Luke's Gospel, chapter 3 and
verse 23. And this is one of those portions
from the Word of God where you'll be able to say throughout the
reading, oh, that's not how I would have pronounced that, but it's how I will pronounce
it today. And we'll just see how that works
out. So be patient with me, please. Luke's Gospel, chapter 3, verse
23. And Jesus himself began to be
about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Heli. which was the son of Mathat,
which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which
was the son of Jana, which was the son of Joseph, which was
the son of Matthias, which was the son of Amos, which was the
son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of
Nagi, which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Matthias,
which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which
was the son of Judah, which was the son of Joanna, which was
the son of Resa, which was the son of Zerubbabel, which was
the son of Salalthiel, which was the son of Neri, which was
the son of Melki, which was the son of Adi, which was the son
of Kosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of
Er. which was the son of Josi, which
was the son of Eleazar, which was the son of Jorim, which was
the son of Mathat, which was the son of Levi, which was the
son of Simeon, which was the son of Judah, which was the son
of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of
Eliakim. which was the son of Melia, which
was the son of Menan, which was the son of Matathah, which was
the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, which was the
son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of
Boaz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Nassan.
which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which
was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was
the son of Judah, which was the son of Jacob, which was the son
of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of
Tara, which was the son of Nehor, which was the son of Saruch,
which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Falek, which was
the son of Heber, which was the son of Salah, which was the son
of Canaan, which was the son of Aphax, Arphaxad, which was
the son of Shem, which was the son of Noah, which was the son
of Lamech, which was the son of Methuselah, which was the
son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of
Malalil, which was the son of Canaan, which was the son of
Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which
was the son of God. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Here we have a genealogy of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I say a genealogy because
it is not the only one. There is another in Matthew's
Gospel as well. And it's quite different. Now,
it's often said that Matthew wrote his gospel with a Jewish
audience in mind, while Luke was thinking more of a Gentile
readership. Now, just how true this is, I
would not wish to say, though it may provide an explanation
or an indication as to why there are differences in the respective
genealogies that each writer supplies. And it has been suggested
that Matthew provides Christ's genealogy from Abraham, to whom
the first promises of the Messiah coming from his seed were given,
through David, who was also given promises by the Lord of his children
sitting continually upon the throne, all the way down to Joseph
and Mary, or Joseph, Joseph in this case. So that this would
be the regal or the royal line that would reveal Jesus of Nazareth
to be heir to the throne of his ancestor David and heir to the
promises that were given to Abraham. And this would be particularly
significant to a Jewish audience. Jewish audience who would be
eager to see the prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled and
realised in the Messiah. They would, as it were, gel together,
they would fit together the things that were being said of Christ
by Matthew and the expectation that had long been stirred up
in the Jewish peoples. Luke, on the other hand, it is
said, gives the natural line of Jesus Christ through his mother,
which emphasises the human nature of our Lord. Mary is not specifically
mentioned in Luke in the verses that we've just read because
she took her name from Joseph, she took her husband's name which
was the traditional way of naming a household but what this interpretation
does, and it's only an interpretation so I'm not insisting upon it,
but it's a way of explaining the differences in these genealogies. What this explanation does is
it explains why Matthew, for example, says that Joseph was
the son of Jacob in Matthew chapter 1 verse 16, while here Luke calls
him the son of Eli or the son of Heli. so that by this explanation,
Heli was actually the father to Mary and father-in-law to
Joseph, so that we're being given by these two writers the paternal
and the maternal lines of genealogy. And if this is right, and perhaps
this dual lineage was supplied, to emphasise both the prophetic
fulfilment and royal title of the Messiah which Jesus possessed,
and his true human nature as well. That these two things, the one
being the fulfilment of the promises, the bringer in of the covenant
blessings, and also the fact that he was just a man like all
other men and women after the flesh. What does appear clear
is that both these gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, felt it useful
to record the Lord's pedigree in this way, his heritage from
the various lines, the lineage. and having done so, they supply
us with evidence for the interconnectedness of the Testaments. You cannot
get away from a reading like this without realising that all
of these people were Old Testament people. I don't know if they
were all believers, many of them were. but we see that interconnection
between the Testaments given to us simply by the fact that
these Gospel writers recorded the lineage so explicitly and
precisely and factually as they both did. And it shows also that
there is not only the connectedness of the Testaments, but the continuity
of the covenant promises of redemption and grace through the Messiah
who would come. So that all the way from the
very beginning, from the Garden of Eden as it were, where the
promise was given that one would bruise the serpent's head, all
the way down through Moses and what he relates of the prophet
who would come, who would be raised up amongst the people,
the promises given to the patriarchs, down through the prophetic ministries
of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the others, Jonah and Malachi, anticipating
the coming Micah, anticipating the coming of the Messiah. Here
we see him focusing in on this person, Jesus of Nazareth. And many of the names listed
in this passage that we've read here from Luke are only mentioned
in passing in the Old Testament. And some are not mentioned at
all. And Luke must have gathered these names from other sources. and in Luke is the only record
we have of these individuals. And yet there are some familiar
names that emphasise the history of grace and the beauty of the
types of our Saviour in the Old Testament. For example, in Here
is included such information as the presence in the Lord's
genealogy of Rahab the harlot, a Canaanite woman from Jericho
at the time of Joshua, and also of Ruth the Moabitess. And these were Gentile women.
And yet here is their presence in the line of the Messiah, giving
an interest to all men and women throughout the whole world concerning
the coming of the Saviour into the world. Or again, the reference
that we see here to Phares. Phares is a forefather of the
Saviour. and yet he was born to Judah
by his daughter-in-law Tamar through deception and trickery
and lust. Yet despite all these mistakes
and sins and dishonesties perpetrated by men and women in the Lord's
genealogy, God the Father ordained the line. In his loving wisdom,
in his foreknowledge, he ordained the line through which the Holy
Child would be born and the Redeemer of the world would be revealed.
He preserved that line during the captivity of Egypt, in the
days of Esther in Persia, under the captivity in Babylon and
despite the Roman occupation of Israel. And thus we see that
while it is true that God the Father prepared a body for his
Son, yet the line from which the Messiah came was a line of
fallen, broken men and women just like us, which was the whole
reason for him coming. And let me say this about this
little section from Luke's Gospel. It is as much a part of the inspired
Word of God as the glorious passages of doctrinal truth that we are
presently reading on the Lord's Day in Romans, for example, or
in Ephesians or Galatians. There are some who mock these
passages in the Gospels and use them to attack the veracity and
the reliability of Scripture as a whole and thereby try to
undermine its authority. But we who love the Lord see
these matters differently. We see them as supporting evidence. We see them as facts that confirm
the promises of God to the Old Testament saints and to the new. fulfilments that realise the
words of the prophets and show the Lord Jesus Christ to be a
worthy saviour for needy sinners. And maybe we can express this
with reference just to the final verse in our passage today. That verse which read, which
was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. Jesus, look,
is telling us, Jesus, which was the son of Adam, Jesus, which
was the son of God, the son of man and the son of God. Find union in our Lord Jesus
Christ. As the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus
was truly human, fully man in human flesh, with a human soul
and spirit, and thereby able and fit to stand forth as representative,
surety, and ultimately as substitute for his people. The fact of the Lord's humanity
and the fact that he has taken upon himself our flesh is one
of the reasons we have no right to despise our flesh. or this
body that we dwell in. It's one of the reasons why we
take the fact that though this body and our flesh is the cause
of so much of our trouble here in the world, yet it is to be
respected and it is to be appreciated and indeed it has to be loved.
God made this flesh. And Christ took this flesh and
he honoured it by doing so. He let us see what it could be
and not what it was. In the body of this flesh, in
our own experience, we can draw great comfort and help from knowing
our Lord Jesus Christ had exactly the same body as us, except for
sin. He felt pain. He knew weariness
and sadness and loneliness and frustration and anger and shame. In fact, I think we can safely
say that there's not an emotion or a trouble that the Lord did
not endure, even to guilt, as he bore our sin and carried our
sorrow. and yet he was too the Son of
God. Not, of course, by natural birth,
but as the only begotten of the Father, co-equal and co-eternal
with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ
did, in his divine nature, join with our flesh. In doing so,
he upheld the human spirit of Jesus the man, enabling, strengthening,
equipping him to serve God perfectly, obey God's will fully, and endure
the curse of the law completely and entirely so as to atone for
every sin, fulfil every obligation, and remove every accusation against
us, his people. Jesus Christ, the Son of Adam,
the Son of God, truly man, truly God, King of kings, Lord of lords,
worthy to be trusted, loved, worshipped, and obeyed, now in
this world and to all eternity. Amen.