and Caesar; and then Caesar had them alone for five years [and, by the way treated them very well], and then we start the Julian Caesars with Octavian, Tiberius, and so on. After that were the Flavian Caesars, Titus and his father before him. But during this time there were two bright spots: a revival under the ministry of Jesus Christ and the revival of the early Church which was grace — cursing turned into blessing, grace before judgement, before the 5th cycle hit for the second time.

Now this is the picture: all Jewish history when you are studying the prophets is divided by the two administration of the 5th cycle of discipline. Everything is either pre-exilic [before the Babylonian captivity] or post-exilic [after the Babylonian captivity]. All Jewish history as correlated with the New Testament is on the same basis, everything is before the destruction of Jerusalem or after when the Jews are scattered. So you cannot understand the prophets of the Old Testament, starting with Isaiah, without an understanding of this particular breakdown. This is the category by which all of them wrote. That is why in this particular genealogy in verses 7-11 we start with Solomon and end up with the Babylonian captivity because the Babylonian captivity was the first administration of the 5th cycle of discipline to Judah. We have with David and Solomon a united kingdom but before we get very far into verse seven the kingdom is divided.

Verse 7 — “And Solomon begat Roboam [Rehoboam].” Solomon was the last monarch of the united kingdom. He died in 926 BC and in that year the kingdom was divided. Judah was the southern kingdom and Ephraim and/or Samaria was the northern kingdom. The ten tribes generally went north and there were the two tribes in the south. We now follow the genealogy through Judah because no one was authorised in Ephraim to be a ruler. The true line of the Messiah goes through the tribe of Judah, the family of David, and in verses 7 and following we go right down the line with the family of David — “Rehoboam begat Abia [Abiam in the Hebrew]; and Abia begat Asa.”

Verse 8 — “And Asa begat Josaphat [Jehoshaphat]; and Jehoshaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias [Uzziah].” There is a gap here and this is the first of several gaps. We have Joram mentioned and then we jump over four rulers and we come down to Uzziah. So there is a very significant gap here. Jehoshaphat had a son by the name of Joram, and Joram married a woman called Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel and Jehu. Jehoshaphat in a moment of weakness got into this “brotherhood” idea; he thought that the thing to do was that everyone should be brothers. So when he did he thought that the best way to prove to the world that everyone was a brother was to get back with the ten tribes again, and he married his son off to Athaliah. That introduced religion into the southern kingdom and, as a matter of fact, it set up the gap. Ahaziah was the son but Athaliah got rid of him and Athaliah personally ruled for awhile as regent. Then, being a true daughter of Jezebel, Athaliah decided to get rid of everyone, so she hired some Arabians to kill all of the members of the royal family that she could find. Everyone was killed except Joash. When Joash came to the throne he finally had a son called Amaziah. These are the four that are omitted and the reason that they are omitted is because the religion that was developed through this union carried down to the third generation. It took three generations to sweat out that saturation of religion. The gap occurs in the genealogy because God never condones religion under any set of circumstances; religion is the greatest enemy of the truth — it is man seeking to gain the approbation of God by his own works and by his own merits.

Verse 9 “And Ozias [Uzziah] begat Joatham; Joatham begat Achaz [Ahaz]; and Achaz begat Ezekias [Hezekiah].” When we get to Hezekiah we have one of the most outstanding of all kings since David. This was a part of Isaiah’s time and during Hezekiah’s reign was the great revival.

Verse 10 — includes the two greatest kings after David. It starts with Hezekiah and ends with Josiah. In between these two kings were two of the worst: Manasseh and Amon. General observation: Hezekiah was one of the greatest of all the kings but his son was one of the worst, and the point is: a parent who is good does not necessarily mean a child who is good. In the genealogy you never had a son who followed in his father’s footsteps and being as good as his father. And so, you say, what happened? Didn’t the father teach him the Word? Didn’t the father give him doctrine? There is really no answer to this except that sometimes wonderful parents do not produce wonderful children. You cannot through physical birth pass on to your children a heritage that is permanent. It takes the new birth, regeneration.

Verse 11 — we have the last of the kings before the Babylonian captivity. “And Josias [Josiah] begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away into Babylon.” Josiah had four sons; three of them reigned. The first of them was Jehoahaz, the second was Jehoiakim, and the third was Zedekiah. Jehoahaz was son number four, the first son never did get to the throne. The second son was Jehoiakim, and the third son was Zedekiah. Jehioakim had a son whose name is Jechoniah, also called Coniah, and also called Jehoiachin.

This is the order: When Josiah died he was succeeded by Jehoahaz. When Jehoahaz was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, along with Daniel, Jehoiakim was put on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar as number two son of Josiah. Then Jehoiakim was taken into captivity and his son Coniah was put on the throne in his place. And when Coniah started began to play “footsy” with Egypt Nebuchadnezzar came down and took him out of the picture and into captivity, and put his uncle, Zedekiah, on the throne. But notice something about this verse: “Josiah begat Jechoniah.” Jechoniah is Josiah’s grandson. The three brothers are left out — son number four, number two and number three. Why? They are mentioned by the phrase: “his brethren.” They all had one thing in common: all of them were unbelievers. The person who rejects Christ as saviour is blotted out of any future with God.

There is a second lesson to be found in verse 11; it has to do with the curse of Coniah. Jeremiah 22:28 — “Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?” This verse says several things: Coniah had set up an ego image of himself and he is called “a despised, broken idol.” The image collapses. He is a “vessel wherein is no pleasure", and the word “vessel” indicates he was truly a born-again person but he was a carnal born-again person and God was not pleased with him. So we must distinguish something that is different here: Coniah is different from his father and his two uncles in that he is saved, like Josiah. Coniah got way out of line, primarily through legalism, primarily through religionism. Consequently we have this curse on him, and of Coniah it is said that “he and his seed are cast into a land which they know not [a prophecy of the fifth cycle of discipline].” Verse 29: “O earth [land], earth [land], hear the Word of the Lord.” The word “land” refers to the land of Israel. Verse 30: “Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless,” — this does not mean that Coniah will not have any children; it does mean that his children would not sit on the throne of David — “a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David” — the Hebrew says: No man of his seed shall sit upon the throne of David or prosper — “and ruling any more in Judah.” In other words, no one from the seed of Coniah would ever sit on the throne of David.

Now who is the last of the seed of Coniah? The cut-off spot is a man called Joseph, who himself was a very noble believer and was engaged to Mary, and with the virgin birth fulfils this curse: no one in the line of Solomon would ever sit on the throne of David. Jesus Christ is born of Mary who is descended from Nathan, as illustrated by the Luke chapter three genealogy. This is the first of two reason for the virgin birth of Christ. The second reason is that the sin nature is always passed down through the man — because the man wilfully sinned. If you bring someone into the world by means of virgin birth they are minus the old sin nature, minus the imputation of Adam’s sin, and qualified at the point of birth to be redeemer. The redeemer must be a free man; we are born in the slave market of sin. It takes a free man, born on the outside, to free the slaves on the inside. This is why after the Babylonian captivity no one sat on the throne of David, and from the Babylonian captivity’s termination point, 516 BC, down to the time of the second advent of Christ, no one will ever sit on the Davidic throne. So the virgin birth cuts off the line and fulfils the curse of Coniah.

There is one point that should be mentioned before resuming the study in verse 12. That is, the Babylonian captivity — “about the time they were carried away to Babylon.” This history of the Jews is the background for all of the prophets. In Leviticus 26 God promised to Israel five cycles of discipline, and while these five cycles are specifically for Israel apparently God uses them five in the discipline of any national entity. The fourth cycle of discipline means that while you still have an internal government you are controlled by another government, and in 720 BC when the ten northern tribes went into the fifth cycle it was also the beginning of the fourth cycle of discipline for Judah, the southern kingdom. This lasted until 586 BC at which time, for the first time, the fifth cycle of discipline was administered to Judah and this was the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity. In 536 BC 50,000 Jews went back to the land but the fifth cycle was not terminated until they had established their testimony which was the temple, the greatest training aid for the teaching of the doctrine of Christology and soteriology. So in 516 BC, seventy years later, the 5th cycle of discipline was over. Instructions given by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah caused them at that point to have the greatest period of prosperity they had ever known; it started in 516 BC and went all of the way to 323 BC, the year that Alexander the Great died. Now for nearly two hundred years when the rest of the world was at war the Jews had perfect peace and prosperity because they followed the doctrinal principles given by the prophets. But an apostasy set in at about the time of the death of Alexander and it became apparent as pressure was put on the Jews by the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the two lines from the generals of Alexander. Things became worse until finally the fourth cycle of discipline was administered again in 63 BC when Pompey the Great captured Jerusalem. It was administered entirely by Rome, first of all by the triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar, and then finally by Caesar, the greatest genius of the ancient world. After Caesar his nephew, known first of all as Octavius and then taking on the name of Augustus, and the founding of the Julian Caesar line. Then the Julian and the Tiberian Caesars. All of this time we have the fourth cycle of discipline and all of this time we have bright spots occasionally as, for example, the revival under the ministry of Jesus Christ. There was also a revival under the ministry of John the Baptist which preceded it by some three years. All this went down to about 68 AD, at which time the great evangelism began to close out, and two years later in 70 AD the Jews went into the fifth cycle of discipline, in which status we find them at the present time. Since this was to be a prolonged fifth cycle, in fact it would go all of the way to the second advent. God raised up a nation to take the place of the Jews. Remembering that first of all the Jews were a spiritual nation founded on regeneration it was necessary to have something comparable. That which is comparable in known as the Church, a spiritual nation made up of those who are born again. So we have the Church Age and then the removal of the Church, and then the completion of the Jewish Age, the Tribulation, and then the second advent, at which time the fifth cycle of discipline is terminated, the unconditional covenants to Israel are fulfilled at the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ — 1000 years are taken out in order to demonstrate that perfect environment does not solve man’s problems — and then eternity begins.

At the end of verse 11 we have a reference to the first administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. During the time that the Jews were in captivity God protected the children that went into the captivity and many of the Jewish children were born again. Jeremiah, in writing Lamentations, writes of the fact that he sees all of these children going into bondage in chains and shackles, and yet, these children who are born again continued in doctrine and grew up to be a very strong generation. All of this goes to point out that even though they were under the fifth cycle of discipline cursing must turn to blessing by having a maximum number of Jews during the seventy years of the captivity find Christ as saviour. There is something comparable to that in the present administration of the 5th cycle: every time a Jew accepts Christ during the Church Age he is no longer a Jew, but God the Holy Spirit takes that Jew at the moment he believes and enters him into union with Christ. In other words, operation baptism of the Spirit. He is no longer a Jew but a member of the body of Christ. Remember that every Jew in the world today is under a double curse: he is under the wages of sin which is death, and therefore separation from God; he is also under the curse of the fifth cycle of discipline. Both of these curses are removed by the salvation of the Jew, so the Jew has more to gain even than the Gentile. A Gentile is under one curse, he is spiritually dead under the wages of sin, and when a Gentile accepts Christ as saviour he is then a member of the body of Christ. And when a Jew accepts Christ as saviour he is entered into union with Christ and the cursing turns to blessing. This is, of course, comparable to the great evangelistic push which occurred during the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, and this is always the way that God operates in grace — something that is terrible, some great catastrophe, there is always cursing in it and the cursing always turns to blessing. Finally, it resulted in the writing of the book of Romans in which we have a statement to that effect: “We know that all things work together for good.” All things had been working together for good since Adam found Christ as his saviour after his fall, but the great key is the fact that we know it. Knowing this doctrine and its application becomes a fantastic thing and one of the very important principles in orientation to the grace of God is to know that the most awful things that happen to you work together for good.

In verse 11, “they were carried [brought]” looks to us like a verb, and it is translated like a verb, but in the Greek this is an accusative singular. In other words, it is a noun. Where you expect a verb and find a noun in the Greek it has great emphasis, and the great emphasis is this: it was a very unpleasant thing. The noun here actually means a migration — that is its tamest meaning — or a change of environment, but the word originally meant to be rooted up and hauled away and put in a terrible spot. In other words, thrown away like trash. This one noun connotes all the suffering you can imagine, all of the pressure that goes with captivity, everything horrible that can happen to a nation.

Actually, the best thing that could happen to the nation is what did happen. This is why: when religion finally dominates a nation, if the nation remains intact, the miseries which are developed as the by-products of religion are so horrible that it is better to be in slavery than to be in a nation saturated with religion. First of all this is because of eternal repercussions. When a nation goes religious it is very difficult for religious people to switch from self-righteousness and their own works to depending upon the works of God the Son. That is why in the ministry of Jesus Christ, while many prostitutes and tax collectors and people who were low on the totem pole of society responded to His ministry in droves, and while the eleven saved disciples were low class people (the only high class person in the whole bunch was Judas!), only two of the high class people — such as the Pharisees and the religious crowd -responded. And of course the great tragedy is that when religion is perpetuated into spirituality then you have the great travesty: the have the hypocrisy that makes the unbeliever sick and turns him away from even any interest in Christianity at all, you have the phony facade of self-righteousness which drives so many people away from considering the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ as saviour.

Verse 12 says: “they were brought.” The original doesn’t say that at all, it says “an uprooting” — a terrible, violent, pressurised uprooting took place. These people were under the most awful type of suffering, everything that goes with captivity. And yet, as Lamentations points out, they were better off in captivity under the 5th cycle of discipline than under the religious hierarchy that existed in the land. So we learn something else from the genealogy: the greatest curse on the face of this earth is religion. But, here is something interesting: even though they were under this tremendous pressure of slavery, because of their salvation, and because after their salvation they used divine operating assets, because they used the doctrine that Isaiah had preached and Jeremiah, Daniel, and other great men of God had preached, even under this great pressure they carried right on. And because they did so under all of this pressure is indicative of a great principle: in the most awful circumstances of life the believer can have inner happiness and among the by-products of inner happiness and inner stability he can carry on and have a normal life in the midst of the worst circumstances of life. This doesn’t mean that a Christian is always going to have suffering, however.

The point is simply this: the believer can take all kinds of circumstances and even in the most unpleasant circumstances of life and he can have the same happiness that he has in prosperity, unless he is depending upon what happens in prosperity and, if that is true, there is no difference between you as a sublimating believer and any unbeliever who practices sublimation. Then we are not relaxed people, and when we are not a relaxed people we cannot glorify the Lord. When people cease to be relaxed they get competitive, they get unkind, they make nasty remarks, they get sensitive and wear their feelings on their sleeve, they demand certain attention and if they do not get it they become vicious spitting cobras starting their own little wars. People only hurt themselves when they are not relaxed.

“Salatheil” and “Zorobabel” means stability in the most awful type of circumstances. These were believers who applied doctrine. The genealogy mentions only two but we know by comparing this with passages in Zechariah that the greater mass of the population of Jews accepted Christ as saviour and they lapped up those assets and they moved right through the pressure. And this was the foundation for the next two hundred years of great prosperity, spiritual and economic. Jews became the wealthiest people in the world between the time of the restoration of the temple under the leadership of Zerrubabel to the death of Alexander the Great. Where did they get this prosperity? It was born in the darkest hour because they came to the place of deciding what was important. What was important? Doctrine.

Note Lamentations chapter three, Jeremiah’s filing system. Everything you have in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah simply gave as messages. But he had a file, and we know it was a file because the whole book of Lamentations is set up acrostically. That is why most of the chapters in Lamentations have twenty-two verses, because there are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet — except for one chapter, chapter three, which has sixty-six verses, so they went through the alphabet three times. In the middle of this filing system God the Holy Spirit pulls something from a file of Jeremiah, something that Jeremiah actually saw when they were going into captivity. He says in verses 19ff of chapter three: “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in my remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind [frontal lobe, doctrine in the mind], therefore I have hope [I anticipate]. It is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed,” — Jeremiah said this just after he had been freed by Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar personally freed him because he admired Jeremiah as a believer and as a man. He not only freed him but he gave him money so that he would not be destitute; “because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning” — and that meant every morning for seventy years for these people who went into captivity; “great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore I will hope [have my anticipation] in him.”

Then he went on and he looked at the children as they went by — verse 27: “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” What does it mean to bear the yoke? It means to go into slavery. Jeremiah stood on a hill and saw thousands and thousands of teenagers and those who were younger, babies who were being carried by the mothers, and he saw them march by in chains, and he said it is good for them to have this now. Why? Because when they started out with facing life as it really is it made them aware of something of value, doctrine, and it pushed them into an attitude that the thing that counts in life is what the Lord provides, and they found what the Lord provided and they used it . And this strong generation in captivity came back, and when it came back it laid the foundation for the most fantastic spiritual and material prosperity, and that is the rest of the prophets in a nutshell: “He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him” — he is put under pressure where he has to decide what is important in life. That is what these children did — “He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.” However, please notice: “The Lord will not cast off forever” — the children would come back as adults and when they did they would come back as born again adults knowing doctrine, a generation of believers whose minds were so crammed with doctrine that they could face any situation in life and see it immediately from the divine viewpoint, and they could make application to every adversity with the result that they had tremendous stability, tremendous inner happiness, tremendous inner beauty and a dynamic that went around the world. The Persian empire was so tremendously impressed with these Jews that almost every Persian king found Christ as his saviour. And great portions of the Old Testament are designed for one thing in mind: to show us what a generation with doctrine in the frontal lobe can do.

Matthew 1:12 — here we have Babylon, here we have a phrase, here we have some people. This doesn’t mean anything to us, except of course that Zerrubabel was one of the greatest men in the history of Israel, the book of Zechariah tells us about him. He was the leader of the 50,000 Jews who came back in 536 BC. He never sat on the throne and he never presumed to sit on the throne. He was a born again believer, his great grandfather was Coniah. He knew the curse of Coniah and the curse of Coniah said never again will Coniah have a child who will sit on the throne. And when the Jews came back to the land Zerrubabel refused to sit on the throne, he was the leader of the people but he would not be crowned king. Why? He believed the Word of God. And had he tried to have a coronation and become a king again he would have been dead before the crown could be placed on his head. And so from Zerrubabel down to Joseph we have a line of people, and all of them royal family, but not one of them ever sat on the throne. Coniah was the last person who ever sat on the throne of David. Now his uncle Zedekiah followed him but he was in the generation after Zedekiah and in that sense Coniah was the last person who will ever sit on the throne of David until Jesus Christ comes.

Verse 18 — “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise” — this is a title, like a chapter title, and the title of this section is the birth of Jesus Christ: “was on this wise” is simply the idiom in the Greek for declaring a chapter title.

Doctrinal background

The necessity for the birth of Christ: four reasons:

a. The first one has to do with saviourhood. Whoever was the saviour of mankind had to be a member of the human race in order to save the human race — Hebrews 2:14,15; Philippians 2:5-8. The principle is very simple, it goes back to the doctrine of the divine essence. Jesus Christ is God, as God He is sovereign, as sovereign He is not subject to death and yet Philippians 2 says that to be our saviour He had to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Jesus Christ as sovereign doesn’t obey anyone. Jesus Christ is also eternal life. Eternal life cannot die and yet the wages of sin is death. And whoever pays the wages of sin, whoever becomes the saviour of the world, must die — first spiritually and second physically. He must die spiritually by bearing the sins of the world and being cut off from God, the principle of “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He must also die physically when His work is finished, but eternal life cannot die. In addition to that Jesus Christ is immutability and immutability cannot change, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” It is absolutely impossible for an immutable person to change, so in His deity Christ cannot die. Jesus Christ is also omnipotence and omnipotence plus eternal life means He couldn’t die if He wanted to die. Omnipotence plus immutability means exactly the same thing. He couldn’t change and become saviour if He wanted to become saviour because God is not subject to any change; God cannot even impose change upon Himself in the essence of His deity. So it is impossible for God to die. Therefore the reason why Christ had to become true humanity is because true humanity can die; true humanity is subject to death, and therefore as a member of the human race Jesus Christ can accomplish our so great salvation.

b. Jesus Christ is said to be the mediator between God and man in 1 Timothy 2:5,6. We have to understand from the ninth chapter of Job that a mediator is equal with both parties in the mediation. Man is one party in mediation and God is the other party. Therefore, whoever mediates between God and man must be equal with both parties in the mediation. Jesus Christ is God and, as God, he is coequal and coeternal with the Father and with the Spirit, but in order to be a mediator between God and man He must also become true humanity and be equal, not only to man as man exists but better than man in His present existence, He must be equal to Adam who came into the world in innocence. Therefore He must be sinless man. The mediator therefore must be the Man-God and Jesus Christ could only qualify by physical birth. He fulfils the equivalence with God but He does not fulfil the equivalence with man until He is born into this world, virgin birth, without a sin nature.

c. He is a priest. A priest is a man who represents man before God. It is impossible for Jesus Christ to be a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedeck unless He is a man, a member of the human race — Hebrews chapter 7, verses 4,5, 14, 28; 10:5, 10-14.

Hebrews chapter 10 emphasises the importance of the humanity of Christ and the necessity for His physical birth. In the first four verses we find that animal sacrifices were non-efficacious. Not one animal sacrifice nor a million animal sacrifices has ever provided salvation for one person. Animal sacrifices were to the ancient world as the communion table is to the believer today: a means of teaching the gospel and a method of anticipating the cross, fulfilling a principle of worship; but instead of the principle of retrospection it is the principle of anticipation.

In verse 5 — “Wherefore when he cometh into the world” — reference to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; “he saith” — remember that Jesus Christ coming into the world is true humanity, a baby in the cradle and a bona fide member of the human race, but He is also God and as God He speaks. Remember that everything Jesus said while on the earth He spoke either from His deity (e.g. “before Abraham was I existed eternally” — John 8) or from His humanity (“I thirst"), or sometimes from His hypostatic union. Here He speaks from His deity — “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not [did not desire], but a body hast thou prepared me [birth of Jesus Christ; humanity of Jesus Christ].”

— “In burn offering and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure in them” — they can teach as training aids and fulfil the principle of worship in anticipation of the cross but they can fulfil no principle of salvation.

Verse 7 — “Then said I [Jesus Christ speaking], Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me)” — reference to the Old Testament scriptures; “to do thy will, O God” — He comes to provide eternal salvation, to die for the sins of the world, to take the penalty that belongs to each member of the human race as a sinner.

Verse 8 — “Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offering and offerings for sin thou dost not desire, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by means of the law;”

Verse 9 — “Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” (And when He said this) “He taketh away the first [the Mosaic law], that he might establish the second [the new covenant which is the basis of salvation].”

Actually this is what is called the metamorphism passage. Here we have a great change set up. Metamorphisms actually begin with man. When Adam was in the world he came into the world as innocent and he became a sinner. That is the first great metamorphism — a change in man from innocence to a sinner. As a result there was a change in the woman from simply being the wife of the man and the lover of the man to a child-bearer. And when the woman became a child-bearer she was changed from sex as a matter of recreation to sex as a matter of procreation plus recreation. In other words, the woman was changed. There were no children in innocence. Now the woman is a child-bearer. Now the change in the woman leads to the change in Christ. Christ is God and now He becomes the God-man forever — doctrine of the hypostatic union. When Christ said “I come to do thy will", it was the will of the Father that man who was by physical birth a sinner would be changed and be born again and regenerate.

Verse 10 — “By the which will” — “will” is the plan of the Father, operations phases 1,2, and 3; “we are sanctified” — set apart in the past with the result that we are set apart forever; “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” — it was the body of Jesus Christ which is mentioned here. This is a human body; His deity can’t die.

Verse 11 — now the priesthood is brought in. “And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

verse 12 — “But this man [Jesus Christ had to be a man to be our High Priest], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God;

Verse 13 — “From henceforth waiting until his enemies [the fallen angels] became his footstool”.

Verse 14 — “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”.

So this passage teaches two things: Jesus Christ had to be true humanity to be our saviour; Jesus Christ had to be true humanity to be our Priest.

d. The king must be a man — reference to the Davidic covenant, 2 Corinthians chapter 7:8-16; Psalm 89:20-37. In these two passage we have a short discussion of the Davidic covenant in which God promised David unconditionally that he would have a son who would reign forever, and Jesus Christ had to become a member of the human race to fulfil the Davidic covenant; this we have seen in the genealogy, the first 17 verses.

Matthew 1:18 — “When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph” — “His mother” is a reference to the mother of His humanity. Mary is not the mother of God, she is the mother of the humanity of Christ; there is not such thing as the mother of God — “was espoused” — aorist passive participle. The meaning of the word is to be betrothed. This is equivalent to our modern engagement except that a betrothal was much more serious than a modern engagement. The aorist tense indicates the point of time in which they became officially engaged. The passive voice means that Mary received engagement. At the point of betrothal the woman was always treated in the Jewish society as being actually married, and the only way a betrothal could be broken was through divorce. That meant that if there was any adultery during the betrothal the laws of marriage and adultery applied, and it meant that if the woman was guilty of adultery she should have been stoned to death according to the Mosaic law.

His mother was espoused to Joseph. Joseph was the Davidic heir through Coniah, as we have seen, and Mary is the Davidic heir through Nathan. So we actually have the two lines of David meeting in this particular betrothal, “before they came together” — before there was any sexual relationship; “she was found with child from the source of the Holy Spirit” — God the Holy Spirit not only filled the humanity of Christ and sustained Him during the first advent but He even formed the embryo in the womb of the virgin Mary. She was a virgin, there was no sexual relationship, and this is put in for two reasons: not only to emphasise the virgin birth but also to indicate that there was no honeymoon before the marriage; “of the Holy Spirit” is a Greek preposition meaning from the source of — “from the source of the Holy Spirit.”

Now Joseph immediately faces a dilemma. If he goes to the court and announces that she is pregnant and says he has had no sexual relationship with her and accuses her, then she could be stoned and probably would have been stoned. Of course this is a great shock to Joseph, but remember, Joseph is descended from David, he is descended from a great line of nobility and he is himself a very noble person.

Verse 19 — “Then Joseph her husband [actually it says, “her fiancee”], being a just man” — the word “being” is the key here. It is a present active participle, it is linear aktionsart, it is a verb for the absolute status quo, and it indicates two things: that he was born again and that he was noble in his person, and being “a noble person” he was “not willing to make her a public example.” Not willing means that he thought this thing over and that he came to a decision not to make this a matter of court procedure. Because he loved her he wanted to protect her, a very basic principle in life. A man who really loves a woman protects a woman. This means that a man never abuses a woman in public, he never runs her down in public, he never exposes her faults to the public, he never runs around and talks about her, he keeps his mouth shut. But Joseph still was a very disappointed man and decided “to put her away privately.” This means without anything being said. To “put her away” is the Greek word for divorce: to divorce her privately, which means to bypass the court, to go back to her parents and to make some excuse that the situation is not satisfactory and that the deal is off, and to do this in a way that she would not be harmed or hurt in any way and where there would be no reproach.

Well, the dilemma was resolved. It was resolved the way so many dilemmas in life are resolved: only the Word of God provides a solution to complicated situations in life. Joseph took what he thought was the noblest course in having a private separation and breaking this thing off, but in a private separation it is possible that the truth would leak out and, again, he would put her on the spot. And while there would be no stoning to death there certainly would be ostracism from society. Even the course of action that he had decided upon was not going to solve the problem, the dilemma was still a dilemma. He had an unsolvable problem humanly speaking, and when you have an unsolvable problem humanly speaking the answer is always the same: the Word of God, doctrine, revelation from the Word.

Since the Bible was not completed and since God still revealed Himself to angels, this is exactly what we have in verse 20 — the dilemma of Joseph resolved by means of Bible doctrine. The Bible doctrine by which this will be resolved is Bible doctrine stated in Isaiah chapter 7:14, and we are actually going to have a quotation from the Word of God and an angel is going to tell Joseph that this is the fulfilment; the pregnancy of Mary is the fulfilment of Isaiah 7:14.

Verse 20 — “But while he thought on these things.” When you are in love with someone and that someone happens to be a pregnant female and you are not responsible, you begin to think! If you don’t love them it doesn’t make any difference but if it is someone you love then the mind goes into gear. That is exactly what we have here — “while he thought,” an aorist passive participle. The word here means to ponder, to go over it and over it again and again; “these things” refers to the dilemma of Mary’s pregnancy; “behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David.” Notice, he calls him son of David. Why? Because here is a man just like his great, great grandfather David. Not Joseph, but son of David. In other words, the angel of the Lord compliments him on his nobility of character; “fear not” immediately we know that he wants to do the decent thing and divorce her privately but he is not thinking too clearly at this point. There is some fear in his frontal lobe. You cannot be afraid of reality in life and think clearly about life. This is the basis for hysteria in pressure situations. While Joseph is being very noble about the situation he needs information.

Principle: If you are in any kind of a dilemma in life what you first of all need is information. Never take a course of action and do not make a decision which always precedes a course of action until you have assembled all of the facts that you can assemble, and do not make decisions under duress of pressure in your frontal lobe.

“fear not” — aorist middle subjunctive. The aorist means in the point of time when under this great pressure; the middle voice means that if he gets away from this fear he will personally be benefited by the action of the verb — middle voice: subject is benefited by the action of the verb, subject is Joseph. Joseph is benefited by fearing not. This also has a reflexive concept which means that you yourself must fear not, no one else can do it for you. The middle voice says: someone else cannot live your life for you and don’t depend upon someone else to live your life. That is why we have Bible classes: so that you can get information and live your own life. You must make your own decisions but you must make your decisions based upon doctrine.

Joseph is going to make a decision, he is going to reverse a decision. He is not going to privately put her away but he is going to stay calm and he is going to keep her and they are going to get married and Jesus is going to be born and they are going to carry right on as if nothing had ever happened. This is a new decision based on the facts he is going to get at this point. The will of God for Joseph is to sit tight and let the roof fall in let people gossip and let people malign and to keep his mouth shut and to be a man, not a self-righteous prig.

The subjunctive mood is the mood of volition. It says you can go positive or negative, you can obey and fear not, positive volition, or you can go negative and not do God’s will and you will mess it up no matter how you handle it. Joseph cannot do the will of God until his frontal lobe is cleared of this fear and this worry — “to take unto thee Mary thy wife [affianced bride]: for that which is conceived in her is from the source of the Holy Spirit.”

Verse 21 — “And she [Mary] shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus [Greek: Jesus; Hebrew: Joshua]: for he shall save his people from their sins.” “From their sins” is the problem in this verse. The word “from” is the preposition a)po, and it is the preposition of ultimate source, so: “he shall save his people from the ultimate source of their sins.”

The ultimate source of their sins is the old sin nature, so this passage actually says that Jesus would save his people from the ultimate source of their sins, He would save them from their old sin nature. Christ bore all human sins at the cross — doctrine of unlimited atonement; Christ rejected all human good at the cross; the cross is the entrance, the door that enters into the plan of God, and at no point in the Christian way of life or in eternity does God permit human good as a means of glorifying Him. Today the believer must operate under the control of the Holy Spirit and when the Holy Spirit controls his life he produces divine good, but when the old sin nature controls the life then from his area of strength comes human good. Human good is rejected; it is the wood, hay, and stubble that is rejected in the evaluation of ever believer after the Rapture. So, what did Jesus Christ do on the cross? He solved the whole problem of the sin nature, the story of Romans six. He saves us from the ultimate source of our sins, and the ultimate source of our sins is the old sin nature. This means that He dealt with every facet of the old sin nature: He rejected the human good at the cross and He bore the sins. There is no place for human good in the plan of God.

Doctrine of human good

1. Human good is identified as dead works — Hebrews 6:1.

2. Human good will not save mankind — Titus 3:5; Ephesians 2:8,9.

3. Human good is not acceptable to God — in the unbeliever, Isaiah 64:6; in the believer, Romans 8:8.

4. Human good is condemned by God — in the unbeliever, Ecclesiastes 12:14; in the believer, 1 Corinthians 3:12-15.

5. Human good is the basis of indictment of the unbeliever at the last judgement — Revelation 20:12-15.

Verse 22 — “Now all of this was done [accomplished], that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of [from] the Lord by [through] the prophet Isaiah, saying,” — Isaiah 7:14.

Verse 23 — “Behold a virgin.” Greek word for virgin, parqenoj, means a virgin and never a young woman; a virgin and only a virgin. The reason for that is that it is a quotation from ha almah, a Hebrew word which generally refers to a virgin but can mean simply a young unmarried woman. However ha almah is defined by its quotation with great clarity; it is a virgin and nothing but a virgin — “shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son.” It is no miracle when a young woman conceives and brings forth a son but it is a miracle when a virgin does so, and this was one of the two great signs to Israel with regard to the fifth cycle of discipline — first sign: virgin birth; second sign: gift of tongues.

“they shall call his name Emmanuel.” Emmanuel is the Hellenised form of the Hebrew Immanuel; “which being interpreted is, God with us” — “with us” means with man, so we have the doctrine of the hypostatic union.