Matthew 1:17-25

It’s absolutely crystal clear that the genealogy was intended to be that of Jesus’ ‘legal’ ancestry, not of his physical ancestry.

Both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke declare that Jesus was virgin born.

Joseph was not His father, but Mary was not unfaithful to Joseph. Jesus is not an illegitimate child. This is something completely new in the world.

Now, I personally have never object to any person saying that he doesn’t believe in the virgin birth. Every person man has the right to disbelieve, it’s his free choice. However, I’ve got a big problem with a pastor, a preacher, a minister, or a priest who makes their living teaching the Word of God denying the virgin birth. That person, even though he may have a knowledge of the Bible as a book, has no revelation knowledge, no understanding of the Word behind the typed pages. He hasn’t met the Author and he doesn’t know the One who spoke the words and he’s definitely not in the right job. I’ve had these people come across my path a number of times and usually they are much harder to get along with than the unbeliever. For a person to set themself up as an authority on something when they’ve completely misunderstood the foundation of what they’re supposed to be an authority on, takes a special kind of pitiful soul.

 

There are many people who say that the Bible doesn’t teach the virgin birth, but this immediately places them in the same camp. There’s simply no evidence of a Jesus who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, The Christ who was born through the normal human birth method.

These people have fallen into the great trap of humanity. They believe that their puny, frail, and incomplete human knowledge is so great that they know everything about everything and that by rationalising according to that human knowledge they can become absolutely certain of anything.

Nothing can happen in the universe outside of that human knowledge and understanding. How wrong this is. Despite that belief, even in our natural world, new discoveries are being made almost daily which prove that current human understanding was incomplete or just downright wrong. These poor souls genuinely believe that we humans are at the highest point of knowledge possible, even though this’s shown to be wrong every day.

The human race does not have the power to create anything at all from absolutely nothing and neither is there a power anywhere that can do that other than our all-powerful, all knowing God. God’s the Creator of natural laws. He can either use those natural laws or He can set them aside in order to accomplish His purposes.

The record given to us by God clearly states that Jesus Christ was virgin born and as we continue on we find there could be no other way that salvation could come to man than through the virgin birth that detoured around the seed of sinful man.

 

In verse 17 we find a statement which will explain something in the genealogies, and we read,

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations. 

 

Matthew puts the genealogy into groupings to give an overall view of Old Testament history.

One era extends from Abraham to David, another from David to the Babylonian captivity, and the third from the captivity in Babylon to the birth of Jesus Christ. Obviously, he has omitted some names from the genealogy in order to fit fourteen into each period. The question is, why did he do this? Apparently, the number fourteen (twice seven, seven number that means “completeness”) offers some proof concerning the accuracy of this genealogy.

Now that Matthew’s shown that Joseph’s not the father of Jesus, he’s going to give us an explanation.

 

Already in the Old Testament, a supernatural birth has been predicted by God. Jeremiah is talking to the nation Israel in Jeremiah 31 verse 22 where he says,

“How long will you gad about, O you backsliding daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth—A woman shall encompass a man.”

Now a quick glance at this verse, especially in its English form, might cause us to skip over and miss what the Lord is saying here through the prophet Jeremiah.

The backsliding daughter here is Israel the nation.

A woman shall compass a man means the female shall protect the strong man; the weaker nature that needs help will surround the stronger with loving and fostering care. As we go into verse 31 of this chapter in Jeremaiah we see that the Lord is promising

 

The words are the Lord speaking to the nation of Israel through Jeremaiah and He asks the nation Israel, who are coming out of captivity, why they keep going around looking everywhere and to anyone for help and comfort except to Jehovah, God.

Then the Lord tells them to keep pinning their hopes firmly on Him. He tells them He hasn’t run out of resources to help Israel and humanity. A new era is approaching, an era of grace and that grace is in Christ. A new creation will mark that era, the Incarnation of Christ; when the Virgin Woman shall compass a Man, and give birth to “the Man, Christ Jesus.” This new covenant will be ratified with Christ’s blood. 1 Corinthians 11:25 says,

“In the same way he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’”.

The ancient Jews acknowledged this as the correct interpretation and applied the words to the coming Messiah.

Most of the early Christian fathers regarded the verse as predicting the event of the Virgin Mary compassing Christ in her womb.

The virgin birth of the Lord Jesus is the “new thing” which God promised here.

 

Now to Matthew 1:18,

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 

 

“The birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.” Matthews saying, “Here’s the way it happened.” When His mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, that is, she was engaged to him, before they came together, in other words before they had any sexual relationship, she was found with child, pregnant, of the Holy Spirit.

 

Verse 19,

Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. 

 

The Mosaic Law was very specific about this situation. It said that a woman who was guilty of being unfaithful should be stoned to death. Punishments were a serious business in ancient Israel.

But this man Joseph was a no ordinary man, in fact he was a pretty remarkable man. We devote a great deal of attention to Mary, and that’s entirely as it should be.

Non Catholics should be careful not to throw the baby out with bathwater where Mary is concerned. It’s true that the real Mary she has no resemblance to the Roman Catholic one.

Roman Catholic dogma states the perpetual or never ending virginity of Mary.

Verse 25, which we’ll come to shortly clearly shows that sexual intercourse did take place between May and Josph after Jesus’s birth. There’s simply no bases in the Bible for the Catholic tradition of the ‘never ending or perpetual virginity’ of Mary.

This is an unbiblical doctrine which didn’t appear till five hundred years after Jesus’ birth. It should be placed with the other Roman Catholic dogmas of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, her assumption into heaven, and her present role as a mediator for believers. Each one of these is man’s invention and they’re not in the Bible. They’re meant to exalt Mary in an unbiblical manner.

However, we shouldn’t be put off from giving Mary a great deal of credit. She was a remarkable person.

Remember that she was the one whom God chose to be the mother of our Lord, and God didn’t make a mistake. He picked the right girl. While all this is true, we need to remember that God also chose Joseph. God didn’t make a mistake in choosing him either. A hot–headed type of bloke would have immediately had her stoned to death or would have made her a public example by exposing her. But Joseph just wasn’t that kind of man. He was a gentle person. He was in love with her, and he didn’t want to hurt her in any way, even though at that moment he felt that she’d been unfaithful to him.

So, rather than put her through awful shame and punishment he thought to himself that he’d take her somewhere and secretly hide her from the locals who would no doubt condemn her and call for her punishment.

 

Matthew 1:20,

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 

 

In order to prevent a tragic situation, the angel appeared to Joseph to make clear to him what was taking place.

 

Verse 21,

And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” 

 

If ever there was a name that was packed with meaning, it’s the name Jesus.

Scripture, in Philippians 2:9–10, says Jesus has been given, quote, “the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.”

Why is our Lord’s name so powerful? What does the name Jesus mean? In short it means Saviour or “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation.” Yahweh is the Jewish name for God. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the name is Yeshua and it’s a combination of Ya, an abbreviation for Yahweh, the name of Israel’s God from Exodus 3:14, and yasha, meaning “rescue,” “deliver,” or “save.”

The name of Jesus is important because of its meaning and because of who it represents. There’s power and authority in the person of Christ Jesus, and the person is described by the name.

 

Verse 22,

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 

 

Matthew, who is writing for the nation Israel, points out that all this was done so that it might be fulfilled as the Lord had spoken.

Matthew’s appealing to the nation Israel to understand that this One who had come is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

There’re over three hundred prophecies concerning the first coming of Christ that have been literally fulfilled and we have an attachment under the Notes and outlines tab on this page showing 351 of them. We’re not sure how many of them are in this Gospel of Matthew, but we do know that Matthew quoted more from the Old Testament than the other three Gospel writers put together.

Matthew records things and then confirms them from the Old Testament. You see he’s not so much trying to give a sort of biography of the life of Christ but instead he’s showing the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning Him.

Now, in verse 23, he states the prophecy which was given in Isaiah 7:14,

“BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD, AND BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which is translated, “God with us.”

 

Now let’s look at this a bit deeper because it’s very important.

The liberal theologian, the so-called broadminded, permissive minister whose motivation is to please the world has, of course, denied the virgin birth of Christ, and he’s denied that the Bible teaches His virgin birth.

Now, here’s where we need to be careful with the different Bible translations because a number of them were published in order to try to support these liberals and their views that deny the virgin birth.

For example, if we look at this verse, Isaiah 4:7, which Matthew in chapter 1 verse 23 is quoting we see it reads, quote, “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD, AND BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which is translated, “God with us.”

However, in the BBE – Bible in Basic English, ERV – Easy Read Version, ISV – International Standard Version, GNB – Good News Bible, RSV – Revised Standard Version and a number of other translations, this verse is completely changed to read, quote, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Notice that in Isaiah they substituted “young woman” for the word virgin, even though in Matthew 1:23 they used the word virgin, which is a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14!

 

The prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was given as a sign. My friends, it’s not a sign from God in any way at all for a young woman to conceive and bear a son. It’s ludicrous. They translated it “young woman” to tone down that word virgin.

Let’s look at Isaiah 7:14 in the original Hebrew language.

The word used for “virgin” is almah. The translators of these bibles mentioned went to the writings of a chap named Wilhelm Gesenius, who was a great scholar and he admitted that the common translation of the word is “virgin,” but he said that it could also be changed to “young woman.” The reason he said that was because he rejected the miraculous, especially the virgin birth, so these new translation and others who  followed him, have attempted to say that almah means “young woman” and not “virgin.”

 

Let’s turn back to Isaiah 7 and study the incident recorded there and in the context it was given. This was during the time when Ahaz was on the throne. He was one of those who was a long way away from God. He was one of the bad kings.

God sent Isaiah to bring a message to him, but he wouldn’t listen. We read this in Isaiah 7:10-12,

Moreover, the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!”.

 

This was an act of pretended godliness, and it was hypocrisy for this Ahaz to say what he did.

God had asked Isaiah to meet Ahaz to deliver God’s message to him that God would give victory to Ahaz. However, Ahaz wouldn’t believe God and so, in order to encourage his faith, Isaiah tells him that God wants to give him a sign. In his over the top pretence of godliness Ahaz says, “Oh, I wouldn’t ask a sign of the Lord.” Isaiah answered him by saying well alrighty then, “God’s going to give you a sign whether you like it or not. The sign isn’t just for you but for the whole house of David.” Now here is the sign: “… Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”, our classic and beautiful prophecy of Isaiah 7 verse 14.

Obviously, if this refers to a young woman, it would be no sign at all to Ahaz, or to the house of David, or to anybody else.

It wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary at all. God may as well have said I’ll send you a sign, a baby will grow up to be teenager or I’ll send you a sign an old man’s hair will turn grey; but if a virgin conceives and bears a son, that, my friend, is a sign. And it’s a sign so far and away outside any other possibility other than it was given by Almighty God Himself. And that’s exactly what it means.

When the word almah is used in the Old Testament, it means a virgin. Rebekah was called an almah before she married Isaac.

Look at it this way. Suppose you went to visit a friend of yours, particularly a generation ago, who had three daughters and two of them were married and one was still single. He would say, ‘These two are my married daughters, and this young lady is my third daughter.’ Do you think he would mean a prostitute when he said, ‘young lady’?

If you implied that she was anything but a virgin, he’d probably have given you the fivefold ministry, a fist in the nose.

 

I would hate to be those who deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, especially when they mistranslate the Bible and teach it to God’s people.

They must come into the presence of the Son of God one day and on that day they’re going to wish they could somehow take back the things they said to misrepresent God.

This is the one big concern I have putting this stuff together for the group, that I’ll miss the mark and say something that’s not right. I pray over every episode that God gives me the correct words.

The fact that the word almah means “a virgin” is also proven by the Septuagint.

During the 400 year period between the Old and the New Testaments, seventy–two Hebrew scholars, six from each of the twelve tribes, worked down in Alexandria, in Egypt, on the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language. When they came to this “sign” in Isaiah, those seventy–two men understood that it meant “virgin,” and they translated it into the Greek word Parthenos. That’s the same word which Matthew uses in his Gospel. My friend, Parthenos does not mean “young woman”; it means “virgin.” For example, Athena was the virgin goddess of Athens, and her temple was called the Parthenon because Parthenos means “virgin.” It’s absolutely crystal clear that the Word of God is saying precisely what it means.

 

Now notice something wonderful. “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

It looks as if there’s a problem here. Where in the Bible was Jesus was ever called Emmanuel? No, He’s called Jesus because that’s His name. He was given this name because He shall save His people from their sins. By the way, Christ is NOT Jesus’s surname it’s His title; Jesus is His name, Jesus THE Christ. But it says here that He shall be called “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

Friends, here’s one of the most wonderful things in the entire Word of God.

Let’s look at this. Emmanuel means “God with us.” He can’t be Emmanuel, God with us, unless he’s virgin born. That’s the only way! If He came through the normal channels He wouldn’t be Emmanuel, God with us AND unless He IS Emmanuel, He cannot be Jesus, the Saviour. The reason they call Him Jesus, Saviour, is because He IS God with us. This truth about the One who came down to this earth is the most wonderful thing in the Bible. A man who was born the same way as you and I, down through our ancestors from Adam, could never pay the wages for sin because we’re all guilty. We’re all born sinners so in death we’re just paying those wages of sin. We can’t save anybody, including ourselves.

Hebrews 2:9 says,

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. 

You see He had to be a sacrifice that was acceptable. As we’ve just said, you or I couldn’t die for the sins of the world. We can’t even die a redemptive death for our own sins. But He can!

How can Jesus be a Saviour? Because He IS Emmanuel, God with us.

How did He get with us? He was virgin born.

We’ll say it again, He was called Jesus. He was never called Emmanuel. But you cannot call Him Jesus unless He is Emmanuel, God with us. He must be Emmanuel to be the Savior of the world. That’s how vitally important the virgin birth is.

Can a person be a Christian and deny the virgin birth?

We need to be very careful about this. It is possible to accept Christ as your Savior without knowing much about Him. You may not even know that this record of His virgin birth is in the Bible. But after you’ve become a child of God, you will not and cannot deny the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus.

You may not have to know it to be saved, but as a child of God you cannot deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

This may sound very dogmatic and it sure is. It’s critical.

We need a Saviour who’s able to reach down and save you and me. If He’s just another man like us, then He’s not going to be able to do that. But if He’s Emmanuel, God with us, virgin born, then He IS my Saviour. Is He your Saviour today? He took upon Himself our humanity in this way so that He might taste death for us, that He might die a redemptive death on the cross for us.

 

Finally, we read verses 24 and 25,

Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.

 

All these things that God instructed Joseph to do through this angel he did. He took Mary for his wife despite the awful gossip and jeers they both would have suffered when the population made their false and wrongful assumption that she was unfaithful to him. What a great man of faith this man was. Joseph would not even enjoy a sexual relationship with May until after Jesus was born. This is further emphasis from Matthew that Jesus was conceived miraculously. Thank God the He is our Emmanuel.

Until next time my friends I pray Numbers 6 verses 24 to 26 for each of you. May The LORD bless you and keep you; May The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; May The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.