23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josek, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. ~ Luke 2:23-38
I know, I know what you're thinking, "this is a long list of genealogy, and it is boring." But, it is not. In fact, by the end of this blog, you will be blown away.
In our text, Luke provides the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. In it, Luke gives a great amount of detail, listing seventy-seven names in the line of the Messiah, all the way back to Adam, and even back to God, who is the last name mentioned in v.38.
The Jews kept precise genealogical records as a matter of public availability and accuracy. And, though they were young, Mary and Joseph were devout lovers of God and of the Scripture. And they were surely aware of the fact that the prophets had said that the Messiah would come to redeem mankind. This is the purpose of this genealogy, to show the Lord Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Now, the ancestry of the Lord Jesus given by Luke takes us back to David, then back to Abraham, then back to Adam and then it goes back to God. Luke shows the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of God's redemptive prophecies and purposes. The Lord Jesus is the hope of all humanity. The fate of everyone who has ever lived and will ever live is linked to the Lord Jesus being the Messiah.
In these first three chapters of his Gospel account, Dr. Luke is amassing evidence to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. And it's irrefutable evidence. The genealogy of the Lord Jesus shows that He is the promised Messiah because He comes through the royal line that goes back to David which was predicted in advance. And it's very important in v.31, the last name is David. The Lord Jesus' lineage comes through the line of David, from Adam down to Abraham down to David down to Jesus.
Luke, in his genealogy of the Lord Jesus goes from the present to the past. He starts with the grandfather of the Lord Jesus and goes all the way back to Adam and God. Luke goes from the present to the past, whereas Matthew goes from the past to the present.
Luke's genealogy has seventy-seven names, whereas Matthew has forty-two names. Luke's list is a lot longer because he goes past Abraham all the way to Adam. Neither of the genealogy lists give all the names. Not every name is there. We know that by comparing some of the genealogy records of Genesis.
In Matthew's genealogy and in Luke's genealogy we have different names in the records. In v.31, Luke traces Jesus' line back to David through Nathan. Nathan was David's third son born to Bathsheba. But the first son born to Bathsheba was Solomon. And the genealogy in Matthew goes back through Solomon. So in Matthew's genealogy we go back through Solomon to David. In Luke's genealogy we go back through Nathan to David. So, we have two different lines.
Matthew identifies Jesus' grandfather as a man named Jacob. He writes Jesus' earthly father was Joseph and his father was Jacob. But Luke writes in v.23, that Jesus' grandfather's name was Eli. So, we've got two sons of David, and we've got two grandfathers of Jesus, one being Jacob in the genealogy of Matthew, one being Eli in the genealogy of Luke. Both are royal lines because both come out of David. Solomon comes out of David, Nathan comes out of David. You have both those royal lines.
Interestingly, from David to Abraham the genealogy of Matthew and Luke are identical. From David back to Abraham, the names are the same. But from David down, the names are completely different. When we read the genealogy in Matthew 1 and we go Joseph, Jacob, we go through a list of names back to Solomon. Then we come here, we read Eli, and we go through a list of names back to Nathan. Those lists are different. What we really have then is two grandfathers, going back to two sons of David with different names.
Everybody has two genealogies like that. One is maternal and one is paternal. In Matthew we have the genealogy of Joseph through his father Jacob back to David through Solomon. In Luke we have the genealogy of Mary through her father, Eli.
In our text, we have the genealogy of Mary which Luke gives under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to prove not only does He have the legal right to rule through His father, but He has the blood of David in his veins because of His mother. So either way, He is a descendant of David. He is the King legally through Joseph, and He is King naturally through Mary. The credentials are clear, they are detailed and they are irrefutable.
Our text includes the genealogy of Mary, but, there's a problem, Mary is not mentioned. Of course, there aren't any women named in the entire genealogy, Mary notwithstanding. So, the first male would be Mary's father, and that's Eli. So, Luke, through Mary's father Eli traces the line of the Lord Jesus all the way back through Nathan.
To the contrary, Matthew includes four women in his genealogy. In fact, he picked two prostitutes, an adulteress, and an outcast, Gentile. Luke picked Tamar, whose story included having sex with her father. Luke picked Rahab who was a prostitute. Luke picked Ruth, who was a cursed Moabitess. And, Luke picked Bathsheba who conceived a child out of wedlock with David. I love this, because Matthew does this to demonstrate and highlight God's grace.
Philip Yancey writes about grace by saying, “At the heart of the gospel is a God who deliberately surrenders to the wild, irresistable power of love.” He goes on to write, “Jesus did not give the parables to teach us how to live. He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions about who God is and who God loves.”
In v.23, we read, "Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry." The Lord Jesus had been living in obscurity in the town of Nazareth with His family, working in His father's business. He had only made one public appearance in terms of the text of Scripture, that at the age of twelve at the Passover. He spent thirty years in obscurity and didn't have a public ministry.
His public ministry was launched by His baptism in v.21-22. Luke then tells us in v.23 the Lord Jesus then began His ministry. This is verified, by the way, in Acts 1:22 and Acts 10:37 where it says He began His ministry at His baptism.
Age thirty was the recognized age when people would acknowledge someone in a position of authority. According to Numbers 4, when somebody entered into priestly service, they needed to be thirty years of age. He would have been capable at the age of eighteen, or nineteen or twenty to engage Himself in the way He did in His ministry, but He waited until an appropriate age which the people would acknowledge as an appropriate age, the age of thirty. And He began His ministry.
But, before we get into that ministry, Luke gives us this genealogy as part of His credentials. In v.23-38, Luke starts with Eli and ends with God. He goes backwards from the Lord Jesus back to Adam back to God.
In v.38, Luke identifies the Lord Jesus as the Son of God. Every one of Adam's descendants has been stained with the sin of Adam and the likeness of God has been corrupted. But, not so with the Lord Jesus who is Himself the sinless, perfect man bearing absolutely perfectly the image of God. But He is not only the Son of God, He's also the Son of Adam. He is like us, tempted, troubled, suffering, persecuted, hated, reviled and killed. He is fully man and fully God, and therefore most qualified to be our Savior.
