Why All Those Begats?
So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. Hebrews 2:11 NLT
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When I was a youth reading my Bible all the way through for the first time and came to the begats, such as in Matthew 1, I found them very boring. To be honest, I skipped them. I did not find them to be part of the “plot.” Later I found they were very much a part of the plot. Jesus inherited a family full of all kinds of sinners, but He came to make us holy. For example Rahab, who was a prostitute, was one of Jesus’ ancestors.
All the inhabitants of the city [Jericho], with every living thing that it contained, “both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass,” were put to the sword. Only faithful Rahab, with her household, was spared, in fulfillment of the promise of the spies. The city itself was burned.–PP 491 (1890).
See Matthew 1:1-16 for genealogy of Jesus, whose ancestor was Rahab. -Ellen White, Daughter’s of God, Page 36.
He became a part of the human race to rescue us from this world of sin.
For he [Jesus] has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Colossians 1:13-14 NLT
By reading all of Romans 5 we see that we were all in Adam when Adam sinned because we all came from Adam’s family.
In Romans 1:3 we read that “The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line.” Romans 1:3 NLT
Now the KJV drives it home even closer, saying Jesus was of the “seed” of David, seed being “sperm.” Everything in Adam’s sperm to David’s sperm was passed down to Jesus. Now, the lineage in Matthew 1 is Joseph’s lineage not Mary’s. The point is still the same. Mary and Joseph were both from the tribe of Judah and of the lineage of David so their heredity was very similar. While Jesus was physically fathered not by Joseph but by the Holy Spirit, Mary herself was just as much a product of Adam and David’s sperm as Joseph was.
So what is the point of all of this? While Romans 1:3 tells us Jesus shared the heredity of David, and is a part of David’s family, Jesus has also transformed that family into an obedient nation!
Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name. Romans 1:5 NLT
It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life. –Ellen White, Desire of Ages, Page 49.
You may be saying by now, “Wait a minute William. Yes Jesus was born of Mary but He was also born of the Holy Spirit which gave Him a huge advantage.” Yes you are right, and Jesus tells us in John 3, that He wants us to have the same advantage! He wants us to be born of the Holy Spirit too, so we will have power over our human nature! Jesus, in His humanity showed us the only way to triumph over sin – to be born again by the Holy Spirit.
So the ‘begots’ are a major part of the plot. Jesus became a part of a family of sinners and rescued that family from the penalty and the power of every kind of sin. He become “one” with us and experienced every type of temptation that attacks us.
God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:3-4 NKJV
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Eph. 2:4-6 ESV
Christ become “one” with us in a human body weighed down by a heritage of sin so that we might be “one” with Him, seated with Him “in the heavenly places.”
What wonderful exchange! And all it takes is for us to surrender our hearts and to allow Him to be Lord of our lives.
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