The Baptism And Genealogy Of Jesus
THE BAPTISM AND GENEALOGY OF JESUS
LUKE 3:21-38
Many of us just drift through life. Have we really begun to live for God and fulfill the work he has for us?
Verses 21-22. The words mean no more than that Jesus waited until the mass movement of John’s revival was past. He sought no spectacular publicity. John’s thought moved in the orbit of the great Isaiah, and God, as he ever does, met him on the level of his thought: “Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down,” the prophet had cried (Isaiah 64:1), and so it came to pass.
3:23-38. The genealogy makes dull reading for us. To the Jews it would have been of the utmost importance. Detailed records were kept at Jerusalem. Hillel, who lived at this time, had no difficulty in demonstrating his Davidic descent. There are Polynesians, alive today, who, without written records, can recite their descent to remote centuries. The difficulty of Matthew’s variant genealogy is felt only by the modern world, inadequately informed about Jewish practice. It is obvious that Matthew and Luke, with access to the same information, and writing in the same generation, would not knowingly contradict each other. It is clear that they must have followed different plans. Matthew gives Joseph’s line, while making it clear that Jesus was not Joseph’s son, because Joseph was Jesus’ legal father, a point important for more than one reason in Jewish law. It was also necessary to establish the fact that Mary had married within the tribe. Legislation mentioned in the closing chapters of Numbers shows the necessity for this to be clear. Luke almost certainly gives the genealogy of Mary. Joseph, not Mary, is given as the immediate descendant of Eli because Joseph authenticated Mary’s inheritance by the Numbers legislation (Numbers 27:1-11; 36:1-13). It is probable that more exact information would establish some ritual of adoption in such cases. Note that Matthew takes the line back to David; Jesus was King. Luke takes it to Adam; Jesus was the Son of Man, the world’s Savior, not the Jews’ alone. Luke, the friend of Paul, has the world in view. He has just spoken of the baptism, necessary only as the sign of the identification of the Sinless One with sinful man. We have our part and place here.