Jesus Identified Matthew 1:1

Who is Jesus? The answers vary with every swaying opinion, however there is one sure foundation from which to derive our answer. That’s the Bible. Believe it or not the entire Bible speaks of Jesus and His work. Jesus is identified throughout the Bible as the One who is to come. Who will set right what went wrong. The Bible is never in doubt about who Jesus is and neither should we be.

Matthew identifies Him as “Christ”, “The son of David” and “the son of Abraham.”

In order to understand these names we have to understand a little about each of these men:

Who was David?

David’s life is a storied one. One of the main characters in Scripture, he is regarded as Israel’s greatest King. See I&II Samuel.

David was a man after God’s own heart. (Not a perfect man) but a man that God used mightily. Therefore, God made an eternal promise to David, that he would never lack one of His descendants to sit on his throne. No matter what else God did in national Israel, He would always preserve His people (not always the throne) in order to fulfill that eternal promise.

-The people sought to place Jesus on that throne and see to it that Roman rule was subverted.

-However, Jesus was not here to advance an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly one.

That a king was coming was never in doubt, but just what kind of king would He be?

Who was Abraham?

Abraham was the father of the Israelite people. Genesis 15 shows us that Abraham was to be more than just “father of nations” (the meaning of his name); he was to be the ancestor of the One that was to come. The Messiah.

God’s promise to Abraham to which the Jewish people tightly held, was the hope that one day all that was wrong would be made right. The people of Jesus day wrongly saw this as a promise of national dominance. It had nothing to do with an earthly kingdom. It was all about a heavenly one.

What do each of the descriptions of Jesus represent?

1. Salvation:

a. Matthew begins his gospel with similar wording that we find in Genesis 2:4. In fact the very word, “genesis” is here in this verse. This may just be a unique way to introduce this section of the work, but it’s interesting that Matthew takes it from “genesis” (origin) to the “end of the age” (the last phrase of the gospel).

b. The first way that Jesus is described is by His name. Jesus Christ, Jesus means “Salvation has come” See 1:21. Christ is the Greek word that mean anointed one and is the equivalent of the Heb. word Messiah.

c. Matthew is presenting, the “origin story” of the hero of the Bible. God’s story that began with creation and almost immediately fell into darkness also began with a promise (Gen. 3:15). That promise, Matthew is saying, was and is and will be fulfilled in Jesus. Matthew is weaving the life of Jesus into the redemptive story of the Old Testament because his work (and the rest of the NT) is the culmination of that work.

2. Submission:

a. “Son of David” this clearly means that Jesus is the fulfillment of the major promise made to David. These were the two promises upon which the Jews based everything. This promise of everlasting kingship by David’s descendant (2 Sam. 7) brought with it a hope of peace. However, as we will see next week, it also brought with it a stark reality.

b. We say that Saul was the first King of Israel, but that isn’t technically true. God is king over Israel and all His creation. It’s interesting that the monarchy of Israel came about only after the people complained that they did not have a King like the other nations. That represented to them safety and security, national defense and a sense of equal sovereignty and legitimacy in the sight of the other nations. However, God warned them that when they put someone in this position of authority, that the person they made king would abuse their power. Historically, we have seen that principle prove itself over and over again.

c. In these words God intended to help us understand that He is still King. Christ is King, not just of one nation but of all nations. The promise that God made to Israel would be fulfilled in Christ and we know that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” Phil 2:10-11

3. Certainty:

a. It goes not only simply back to the beginning of the Kingship of David and God’s promises to him, but all the way back to God’s larger promises to Abraham. More than just a promise of national fulfillment. Abraham’s covenant with God interacted with God on the basis of His (God’s ) own character. There was a broader scope of purpose. We can tell that in the wording: “and through you all the nations of the earth will be blest.”

b. Not only can we tell that in the wording, but also in the performance of the covenant itself. See Gen. 15:12-ff. This was God’s guarantee that these things would take place.

c. If God gives His guarantee and fulfillment, we can be certain that God will fulfill what He said that He would do in Matthew’s gospel (and the rest of the NT).

This means:

There certainly will be a date that you and I stand before God.

There certainly will be a judgement

And we certainly will not have any merit in that moment unless we recieve that merit from Jesus Christ.