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The Genealogy of Jesus

Older than the scriptures[1] are the genealogies recording the seed line that traced back to the first promise of God. The genealogies were important to the Hebrews, because they relate directly to the promises of God. Since the day Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, the Hebrews and those before them—the God fearers—passed down both their genealogies and the oral traditions[2] of the encounters of their fathers with Yahweh.

Long before the first of the scriptures were written down, long before there was a Hebrew[3] people, the oral tradition kept alive the promise of God, the promise deliverance would come from the seed of the woman to lift God’s curse upon mankind and the earth. The promises of God had not been forgotten, as men of faith looked forward in hope that God, by removing the curse,[4] would restore the earth to peace and righteousness.

The Hebrews, and the God-fearers before them, were not looking for Yahweh to come in the flesh and become a man. Nowhere in the scriptures can this be demonstrated. What can be demonstrated from the  scriptures  is that  those  of faith  were  looking  in  hope  for  the promised seed who would undo the curse, and the earth would once again be like the garden of God.[5] The genealogies were keeping a record to establish from whence the promised seed would originate.

 

The New Testament scriptures begin with these words, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”[6] The gospel of Luke travels even farther back in the genesis of Jesus, all the way “to Adam; the son of God.”[7]

The Hebrews thought it important—no, critical—to keep the record straight, so it could be established where the promised seed would originate.[8] This was the major reason why the Hebrews were so adamant about keeping genealogies.

For them, it was of vital importance that the promised, expected one could be shown to have come through the line of David, all the way back to Abraham, to whom God had promised that through his seed the nations would be blessed.[9] At the beginning of the record-keeping, it was more than simply keeping a family tree; it was an act of faith, reminding the people of God of His promise to bless all nations.

Those living at the time of Jesus’ arrival were not looking for or expecting a virgin to conceive and give birth to God. For this is what the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Jesus means.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the virgin birth of Jesus, was formulated centuries after the apostles had died off and the Catholic faith dominated the Church of Jesus Christ. The fact is, other ancient religions had stories of the virgin births of their gods long before the Catholic Church “creedified” the virgin birth of Jesus, and made the acceptance of the doctrine a prerequisite of faith. Under the domination of the Roman Church, the worship of Mary ensued, and is well entrenched in the conscience of the Catholic faithful.

At the bottom of it all is a dogma that states, as proof, that Jesus is God because of his virgin birth. And because of the dogma of the virgin birth, Mary has been venerated as the mother of God, the virgin queen of heaven, who was herself sinless and remains forever immaculate. These apparently simple observations have played a significant role in the history of the Church. The virgin birth of Jesus is a dogma that has for centuries shaped what people see and understand today as a fundamental truth for the single largest segment of Christianity. Today, most of what is called Protestantism has done away with the dogma of the veneration of Mary, while a majority (Roman Catholicism) continues to hold to both the virgin birth and the worship of Mary.

As a historical footnote, when the Protestants broke with the Roman Church in the early sixteenth century, with Martin Luther leading the way in what is called the Protestant Reformation, they took with them many of the traditions and dogmas which had for centuries been responsible for binding the consciousness of the faithful. What immediately followed the Reformation was religious intolerance, as bloody battles were fought between sects of Christianity over doctrine and forms of worship.[10] Many tens of thousands, on both sides, perished over the ensuing centuries. Ultimately, many of the traditions and dogmas that followed those who broke away from the Roman Catholic faith are still found today within denominational Christianity.[11]

 

All this becomes important in the light of its negation of the purpose of having two Gospel accounts revealing the genesis of Jesus, the Nazarene. In other words, why have a record of Jesus’ blood line, if Jesus did not have an earthly father? Why have a genealogy at all, and why would the bloodline really matter if Jesus was truly God, the Almighty El Elohiym (Yahweh) manifested in the flesh?

The question begs for an answer. If Jesus was immortal and preexisted (according to the creeds), and was “other than human, more than human, the God man, Yahweh becoming man,” why have a genealogy tracing the seed line all the way back to the first man? In terms of faith, what does the genealogy of Jesus really matter? The fact is, seen in light of the dogma of the Trinity; the genealogy of Jesus is not of any consequence to faith.

The silence of the creeds[12] concerning the documented fact that Jesus of Nazareth sprang from the loins of David[13] cries out to us.

 

As another side note, if the purpose of the dogma of the virgin birth is to establish that Jesus is none other than God himself, what does one do with the first Adam? Adam, according to the scriptures, did not have traditional parents, since God created him from the dust of the earth. Does it mean that Adam, not having been conceived in the womb, with neither a mother nor father, is God? And yet Adam is of God, as Luke's genealogy reveals, "Adam, the son of God." [14]

Keep in mind, the impeccable lineage of the seed was the understanding among those of faith who believed the promise of God, and who kept the genealogical records. In light of that record, the Hebrews, and before them the God-fearers, understood and believed that Adam was simply a man. He was a man who died and returned to the dust,[15] as all men do. In the entire history of the Church, has there been anyone who seriously entertained the notion that Adam was God, because he was a man without parents, a man who was conceived outside of the womb?

But Jesus did have parents, as the gospel writers attested,[16] and as the genealogical record testifies. If Jesus, the man who walked among us, was not like us, was not a brother in every way in which a brother can be,[17] but preexisted in eternity past (as Church tradition and her creeds affirm[18]), then the genealogies in Matthew's and Luke’s gospels make no sense, and their presence serves no real value. In reality, the value and importance of the genealogy of Jesus has simply been overshadowed by Church dogma.

Even more compelling is the fact that when the apostles wrote the epistles to the Church, that form the doctrine of the Christ which the believer in God holds and defends as the truth, they never once mentioned a virgin birth relating to Jesus of Nazareth. Their epistles[19] are absolutely silent on the matter.

 

The “holy grail” of Church teaching[20] (dogma) is that God, the Almighty El Elohiym Yahweh[21] of the scriptures, became a man. If this is true, then the purpose and reason for the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth is irrelevant. In truth, the dogma of the virgin birth of Jesus, along with all it endorses, (the veneration of Mary and the need and value of worshipping her) makes it clear that the genealogy of Jesus holds no value in the consciousness of denominational Christianity.

With the dogma that claims God became a man, the genealogical connection becomes vague, and the importance of the seed of the woman and the reality of Jesus of Nazareth, a man,[22] a brother,[23] who understood and suffered[24] the infirmities of what being a man is—are all but lost.[25]

The fact is, there was no mention of the virgin birth, and no traditions for such were established in the early Church during the time of the apostles and those who immediately followed them. The early Church did not even celebrate the birth of Jesus.[26] As for the apostles, and those who immediately followed them, when defending their faith,[27] their main emphasis for the Churches was teaching “the doctrine of the Christ,” [28]and warning against those who transgress the doctrine.

Before the apostles had been laid to rest, that doctrine was under attack and was being corrupted away from the simplicity of God's truth.[29] The doctrine of the Christ had already come under heavy attack, as the apostles warned in their epistles to the Church. The Apostle John warned, “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son."[30] What John warned about became the reality: There are, indeed, those in the Church who have gone too far in the teaching of God's Christ. John’s warning pointed us toward the Gnostics who had crept into the Church. According to the Gnostics,[31] Jesus of Nazareth was not a man of flesh and blood, but some sort of spirit aberration. In their understanding, the flesh was evil;[32] therefore Jesus could not have been a flesh-and-blood man.

John’s philosophical battle with the Gnostics occurred before Jesus was elevated by other dogmas to God status. But it was the beginning. The ground was laid by the Gnostics, and their elevation of Jesus to divine status, with the belief that Jesus was not man tainted with the evil of flesh. Not for another two to three centuries did the creeds define and elevate Jesus to the status of God manifested in the flesh.

The teaching which had “gone too far,” beginning when John warned against those who denied that Jesus was a man of flesh, has transformed throughout Church history into what we see today. In just a few generations, fueled by religious fervor, along with the influence of Greek philosophy and religion, Christianity would soon become something the apostles would not recognize. The reality of the fragmented Church of our day is the evidence that this “going too far” in the doctrine of the Christ[33] is much more advanced then what the apostles themselves could have imagined.

 

The apostles believed in the foundational truth that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Seed.[34] They looked to the scriptures and saw clear evidence that Jesus as the one sent by God,[35] and was the fulfillment of the prophets, and the promises made to the fathers.[36] They clearly understood that Jesus was the Christ who was “declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness through the resurrection from the dead.”[37]

Today, and since the fourth century C.E., Jesus has been elevated to the status of God who was manifested in the flesh.[38] John’s warning even found its place in the dogma, since it was established in the creeds of the Church that the Almighty El Elohiym Yahweh lowered Himself to become a man. Somehow in an inexplicable mystery God became the Godman—fully God, fully man, indivisible in essence from the Father, the Son and the Spirit, all three fully equal in purpose and will.

Simply stated, according to Church dogma believed by the vast majority of Christendom, Jesus of Nazareth was and is none other than God.

But is this what the apostles taught as the doctrine of the Christ, which they exhorted the Church to defend?

Did the apostles believe Jesus was God when they taught that Jesus was the man whom God raised from the dead?

Was it the understanding of the apostles that God cursed Himself according to the law by allowing Himself to be hanged from a tree?[39]

Did they believe and teach that, on account of sinners, God was made to be sin?[40]

That it was God who ordained Himself to be the man who would judge the world?[41]

Is there anywhere in the apostles' writings that states that Jesus of Nazareth is the Almighty El Elohiym of the Old Testament Scriptures?[42]

If the dogma of the Trinity is true, do the answers to any of these questions make sense? And do we simply resign ourselves, as it is and has been expected, to understand and accept that the dogma of the Trinity, three Gods in One[43] as an incomprehensible sacred mystery beyond human understanding?

 

To acknowledge the importance of the genealogy of Jesus is to understand the focus of the New Testament writers, who emphasized Jesus’ bloodline as an important part of “the apostles' doctrine.”[44]

From the beginning, the apostles taught and preached that Jesus was a man who had come through the seed of David. This was clearly demonstrated in Peter's thinking[45] when he delivered the first message to the Church on the day of Pentecost. Peter declared to his kinsmen, “Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, who is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us to this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.”[46]

On the day of Pentecost Peter had an opportune moment, while he and the rest were filled with the Spirit of God,[47] to show that Jesus was (really) Yahweh manifested in the flesh. If Jesus was God, as the Church creeds affirm,[48] this would have been the perfect moment to present the case that the nation was guilty of killing God.[49]

Instead, Peter went directly to address the genealogy of Jesus to demonstrate to his kinsmen that the Jesus whom they had crucified was the promised One of the scriptures. Surely, Peter’s motive for doing so was out of necessity, and primarily for the sake of his own kinsmen according to the flesh (Israel) - to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the son of David, produced from “the fruit of his loins.”[50]

 

To summarize the facts explained in this important topic: The genealogy of Jesus’ ancestors was maintained through generations of Hebrews[51] for the purpose of proving that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of David. No one ever argued or disputed that, not even his most ardent enemies, because Jesus’ linage did, indeed, trace back to the loins of David.

Peter’s point is clear: Jesus of Nazareth was the one sent by God, the one whom the House of Israel had murdered.[52] But as Peter also pointed out, God raised him up from the dead.[53] Again, no one could deny the truth of the resurrection.[54] And to bring his message all together, Peter reminded his kinsmen that, after Jesus was raised up from the dead, God made him both Lord and Christ.[55]

    It was this truth which cut to the hearts of those who heard Peter speak that day.[56]

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